eCommerce Australia
Ryan Martin - Founder of eCommerce SEO Agency Remarkable Digital interviews Australian eCommerce experts to discuss trends, strategies, and best practice methods to run a successful online business.
Remarkable Digital - https://www.remarkabledigital.com.au/
We believe that in Australia we have some of the very best eCommerce leaders and it is our goal to highlight the best of the best, to help everyone who runs or is thinking about starting an eCommerce business.
With the ever-changing landscape, hear from the people on the front line living and breathing the business world of eCommerce.
eCommerce Australia
The Retail Halo Effect - Jordy Heis - Shopify
Get ready to uncover the secrets of Shopify's success over the last 20 years!
We’re joined by Jordy Heis, Senior Retail Product Consultant in the APAC region, who immerses us in the exhilarating atmosphere of Shopify's 20th anniversary celebration in Toronto.
Jordy brings the event to life, recounting the excitement of gathering 5,000 team members and 1,000 developers, and reflecting on Shopify’s incredible journey to processing a trillion dollars in orders.
Through his personal anecdotes, you'll gain insight into Shopify's remote work culture and the irreplaceable value of in-person connections.
Jordy and I explore innovations like Shopify Sidekick and Shopify Magic, poised to transform the user experience for small business owners and e-commerce professionals alike.
We delve into the enhanced Shopify analytics dashboard, which promises to empower businesses with data-driven decision-making capabilities. Drawing insights from the Australian Retailer Summit Report, we provide crucial guidance for e-commerce growth in 2024, focusing on profitability and the shifting landscape of e-commerce analytics.
Discover the profound impact of unified commerce and the subtle yet powerful strategies for building customer loyalty.
We discuss why non-scalable touches like handwritten notes can make a lasting impression and how balancing online and offline channels can cater to diverse consumer preferences.
Learn about the 'retail halo effect,' the benefits of observing in-store behaviour for online improvements, and the key triggers that prompt businesses to overhaul their point of sale systems.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone eager to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of e-commerce.
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Welcome to another episode of eCommerce Australia. Really excited for this episode. There's a lot happening with Shopify at the moment so you know Geordie Heiss is my special guest for the day. So Geordie is Senior Retail Product Consultant in the APAC region. He just got back from Toronto where Shopify celebrated 20 years. So really excited to get your insights made and learn what's going on. And Shopify obviously rolled out a whole lot of new features with the Shopify Summer 24. Is that right? 2024,? Yeah, yeah, additions Going quick Shopify Summer Edition so we can talk about that. There's obviously the Australian Retail Report coming out as well. So plenty going on. Really looking forward to this chat. But welcome officially to eCommerce Australia, mate.
Speaker 2:Thanks, ryan. Nice to be on the podcast, big fan of your work and have been listening to a lot of the back conologue and, yeah, hopefully I can provide the same sort of value as your esteemed guests have before me.
Speaker 1:No doubt, mate. I've got no doubt about that. You're going to be one of the most downloaded episodes, as we spoke about Last time I had a Shopify, someone from Shopify was Mike Barnett, and that's still the most downloaded episode that we've had. So pressure's on to beat Barnett. He's got a lot of pull the barn dog.
Speaker 2:So you know, fingers crossed, I'll do my best.
Speaker 1:Nice one, mate. Well, let's get straight into it. So you recently went over to Toronto for the 20th anniversary of Shopify. How did you find that? What was the general vibe of that conference and some of the takeaways?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a really good celebration. Obviously, a little pandemic made in real life and international travel a little bit tricky, so it was really nice coming together with for me personally a lot of folks that I hadn't yet met and, you know, reconnecting with a lot of folks that I'd met. You know, I started sort of seven, eight years ago at Shopify, so really great week in Toronto. I think we had sort of 5,000-odd people there and then 1,000 developers and ecosystem community adapting to the product and seeing what we're building. So, yeah, just an incredible time.
Speaker 2:I think we, you know, we drank a lot of the Kool-Aid, we, you know, again got to commune with each other, and but also we spent which I think is quite unique the last three days what we call hack days, so working on things that typically get, you know, that idea that gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list every so often. But, yeah, dedicating those three days to really make sure that we can work on something that's impactful for merchants and impactful for our company, to make our experience better for those that are on the platform. It was an exciting time. It combined with being in business for 20 years, which is, you know, no smug feat. You know I've been in small business here and you know small business itself to get to that 20-year mark is a really strong celebration and as again, as luck would have it, we actually activated a trillion dollars of orders through our checkout, which is a lot of zeros and a lot of orders and a lot of insights that we see.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was a nice sort of milestone to again toast to whilst we're over there.
Speaker 1:And so that happened right, like basically when you guys were there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a bit of a race to the line. It happened just before we got there, so we knew we'd pass that mark. But yeah, it was a good spot to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah nice, that would good spot to be. Yeah nice, That'd be awesome to travel over Toronto. So what's it like over there? Is Shopify obviously got people from all over the world to converge on Toronto. Is it a big week? Is it a lot of socialising, a lot of work? What's the vibe of the conference?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what's unique about Shopify is we are remote by design, so we don't have many offices. We're starting to come back with a few offices in Canada and the like, but we are so remote. So I think the times that we get to spend together in person are around the breaking bed and bread and communing and getting to understand and have that water cooler talk. That is a little bit of friction in a digital environment. So, yeah, it was just fantastic to be with folks from all over the world Again, those that I'd known for a long time and had been slacking with, to give life to the digital Slack avatar and then just see characteristics and how they are in person.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it was just an awesome time. I think even again I spoke to sort of there are a thousand odd developers in the community there to meet with our product managers and give us feedback and understand where our roadmap is going. There's a really strong energy around Shopify. It certainly was hard not to be on a street corner and not hear sort of Shopify around the traffic lines, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice. And what's the general sort of Shopify you know around the traffic lines, so to speak? Yeah, nice. And what's the general sort of takeaway from that conference, Like, what are things being discussed around Shopify? I would imagine AI would be quite prevalent in those discussions. You know, is there sort of any kind of talk around e-commerce and how things are going globally? Are people seeing, you know, e-commerce throughout the world continuing to grow or is there some headwinds there, with, you know, the pandemic now officially being over? You know, has e-commerce come off a little bit globally? What's the sort of general sentiment, before we get into the tips and the takeaways that you know people listening can implement into their own business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great broad question. I think, again, it was sort of 20 years of reflection as to what had worked. We know that. You know what's got us to where we are today and going to take us where we need to go forward. So it is leveraging tools like AI to give us automation and give us, you know, resources and time we didn't have before because they were spent on more sort of toilsome or, you know, menious tasks and freeing up that capacity and resource and creative thinking to build products that are more impactful and beneficial for our merchants. So e-commerce is certainly still growing. It's growing at that sort of, you know, incremental growth rate, you know globally.
Speaker 2:But I think where our product has particularly evolved and you know, particularly when I started, as I mentioned, sort of seven odd years ago, the diversification of channels that we have is incredibly powerful and I probably will speak to sort of unified commerce is our sort of tagline of the moment.
Speaker 2:We feel really strong and really confident in what that provides. So being able to have a platform that allows you to be the heart of your business and selling, you know, no matter what that different channel looks like, that provides. So being able to have a platform that allows you to be the heart of your business and selling. You know, no matter what that different channel looks like. You know purely.
Speaker 2:You know whether it's an online platform, whether it's physical retail, whether it's B2B, whether it's collaborating with others that are selling on the platform, having that as a hub to really drive that business and meet your buyers, no matter what channel they're shopping at. I think that has been really incredible to see as a platform in terms of breadth, but also, again, sort of speaking functionally, to what Additions is. It's twice a year, it happens. It's looked back at all of the features we've released over the last six months but also give a little bit of a taste in terms of early access to these things that we're building. So it allows our merchants to align their sort of operational and technical roadmaps to how we're building and how we're seeing the future and where it makes sense or where they might need to dive into a third party to give them the extensibility that they need.
Speaker 1:Yeah good. So the Summer 24 editions have you got some some favorites there? I had a. I've had a great sort of deep dive into that and, uh, it's hard to pick out favorites because it really depends with the clients that you work with and the um you know what. Depending on what your client needs, there's something there for them all, like, for example, the you know, the ability to ship from different warehouses and communicate. That's a great update. But I actually don't have any clients that have multiple warehouses at the moment. So, although it's great, it's sort of not something that's front of mind. But there's so many updates it's sort of hard to know where to start. Have you got a couple of favourites that you think will really help retailers?
Speaker 2:Well, you shouldn't pick favourites, right, they're all favourites, we all do favorites, right, they're all favorites we all do, though, right.
Speaker 2:Of course, the ones that appeal most to me and ones that I hear merchants are really excited about is market. So being able to leverage one platform to be able to sell not only in different channels, domestically, within Australia or what have you, but also to expand internationally and, in conjunction with that, have separate pricing catalogs that might be unique or disparate to what your pricing is back home from a local market where you started. So having that ability to drive that through one centralized platform, it just removes a ton of admin again, toilsome work, frustration, and frees up those resources and time and attention to spend your time trying to find that next sale and speaking to customers and doing that high-value work. So that's a really big one for me.
Speaker 2:Again, I started my first four years in Shopify. I was a merchant success manager, so account management and helping them grow and scale on the platform, primarily from an online perspective, and then, as our retail product evolved and commercialised within the Australian market, jumped into that function and worked primarily with our merchants that are using our retailer point of sale platform to help them grow and expand. So again, that makes me a little bit biased towards some of the things like being able to ship from store and leverage that store network to either economise on split shipping so not having one shipment come from one store and one shipment come from a warehouse and you're paying double the shipping fees or, if you've got that just-in-time order that needs to be there within three hours, a VIP client being able to ship that from a store because we know that's three Ks away from where their home address is being accommodised for convenience and customer experience. So there are a couple that really stand out for me.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, fantastic, and yeah, that's a good case study of how to use that split shipping, as you say, for a VIP client, which we will get into this Shopify report around the Australian retailers. But you know some of the key kind of takeaways there around efficiency and personalisation, and so that's a really good, I guess, example of how to use that to enhance the customer experience, give them VIP treatment, not be discounting, but doing it the right way. So that's a great example. I'm just going to go go. Where are my notes there? Yeah, I think for me, some of the favourites, obviously, like Shopify Sidekick and Shopify Magic, when they do get rolled out I'm not sure when that is exactly to some of the e-com.
Speaker 2:They're starting to seep out there. So I've got a few thousand testing and trialing and give us feedback on the sidekick feature, which, again, we're incredibly excited about, particularly with small business owners to have someone as a sidekick in your business to give you real-time access into how to do things on the platform or make things at your discretion. We think that's going to be a pretty incredible tool and, yeah, personally I'm just fascinated, sort of day in, day out, how that thing is learning and getting better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And you know, as you said, it makes using Shopify just so much easier. And then for e-commerce professionals like myself and people that run e-commerce agencies, it just gives you that next level of insight where you're not spending time trying to educate the customer. They're almost pre-educated themselves now and they can use Sidekick to help. So it becomes really more strategy and how to sort of implement some tactics to help them get to the next level. So I feel like the conversation will change off the back of that Sidekick. They'll probably ask a lot more questions, which will be good. I like to see them engage. So I'm looking forward to that one, and I think the new analytics options look great. I've been using agency analytics for quite a long time and there's some cool things you can do with that, but I feel like the Shopify analytics and the new dashboard and how fluid it is and how customizable it is is really really powerful. So that's something else that stood out for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think analytics is a beautiful one, and I listened to Nathan from BlueSense and talk about the power of average order value and true average order value, so I think again having that directional notion of where your business is tracking across. I'm a retired graphic designer.
Speaker 2:I get pulled out for weddings and wedding invites and birthday invites and that's about it. But you know, just have a visual format and be able to identify how things are working, even as simple as a bar graph to pie chart, and just see how things are looking, versus just purely staring at sort of spreadsheet type numerical numbers. I think the ability to build a dashboard that makes contextual and conditional sense to what's happening in your business and happening today, I think that's a super powerful thing. I think even the ability again to use some of the extensibility. So, you know, put in some formulas and codes that give you a little bit more of that advanced level of analytics that you're looking for. Or again, as Nathan said, you know, take that out and leverage some third-party tools if you're wanting to do some sort of hardcore business intelligence things. Yeah, yeah, it's all there for you to leverage and harvest and action.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, but two like there's not a lot of data that you don't need as well. Like you know, there's a lot of data that is great to look at, but it doesn't mean much. I feel like, um, the way that you can set that up is you can just have what's important to you and it's different for every business. But, um, yeah, you could kind of you could probably get lost in the data, um as well. So, you know, to touch on that business and intelligence view, that's kind of the next evolution of you know e-com Not the next evolution is probably the wrong word, but you know we need to get better at. You know, now we've collected all this data, what do we do with it? Yeah, and so that's kind of you know, I guess, where you engage, you know e-commerce agencies like myself or anyone you know in that field to kind of understand what the data actually means and interpret it to make you continue to grow the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think, even understanding what those analytics mean in terms of profitability. I think that's where you sort of said the next evolution of analytics. I think that's where the e-com industry is getting a little bit smarter and savvy as things get tighter from an online CAC point of view in terms of that raising and it being a little bit harder to find that customer. I think being able to understand how those analytics track into profitability is going to be again the next frontier and where e-com merchants need to be in front of, because we know that capital isn't cheap anymore to be in front of. Because we know that capital isn't cheap anymore. You know running loss leaders to try and acquire customers and try and win them back on second and third purchases. That's a pretty risky and tricky game. So, yeah, finding that profitability on first customer and having data analytics that's at your fingertips pretty important yeah 100%.
Speaker 1:It's a brilliant segue into the Australian Retailer Summit Report. I think it got released this week or probably next week by the time this episode's published. Any takeaways from that? I've got a few thoughts on it, but what were your kind of key takeaways? Takeaways, so shopify. For those that don't know, um, you might be able to explain this better, but he interviewed over 200 was it 200? Senior business decision makers across australia. You know, look like rebel sport jb hi-fi, um was quoted, so there's a few of the big ones there and a good kind of diverse mix of of senior leaders in that retail space and they put together a brilliant report. Um, you know I'm not just saying that because you're here, but there's some really fascinating insights as to how you continue to grow your business in 2024 and the challenges that lay ahead. What did you take out of?
Speaker 2:that report. Yeah, thanks, ryan, I think. Maybe just to give some context to that, yeah, not only those 200-plus senior business leaders in Australia, but also 1,000 consumers were surveyed by YouGov. So there's a wealth of not just how is investment and how are business leaders thinking in terms of where do I spend my money in this sort of contracting OPEX market, but also how is the consumer thinking around, particularly things like value and where do I spend and what do I really value. So I think that those combined gives a really interesting both sides of the coin as to what's happening.
Speaker 2:But again, the data this is the second time I've done the report. There've been even some shifts since last year that have been sort of eye-opening. There's a couple that I want to read and quote because they're factual, couple that I want to read and quote just because they're factual. So the key insight for me was 79% of Australians are cutting down on something to save money, whilst more than half of consumers in the country are looking for the best value when they shop. So I'm not sure about you, but I think when it comes to value, you probably automatically default to thinking in a price sensitivity and am I getting value for money, but what really bared fruit in that report was other than cost, which is obviously a super important consideration but how and what are consumers valuing in terms of that shopping experience? So we're looking at things like seamless customer experience, respecting the customer in terms of what channel they're shopping, whether that be loyalty points or gift cards or things that work, no matter what channel they're shopping in. You're just shopping with that brand. You're not shopping with JB Hi-Fi online or JB Hi-Fi in store. You're giving them the respect at a totality level, not just at a channel level. I think value is again, it's so subjective and one of the things that I was thinking about is what? And to quite your previous guest, nick Gray, you really got into the. I've met him, I've known him, I love his work and the way that he drills beyond demographics into psychographics, and there's now, particularly in this market. There's never been a better time to truly know your customer inside out and to craft a customer journey and experience that makes sense contextually for them. Yes, there's not the endless budget to spend on every single touchpoint, but identifying those touchpoints and those things that are critical and important for them in that journey. I think that's where business leaders really need to spend their money in the right way.
Speaker 2:I was in Chadston yesterday as a little sort of recon mission before the podcast, and I've never shopped at New Balance. I did some recon online, identified the style that I liked. I walked in store. I was like, oh, this will be interesting. I'm coming in fresh, having never walked into a store.
Speaker 2:I found the selection on the shelf got helped by a great in-store associate. And then she's like oh, what size are you? I said, oh, I think about a 10. She's like, okay, sure, um, let's, let's test that out based on you know, our custom fitting and our, our metrics. So they got me to stand on this.
Speaker 2:Um, you know measuring, uh, you know sizing scale and, and you know, within 20 seconds it was giving me like a full profile of you know, showing me where potential plantar fasciitis is coming through, coming through and sizing and where I might lean in terms of their sizing and it really gave a strong indication from that size and fit, but also, again, where there might be sort of fit issues and sort of being a little bit of a sneaker nerd and being able to really understand product quality and where there might be sort of wear and tear.
Speaker 2:I was just sort of blown away by what that experience looks like. That's something I was expecting, but it was sort of this surprise and delight moment that gave me, you know, the right size and again the sort of right confidence to know this is going to last me a while and this is the reason why. So, yeah, that sort of experience and value that I wasn't expecting but I was greeted with in store was just, yeah, just a special moment of time, and I'm telling it to you. Yeah, yeah, I know that you know, within the report, word of mouth was, you know, the strongest driver in terms of product discovery, at sort of 51%. So these are the sort of remarkable retail stories that grow legs, if they are remarkable, and they do provide value to beyond, really, what you're thinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, mate. I love the use of the word remarkable. It's great too. Well, yes, you've worked this in beautifully. We're in the right place. I'm looking at the shoes. What have you got now? You've got the new balance on. Were they a purchase? Yes, good on you. So you end up, so they transacted.
Speaker 2:They got the conversion gets that, does the online get that, or does the in-store get that, or uh, we've taken a unified approach.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter. Well, we're not a merchant of ours yet. Okay, it's um, yeah, um, yeah, it was a nice, nice in-store experience, that's for sure. Yeah, nice, yeah. And I agree with the first point you said around, um, you know best value. And also, um, understanding your customer, um, I actually did a youtube video on this the other day, but um of the 65 episodes so far I've done in e-commerce Australia, speaking to particularly founders but also e-commerce experts, I could reel off 10 to 12 already that have said this.
Speaker 1:But knowing your customer is kind of the number one metric for success and we all probably know it like. But what are we doing about it? How do we contact those customers? But you know, kelly jemison I'm not sure whether you heard that episode the founder of edible blooms. So she's built, you know, an amazing business. Um, 18 years now, she's still not big enough to not talk to her customers. So, off the back of our podcast, she was going to call her 20 random customers for that week. That was a goal of hers to understand so many different things that you just can't get so to pick up the phone and just ring your customers. It's probably not done enough, and I think that's where some of the smaller e-commerce players can actually really benefit by just giving their customers a call. Hey, how did you find the experience? You know, how do you use in the product Any issues you found? Like, did we communicate well enough post-purchase?
Speaker 1:And I think, touching on that loyalty piece, which we'll touch on in a minute again that just builds that loyalty to the brand. They actually do care. And the conversion, you know, is only the start of the customer journey. Essentially, we spend all that time trying to get the conversion and then, if we forget about them, they're not going to come back, they're not going to be brand loyal and that word of mouth is not going to be there as well.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that the word of mouth thing, even when you're working with lead generation clients or more service-based businesses, one of the common misconceptions around marketing is like, oh, we just, you know, word of mouth is always our best seller, word of mouth is always your best seller. Of course, right, there's nothing better than a warm referral. So, yeah, how do you continue to get word of mouth from a retail, from an e-commerce point of view? And I think, yeah, that kind of efficiency, loyalty, which we'll go into in a bit more detail. But, yeah, it's interesting to hear you say you know, knowing your customers is you know. It's just a common thing that I love and I think it's just an easy thing to do, it's cheap to do and I don't think as many e-commerce brands are doing it as they should.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent. I love the you call your top 20 customers. I think those things that aren't scalable are often the things that are, dare I say, remarkable and memorable. So, even as simple as you're starting e-commerce, writing handwritten notes to your first hundred versus thousand customers and thanking them for, you know, coming along on the journey, you remember that and you treasure that and all of a sudden sort of you know brand affinity and value goes up in your mind and you've probably spent, you know, two minutes writing that out with you know, with true, heartfelt, you know thought around that message. So, yes, the little things that don't scale would often have, you know, some of the biggest impacts, particularly when you're early stage in your business.
Speaker 2:I think we've talked about unified commerce and making sure that you're respecting your channels, no matter what channel they're shopping in. So what really spoke to that is 43% of Australian consumers prefer shopping in stores, which is a notable figure on last year, which was 38%, whilst online shopping remains as popular as ever, but 26% are liking both equally so I think this is a really interesting boardroom conversation. As to, you know, invariably brands, they'll typically favour one channel over the other, whether they're a legacy retail-led business and online's been this adjunct that you know had to come online due to COVID and other reasons. You know when's that going to get true parity in terms of attention and resources and focus in terms of attention and resources and focus. But if you look at how the consumer's thinking about things, they're, you know, sort of preferring to shop in store, but also you know a large quarter of them prefer to use both methods. But you're really I suppose what's the word not giving any attention or focus to online and it's an adjunct and it's not getting any budget and focus. You're really letting yourself down. So for those buyers, again, buyers don't think of you in a channel sense. They think of you as a brand sense. If they're let down from an online sense, it's going to be hard to win them back from an in-store sense as well.
Speaker 2:So, making sure that and again, if I step it back, I think where a lot of these what we're seeing at Shopify and I mentioned to sort of market expansion and sort of channel diversification before a lot of these e-com darlings that had this exponential growth through COVID found product market fit, had the right CAC, right product, right time, distribution was right stock availability. They could get that all right. Once they hit this point of diminishing returns online, where they just couldn't spend enough and it was actually costing them more to get customers than they were used to or comfortable with, they have to look at these other channels. So when they look at physical retail as a great option to get over things that might have an objective, like colour or size or quality or things like customer service those things that are just really hard and intangibles online, it's like there's so many things I've just wanted to buy online, but it just wasn't right there within terms of the product quality, so I've just shelved it. I think that's where a lot of these merchants that are expanding to physical retail for the first time that we're seeing on Shopify and using our POS, they're just having this incredible experience where they're acquiring customers for cheaper than they can online, particularly for the initial sort of honeymoon period. But there's a wealth of other benefits that come from that. So if we think about the e-commerce managers, the digital managers, the small business owners and they're like, well, physical retail is that something I can even sort of dip my toes in. There's just so many options and just so many benefits that both help serve your functional but the overall business and I think the obvious one is click and collect, right. So you're leveraging that online order, that e-commerce order, but you're fulfilling it through that physical location ones. That I think is sort of a little bit hard to measure but is often not thought about is what they've coined the retail halo effect.
Speaker 2:Okay, so when someone opens a store, it's essentially a big billboard. There's trust and authority and credibility that, hey, if this thing, if this gizmo, doesn't do as it says, then I'm going to sort of come back and I know that you're physically here. There's subconscious comfort in having that physical retail store. What we're also seeing and there's not our study, but others in sort of marketplaces is that once someone opens a new store, the surrounding area, within the surrounding postcodes, within an area, typically they see a bump in online orders of about 6.9%, wow, okay. To the downside of that, when they've shut stores, they've seen online orders go down by 13%. Okay, so pretty interesting signal in terms of sort of trust and authority, both on the upside and the flip side if you're closing them Even more.
Speaker 2:Digging into this study, it said that particularly for those pure play D2C brands that haven't yet opened a physical store, they're probably seeing bumps in terms of the surrounding orders of that store, around 13.9%, so even a bigger spike in terms of that authority.
Speaker 2:So again, it gives them this boost, not just of sales in-store but also the surrounding network.
Speaker 2:But it also gives them this you know, beautiful laboratory to sort of test experiment and, just, you know, watch how their buyers are interacting with their product to overcome those things like size and fit and product quality.
Speaker 2:And the last thing I'll say is that, to sort of complete that feedback loop, there's often things that retail store managers or the best ones, the e-com managers, the business owners, the digital managers they go in store and they watch how their buyers interact, how they pick up product, how they touch, feel what they're looking for. And then often it's that sort of those senses that are neglected from an online perspective or just can't quite get there, that they pick up those little things that are objections from a PDP, a product display page, and they're like, why haven't we said this before? This is the feedback that we need, that we need to put into the product display page, and all of a sudden the impact is is, you know, increase in conversion, you know, lower returns in exchange and hopefully that revenue uplift. So, you know, in terms of that unified and flywheel approach, it's how each of them, you know, feed into each other. That is, you know, really true and exciting, particularly for that first retail store.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant, and you know it gets back to that sort of knowing the customer as well. Like I heard Simon Beard on a podcast it might have been the Shopify podcast Hannah did with Simon and Bushy. Yeah, simon made a good point. He said I've never. He said you know e-commerce conversion, let's just call it between 2% and 3%. You know global average. He said you know in-store, if I'm not striking at 25% then I'm not trying hard enough and I never really thought about that. So it's like, yeah, okay, so in-store should always be.
Speaker 1:You know e-commerce when it comes to conversion, if you get four people walk in, you'd expect at least one conversion. But, as you say, the data that you can get from that is super insightful that you can then use to the online store and have that unified approach. So we've got e-commerce brands out there that don't actually have a physical store. What does unification mean to them? We're going to talk about the new Shopify mobile point of sales. But you know, july a good example like I'm assuming you've seen them at Chadston yesterday Are they using your product like pop-up locations. You can kind of use that mobile POS anywhere and still have that kind of unified data, you know, feeding through to your online store as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really fascinating to see how some of the brands are leveraging the point of sale platform. So, again, the unified approach having everything in terms of your customer history, order history, your stock, refunds, exchanges, payments all harvested within the same platform means that you're respecting and servicing that buyer in a way they expect to be and deserve to be. So I think Store credit as well. Now you can add store credit Exactly. I think the tools in the tool belt are there. It's the ones that are smart around. How do they take that first party data that they've acquired online or in store and bring that together? As to your point, ryan, you mentioned around personalizing that experience, one of the things where we're seeing a fair bit come up as a bit of a buzzword and it's super, super nuanced but sort of clienteling. You know, typically it's more of a high-end luxury experience where you know it's very one-to-one, it's intimate, it's a high ticket cost. So you know you need to feel respected and trusted to be able to hand over your credit card for that amount of money. But I think, where it's starting to commoditize and come downstream, due to both technology that's available and browsers, it's a partner that's doing some really interesting stuff with us from an omni-channel perspective or a unified perspective, is being able to walk into a store and understand that, if you're happy to give up your details, your unique identifier, whether it be email and the like and be able to say, okay, here's what Brian's purchased in his wardrobe before, here's what he's added to his wish list here and here's what he was looking at, you know, earlier today. You know, I think we're in an interesting spot with sort of how comfortable we are with that sort of level of behavior and visibility is, and I think we'll find the right mix, like we did with remarketing, when all of a sudden, you go to a brand's page and products were following you all around the internet, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:I think the brands that do it in a respectful way and that adds value to that, um, that experience and that, that convenience, and add something you know impactful, again, remarkable to that experience are the ones that are that are doing it well. So, yeah, being able to have all of that data within the, the fingertips of your hand, to say, you know, how was that that large? You know that last purchase of that, that black t-shirt, how's that going? Or even things that I think the beautiful thing is things that are either of a cross-sell perspective it might be like, hey, you've bought this couch, but what about XYZ?
Speaker 2:In terms of homewares, but also consumables, things that have an expiry date being able to look up and say, hey, you know that pillow's expired. Or you know you passed your last purchase date in terms of supplements. You know how did it go If not get feedback, you know, do you want to renew those sorts of things? Having that sort of availability of data is, I think, becoming sort of table stakes for a lot of the brands that we're speaking to, and particularly where their investments are forecast and being budgeted to over this next financial year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic, that's really great insights. I think I'm just thinking about that from a running shoe point of view. So, you know, if you go in there and you know to talk to that clienteling experience, you know I've gone in there and I've bought a pair of mizuno wave riders, which is a volume trainer, excuse me, um, you know, if they were to look that up and it was like, okay, you know, you've been running 50k a week, you've probably done 800k in these shoes, like it's it's time for a new pair, or time to consider something else. Or, you know, purchasing another, a different variety of shoe, like a, you know, a more of a performance shoe to break up and make the other shoes last longer. There's a really good story to be told and it's less about selling, it's more about educating and informing. I think that's kind of an interesting place to kind of go down to that clienteling, as you say, that sort of buzzword it's not something that I've heard of until we were chatting to it not too long ago. So, yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's easy to put buzzwords or topical words to what's happening, but invariably that's been happening for a long time in the retail landscape. What I would suggest to anyone listening and looking down that physical retail route or market expansion route is being conscious of these terms and being deliberate in how you lean in and service. That is probably a good thing to think about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And just to wrap up that Australian retailer report, before we go into a little bit a few other areas and a few other sort of brand examples, I think the key points for me were you know the loyalty I don't think I shouldn't say I don't think brands do well, but I think there's a lot of improvements to be made with loyalty. You know, I think it's. You know how do you keep people brand loyal? And again, this falls under being most efficient, but also, again, understanding what's important to your customer. So you've got to know your customer, you've got to look after them and a real emphasis that I touched on with post-purchase journeys.
Speaker 1:I think, as I said, the sale and the conversion is just the start of your relationship with that consumer and loyalty is a big part. So how you treat them when there's no money to be made in the next kind of couple of days or months is a big factor of them being brand loyal and I think it's less around. How do you get them back and purchase again? But how do you get them to have the most out of their current product that they purchased? And for some brands like furniture brands, it's years probably until they're purchasing again, so it makes it even harder, but if you can continue to educate, keep people loyal by the sense of just looking after them, if you don't know your customer, it's hard to keep them loyal because you don't know what is important to them. So you know, I thought the loyalty is a really big one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're totally right. I think, something that within Shopify I see in the merchant success function. So post-sale growth, expansion, utilising the platform and often, if you look at a boardroom table, acquisitions always the sexy, the new sales, the new logos, et cetera. But retention and customer loyalty and CLTV are often sort of cast to the side. What I found was interesting in the report was, you know, when it was looking at where again, where that customer experience lays and focusing on retention, probably for the first time, but also service them in a way that they want to be serviced, is really interesting If I think of ways to again provide that experience and value and open up that AOV and CLTV again.
Speaker 2:Strolling Rad Chads and one of our merchants that you know uses both in-store and online is LSKD. Okay, they said you know I was shopping around and then spotted this you know nice little placard card saying you know, spend over $200 and get this duffel bag which was, you know, beautifully sitting on display. Now I don't need a duffel bag, I've got way too many. I actually need to get rid of them. But my emotional connection to that was like, oh, I'm already sort of $130 of $200 here. If I do this, I would do some mental maths. We've all been there online when it's like put an extra $17 in your card and you'll get free shipping, and you play that game of occasion and maths. I think that's where e-com probably outshines a lot of physical retail. They don't take things and methods that are working online to an in-store environment. So I thought that was just again really smart. I think it's a high-quality item. The cost to them to produce that is low, considerable to the value that I see as a consumer. And all of a sudden I'm thinking about how I can stretch up my spend to acquire that prize.
Speaker 2:And I think again you speak about loyalty. There's so many retailers out there that have trained their buyers for discount cycles. They're on four times a year. They're buying based on discount. They don't value at 100% RRP brand. They're on four times a year. They're buying based on discount. They don't value at 100% RRP brand. They value at 70% and they are the hardest ones to satisfy. They're the ones that end up in all your support tickets. They're the ones that we talked about word of mouth. They give you the wrong sort of word of mouth or they train their friends as to when they're on sale. They're not the ones that you want to maximize profitability and that true brand equity in your buyer's mind. So I thought that was a really interesting use of loyalty, but also being able to incentivize me to spend a little bit more.
Speaker 2:If I just finish it on one that's topical and probably one that everyone can approach, is the classic sort sort of um you know, virgin versus quantus loyalty debate. I think we're all familiar uh, particularly I am with, with work and doing a little bit of travel. It's it's finding those, those benefits and convenience and things that are impactful and valuable for me, and I've made a direct switch on on that. Based have you? Yeah, based on things that are valuable, but also being able to achieve a tier or a status that unlocked more things that I valued. I think that making sure that those tiers are approachable but also aspirational is a big one that merchants should spend time grafting and don't set and forget. You need to revisit these things pretty often to make sure they're they're valuable and they are, you know, in the hearts and minds of customers yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 1:That's, uh, really good advice.
Speaker 1:And the last, the last point we'll touch on with loyalty.
Speaker 1:I think you know the conversation really, this year, um, apart from ai, has been timu and shine, and how do you kind of compete because there's some products you just can't compete on price. And so if you're spending time to know your customers, understand what their needs are, unify the process, so in-store or online is the same kind of good experience and you're personalising your message the best you can, that's the best way you can build that moat around protection of, you know, timu and those sorts of things. They don't have great online experiences, timu, but they are, you know, at a different price point. And if you're going to start discounting so much because you need to, you know, get some stock turn going through, well, it's a dangerous game and you're just playing into Timu, you know, and all of those sorts of products game and you're just playing into Teemu and all of those sorts of products. So the more you can hold price integrity, build loyalty, service a customer, personalize their experience, I feel like that's the best way to insure yourself against those bigger Goliaths of brands 100%.
Speaker 2:I think even differentiating what your offering looks like, whether that be bundles or, as I mentioned, sort of free gift with purchase or things that are exclusive in terms of spend, they're the things that are going to again drive that value price up, but also, again, they capture sort of hearts and minds in a consumer's mind. I think again, I've seen it work with a lot of brands at Shopify. If you're looking at that customer experience piece and how do you level that up, the ones to think about are those that are multi-brand retailers, one that I think that really nails it and I'm biased, I'm close to the guys at Inku, but they always talk about, in a sense, being a monobrand, being the brand and selling that direct to consumer and you control that whole of products but also other brands' products. How are you defending against those other products and buying directly from those brands? Yeah, so you have to differentiate on customer experience and whether that be things like selection or curation or packaging or product knowledge or convenience and speed or accessibility. These are the tools that you have in your tool belt when you're those brands that sell multiple brands, not just their own, and what can you sort of leverage and take for them to try and build that.
Speaker 2:I think the best brands are the ones that it's hard to explain what they do. Right, it just feels right, it feels like you're being looked after, you're in the right place. Sort of price dissipates, it goes into the ether and then that was something that bared out in the report is like yes, buyers are being conscious, but they are looking for those little luxuries and they will put aside that discretionary spend on things that make them feel good and emblematic of what themselves, particularly of sort of clothing and fashion accessories. So, yeah, brands like that look at the customer experience where they're differentiating on that as well as product. Yeah, there's some clues to be told there, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant and, yeah, I think, to getting back to that point. You don't know what they value unless you're talking to them. They'll probably bang it on like that a lot. But you know, I think, yeah, just understanding the customer is the first part and then you can start to, you know, continue to optimize your, your on store, your online and your in-store, um. So, yeah, I mean that's, I'll probably keep getting back to that. It's probably quite topical at the moment, but, um, yeah, I, I think you just got to get closer to the customer, um, and then you, you customer, and then you can build all that up. But Incu did you say that's a good brand that you would look at for a great experience in-store and online. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Again, I respect both channels there. I think the thing about them if you hear them interviewed, they're very Doug particularly is very humble around being again sort of retail first but then going to online through want and necessity and experience, and I think, yeah, the way they've set up both channels, yeah, you'll never be satisfied. There's always next iterations, but you know what they're doing as a brand premise and experience is definitely worth investing some time in and seeing what you can learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic mate, and look, we've got a couple of minutes to go. So the takeaway from Shopify and even with the summer additions, it's all really about unification. Now, right, so how do you sort of unify that data? How do you get the cleanest amount of data to make the best decisions? Shopify point of sales how are you sort of rolling that out for this year? Why should people look at Shopify to unify their process as opposed to what they're currently using? What's the education process in using or changing from something that they've had already? We know people don't like change. I don't like change. Of course it does If they are using a different point of sale. What's some of the reasons they should look to Shopify?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. I think if you look at if you're being bogged down operationally, if you're double handling data, if things aren't quite syncing as they should click and collect there's a lot of manual orchestration happening there versus it being native that's probably a bit of a key look. Even looking at the total cost of ownership of your technology stack. If you're paying for, let's say, shopify, e-commerce and another vendor from a point of sale perspective, typically there's a bit of middleware in between. So you're paying for that, not just the use of it, but also the maintenance of it, the upgrading, and if one platform changes then the other has to adapt to it. There's some friction and, quite candidly, risk there. So if you're getting held back by technical and operational concerns from a business side, that's often a bit of a smoke signal to re-evaluate things. But again, we've been banging on all day. But if you truly respect your customer and you want to give them the best experience in either of those channels or other social channels or B2B or what have you, you need that first-party data speaking to each other so that they're not feeling on an island because they've got a gift card that's only usable from an online perspective and not in-store, or they can't return something to a an in-store location because they bought it, bought it online. Um, they're those sort of brands that really value customer experience are the ones that are reaping the most benefit. And again, we're not ashamed in saying we're e-commerce first and we've been stretched into retail, but we think we're providing a very solid offering in that perspective. It's getting even better and better and more incremental as we go along. And just quickly, in terms of three buckets, if you're thinking retail might be a way to acquire customers more cheaply, or you want a science lab to see your buyers touch, feel, discover, understand things, there are cheap ways to do this or economical ways. So it might be having a four-day pop-up. It doesn't have to be all your own cost as well. You can pair up with a non-compete but collaborative-type brand and you both split the cost and you both go in there and you both learn and then you both have this mix of customers. I think there are some smart economical approaches to leverage the platform and grow that base. To leverage the platform and grow that base Again, if you're a legacy retailer that's again using that system, you're just finding a lot of friction.
Speaker 2:Your staff aren't happy with it. I often say there are some MS-DOS-based systems out there. We're both probably old enough to know what that means, but it's not the best user experience. If you're wanting to really give your employees the full agency and ability to maximize that order at that time and being able to see stock that's in another location whether that be a warehouse or another physical location or what have you to be able to fulfill that order. If you want to order three items, you can cash and carry. You can take two out of the store today and hey, we don't have this in stock, but I know you love it. You've, you know you've found your right fit. We'll ship that to your home and it'll be there in a couple of days. That is a beautiful customer experience that's respectful. And it's not just the buyer that receives that, it's the in-store teams. Like shit, how good is this? I'm feeling good. I'm feeling empowered.
Speaker 2:They're the sort of brands that, particularly in this sort of tight labor market, that those that are in retail want to work for, because they have the tools at their disposal. They're easy to use Something we hear again. I could talk about this all day, but I'll finish here. The last thing we hear is we get a lot of our retail managers. They go in and do staff training and those that are digital native, they're growing up with a phone in their hand. You know, after probably, you know 20, they'll probably set aside two hours for training and it's going to be rigorous, et cetera, et cetera. After 20, 30 minutes, they're sort ofging the, the store manager or retail manager, away. It's like okay, mate, we get it. Like this is easy, it's like a, it's like an apple experience, it's like an iphone, like I feel good, like let's just, let's just go with it. So you know, not just powerful, but really simple and approachable, which is is beautiful to put um in your employees hands yeah, nice, that sounds like.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, great. You know, like some great snapshots there as to why they should consider it. Just quickly. I had a basically even early days, my first experiences in retail. I'm just thinking about that and how the running center both were technical running shoe, you know fit out, and I could just imagine someone comes into the store. You know I've got my mobile POS, I just quickly enter their deal. They give me their details and I can see all their purchase history and I could, just as I'm fitting that shoe, then I could just say listen, you know, how are the socks that you purchased? You know you might have purchased some compressed sport socks six months ago.
Speaker 1:How did they go? Oh yeah, liked them, didn't like them. What didn't you like? Okay, should give these ones a try. Perhaps we can do a bit of a bundle or whatever, and so you could start to get a bit creative. But it is that customer service that will keep that customer loyal to you guys, because you're like oh yeah, they're not selling me something, they're just having a conversation, they're educating me, I'm here to buy. So I think that unification and that seamless experience should work well on that front.
Speaker 1:Similar to that I've literally had a conversation this week where, upgrading our current Shopify 1.0 to the 2.0, upgrading the theme and one of the 2.0, upgrading the theme and one of the questions we, like you know, we want to use these new filters that Shopify have come out with and the new metadata you know options and one of the things that they couldn't do was change it. They couldn't how are we going to say this? They couldn't add all the colors into the product and so they had one shoe in three different colors. They couldn't actually do that in Shopify because their point of sale system in store was not set up to talk to that. I felt that was really interesting as well.
Speaker 1:It's like, okay, maybe that's the point in time where that point of sale system is no longer kind of helping them with their e-com and there is that little bit of misalignment. So is that the flag for them to at least look at including some mobile POS in their store? How do they go about doing that? What's the best way? What's the process like? If you could just give us a minute on, how easy is it to switch over?
Speaker 2:process like if you could just give us, you know, a minute on how. How easy is it to switch over? Yeah, I think I'll. Honestly the the time. The thing that takes the longest time is to decide that this bottleneck or this objection or this friction in our business is is hurting us. Yeah, it's handcuffing, it's a tolling us back. It's it's not, uh, giving us the growth that we need to give us the buy experience that we need. That we put up on the whiteboard and we said here's what we aspire to, but we're still making what's the word? Compromises on our technology stack.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it's really straightforward. Your point of sale is a channel within the backend of Shopify, so it's deploying that. It's deploying the right product mix in terms of where you want those products to be accessible and then, I think, where it gets into the nuances being able to set up what does your point of sale look like at a per location level? Something that's quite unique to us is you essentially get to build your own point of sale, so, like you would an iPhone or Android or whatever, you can actually set the smart grid tiles that are contextual and relevant for what's happening in your business, whether it be a collection time or adding sales associates or click and collect those sorts of functions. They're the things that sort of take the time. But honestly, what I would say is look to an agency partner that is educated and enabled and able to give you that agency or have someone in-house that can drive that.
Speaker 2:But on a broad spectrum we've seen, depending on sort of size and density of retail footprint, we've seen things as sort of as quick as overnight, which we don't really recommend, and that's more of the test and learn and scrappy environment. But if you're looking for, say, someone of maybe 10 locations or what have you, again it's sort of the time is taken in the planning. The technology and execution is pretty straightforward once you know how and it might be something like a four-week process and then you might roll out stores once you're happy and confident. So yeah, there are stage gates to make sure things are happening the right way in one environment and then, once that's happy, then rolling out across the rest or, if you want, to rip the band-aid off and do it all at once. We are very compatible and we see a lot of that too okay, yep, and so last question on that what is the trigger?
Speaker 1:what is the trigger to they go I've had enough, I need to, I need to, uh, I need to change my point of sales system. What's the where's that point? Typically that you go, you know what we've got to make a change, because I would imagine that, as you said, that's the difference is getting close to that point. Typically that you go, you know what we've got to make a change, because I would imagine that, as you said, that's the difference is getting close to that point. And then something usually triggers it and otherwise they wouldn't change.
Speaker 2:It's funny, like it's been a real art and science. Today We've talked a lot about you know data and quantification, but I would say honestly, it's gut, it's quality, it's like we need to make a change, which is like there's just no talk between e-comm and and you know, like an in-store I can think of examples where, you know, c ceo goes in store and says I had this experience in store, which was totally disparate and felt horrible compared to my online experience, like what the heck's going on?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, we quoted the numbers before that. You know, going on, we quoted the numbers before that buyers expect the same experience and want the same experience, no matter what channel. Again, it's qualitatively, they'll know. But if they're wanting to do a hard sort of metrics analysis, look at what your total cost of ownership looks like, drill all that down and also decide on how important, again, customer experience is to your brand. And, um, you know, it might be one thing to again put it on a wall and and speak it, but to truly live it and execute on it and invest in it is, uh, is something else.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that that's a good takeaway from the podcast. Um, yeah, so if you're an e-commerce manager or uh, you know uh who typically makes those decisions, but uh, but by the sounds of it, just send your CEO into a store and see if they have a great experience in terms of the data and what comes through and if not, maybe that's the best way to get it over the line with the boss.
Speaker 2:I don't mind that actually I'm taking some notes here myself. But it might be give them a gift card that only works online and not in-store, or ask them to return something to an in-store team that doesn't accept them. Yeah, that might ruffle a few feathers. Perfect, yeah, you mentioned who makes that buying decision. It's just super interesting. I think it's worth just speaking to for a minute or so.
Speaker 2:We know we have so many merchants, um in australia that are happy on shopify. They love it, they leverage it. You know, again, digital managers, econ managers they're in it every day. We often see the the point of sale conversation come up from a, from that function. So you come in digital, they will carry it across the business to um, youo, an operation staff, a head of retail, a CTO, and saying, hey, there's some things that, selfishly, they'd like to orchestrate. Things like hey, I want to leverage, click and collect orders. That'll look good for me. Hey, I want to collect more emails in store that, hey, I can get more of that. Hey, we talk about customer experience in board meetings, but really in reality, this is what's happening. So, again, alignment is tricky. There's no interest like self-interest. Is that a poor kid?
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we're seeing a lot of those functions come together as a collaborative buying group and then, as we know in this market, taking that to CFO to get approval and show what investment that looks like but also expected uplift with those operational and technical benefits. That's typically how we're seeing that conversation going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic, right, super interesting. Thank you for sharing the insights from the 20-year Shopify catch-up. I don't get the official name right, am I right? And yeah, interesting to talk through the Australian Shopify retailer report as well. So, thanks for sharing your insights and, yeah, looking forward to having you back on the podcast maybe towards the end of the year and we can catch up and see how things are going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's not leave it 20 years for the 40th anniversary. But thanks, ryan, again, lovely the education and content you're putting out there. I think shining some light on some key operators within our industry is pertinent. It's important. So I appreciate your work and thanks for having me. No worries, legend Cheers, mate Cheers, good stuff.
