Are you ready to uncover the secrets behind the impressive growth of e-commerce furniture company Industry West? With 80% year on year growth and annual sales figures in the eight digits, we sat down with Ian Leslie, their CMO, to discuss the importance of product curation, being first to market with trends, and the various marketing strategies employed by the company to achieve this success.
Join us as we explore how Ian has utilized social media, white labeling channels, and aligning with credible partners to boost brand awareness. We'll also dive into how e-commerce platform integrations, such as SMS and Nosto, have enabled Industry West's success and discover the innovative use of AI-powered negotiation bot Nibble in improving customer satisfaction.
As we discuss the ever-changing landscape of e-commerce, we'll examine the challenges of staying on top and Ian's two biggest mistakes as a marketer. Learn about the importance of choosing the right technology to power your business growth, managing expectations when introducing new technologies, and how using Inventory Planner can help make informed decisions about your inventory and free up crucial cash flow. Don't miss this insightful conversation with Ian Leslie, as we tackle the world of e-commerce growth.
Subscribe to the Lightning 50 E-commerce Growth Hacking Podcast and get an instant notification when a new episode is released. We’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our Sponsors
Peoplevox is the warehouse management system helping ambitious ecommerce businesses scale.
Peoplevox offers proven increases in accuracy and transparency across your warehouse, lightning-fast pick-and-pack methods based on industry best practice and a proven track record partnering with some of the most successful brands of the ecommerce era. All with simple set-up and user training, - exactly what you need to take control of your warehouse and wow your customers.
Inventory Planner by Sage is the premier inventory planning software for e-commerce businesses. The top rated solution helps thousands of entrepreneurs and enterprise businesses like yours to reduce their time investment, adapt quickly to market shifts, and bolster their profits through smart purchasing decisions generated by our demand forecasting capabilities. If you want to avoid spending countless hours toiling over tedious spreadsheets, prevent costly stock planning mishaps due to product outages, and reduce unnecessary expense in terms of overstock and low performing items, then get in touch today.
Are you ready to uncover the secrets behind the impressive growth of e-commerce furniture company Industry West? With 80% year on year growth and annual sales figures in the eight digits, we sat down with Ian Leslie, their CMO, to discuss the importance of product curation, being first to market with trends, and the various marketing strategies employed by the company to achieve this success.
Join us as we explore how Ian has utilized social media, white labeling channels, and aligning with credible partners to boost brand awareness. We'll also dive into how e-commerce platform integrations, such as SMS and Nosto, have enabled Industry West's success and discover the innovative use of AI-powered negotiation bot Nibble in improving customer satisfaction.
As we discuss the ever-changing landscape of e-commerce, we'll examine the challenges of staying on top and Ian's two biggest mistakes as a marketer. Learn about the importance of choosing the right technology to power your business growth, managing expectations when introducing new technologies, and how using Inventory Planner can help make informed decisions about your inventory and free up crucial cash flow. Don't miss this insightful conversation with Ian Leslie, as we tackle the world of e-commerce growth.
Subscribe to the Lightning 50 E-commerce Growth Hacking Podcast and get an instant notification when a new episode is released. We’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our Sponsors
Peoplevox is the warehouse management system helping ambitious ecommerce businesses scale.
Peoplevox offers proven increases in accuracy and transparency across your warehouse, lightning-fast pick-and-pack methods based on industry best practice and a proven track record partnering with some of the most successful brands of the ecommerce era. All with simple set-up and user training, - exactly what you need to take control of your warehouse and wow your customers.
Inventory Planner by Sage is the premier inventory planning software for e-commerce businesses. The top rated solution helps thousands of entrepreneurs and enterprise businesses like yours to reduce their time investment, adapt quickly to market shifts, and bolster their profits through smart purchasing decisions generated by our demand forecasting capabilities. If you want to avoid spending countless hours toiling over tedious spreadsheets, prevent costly stock planning mishaps due to product outages, and reduce unnecessary expense in terms of overstock and low performing items, then get in touch today.
We actually had a customer who chatted with the AI bot and told them that they bought this chair two years ago and just needed to buy the same chair to match it, and Nibble gave them an 8% discount or something. And I posted that on LinkedIn and someone called me out and said, well, you kind of had them as like they needed your chair, so why give them a discount at all? And what I liked was that Nibble showed the same customer great customer service that I would expect from a sales rep. Like if someone had called a sales rep and said, hey, i have your chair, i love your chair, i need to match it. Like, can I order the chair? Like I would expect that sales rep to be like, oh my gosh, that's great. You know we're so happy you have our product. Like, here's a chair with a 10% discount or something. So I mean, i think it's, you know, rewarding the customer and is a really cool experience. And yeah, it's been, it's been pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:Hello, i'm Caroline and welcome to the Lightning 50 e-commerce growth hacking podcast. Today we're speaking with Ian Leslie. He's the CMO of the e-commerce furniture company Industry West, which trades in North America. But before we get into the interview, i want to share a quick message from our sponsor, inventory Planner.
Speaker 2:Are you tired of being buried in excess inventory? Then you need Inventory Planner, the number one demand planning software for e-commerce businesses. Inventory Planner gives you real time insight to identify slow moving products and hot sellers at a glance, helping you make informed decisions about your inventory and freeing up crucial cash flow. Right now, listeners of the Lightning 50 podcast can get a free trial of this incredible tool by heading to inventory-plannercom. Inventory Planner never knowingly over buy or under buy ever again. So on to the podcast. Industry West is a furniture brand selling handcrafted pieces to both residential and commercial spaces. So, ian, thank you so much for joining us, really looking forward to learning a little bit more about Industry West and all the technologies that you're using to scale your business. So tell me a little bit about yourself and the business today, and how e-com has helped you get to where you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, super happy to be here. Thank you, Caroline. Yes, so Industry West, as you said, is the e-commerce furniture company. We're based out of Jacksonville, Florida, with a showroom in Soho, New York City. The company's been around for about 11 years, all of which I've known of the company or been part of it. The company was founded by two very good friends of mine and we worked together previously in another endeavor and went our separate ways and came back about eight years ago to work together with Industry West.
Speaker 1:When I started in 2015-ish Industry West I mean, I'm sorry the website was really an extremely small portion of our revenue, talking in the neighborhood of maybe 80 to $100,000 a month in website revenue And a big goal of mine was to lead growth through increasing revenue through the website, And we've done that several times fold over the past eight years or so to the point where the website accounts for maybe in the neighborhood of 25 to 30% of revenue any given month, and sometimes much more around the major holidays. And, yeah, it's been an exciting journey for me. It's been exciting to see Industry West grow. It's exciting to see our products all across North America and homes and businesses in amazing restaurants and hotels. Really so many of the tech startups that your audience knows of whether it be a Klaviyo or Nosto or even like a Seat Geek or a StubHub have Industry West products in their cool office spaces, And a lot of people have Industry West in their homes as well, So it's really exciting and it's been a great journey for me.
Speaker 2:Amazing. So let's talk a little bit about growth. I've got here that you're seeing about 80% year on year growth at the minute and annual sales figures kind of hitting the eight digits. Like that's pretty impressive. How do you think the business has got to where it is today in terms of those growth figures? How has that happened?
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean, i think the growth really, for me, first and foremost, it's all about product curation. I think you know, as cliche as it sounds, the secret sauce to Industry West is Jordan and Anne Englund, who are the founders and day-to-day you know leadership team and their ability to product the right curate, the right product at the right time. And I think so much of our growth and our successes being first to market with product And we've seen time and time again, when we're able to be first to market with a trend, it really spurs growth for us, whereas if we are a little bit of a laggard in that regard, you know the product will see in the warehouses, as Europe, as your ad stated, and it's a product that we're trying to offload via a sale or a warehouse site or something like that. So I'm going to think a huge part of the growth is being first to market with the right trends and the right product. But then, of course, you have to be able to utilize the proper channels and proper tactics to get the product out there. So I mean, years ago you know, we really heavily invested into social and social spend and even like almost entirely divested from our Google spend outside of branded for a while there. And then, you know, social became kind of first one to the you know just kind of spending And it was like kind of first to the bottom in terms of like what we could pay for, you know, for an acquisition.
Speaker 1:And so we were starting to look at some other tactics, and you know, one of which is a little bit more popular now, but we were actually at the forefront of as, like you know, white labeling social channels across some of some publications that you know are really kind of aspirational and are really, you know, hit the right, right demographic for us, whether it be, you know, a lot of content applications, kind of a travel or or architectural digest. White labeling those social channels and running our ads through them has always been very effective for us in spread growth And always, like you know, a big point of mind is just aligning us with. Aligning us with credible partners, whether it be interior designers, whether it be architects, whether it be even, you know, some in the like we've done. We've done collaborations with, like Peloton instructors we've done. We're about to do a really cool collaboration with Kerry Washington for a magazine cover. So I mean just aligning with credible partners that just raise our awareness of industry US and raise our credibility have always been like really important growth factors for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i'm sure. And once you've got those credible partners on board, using social just completely make sense. Right goes goes hand in hand about having Kerry Washington partner or Peloton. So, in terms of the social side, is that based in marketing and the marketing team look after that? Do they use specific tool sets Or is it very much the skills of the marketeers, or is it actually more of a tech initiative? when it comes to social span, Yeah, on the social spend.
Speaker 1:I mean on the social spend side it's much more of the marketing team. And you know I've done podcasts before where I've said, like you know, the modern days, modern day CMO has to be very much a generalist and very much you know tech savvy and understand the full tech stack of the e-commerce world. And a lot of that comes with the media buy as well. So I mean I think all of that has to fall hand in hand. So, like me, as CMO, i have to be able to understand what's happening on the media buy, on the social side, and be able to connect that with sales, and not even online sales but also offline sales. So often, like, if we're pushing a product and the media buy team comes back to me and says, like well, that ad set is, you know, not generating the ROAS that we're going after and we want to turn it off. Like I have to have the visibility into the company to be able to say yes. But you know, we've seen, you know, 100 quotes for that product this week and it's generated X amount in offline sales. Because I mean we are a furniture company and furniture is a very traditional vertical where, like, you could lead the camel to the water to an extent to buy online, but so many customers still want to deal with a person who they could send a quote in for B2B side or deal with, you know, one to one on even a residential side.
Speaker 1:So, like, a lot of our digital ads are generating offline quotes and estimates and sales. So it's really important that the marketing slash tech team, slash media by team, has like full visibility into all of that and that ecosystem. I mean, i think on social it's like then there's, of course, the organic piece and that is, you know, we do, of course, have a social media manager who's scheduled to post out and it uses a number of different, i think you know, uses Hootsuite, et cetera. But yeah, i mean, i think there's like definitely the media by team part of social media, which is, you know, a whole different offshoot compared to, like, what the organic team is doing.
Speaker 2:Definitely So. Your point about CMO being a generalist, but also you having those key insights into e-commerce, what let's talk a little bit about e-commerce now and some of the really exciting tools that are really helping you grow at the minute. Is there anything that you've invested in recently potentially that really surprised you, that really helped you grow a lot more than you thought you would have in terms of ROI?
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. I mean I think I was definitely a late adopter on the SMS side And we have seen, or a late believer, and we've definitely seen so Industry was previously on Magento, enterprise or whatever it was called. You know the paid level And we were on Magento for a while. Recently we've just shopped with 5 Plus and you know, which made it a bit easier for some app integrations, one of which was, you know, getting Clavio and all the email and SMS nurture flows going through Clavio, and we've seen incredible success through our modal campaign to, you know, offer an additional like 5% discount if people, above and beyond what we offer for an email sign up, we offer an additional 5% for an SMS sign up, and we've seen incredible success and that being a growth spur for us. So, like I said, i've definitely been late to the party in terms of just my. I mean, of course I've known of, like you know, the SMS and who's using SMS, etc. Etc. But I think, maybe a little bit because of my age and a little bit because of my just not wanting personally to be bombarded by SMS, that I was a little bit of a late adopter. But I mean, the proof is in the numbers and it's been a huge growth driver for us.
Speaker 1:I've always been a big fan of like platforms, and one that we're bringing we use on Magento, that I'm bringing over to Shopify, is Nosto. I think Nosto does a great job with merchandising and personalization on the site, makes it really easy and offers like just a ton of data in terms of how customers are shopping on your site and what products are moving and why, as a result of a lot of their merchandising. So Nosto has always been a big growth driver for us, i feel. So, yeah, i think those are two major ones that have been really important to our journey.
Speaker 2:Talking about rewarding and discounts and things like that. So what are some of the effective ways outside the SMS that you're looking to reward customers without resorting into deep, deep discounts? Is there anything there that's quite clever in terms of your strategy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean, the recent partner we brought on is called Nibble. Like as in, i'm going to nibble a piece of cheese and I BBL-E. And so what Nibble is? it's the AI powered on negotiation bot, which is literally just as it sounds. Is that it's a popup on our site, or you could either be a popup or it can be like a button click, but basically it says like hey, i'm this AI negotiation bot. Make me an offer And the customer makes the first offer and it negotiates from there.
Speaker 1:And obviously there are rules on the back end that we're able to set in terms of, like, how high or low we want to go on the discount And along the way. Which is something that's really cool is that, like, the bot offers two points or reasoning for why like, maybe that offer was too low. So, for instance, if someone like if it's a $1,000 chair and someone offers $200, the chat bot's going to say something to the effect of like hey, let's not forget that industry west works with, like, some of the finest manufacturers in the world and the warranty is, like, the best warranty in the vertical, et cetera, et cetera, and so maybe that $200 offer is a little bit low. So what we've found is that, like, the discounts that are being generated through Nibble are actually a fair bit lower than what we would tend to offer on the popup modal for a first time customer or for a larger sale. So the customer, if they feel they're getting a discount, they're getting a good experience and industry west is saving some margin. So it's really like a great back and forth.
Speaker 1:One example in terms of, like you know, using that as like to reward customers or loyalties, we actually had a customer who chatted with the AI bot and told them that they bought this chair two years ago and just needed to buy the same chair to match it and Nibble gave them like an 8% discount or something. And I posted that on LinkedIn and someone called me out and said, like you kind of had them as, like they needed your chair, so why give them a discount at all? And I know what I liked was that Nibble was like, showed the same customer great customer service that I would expect from a sales rep. Like if someone had called a sales rep and said, hey, i have your chair, i love your chair, i need to match it. Like, can I order the chair? Like I would expect that in sales rep to be like, oh my gosh, that's great, you know we're so happy of our product, like here's a chair with a 10% discount or something. So I mean I think it's, you know, rewarding the customer and is a really cool experience And, yeah, it's been pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:Also, can I just double check? So the customer will engage with the Nibble chat bot and kind of barter and negotiate back and forth a little bit, potentially getting an 8% discount, whereas that same customer may have gone into the purchase via a popup on your website saying sign up to our newsletter will give you 10% off. So actually, using Nibble, you're giving away less discount, even though it makes them probably feel like they're winning a little bit, which is incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, i mean that's the goal. I mean I think the goal is to ultimately what I would like to see And, as Nibble will acknowledge it, it requires a lot of trust from me on of the technology. but I would like to ultimately like lower the modal more and more the popup first time guest modal. lower that and then, like you know, raise the cap on what Nibble can offer to less than what I had the modal previously, so that you know we're ultimately saving margin. So but, yeah, i mean that's the goal and what we're looking to get toward. recently, i mean this week, we're using Nibble, as you know. we're telling people like, hey, get early access to our memorial day. they sale and negotiate with Nibble, and so we've seen some orders come in that way. that's been cool. So it's all you know. I'm one who's always willing to pilot things and cut bait if it's not working. So it's really been interesting to give it a go and the pilot process with them went really well And it's been super interesting and a really cool technology.
Speaker 2:We have an exciting sponsor today Peoplevox, the warehouse management system helping ambitious e-commerce businesses scale. If you have a growth mindset, like lounge underwear in the style or O-Poly, you know how important it is to have industry leading fulfillment and customer experience. Peoplevox offers proven increases in accuracy and transparency across your warehouse lightning fast pick and pack methods based on industry best practice and a proven track record, partnering with some of the most successful brands of the e-commerce era, all with simple setup and user training exactly what you need to take control of your warehouse and wow your customers With established integrations into Shopify, bright Pearl, inventory Planner and more. Just search Peoplevox and chat to their WMS experts today. Yeah, it's really really fascinating. Talk to me about a little bit more about AI. Are you using it elsewhere, in the business or in? what's your thoughts about the future of AI and where you might be using it in the coming years?
Speaker 1:The only other place for really using it is with Triple Well. Not sure if your customers are familiar with Triple Well, but Triple Well is a SaaS that basically brings all of your Shopify and ad buy data into one place and basically gives you really the best attribution that you could ask for these days in terms of where your customers are coming from and how many different touch points they're interacting with. So what's the first click Facebook and the second click Pinterest, and then the third click branded ad, et cetera. It takes all that into account and creates a blended ROAS tree. But what Triple Well does really cool is that it also looks at all of your audiences in your different ad campaigns. It looks at your inventory, it looks at just a host of different data and has a couple of different AI based functionalities that will generate ideas for you and generate thoughts in terms of if you had this product back in stock, it would generate 30,000 revenue over 10 days for you, or if you expanded this audience to Y. And it even has this new thing where you can actually ask its AI functionality questions of like what's my AOV this week? What's my AOV if I exclude $0 orders, like, for instance, for swatches, so I think that's really cool.
Speaker 1:I mean, for me, that's where, i think, in places like chat and places like being able to extrapolate data via an AI functionality on the back end as an operator, i think that's where I see AI going on the e-commerce space, like not using AI it's a right blog post Not using AI even to really write a site copy or anything like that But I do think AI definitely has a place in terms of just really how we're using it currently. I think is where I see it being for us in the next year or so, but yeah, you never really know what's next. I think what I'm really curious on in terms of AI is really like the SEO aspect. So you know, like you type into chat GPT, like, are people going to be using chat GPT to search for furniture as opposed to Google? So how is AI, you know, reading your site and what do we have to do differently on that front in terms of like a sales marketing channel as opposed to like actually putting it to use on the site?
Speaker 2:No, that's fair enough. It's kind of exploded out of nowhere, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:The chat GPT aspect Sure Everyone seems to be really catching up and worried, especially copywriters, that they're going to be defunct, but change is just constant. In terms of 10 years from now, are you thinking about AI in terms of, I don't know, like the Metaverse as well, And can you imagine shopping? your industry obviously has done a little bit of kind of virtual reality and that side of things to see your furniture in your space and augmented reality, Any kind of sexy tech like that you see being used in, say, a decade.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, i mean I think as it gets better and easier, I think it'll be adopted. I think, like augmented reality is obviously there's a lot of brands using that. I've not been an adopter of that, i've not personally as a shopper, i don't really use it, but I mean I think it has its place. Like see this share in my space via my iPhone app, like I think is super interesting. Like I think the augmented reality piece is really just only going to get better and better in terms of, like bootstrapped companies that are needing to actually shoot editorial or use it for editorial purposes, right To present their product without spending hundreds of thousands on editorial. So I think that's really interesting. But I mean, i think, in terms of like how the customer is using it, yeah, i mean I think there's we don't know what we don't know. Like to your point, like chat GPT blew up and like who had? I mean, of course, like those in tech had.
Speaker 1:You know AI was always a thing or it has something we've been talking about, but like the way it's just gone so mainstream in the last three months, it's like who knows what's next and it's going to be interesting to see And. But yeah, i mean, i think 10 years at all look a lot different, i think. But I think there's also always going to be this fear of and I think Phil Jackson feature commerce talks about this a lot, talks about it in a great way of the blending of everything. So if augmented reality or AI is accessible to all these e-commerce sites and everyone's using the same way, then no one is sending themselves apart in any way for the customer, and so it's just like it's like it's moving the Incredibles, like if everyone is special, no one is, and so it'll be interesting to see just how brands are able to make it unique and make it their own.
Speaker 2:Now, that's so true, that's so true. So let's talk a bit about challenges, and obviously it's not smooth sailing at the minute. We've come out of a difficult couple of years. We're currently in quite a few one of those periods as well. What are the challenges that you're facing at the minute And what is the business hoping to do to overcome those challenges?
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think the challenges are the same as everyone else is experiencing And it's a little steeper for us because we are a bootstrapped company and cash flow is always the biggest issue for us. But I mean, i think media buying is tough, attribution is tough. It's really such a gut kind of skill. So it's just your ability to turn things up down and really kind of get an understanding of, incrementally, what's making what tick And what's making what make the cash register paying. I mean, i think we are in a kind of a bit of a tricky economy But thankfully, during the height of COVID, i mean what we were paying for Ocean Freight and the lead times for Ocean Freight was like ridiculously absurd and was cutting into everybody's margins.
Speaker 1:So obviously that's loosened up a bit and it's made life a little bit easier. But I mean I really think there's so much competition now. The big thing in 2020, 2021 was like is e-commerce going to kind of, what's e-commerce going to look like after COVID? And it's like it's never going to go all. We're not going to have the incredible hockey stick spike that we had in COVID, but it's not going to go all the way backward And the competition is only getting greater, and whether that's competition for eyes, whether that's competition in CPCs, whether that's competition in CERP rankings, etc. So I mean, i think we're all the bite of the apple is getting bigger, but or the apple is getting bigger but there's so many more trying to bite at it, and I think that is a bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1:I mean, thankfully, we still aren't a relatively I mean in the terms of e-commerce, like furniture is still a relatively young vertical, which I think helps set us apart, and it's Jordan's vision years ago, 11 years ago, was to offer amazing furniture without having to call and ask for a quote or ask for a sales order. That's something you could actually buy online And that was really unique 10 years ago, like somebody in the sites would call for a quote. So I mean, i think that was really what set us apart And we really just have to continue to just to dive into that and go full bore into that and just really be aspirational brand that is available online And there's not a lot doing that great. But yeah, i mean I think the challenges are the same for everybody. It's just how we're dealing with it is really it's really day to day right. It's really having to prioritize week to week, day to day, and work together as a team. And you know we saw through COVID and I think we'll come out the other side pretty good.
Speaker 2:So what do you think might be one of the biggest mistakes that you would own up to right now? Or, and what have you learned from that experience?
Speaker 1:For me, my two biggest mistakes And I had a really great opportunity of I left industry for 18 months and went to work for a couple of SaaS companies, only to come back to industry less in the same position, which is so unique And I know like, and I'm so blessed I've had that opportunity, but it really allowed me to look at some things in retrospect. I think one of my things was, like I just mentioned earlier, like I'm always happy to pilot something, i do think I was maybe a little too eager as a marketer to try the latest and greatest. I was always one who was like oh, this, you know, magento connects to X or Magento connects to Y, like I want to do it and I want to do it tomorrow and see if it works. And I think maybe I was a little too quick to try things and kind of threw caution to the wind to the extent maybe use too many dev dollars on things that didn't pan out. I think the other thing was like I was too So, like I said, like we have this, you know we do DTC, we also do B2B and it's really and I think what I looked at too often was the e-commerce growth, particularly on the DTC side, as in like, as the most important KPI, and I kind of threw caution to the wind to an extent in terms of ad budget as a result of that, and I think I've now become a more mature marketer and I'm willing to look at the larger picture of like.
Speaker 1:Okay, the ROAS or the KPI on the e-commerce side maybe isn't where I want it to be, but overall estimates are up. You know, 40% month to date. Or you know sales orders are up or call traffic is up, so, like, even if I'm not driving the e-commerce conversions, the fact that I'm driving traffic is really what's the most important thing And, at the end of the day, whether that conversion is occurring on the site or via an inbox or credit card link that's sent out via sales rep, it really doesn't matter. I would love for it to happen on the site because I just think it's more efficient and more fun and I think e-commerce is just more fun. But at the end of the day, it's really about growing the company revenue, cash flow, and so it really doesn't do us much good if e-commerce is killing you but it's occurring at a loss.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So profit and that side of the business is the focus now, rather than like crazy growth. Right, you've had your crazy growth and now.
Speaker 1:You need to benefit from that.
Speaker 2:Yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 1:The hockey stick is always kind of easy to extend. I think it's. How do you? I say it's easy. I've been blessed enough to see the hockey stick happen in a couple of differences and a couple of different stops in my career. I think it's how you used to stay in growth study, growth after the hockey stick. That's the harder part.
Speaker 2:No, definitely. And what do you think, looking at the landscape and the industry that you're in, what do you think some of the major challenges facing other e-commerce merchants and entrepreneurs are at the moment, and are there any opportunities that you think listeners of this podcast should be really keeping an eye out for?
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think there's so much. There's like so much tech out there. Like I think like one thing like I said, i was a magento guy for years and coming over to Shopify and just seeing like all the availability out there of just like amazing apps and amazing kind of software and amazing just things you could add to your site Like I mean, one thing that I think is like super cool is like Govalo, g-o-v-a-l-o. I feel like they're doing some really cool thing on the gift card side and just really like streamlining the gift card process for Shopify sites. I mean, i think there's like loop returns, which is doing like super cool stuff on the return side to lower your return rate and to just make the whole that process more efficient and maintain profitability on the return side.
Speaker 1:Like I said, nibble is something like we've been working on on the AI chat bot side.
Speaker 1:I just think there's like so much and I almost feel like we've gotten to a point where it's like and I think this goes back to me like wanting to try everything.
Speaker 1:It's like you talk to marketers or you talk to like social media marketers who are like I need to be on all the social channels and the answer is like no, you don't, like you need to find the right social channels that'll work for you. And I think similarly, i guess, especially if you're like on something on the Shopify site that makes using these apps so easy, it's like, okay, what are the apps that can really create efficiencies and increase profitability and cash flow for my business? And I always go to like something like Nosto, which is like does an amazing job on the merchandising side, and it's like that's taking time off of my staff, that they're not doing merchandising And they're using AI on the merchandising side, and so so yeah, i mean I think that's a pretty long-winded way to answer your question, but I mean I think there's so many opportunities out there on the tech side, on the tech stack side. It's really just researching what is what's right for you and what works best for you.
Speaker 2:So, considering you admitted to you know piloting tech a little bit too speedily in the past and you taking that kind of taking a breath, i guess, to assess what the options are, how would you, how do you approach that now? How do you make sure that you're doing the right kind of pilot And what is it that's, that's, that's changed in your day to day behavior, when you get really excited when you see all this tech now How do you kind of cut through all the stuff that's not appropriate?
Speaker 1:I think a lot of it is like what do contracts look like? I'm not really very unwilling to assign long-term contracts anymore. I think, like that's something that you've seen with Shopify, obviously in its app ecosystem is like you know, it's month to month. You know, you get a trial, you go from there. If it doesn't work, you cut bait. I mean, i think for me it's very much about efficiencies And I think it also has to be always more so than I mean it has to be about efficiency and it has to be about revenue growth, like everything has to be pivoted toward revenue growth.
Speaker 1:As a bootstrap company, i do think there are some things that we're doing that are a bit more awareness And I think and are super interesting. But even those things like come with the potential for demand generation. We're working with a company called Agile, adgile, and we're about to do out of home with them. We have wrapped a couple of trucks in New York City that are going to just drive around the city delivering goods. That with industry west branded all over the trucks, And we're also going to be able to collect mobile ID data from people who have GPS turned on. So again, that comes with some demand generation where we're going to be able to retarget people in certain areas. So I'm going to think it's like I'm always looking at efficiency, always looking at revenue generation and always looking at demand generation and how those come together And the ability now especially like and can I do it with very little dev overhead.
Speaker 2:No, that's completely fair enough. We have nearly run out of time, but before I let you go, i want you to come up with two or three tips for e-commerce growth and scale that our listeners can take away and potentially steal and improve their businesses. What are the top three things that you can think of? that's really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think, again, that's a great question.
Speaker 1:I mean, i think for me, one major thing I've seen is SMS.
Speaker 1:Again, i think that's been really useful And I think it's something if you're not utilizing like a welcome SMS campaign And when I say SMS, like I'm not again not saying like I don't think you should be texting people daily I don't even know if you need to be texting people product drops But I think you know at least utilizing a welcome SMS discount code and nurture that way is super important.
Speaker 1:I mean, i think the other thing is like What key to growth is data? And I think like just utilizing, just figuring out how to make all of your data across online and offline is accessible and transparent as possible, whether it be, you know, putting, you know, updating Google Sheets and turning that into a looker data studio, or using a tool like Triple Whale, which I mean I'm on Triple Whale now more than I'm on Google Analytics. Triple Whale is an amazing tool and I'm a huge fan of Triple Whale, especially, you know, for Shopify if you're on a Shopify site. So I mean I think really, so I'd say yeah like Nurture Campaign, welcome Campaign for SMS, and just like making sure you can get your data as clean and as transparent to your organization as possible.
Speaker 2:That was a really brilliant interview, massive thanks to Ian. There We learned some really interesting things, including how product creation is key, data is always going to be king, how using AI negotiations could be kind of the future of discounting And obviously, how there's so much technology out there at the moment and we can all get really over excited and pilot everything, but maybe it's worth just taking a breath and make sure we don't get too carried away and choosing the right technology to serve your business and power that growth basically. So make sure you head over to all the usual podcast platforms to listen to previous episodes of the Lightning 50 podcast And don't forget listeners can get a free 14 day trial of this incredible tool by heading to inventory-planercom. Inventory planner gives you real time insights to identify slow moving products and hot sellers at a glance, helping you make informed decisions about your inventory and freeing up crucial cash flow. Inventory planner never knowingly over buy or under buy ever again.