Digital Horizons
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Digital Horizons
Scaling An E-commerce Store to Over $1 Million A Month
Have you ever wondered how a simple idea could become a million-dollar e-commerce empire? Meet our guest for today's episode, Jez Hedger, an industry trailblazer and successful entrepreneur behind Bedzy and River City House & Home Co. Our fascinating conversation traces Jez's incredible journey from selling desks during the COVID pandemic to creating Bedzy, a niche-down store and hearing the exciting Shopify Cha-ching sound.
As the conversation deepens, Jez unveils the game-changing strategy he used to overcome the challenges and bask in the victories of his e-commerce journey. He provides invaluable advice for budding e-commerce entrepreneurs, all the way from taking the first step to investing in Shopify Plus. With his businesses averaging $1.3 million in monthly revenue, Jez's insights will inspire you to elevate your e-commerce game.
In our final segment, Jez gives us a glimpse into the world of digital advertising, sharing his experiences with payment platforms like PayPal and the issues that can arise. The power of diversifying advertising dollars and harnessing platforms like Pinterest and TikTok is also discussed. As we wrap up, Jez gives us some exciting hints about his future plans for expanding his e-commerce stores and offers practical advice on scaling an e-commerce business. Get ready to be blown away by Jez's remarkable e-commerce journey.
To learn more about Jez:
www.instagram.com/jezhedger
Tools discussed in the Show:
Chatbase: www.chatbase.io
Gorgias: www.gorgias.com
A2X: www.a2xaccounting.com
Urgency: apps.shopify.com/sales-countdown-timer-bar
Podcast Sponsor:
Walker Hill: www.walkerhill.com.au
The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:
James Walker - Managing Director WHD
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous
Welcome to the Digital Horizons podcast, your gateway to the dynamic world of digital marketing. Join us as we engage with industry trial blazers, delving into innovative ideas and cutting-edge strategies to empower you to soar ahead of the ever-shifting digital curve. I'm your host, James Walker. Let's get started. Welcome to the Digital Horizons podcast. I have Jess Hedger here from multiple brands, Bedzie and River City. Jess, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1:So I guess when we're thinking about who wanted to get onto the podcast, you were one of the first on my list to talk to A lot because you're living the e-commerce lifestyle dream at the moment. I'll check out your Instagram whenever I'm chatting to you. We do some work with you and the team after even just check-in is just even in the country. Most of the time that's a no. So I guess I just found it thought it would be really useful or meaningful conversation to have to people who are thinking about getting into e-commerce and discuss sort of a bit about how your journey has been and so people can learn from what you're doing, because you're obviously doing it really well.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. It's been one hell of a journey. I mean this year for sure we have been. I've lost count on how many countries, but my daughter's just about to turn two and she's just shy of a hundred flights now and 22 countries, I believe something around there. So we've just absolutely made the most of it. And the best thing about e-commerce is we can just work from wherever we want. Absolutely yeah, travel now before she turns two, because that's when you have to buy her a full price ticket.
Speaker 1:I literally booked a flight for my daughter who's turning two in December the week before, just to make use of that, because I realized when she's probably been on about two flights compared to the 100 kids were born at very similar times, so she's got a lot of catching up to do, absolutely. So tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey getting into e-commerce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool. So it started off during the pandemic my partner Caitlin she was stood down. She was eventually made redundant. So it started off just as a drunk idea to sell desks during COVID. So we thought you know what a lot of people are going to be working from home, so what are they going to need? A desk. And that's honestly how we started just on Facebook Marketplace, Wow, selling desks and delivering them to people around Brisbane. And that's how River City Herston Home was born.
Speaker 1:Well, you were actually delivering them yourself, yeah, so you were jumping in the car getting a sale. So what was the first sale you did? Mate how much? What was the dollar value of that sale?
Speaker 2:Oh, roughly about $100. And we would have made about 20 to 30, you know. So it wasn't much margin on it. But we had no idea what we were doing. We were just buying them and selling them for a profit.
Speaker 1:And imagine when, just watching your lifestyle now, you probably put that $20 profit into a bottle of champagne or something right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But that's when I guess the feeling of when you get that first transaction through a website. It's unreal. You go from trading your time for money when you have a job and that's the only way of sort of generating income, to all of a sudden it's transactional and money's going into your bank account as opposed to your time that you're trading for money.
Speaker 2:Oh, exactly, I mean, when we first started, like I said, it was all Facebook Marketplace based, so I was literally going in talking to the customer explaining about it, getting them over the line, and then they'd pay us through PayPal. It was just ridiculous. So when I actually built my first website and this was when I was still employed I will never forget that day. Cha-ching goes off in the office and we were in this small satellite office during COVID and we were moved away, not on the proper floor. That Cha-ching could not have been any louder. And then my boss goes what was that? And I said, oh, my mom just paid off me some money. Is there anything I could think of at the time? And then I had to go down outside and I was just blown away Like, wow, this website has just got me a sale while I've been at my job. Yeah, it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1:I fucking love that sound and that Cha-ching sound from Shopify has to be the best fucking sound you can hear, especially in the early days. But I guess it shows progress as well when it gets annoying and you've got to actually mute your phone because it's now becoming too much yeah.
Speaker 2:It gets a bit obnoxious sometimes. Yeah, you have to mute it, but yeah, I love it, it's my fuel still. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so tell us a little bit about the e-commerce brands that you're currently running and operating, that you've started from scratch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool, yeah, we had River City House, and Home was our first ever brand and it was just purely Brisbane based, selling desks. And then we added more and more products. We started doing like outdoor furniture, then beds and mattresses, and then we actually then moved the business down to Melbourne because that's where all of our suppliers were based. So when we did that, we actually started seeing massive results with beds and mattresses on their own they were the top sellers out of our range. So then we were like, okay, I think it was Christmas day. I said, all right, why don't we create a niche down version of the store? And then that's when Bed-Z was born. And then it took me a couple of months to sort of get the branding right and all of that. But we launched that on the first of March 21, I believe it was. And I'll tell you what I remember saying to you in the first days I was like, what am I doing?
Speaker 1:Like, yeah, I remember you told me the name and I was like this is going to be fucking big and I was like the name is just it's memorable in, it stands out. I could just tell from the success you're already seeing with River City and being, that there was that one product line and just niching down and I mean there's been and I've done it in one of my other e-commerce stores is there is the big broad. All right, catch everything, let's sell as much shit as we can to as many people.
Speaker 1:But then I guess that comes with the same problems, because that means more suppliers, more different things, more customer service, more questions. But then you go all right, cool, we've got one product, we've got one sort of category, let's focus in on that. This just makes it so much more focused, which obviously is because it's a niche, but I think that it does make it not easier, but just easier to be more focused on a specific area 100%.
Speaker 2:In the early days I was doubting myself all the time and I said to you I felt it was a silly idea to put. I didn't have much advertising budget, so I was putting half in one brand, half in the other and I was like why don't I just combine them and just keep with the one brand? But yeah, you said to me, keep going, and I did. And I did because now, yeah, bedz is the most profitable out of every brand we have, so very happy that we stuck to it. And then, yeah, most recently we did BedZ over in the UK, so that's the most recent project we've got off the ground. So and how's that?
Speaker 2:going. Yeah, look not as good as Australia yet, yeah, but we've had a lot of hiccups over there, like our supplier who we launched with went into administration, so we had to go out and find new suppliers and all of that sort of stuff. So this year we've had quite good success, but we haven't been advertising at all. It's purely organic traffic, so the profit margin has been great. Next year I'm actually going over to the UK for about three months just to work purely on that brand and then, yeah, we'll look into getting it started with ads and all of that sort of stuff once we've got better shipping arrangements and all of that. So, yeah, exciting.
Speaker 1:Okay, so every episode we've been trying to, I guess, give our listeners a something that like a piece of advice, something they can take away from the episode and sort of make it a bit more actionable than just general advice. So what is one piece of advice that you would want to give anybody who's looking to get into the eCommerce space and launch their own online store?
Speaker 2:My best advice would be just to start. Take it from me, like I started off just as a desk shop on Facebook marketplace and then I moved into what I found works better, with my niche down offerings and you know all of that sort of stuff. Just take that first step and do not listen to anyone who tries to put you down or anything like that, Like I had so many people say oh, you're trying to be Harvey Norman, you know what? No, I'm not, mate. I don't want to have a brick and mortar store. I have to be at 24 seven. So best advice I can give just start, get started, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And how about anyone who is already running an eCommerce store? What could you tell them?
Speaker 2:My best advice for anyone who is currently running a business if you're on Shopify and you're earning thousands in revenue a month, get yourself onto Shopify plus. So then you just learned this because when you first set up a store, you just sort of set and forget. So it's on the basic plan, and then my account manager reached out to me. He goes mate, you're doing like 1.3 million a month. Why are you on the basic plan? Like you're paying like thousands and thousands in transaction fees, yeah, and I'm like, oh yeah, never really thought about that. So we moved on to Shopify plus, which is awesome. You can customize your store so much more. But the best thing is we're now saving. Like what was it? Four to 5,000 a month in transaction fees, yeah, and I had no idea this was even a thing.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I'm sure you've probably been through all their upsell automations, everything trying to convince you to jump onto it, but you just had to pay attention, right.
Speaker 2:I used to look at their rate for it and I was like, why would I pay? Like you know, because it's not cheap, but in the long run it's saving us so much more money. So I wish I knew about that earlier.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so you're just saying about the revenue that's coming through these stores, which is all we haven't discussed. So where are we coming and sitting at the moment? Like, what numbers are we talking about on a monthly revenue basis for these e-commerce stores?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been 1.3 million a month on average for the last couple of months, and we're expecting that to grow as we approach Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day sales, New Year sales like coming into the busiest time of the year now.
Speaker 1:So and a lot of e-commerce businesses that we talk to and that we've worked with. They've seen decline in overall performance because everyone's not living the I guess the COVID high that e-commerce stores are living. Like there was like almost about a year or so where numbers were so inflated because there was a lot of people that didn't have anything else to spend their money on, so they're shopping online and we've seen a decline in many retailers online retailers just because of change in baby in their purchase ability. So how have you found that impact your businesses?
Speaker 2:Honestly, we've just kept growing month on month, and I think we did very well during COVID, when borders were shut and people wanted to spend for their homes. But now that the borders are open, we're getting a ton of people who've just moved to the country or moved back to the country and they need a new bed. A lot of people are now venturing into owning an Airbnb. So we do a lot of Airbnb hosts around the country, and that's the other side of it. So for us it's been great. We haven't seen a slowdown. I did think we might, but it's honestly just kept growing way past our expectations.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess when we look at the actual overall market size of the industries you're targeting, they're massive, like it's not like you're going to see that market shrink so much that it's going to impact your sales. Right, it's growing your market share within this industry, but you're nowhere near the size that it's going to see a shrinking sales volume because you're just growing and taking other market share from other businesses, as opposed to having that limitations, which is great. That's exactly right. So how do you differentiate your e-commerce businesses and it's many different businesses out there. What do you think that has been done that has set Bedsy and River City apart from the rest, because I'm sure there's plenty of other Shopify stores selling Beds that haven't had the success and they aren't doing the numbers that you're doing. So what do you think has gotten you to that point?
Speaker 2:For us it just has to be word of mouth, like our organic traffic is growing and growing and growing. And when we put out our surveys to the customers, like the amount of people who've heard of us from word of mouth each year we do, the survey is just growing by ridiculous amounts. So the way we do that is just offer the best possible customer service, actually listen to the customer, also educate them. We get a lot of angry customers who are like why has my bed been delivered in two separate shipments? And I get my staff just to explain the reasons why, rather than just say what a lot of other companies do. Here's your tracking numbers. It is what it is. We actually take the time for the customers. Without them we're nothing. So that's the one thing I literally drill into my staff customer service above all, and it just works wonders for you. Yeah, long run.
Speaker 1:I guess when you're looking at some of the bigger players in your industry, that's probably an area where they've cut costs on and that it's not as important where it's key focus for your businesses.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I guess something that I've noticed as well that I think would also be contributing to your success, is you never shied away from advertising online, like you have invested into getting your brand out there and spending where, I think, a lot of other brands and today is where we do talk a lot about digital marketing on this podcast you've heavily invested into it and to the point where you've taught yourself. So you've invested your time to be able to spend to actually learn and understand what's happening, but also you're putting your dollars into it as well. So you've been making sure you're driving new traffic and relevant traffic to your site using social media and also running Google ads, and I guess that's something that potentially, a lot of businesses shy away from. In the early stage of launching a store, they put all the time and money into building a website and getting it all set up, but then spending $1,000 a week trying to drive traffic to the website, which is never really going to get you to a point where you're doing big numbers in your Shopify store.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I mean, when we first started I was using like I think I had like $300 to my name every fortnight and I was just putting all of that into Facebook ads. So I followed a few tutorials on YouTube, but for me, the best way for me to learn is just to jump in and do it, and I don't know what I was doing in the first instance. I used to go on and boost my posts on Instagram and stuff, thinking that would get me sales. What an idiot. If only I'd known that then you know. But what I know now for, obviously, facebook marketing is so much the way we target our audiences and we've got retargeting campaigns and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, I mean I'm glad I did take that risk and I'm also very grateful that my partner, caitlin, supported me during that time. You know, I don't know how many other partners would be like there's no way you're using our last $300 for the fortnight to waste on this ad campaign where you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 2:But, thank God she did so. Yeah, very grateful for that. And then obviously, a walkale digital helping us with Google. Google's a big beast. I mean, that's one thing I never even tried to learn, I just looked at it like that. But you know, walkale have just been amazing for looking after us for Google. Most recently, we've also started dabbling in the tick tock side of things as well. So for a lot of our lower value products we've we've had great success with on tick tock not so much beds and mattresses, but more so like our bedding and pillows and homewares, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:And this is stuff you've been educating yourself on how to do and writing yourself for myself. Yeah, okay, and so I guess, in terms of tick tock strategies, what are your findings working for you?
Speaker 2:Just obviously, user generated content is different to, say, facebook or Instagram, where you know we've have a single image ad to get them in. So we've we've had content creators do a lot of good UGC for us, and then that's sort of more natural. Then on the tick tock platform and I tell you what the the cost per purchase we've got on tick tock recently have been like $15, as opposed to the average on Facebook, which these days you're lucky if you get $40 or $50, you know, on a good day.
Speaker 1:So I mean, there's this competition, there's CPMs. There's so much cheaper on tick tock. I think it's just a lot of businesses just haven't had or taken the leap over there yet, but it's definitely. We're seeing a lot more businesses advertising on there and getting good results. Like I mean, you can get good results on tick tock. I guess, as you said, it says lower cost, lower price products that work really well. Yeah, but we've seen great results there. So I think any businesses that aren't advertising on tick tock definitely need to be given a go.
Speaker 1:Oh, just to diversify the market, like where they're spending their advertising dollars, because, as I said, you can't. You do see declines, especially Facebook, instagram, as they get more expensive, so you've got other options to be advertising. Yeah, have you explored Pinterest at all, knowing that in the homewares and space it is quite heavily used?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're on Pinterest. We just not advertising at the moment, but we do have a lot of pins on there and that gets us some more organic sales. So yeah, I mean I don't use Pinterest. My mom's a heavy user of it. I just I go on there and I have no idea what's going on. I'm not going to lie, yeah, but yeah, we are on there and probably should look at after I've dabbled in tick tock a little bit more. Yeah, maybe that should be next on the list to kick off some ads on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in terms of, I guess, a campaign that you run on social media, is there any that stand out more than others Like? Has there been a campaign that you're like, yeah, cool, we absolutely fucking nailed that?
Speaker 2:Recently I've been doing like sort of meme ads on Facebook and Instagram, and I just did it as a joke to start with. They just convert so well because it obviously it's stopping people scrolling. Yeah, like you know, the Barbie movie just got released recently, so I had a picture of a bed and then, like a Barbie doll stood next to the bed and then Kendall lying on the bed is so stupid, yeah. And then it just said come on, barbie, let's go party. And then something about beds for sale. And I tell you what? That one just smashed it out of the park. Wow, so just adding a little bit of humor in there and not taking yourself so seriously.
Speaker 1:That's great, though I mean, it's not that much of an impulse purchase, right? Like you know, just a lot of people aren't just going to say, hey, that's a funny ad, oh and I need a bed, I'm going to buy one Like that. There must be working well to do that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what's that? As a joke is now like I make sure we get some meme ads in there as we go. So if you run in a business, give it a go.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great takeaway for people that are listening, because that's, that's not a strategy I mean I've heard very much of is using, I guess, humor and memes to sell furniture.
Speaker 2:So I mean, people are on Facebook. They're looking at memes all day right, so just try it in your advertising.
Speaker 1:I guess it depends on who your friends with as well, right?
Speaker 2:I get my friends texting me like what is this ad you're running? I'm just like look, just hear me out Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. So we know that technology and software is obviously a key part to running an online store. What are you currently running your stores on? You mentioned Shopify plus. Are there any other apps, plugins, softwares that you're running your store on that you feel that e-commerce store owners should be aware of? That has just made your life so much easier or really grown or helped increase your revenue.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah, now we're on Shopify plus, but I've used Shopify for every brand. I've never used anything else. Shopify has so many apps that you can add easily. You don't really need to understand any coding or anything like that. So highly recommend Shopify.
Speaker 2:As for apps that we're using, we've recently added one I believe it's called like A2X or something, and that connects to our zero and saves our bookkeeper like hours and hours and hours. So when we're doing 200, 300 orders a day, it just saves you so much time and money. So that's been probably the best investment yet. Recently we moved to a software called georgias on shop of fire as well, so don't quote me on how much it is per month, but it's worth the investment roughly like seven hundred seven a month, and the benefit of that is, instead of Support staff, like going through bottom to top on the email, and then we get people like you know what's that? We've got instagram, facebook, all that sort of stuff. Georgias just combines everything together into one ticket. So one customers message us on multiple platforms, just brings it into the same thing.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of chat function as well, isn't it got live chat on?
Speaker 2:there yet, and that, as well as, is allowed us to literally shave our support times in half, and everything's just so organized now. So that's, that's been great for us. And then, finally, the final app I can recommend is it's called urgency, plus just a little countdown timer when you run in a sale.
Speaker 1:Oh my god I've seen that on your store and I think you told us about it when it went on, because we saw conversion rates just increased and what's happened? That's different here and so where where you put this canton timer just at the top of the product page.
Speaker 2:Okay, just saying hey, fyi, sale ends on this date, at this time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Homepage check out just product page. Okay, what's the app called?
Speaker 2:so urgency, plus the recently yeah, they just rebranded, I believe.
Speaker 1:Is that a imagine? That's a pretty cheap app of it's just putting a little timer on and would be close to me very much like five us dollars a month.
Speaker 2:It's not much, definitely worth it, yeah, and you can brand it to your own colors and all that sort of stuff so it matches everything's on brand.
Speaker 1:so, yeah, really good, okay, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. Yeah, I, as any kind of a other using currently in your software stack at all. Absolutely, what's what do you? What are you doing?
Speaker 2:chat gbt, okay, writing ads the best thing to ever happen to me, right yeah I get the worst writers block out of anyone.
Speaker 2:Like, seriously, I go to write an ad or anything or product description, and I just sit there I have no idea what I'm doing. So that alone I can just go. Okay, right, these are the specifications of a product. Say, I'm doing a product description, these are the specifications, this is the color, this is a little bit about it. Bang, and it just creates this for the amazing product description. For me, yeah, that's all like SCO keywords in there. You know that just unbelievable. And then sometimes we use it as well. I mean, if any of my customers are listening to this, I apologize, but sometimes you just get that one customer where you like. How do I even approach this?
Speaker 2:yes like, come on, like you know, I'm gonna watch what I say on this podcast, obviously. But I basically had An adult male who purchased a children's bed, wrote to me and said he done something in that bed and it broke, yeah, and how embarrassed he was and all that.
Speaker 1:it wasn't just jumping on the bed, was he hey?
Speaker 2:he had his lady friend over, I'm looking at him, like this guy has purchased, like the ferry bed which is for, like, toddlers. Yeah, how do I even respond to this? Yeah, chat, gbt, what was the response I did? She just go write me a polite response to this comment and it just created this thing and I'm like, yeah, perfect, I could never even come up with that, done that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I'd love to see what that look like I'll.
Speaker 2:I'll show you get off this podcast. I've got a few screenshots.
Speaker 1:That's cool. I've been looking at it. I can't remember what is called. I think might be called code code, so I don't know. I'll find out what the name is important in there.
Speaker 1:But there's a new a I machine learning support software which I'm really interested in checking out, which will apparently crawl your whole site and then it will. You can then train it and it will then respond to your customers. So basically it is working as a customer service agent and it has direct access to all your product information, your pricing, all of the f a, q's and everything, and it can then respond to customer questions based on that information. Well, I'm code bot, I am gonna say it is. So I'm really excited to try something like this.
Speaker 1:I imagine it For business like yours, which I know you get a lot of customer support, many of the volume of orders and volume of traffic to get through the site. It might be something worth checking out. It's something that I'm gonna be gonna be testing because I feel that if that's possible and, as you said, it's responding better to questions or to gpt is responding better to two inquiries, then you'd be able to think on doing it. Imagine having that that already has access to your four stores information, pricing, shipping times, everything. I think that just be so powerful. It sucks for anybody who's currently working in customer support on the e-commerce store, but I mean, that's the direction it's going right.
Speaker 2:If we could have that for like general inquiries, yeah, and then, you know, as a point of escalation it goes to the staff or something that would be, that would be amazing yeah I'll have to check that out as well yeah, I think code bot Completely become completely wrong on that yeah, so I guess the journey has been a few years now.
Speaker 1:what would you say was the biggest challenge that you faced going through this process of launching to getting to the point we do on over a million dollars a month?
Speaker 2:I mean for the australian brands. You know, in the early days we had such big weekends like specially over east or something like that, with a multiple public holidays and we're not getting our payouts as fast, literally ran out of money and we didn't have money to buy more stock and couldn't pay the ads. You know that was, that was not not too exciting. So yeah, we've dealt with that cash play management.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, problem and then we've had issues with paypal just randomly deciding to start holding our funds, yeah, and you know, asking us to supply all this information. But the questions they're asking they want like tracking information for people who ordered that day and you physically can't get past it. So I remember just going on like, because they want a screenshot, I just wrote something on word like I do not have this yet they've only ordered this morning and uploaded that, and then they like banned us from the platform because obviously I didn't supply the information that I needed and they were holding over a hundred ten thousand in one point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mental, How'd you resolve that? Like what was the I still haven't ongoing issues, or is that something that sort of was a growing thing, where they were just like, hey, this is now just pumping cash through.
Speaker 2:it looks like Something maybe not right happening because it's not as common, probably for the growth that you had yeah, and it was always after they were like we've noticed an abnormally high increase in your sales like, and it was always after like black Friday or Christmas or weekend promotion that we got anything that should have been expected right, how hard is it? Yeah, we actually complained to the a fca. I believe that they called and then, yeah, within days, activated money back and yeah, touch all the wood.
Speaker 1:But we've been pretty lucky since okay, so in your opinion, and I guess with a few years of being completely involved in the e-commerce space, where do you see things going for the e-commerce industry as a whole?
Speaker 2:you know, I see more and more brands moving online and I struggle to see how many of these brick and mortar stores will survive so many people are just ordering everything online. It's just, it's not even funny. People don't have the time to like go to the shops and battle to find a car park and all that sort of stuff. You know, like my partner, gail, and she's got parcels arriving every single day. You know, and now you've got you have the time for mime this week. So if you look on your blog, you'll see every single week and even other brands you can find, for instance, I bought a new clip and I'd like to thank all the sellers who have helped me. You know companies like amazon and all that sort of stuff and their prime service. A lot of the time you can order like your essentials off there to live at the same day.
Speaker 1:Yep, crazy. I know you mentioned I think you had troubles with amazon in the past, right? So how do you see amazon impacting? Because I know, when I'd been even I just did a short trip to the US I need something. I just jumped on amazon order into my hotel and the convenience of it as a consumer and I think, as a seller there's some challenges which you face, but how do you see amazon is going to impact your business as it grows within the Australian market and Australian consumers are getting more and more used to that, that convenience of just ordering everything from amazon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, a lot of the stuff they sell is very small in size and all of that. They've got uber style drivers driving their cars around and delivering, like boxes and nappies and, you know, toiletries, that sort of stuff I mean for something like an outdoor furniture, lounge or a bed. You know, I'm hoping it's not going to impact us too much, but you know they're definitely a threat. It's just the way it is. I guess all we can do is just watch this space and yeah, but hopefully they just stay the way they are, with just continuing to offer mostly smaller size items.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess you maintain your customer support as well, and having that level and differentiation is what's going to help as well to make them less of a threat. Okay, so for your two product lines to e-commerce stores, what are your plans in terms of expansion? You mentioned the UK firstly. What triggered that and what challenge have you found going into international market? I mean, being that you are from the UK, it's obviously a lot more familiar to you than someone who was from Australia and adventuring out and didn't have any local knowledge. But what have you found is the challenges and why the UK? What was the opportunity there?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm originally from the UK and I just thought if I've got this great brand that's doing well in Australia, perhaps I could get it off the ground. The same thing in the United Kingdom. And then I've got an excuse for my travel home every year to go and do business stuff. So that was the sole motivation to move into that market. But my god, it's been difficult over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what's the difference? Why have the challenges been there that you feel that you didn't experience, especially being that you're doing it? The first time you did it, you did it without really any experience of knowledge going into this, whereas going into the UK, you already know sort of what works in Australia. Why do you think that replicating the Australian model into the UK was different?
Speaker 2:I'd say mainly because none of the suppliers in the UK wanted to give us a time of day. We were the new kids on the block and they just didn't have time for us. They've already got their resellers, who are successful, and they were just like you know, you're just going to come and go. The first supplier that we did partner with was great, don't get me wrong. We had really quick growth and then they went into administration without telling us. So that was a real bummer and it took us a good amount of time before we could then persuade these suppliers over there to sort of give us a chance. So we actually reached out to one of the original suppliers who turned us down and we just gave them our Australian results instantly. We were approved.
Speaker 2:So I think they were hoping we'd replicate those sort of numbers in the UK, and there's a long way to go over there at the moment. But yeah, like I said, we're actually going to move over there for two or three months next year, early next year. The main thing we want to focus on is setting up some custom shipping. A lot of our competitors over there they all have next day delivery and we've got at the moment, like you know, seven to ten days. So yeah, need to go over there, meet with these couriers, get some contracts in place soon. As we can offer next day delivery, we'll smash it out of the park.
Speaker 1:Okay, so suppliers obviously have been challenged in the UK. What would you recommend for anyone who's currently searching for suppliers Like what is it about a supplier? That makes them good? What makes them bad? What's some red flags when you're, when you're having chats with them, because I guess they're really key, because I know when I've had businesses, as soon as the supplier is not delivering on what they said they're going to do, it causes so many problems on your side because it's ruining your reputation. Right, you've got to rely on them to be able to deliver and you can do all you can on the customer support side of things, but the products aren't being delivered on time or faults are happening or whatever. It just is going to ruin your business. So, yeah, what, what is it about a good supplier that you would say you want to be looking for? And what are, what are the red flags there?
Speaker 2:For me. I prefer just to deal with suppliers who are already in the country I'm selling in, so you know, australian suppliers or suppliers in the UK. The UK has actually got a few different laws which specifies, you know, a customer can return an item after 30 days. They don't have to give a reason, they can just say because it's the distance selling laws, so they can just return it, not have to give a reason and you have to accept the return. So a big one for us over there was finding a supplier who would accept the return on that basis. A lot of them were like well, you're the retailer, you need to accept it back.
Speaker 2:But for me I want location freedom. I don't want to have to be in the UK to operate a facility to accept those returns. So that was another thing. Check in the reviews of the products or the suppliers themselves and then finally just testing, like buying some products from that supplier, setting them up, see how it is yourself, before then you start listing and advertising. So make sure you you actually physically see it. I mean, if you can go and visit them and they've got a showroom bonus. But a lot of them don't if they're just, you know, a wholesaler who's doing like a dropship or a trade sort of offering.
Speaker 1:So okay, so I guess one added bonus to running a successful e-commerce store is well, firstly the travel, but then also the points that you are able to generate from all of the expenses that are occurring through the business yeah what would you recommend or what advice do you have for anyone who is either getting points but not really know what they're doing with it, or haven't even started implementing that into their business?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, for us, the best thing we did was we got a Amex Platinum card, so we put all our revenue through that, we put all our ad spend. We can even pay the ATO or tax bills. Every time we use that card we're earning points. We got to the point where, in millions of points a month now, and we can convert those points to frequent flyer programs such as you know, like Emirates or Eddyhead and Qatar, singapore Airlines, you name it they're on there and that's been the main way we've been able to travel as much as we have in in first class, business class. You know people. I get people comment like, oh, you're an, you're an idiot for paying 25k. I'm like who says I'm paying that even if I was like a multi, multi, multi millionaire, yeah, there's no way on earth I'd pay that. It does use the points, yeah. So, yeah, not financial advice to go get a credit card, but for us it's.
Speaker 1:It's definitely helped cash flow and, yeah, earning the points to redeem for all the travels yeah, well, I mean, your Instagram looks like you're a superstar that just flies first class everywhere, and I mean this is almost on a every couple of weeks this is happening. So I mean it definitely works right. Yeah, of all the, of all the airlines, is there any that recommended, like any that you recommend over others? Like, is a quantist more efficient at getting better flights, or where would you say your best to look there?
Speaker 2:for us, singapore Airlines has the best availability by far. Yeah, I mean, the trick when you're booking award seats is you need to be flexible, but if you've got an e-commerce business, you've already got flexibility there. It's not like you know. Your bosses approved you for certain days you need to take, so that's why it works. So, yeah, singapore Airlines, qatar have actually started doing some good availability as well. But yeah, singapore Airlines, if you can get first class on their a380, it is just insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah like a flying hotel room. Yeah, so we've got that to look forward to for a honeymoon at the end of this month actually class, so yeah, very excited.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was aware of, like I mean the amount of travel we see you doing and the amount of I see you do, the almost traditional now for yourself shot of something every time you get on to a first class plane Does it wear on your way just like I was just another fucking plan I'm jumping on again.
Speaker 2:I just love it, I honestly love it. No, it's exciting. You get a drink this like four, five hundred dollar bottle champagne you never buy in a million years and just just slam it the moment you get on like it's just part of the fun, yeah, but yeah, it honestly does not wear off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The only thing is the trips just sort of blur into one like yeah. Oh where was that again?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, we take like a million photos wherever we go and so how do you, how do you structure the running of the business while traveling, because that's something that I guess has to become you get better at. At the beginning probably made it, it was probably more about the work, but then you can set it in a structure that it doesn't impact you day to day. But what does a normal day look like in terms of managing the business, operating the store plus traveling and I know that you travel with a young child as well a lot of the time. How does that work in the day to day logistics of it all?
Speaker 2:for me. You know my day to day tasks. I'm not influenced by set hours, so it's exactly the same wherever I am in the world. I've got my minimum standards I call it like that have to be done every single day and I just follow through on that process, no matter where I am, no matter what the time is. Yeah, I mean, I get jet lags so bad. So normally if I can just work through the night, yeah and then get up in the morning and chill by the pool brilliant.
Speaker 1:Do you mind sharing a little bit about what that checklist looks like. Like? What is what is a normal day of a of a traveling e-commerce entrepreneur really look like when you are living on the go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So first thing I'll do is just check if my staff have escalated anything to me that they might have a very cranky customer in there and needs a bit of assistance. Check my review sites. Make sure that ads are all delivering correctly. Make sure there's no budget issues. Check in the accounts. I mean, that's probably the basics and then you know whatever needs doing on top of that so I might have some new creatives that need to be designed in. The list goes on. It sort of depends on what time of year. So I think, while I'm away from my honeymoon, klan's gonna kill me for this, but there's gonna be a lot of black Friday preparation. Yes, you know I'll be making a lot of creatives to do all those myself, from yeah to picky. I honestly need to delegate. I just can't found like going backwards and forwards with designers. I could just do it myself, yeah. So yeah, getting ready for black Friday is gonna be a big one, sort of working out what Promos we're gonna do. So that'll be the majority of the honeymoon, I think.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it's also you gotta be celebrating as well. Right, this is the. This is the make money time of the year, so when you're you might be having to work a little bit, but you know that the rewards there as well. Yeah, how do you work that?
Speaker 2:the bigger the payouts gonna be coming to this time of year definitely for me, though, like I do struggle with relaxing, like if I'm at home or even if I'm on holiday, I find it very hard just chill and do nothing, feel like I need to be working in. That's definitely my weakness. I can't switch off. Yeah, I just can't sit there and watch a movie or something.
Speaker 1:I'm like the driver I just give from the car. It means that it's helped get you to where you are. But it also means that there's no off button, unless you really fucking hungover which I know that's my Typical off button, because I've had a big night or something. I mean, when everything is clear, everything. There is no stopping. It's always. There's always something needs to be done, there's always a new goal or something need to be working towards.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, every little idea I've had recently. I've been putting it on post it notes like I'm very visual so rather than stick it in some apple reminder like I have to have to see it. So I've had so many ideas lately, like if you look at my office at the moment.
Speaker 2:Post it notes all across my monitors and all up the wall. It's just it's gone out of control now. But you're right, there's always something to consider, always something to change, and you know idea you might have a different approach. You never stop learning, at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:So yeah, cool. Well, just thanks for your time coming on today. I think that you've obviously done such outstanding job of being able to create a e-commerce business from absolute scratch like, as you said, from Facebook marketplace on desks to now doing well over a million a month in revenue and whilst traveling and and and doing whatever you want on a daily basis. It's, I guess, it's where any aspiring e-commerce entrepreneur would want to be. So thanks for taking time today to talk to us and sharing a little bit about what you do Lovely. Thank you very much, james. Thanks for listening to us today on the digital horizons podcast. We are releasing these on a weekly basis and hoping to provide guidance and information to anybody that's looking to get into the e-commerce space or digital marketing and understand what is working now, but also into the future. Thanks for listening.