Add To Cart: Australia’s eCommerce Show

Kira Macleod-Finke from The Body Shop Australia | #540

• Nathan Bush • Episode 540

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Kira Macleod-Finke is the Head of Direct-to-Consumer at The Body Shop Australia, with previous roles across iconic retail brands including T2, Country Road, Trenery, and Jeanswest. She’s led major digital transformation initiatives, including a fast-tracked Shopify replatform and a full restructure of the DTC team to unite online and in-store.

In this episode, we cover:

  • How her team is making the most of “playtime” post-Shopify replatform
  • The tech she relies on, including noise-cancelling headphones and Claude AI
  • What a 400kg backyard smoker taught her about teamwork and persistence
  • How podcasts like Nudge and Add To Cart have shaped her leadership approach

This episode was brought to you by Shippit

Check Kira’s main ATC episode here

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Checkout. We catch up with previous Add to Cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, bushy. Today's checkout features Kira McLeod-Fink, head of direct-to-consumer at the Body Shop Australia. As we all know, the Body Shop is an iconic beauty brand known for its ethical roots and strawberry-scented nostalgia. Kira shares with us how she moves this heritage beauty brand and transforms it at a speed that is uncomfortable but necessary. In this quickfire round of questions, kira shares the beauty products that customers are absolutely obsessed with and the challenges that presents when it sells out, the podcast that keeps her inspired and the AI tool that she leans on daily to sharpen strategy and streamline thinking. Let's jump in, kira. Thank you so much for joining us on the Checkout.

Speaker 1:

We had a great conversation back in our main episode about the transformation that you're doing at the Body Shop Incredible, incredible time to be there. We talked about your three-month re-platforming onto Shopify, which is just absolutely incredible. Better than 14 days. That was originally the timeframe, but we're here to learn a little bit more about you. So five quick questions. Number one what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?

Speaker 2:

I'm going to cheat on this one because it wasn't me. I didn't buy it. So through COVID we're all bored. But my husband had a significant birthday and he bought himself a 400 kilo iron smoker which is in the backyard and it's amazing and everybody loves it and I show photos of people and they're like it's like a train.

Speaker 2:

But the story behind that is they delivered it, they craned it into our front yard, no, so 400 kilos it's, it's massive and we needed it in the backyard, probably about 500 meters from where they craned it in, and so it sat in the front yard for a few weeks until we kind of, you know, got like four of the neighbors to help us drag it down the driveway, and it's not like a smooth path anyway. So then it kind of stayed, we moved it in stages and eventually we worked out. We did all kinds of things. Like you know, he was building these sort of skateboards for it. The wheels kept breaking because it was so heavy, and then we ended up. Somebody suggested why don't you just do it like the Egyptians moved the blocks for the pyramids and get some rollers?

Speaker 1:

I thought you were about to suggest get aliens to do something.

Speaker 2:

No, no aliens involved in the moving of the smoker, but PVC piping and me running around moving the pipes. So that's how we moved a 400-kilo smoker that we bought online from the front yard to the back yard.

Speaker 1:

Was it worth it? Oh, yeah, no the meat's good, All right. Number two which retailer has most inspired you recently?

Speaker 2:

So I was in a lift and I saw somebody carrying a bag and I was like that's a cool bag you know, I don't mind myself a handbag every once in a while and it had a really like the handles were quite distinctive in the pattern and I was like I don't know exactly what that is. I did not ask the person what that bag was, but then I was on my little, my little, you know, socials and flipping, and then I'm like that's that bag and it was sans beast. And then you know, obviously I was like, is it sans beast or sans beast? And obviously the, you know, google hears me. And so I started getting more and more feeds, because I paused on it and said the words out loud, like you know, there's no place like home, and I kept getting feeds for that. And yeah, I'm just like you know, just kept going and they're on shopify and happened to jump online and yeah, it was just too easy to buy a bag and so you're like well done, son's beast.

Speaker 2:

You know like good job, yeah, good job how good.

Speaker 1:

Well, at least you had the common decency to go away and Google it instead of trying to do like the sneaky lift. Google lens image of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I think you're. Yeah, I think I'm not that clever. That's the problem You've got the result.

Speaker 1:

You've got the result, all right. Number three name a piece of tech that you or your business couldn't live without.

Speaker 2:

The best physical piece of tech I ever bought, with noise-cancelling headphones and when you're doing oh like man, long haul flights and noise cancelling headphones are a match made in heaven. So if you haven't got a pair, get some. But from a tech point of view and my daughter will kill me because she's very anti-AI- your daughter's anti-AI.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she's not into it. Yeah, not into it. But Claude, which is one of the more quiet AIs you don't hear people talking about, but Claude and I we're mates now and we hang out a lot, and you know I have a lot going on in the brain. It helps me just kind of nut out an idea more often than not. So it's like help me refine this concept, help me, you know, make this actually make sense to anybody else other than me, and so I find that really useful in what I'm trying to do at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's cool. Do you have that for the whole team or is it just your personal?

Speaker 2:

No, it's just my secret. We're in a relationship there's no sharing.

Speaker 1:

No one's coming near my Claude.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no.

Speaker 1:

All right. Number four can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?

Speaker 2:

So you and I, I think, have talked about how I got into the digital space and obviously this podcast was a key factor in that. So just a shout out for this podcast. It is really good. You will learn everything you need to know.

Speaker 2:

But I love Nudge as well. I think Nudge is a really cool you know it's like 20 minutes just like a thought provoker. They really explore different topics. You know they were talking about the act of learning and and how making mistakes actually gives you better knowledge a few weeks ago, and I just love that kind of you know there's little tidbits of little little golden nuggets that you can get from podcasts like that. I'm also a big book reader, so, and one of my favorite reads is the Heart of Business by Hubert Jolly and it really is that combination of leading, you know, keeping a brand in your heart, but you know, like the commercials in your head, and I think that that's it's a great example of how to do that in big business.

Speaker 1:

It's a great, great recommendation, thank you. Last question I've got for you, Kira what is your biggest challenge today?

Speaker 2:

One of the things that I love to be able to do is say yes to things.

Speaker 1:

Sorry for pressuring you into this.

Speaker 2:

No, but you know, and right now, we're like kids in a candy store with a new app and you know we've just got so much to play with, and so right now, the headspace is let everybody just play. So say yes to things. Because, you know, we're focused on making sure that the fundamentals are done in terms of the new platform, like, conversion is our key metric, so we're driving that as hard as we can. But how do we, you know, play around with that? So we know it's working. How do we play and add on and, you know, be as additive as we possibly can? So the biggest challenge is like for me will be not today, but when do I start saying no to stuff? And I think that that's the thing that I've got, you know, kind of in the back of my mind. We're in playtime right now, but I know what can happen when you don't rein that in eventually.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, Playtime stops when the ERP re-platform starts, possibly.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we're on train. We're doing that now, awesome.

Speaker 1:

Kira, thank you so much for joining us on the Checkout. It's been my absolute pleasure. Thanks, nathan, to hear more from Kira. Jump back into episode 520, where Kira shares how she led a high-stakes three-month Shopify re-platform, restructured her entire D2C team and brought retail and digital together with a fresh new approach to customer experience. You don't want to miss that one.