00:00.490 –> 00:05.214
[SPEAKER_00]: The one thing that I’ll say to anyone that is evaluating any tools, don’t always just consider that.

00:05.694 –> 00:09.917
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because you have a best tool available in the market, it will deliver the best results.

00:10.478 –> 00:27.991
[SPEAKER_00]: Because having the fantastic tool is great for then not having the resource and availability to execute what a tool allows you to do, won’t get you the results for you to bring in a tool and deliver the ROI you need a dedicated resource to it, don’t expect tools to just comment their business and magically sing and dance and increase your revenue.

00:30.540 –> 00:32.923
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

00:33.544 –> 00:37.549
[SPEAKER_02]: Air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

00:38.070 –> 00:45.921
[SPEAKER_02]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

00:49.217 –> 00:50.558
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome.

00:50.578 –> 00:51.579
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s great to have you here.

00:51.719 –> 00:55.542
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

00:56.122 –> 01:04.268
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got a thank you to do before we get into this episode and that thank you is to Aller Cacani from Nostoe for introducing us to this brilliant guest.

01:04.408 –> 01:05.309
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Aller.

01:05.349 –> 01:06.350
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope all is good with you.

01:07.110 –> 01:25.282
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in this episode, we are doing one of those episodes where we dive into a specific job role, I suppose, in the world of Ecommerce, we’re talking to the man in charge of the D2C text at the Port Marion Groups, the huge business trading across six brands, five of which are on D2C, and we’ll be getting into

01:26.503 –> 01:48.708
[SPEAKER_01]: whether you should consolidate or test different elements in the text stack, how you go about doing that optimization of the text stack, where AI fits into it all in a whole heap more, plus for those of you who’ve been around as long as I have, prepare to thoroughly enjoy his answer to my question about how did you get started in Ecommerce because there’s a whole load of tech

01:50.908 –> 01:54.510
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of swirl up from the past and remind you of things that have gone before.

01:54.530 –> 02:01.653
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you’re younger, then prepare to have a list of things to go, what did they do?

02:01.993 –> 02:03.093
[SPEAKER_01]: What did they do then?

02:03.353 –> 02:04.674
[SPEAKER_01]: Very interesting stuff coming up.

02:05.034 –> 02:09.916
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you listen to the end so you don’t miss out on my guests top tips and my own take on this episode.

02:15.786 –> 02:17.787
[SPEAKER_01]: and now to introduce our special guest.

02:18.207 –> 02:36.431
[SPEAKER_01]: Ankit Jadav is the global head of digital operations at the Port Marion Group, home to six unique homeware and fragrance brands with a combined 750 years of trading, including Spode, Port Marion, Royal Worcester, Nambi, Pimpanel, and wax lyrical.

02:36.891 –> 02:43.933
[SPEAKER_01]: Turn over is now 110 million pounds a year of which approximately 10% is D to C. Hello, Ankit.

02:44.312 –> 02:45.013
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Chloe.

02:45.193 –> 02:46.755
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me on the podcast.

02:46.895 –> 02:47.656
[SPEAKER_00]: Pleasure to be here.

02:48.016 –> 02:49.798
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, awesome to have you here.

02:50.238 –> 02:57.626
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s always a treat for me to get to talk to someone who is in one specific area of the e-commerce business rather than trying to tackle everything.

02:57.706 –> 03:01.130
[SPEAKER_01]: So very much looking forward to talking tech with you today.

03:01.570 –> 03:04.313
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you get into e-commerce, though?

03:04.798 –> 03:07.599
[SPEAKER_00]: So my e-commerce journey started really early.

03:07.920 –> 03:13.062
[SPEAKER_00]: I say about 23 years ago when I was first introduced to Microsoft front page.

03:13.082 –> 03:17.664
[SPEAKER_00]: So some of your listeners might have helped to Google that 23 years ago, long time ago.

03:17.704 –> 03:24.848
[SPEAKER_00]: So back then, you know, created a basic page in, if you’ve looked at it from a point of view from today’s technology.

03:25.408 –> 03:31.109
[SPEAKER_00]: by just found the whole concept of HTML code, fonts, colors, the alignments and layouts.

03:31.509 –> 03:35.950
[SPEAKER_00]: Very interesting was very geeky thing to do back then, but it was always interesting to me.

03:36.510 –> 03:41.511
[SPEAKER_00]: And then sort of following on from that, when I was in university, we had a module for internet development.

03:41.631 –> 03:46.492
[SPEAKER_00]: So, whereby created a basic, again session-based website using Adobe DreamEver.

03:46.772 –> 03:48.973
[SPEAKER_00]: Another throwback, there’s some of you might have the Google.

03:49.553 –> 03:55.216
[SPEAKER_00]: And then following on from that it was, I was intrigued, but there was a website around called don’t click the IT.

03:55.956 –> 03:58.057
[SPEAKER_00]: If you try going on to it now, it doesn’t exist.

03:58.417 –> 04:03.319
[SPEAKER_00]: But the whole background around that website was navigating a website without a click.

04:03.879 –> 04:08.822
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, that was interesting because internet was still in its infancy as I see it.

04:09.302 –> 04:13.844
[SPEAKER_00]: So then I created my final year project based on that using Adobe Flash.

04:14.064 –> 04:16.285
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of that experience was very interesting.

04:17.085 –> 04:23.309
[SPEAKER_00]: Long nights didn’t have air back then, it was a lot of stack overflow and it was all a whole lot of trial and error.

04:24.129 –> 04:34.615
[SPEAKER_00]: And then sort of moving away from that after the university, I just played around with the HTML, the CSS, the PHPs, and just the basic JavaScript to understand how everything worked.

04:35.975 –> 04:41.737
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I bought a domain, created my website, and tried hosting my first ever portfolio website.

04:42.577 –> 04:48.139
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have my fully optimized code somewhere amongst my files.

04:48.539 –> 04:51.780
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not mobile responsive, but I was where I was then.

04:52.500 –> 05:05.046
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I spent a lot of time understanding CMS systems, things like WordPress, June, LaDruple, and just get my bearings on how the backend work with these front-end languages, and that’s how I started into it.

05:05.706 –> 05:13.970
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I understood it, then my first role was for a five-man team based in Nottingham, and that role was really my eye opener.

05:14.470 –> 05:26.597
[SPEAKER_00]: into word of e-comm because that’s where I started from the I started on a apprenticeship scheme really and kind of got lucky getting into e-comm considering the lady that was there previously she didn’t come back from her leave.

05:27.017 –> 05:36.322
[SPEAKER_00]: So the role was handed over to me, started in customer service, phones, phone calls, answering emails, and then upgraded to the website maintenance sort of things.

05:37.583 –> 05:44.846
[SPEAKER_00]: ablating content, adding products, creating promotions, doing SEO optimization work, all of that on the custom build platform.

05:45.627 –> 05:54.491
[SPEAKER_00]: And then got further involved into things like eBay and Amazon management through the point where I eventually I was managing the whole fulfilment by Amazon process.

05:54.571 –> 06:07.137
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s where by you bring the products into your warehouse, you’d label them, you send them ink to the Amazon warehouse, make sure everything is received and you are constantly replenishing quantities, looking after your mind isn’t making sure everything is healthy.

06:07.717 –> 06:15.943
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was a lot of hands on there from order printing, hacking, labeling and loading and not loading it on to the career events at the end of the day.

06:16.924 –> 06:20.467
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where I got my first sort of interaction with the agenda one as well.

06:20.667 –> 06:26.772
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, going on from there, those are really, really an eye opener into e-commerce.

06:26.912 –> 06:32.136
[SPEAKER_00]: Really gave me a strong foundation to sort of build up on within how budget’s then because it was a fireman team.

06:32.636 –> 06:34.477
[SPEAKER_00]: So there wasn’t signing up for additional services.

06:34.597 –> 06:39.661
[SPEAKER_00]: If you needed something done, you had to use your creative problems, problem-solving skills.

06:40.041 –> 06:45.065
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, you know, nowadays everyone has API integration with the likes of a program, I was an EPDs.

06:45.825 –> 06:59.675
[SPEAKER_00]: The curious, we didn’t have that, so it was the case of learning, creating a CSV for a URL, uploading the CSV on the URL, and then printing out 500 labels, and then at the end of the year, mandatory channel label, these packages to get them to go up, really.

07:00.215 –> 07:17.266
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, that was my first and then sort of continuing on to my journey, my second role landed me into the into an SME based in Lester and for them I was initially on boarded to work on the eBay and Amazon account because of the experience that had previously.

07:18.007 –> 07:21.191
[SPEAKER_00]: But the business had the need to move from the desktop base platform.

07:21.332 –> 07:31.947
[SPEAKER_00]: I said with a platform called Actinic again simply will simulate the dream level So not really scalable or robust at that point for whether businesses was trying to get what by the business was heading into

07:32.788 –> 07:40.535
[SPEAKER_00]: And considering that’s where the mobile optimizer website was coming into play, it was really imperative for the business to be on the platform that allows them to do that.

07:41.196 –> 07:46.100
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s where we picked a magenta, or what’s now called referred to as Adobe Commas Cloud.

07:47.121 –> 07:51.585
[SPEAKER_00]: And the agency that we worked with was bit slow at responding and we had time lent it.

07:51.765 –> 07:57.571
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had to get it live before the peak trading period nature was functioning, going to the testing, et cetera, et cetera.

07:58.191 –> 08:09.396
[SPEAKER_00]: So the business made a decision of bringing it in house and because of the hands-on experience that had previously and the worker had done, they basically sort of gave me the key and said, gone, you can do it now.

08:10.156 –> 08:23.222
[SPEAKER_00]: So then there was a lot of hands-on there as well trying to go from the the magenta installation, configuration, the theme management, the running of it on the day-to-day process mapping, a lot of

08:24.082 –> 08:30.284
[SPEAKER_00]: Excel data manipulation to get in the right order, and that was also the first time I worked with head offshore team.

08:30.324 –> 08:34.706
[SPEAKER_00]: So briefing and how the execution comes about was a new thing to me at that time as well.

08:35.726 –> 08:38.487
[SPEAKER_00]: And to add on top of that, there was an project management tool.

08:38.747 –> 08:41.488
[SPEAKER_00]: No G error, no click up, no Trello, nothing.

08:41.548 –> 08:42.989
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a case of now.

08:43.069 –> 08:47.070
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you can interpret it however you wanted, but it was JFYI mode.

08:47.911 –> 09:03.285
[SPEAKER_00]: If whatever you want to fool it, just yeah, the backlog, sprints, prioritizing stories, so yeah, quite quite an experience working as an in-house developer slash an admin slash, you know, to go to guy.

09:03.825 –> 09:09.791
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where I go exposed into the world of sort of website security, payments, PC IDSS.

09:10.231 –> 09:12.293
[SPEAKER_00]: So quite a learning curve there really.

09:12.853 –> 09:19.420
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we also implemented a PIM and a RMS system because the business was multi-channel-oriented.

09:19.580 –> 09:22.622
[SPEAKER_00]: So we sold on the website as well as the eBay and the Amazon’s.

09:23.383 –> 09:29.604
[SPEAKER_00]: and because the business was expanding, managing the daily operation of printing the orders, labelling, etc.

09:29.624 –> 09:29.904
[SPEAKER_00]: etc.

09:29.924 –> 09:31.685
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just taking time.

09:31.925 –> 09:35.886
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of people doing this manual task, we need to be need to automate it.

09:36.466 –> 09:38.086
[SPEAKER_00]: So we implemented that system as well.

09:38.586 –> 09:45.768
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I said remember being sat on the floor on the first day of launch, being fully exhausted because you can go through integrations,

09:47.968 –> 09:50.550
[SPEAKER_00]: but when it’s goal-life time, that’s when it really hits the fan.

09:50.570 –> 09:53.431
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, quite an experience there.

09:53.492 –> 10:06.640
[SPEAKER_00]: So, going from the hands on exposure to implementing a platform, and then you’re only naturally made sense to go into the agency side of things, to work with an agency based investor.

10:07.180 –> 10:21.727
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a case of taking the experience I had, but turning down to a bigger scale and sort of a single project you worked on three or four life projects at a time, go from kickoff, design, front end build, back end work, managing the integrations, testing,

10:22.407 –> 10:48.399
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m going live really and I really allow me to home in on the multiple E-Com platforms that I work with now We don’t from the likes of that will become as cloud big commerce shopify and the external tools and the third part is that still work with currently They will really allow me to get into those these house and although I started on the role as a project manager When I went came towards the end I was acting more as a technology architect.

10:48.539 –> 10:51.100
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was wonderful and after all of that

10:51.880 –> 10:53.302
[SPEAKER_00]: Here I am at Port Marying Group.

10:53.322 –> 10:56.485
[SPEAKER_00]: So take all of that, bundle it into a nice little package.

10:56.565 –> 11:07.475
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is where I manage now the four B2C from stack, manage the budgets, setting the vision and strategy for the tech unit, manage the RFP process.

11:07.776 –> 11:14.602
[SPEAKER_00]: When the selection, conversion negotiations, the legal sort of thing on boarding, execution and handover.

11:14.802 –> 11:16.224
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, here I am.

11:16.818 –> 11:19.120
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that that run-down you’ve just given us.

11:19.180 –> 11:21.062
[SPEAKER_01]: I get there was so many tech things.

11:21.122 –> 11:21.803
[SPEAKER_01]: I was good.

11:21.963 –> 11:35.135
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember acting at the website on a CD-ROM and DreamWeaver, gosh, I did a DreamWeaver course in Levington’s Spa, I think, back in the day for some unknown reason.

11:35.856 –> 11:37.618
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, love, love that run-down.

11:37.698 –> 11:40.460
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think if you didn’t have

11:41.481 –> 11:52.206
[SPEAKER_01]: such a background in the coding side of it, you know, then the hands on part you be able to do because like I’m I’m assuming most of your job these days doesn’t involve a great deal of coding.

11:52.246 –> 12:01.770
[SPEAKER_01]: So do you think you’d be as good managing the text like if you didn’t have that deep knowledge of the the actual code itself or in all its forms.

12:02.313 –> 12:15.576
[SPEAKER_00]: In my view, no, just because having that understanding the how the code side integrations just understanding how the background works, it allows the easy conversation with the developers or the project managers.

12:15.776 –> 12:21.698
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also puts you in the front seat in a way, because you, because you’re worked on it, you know what it takes.

12:21.858 –> 12:29.479
[SPEAKER_00]: So when the developer or the project manager come back to you over the challenge, that means if they say it’s X, you agree with X.

12:29.559 –> 12:31.520
[SPEAKER_00]: If there’s a X and you know for a fact,

12:32.761 –> 12:55.701
[SPEAKER_00]: other bits behind you can query them a bit further and it’s not just the challenging bits also the learning experience as well because you know the development side of things is always evolving so the more you query read them the more information you get back the more you are understanding it further as well so it just allows your personal development and your last-for-strong relationship I mean some of the partners that we’ve had in the business they’ve been there for quite a long time and

12:56.782 –> 13:08.274
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s one of those where I know if something was to happen, if there’s a priority issue, or if it was to hit the fan, I know they will help my back for a fact, and that’s where I’ve got to know.

13:08.970 –> 13:23.743
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other, you know, preparing for this interview, the one question I really wanted to ask you, because I’ve got many years ago was the E-commerce manager in charge of six or seven different mail order brands, right?

13:24.003 –> 13:26.605
[SPEAKER_01]: So businesses with budget but no idea what to do online.

13:27.746 –> 13:35.229
[SPEAKER_01]: And the deliberation I found was, should I build them all on different text acts?

13:35.449 –> 13:39.791
[SPEAKER_01]: So as I’ve got different things I can test, you know, you can actually live test.

13:39.851 –> 13:43.052
[SPEAKER_01]: Should we be on, I know Shopify, should we be on a daily commerce class?

13:43.072 –> 13:47.994
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ll build one on each and then we’ll do the rest of them on whatever wins the test.

13:48.494 –> 13:50.495
[SPEAKER_01]: Or do you go for consolidation?

13:51.555 –> 13:52.976
[SPEAKER_01]: what’s your approach?

13:53.236 –> 13:57.678
[SPEAKER_01]: I listen as I always face as I was saying, I think I don’t know where we’re going with this.

13:58.058 –> 14:05.062
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but, and can you go consolidation one tech stack for all six brands or do you put some testing in there as well?

14:05.610 –> 14:12.212
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, for when you should say that, because coincidentally, it was just last year that would be into a consolidation tech stack.

14:12.372 –> 14:17.113
[SPEAKER_00]: So I inherited originally a Salesforce commerce cloud and Adobe commerce cloud.

14:17.794 –> 14:33.098
[SPEAKER_00]: And while it is wonderful to how we are multiple platforms, the management of it, the data management, not just, you know, from the e-commerce or a tech stack perspective, but just a daily content administration, the pricing and everything that goes into it.

14:33.598 –> 14:39.623
[SPEAKER_00]: becomes a bit convoluted whereby you’re not doing your best work because you’re just trying to get it going.

14:39.663 –> 14:48.431
[SPEAKER_00]: So having it on multiple platforms, if you have bigger teams and you can scale those teams, then it’s a great resource to have.

14:48.471 –> 14:50.533
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately for us, that wasn’t the case.

14:50.733 –> 14:56.858
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had those two platforms at the end of the day, we had to pick one where we could have our technology set onto.

14:57.679 –> 15:03.704
[SPEAKER_00]: So, as of January this year, all five of our websites that all now have live in Adobe Commerce Cloud.

15:04.144 –> 15:05.585
[SPEAKER_01]: Consolidation all the way then.

15:06.066 –> 15:06.646
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes indeed.

15:06.846 –> 15:18.876
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we’re sort of rolling even further now, because now that the platform is consolidated, now we’re looking across the multiple tools that we have as well to go which one to be consolidated all of our services into.

15:18.896 –> 15:23.600
[SPEAKER_00]: So, then we have one ESP provider, one PIM and so on and so forth.

15:23.620 –> 15:25.302
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it’s a continual process.

15:25.833 –> 15:47.759
[SPEAKER_01]: And is it also something which, you know, in the e-commerce tech stack space, the ecosystem at the moment, we are seeing tools doing ever more things, you know, blurring of the lines between, I mean, loyalty affiliates and retention as a bad example more of a marketing example than a tech stack example, but those blurring of lines between things so as well as.

15:49.093 –> 15:52.637
[SPEAKER_01]: consolidating so all your brands are using the same ESP.

15:52.697 –> 16:00.806
[SPEAKER_01]: You also going, well actually, we don’t need a separate this and that because this one tool will cover what three tools are doing previously does that come into your thinking.

16:01.544 –> 16:11.430
[SPEAKER_00]: So in terms of our consolidation view, we are continuously reviewing our text stack, just because you have a best of brief solutions in less safe search, for example.

16:11.530 –> 16:15.272
[SPEAKER_00]: And then all of a sudden, they will offer recommendation or a merchandising.

16:15.672 –> 16:29.560
[SPEAKER_00]: But then when you go through that RFP process with them, you quickly find out that this specific tool that really good at search and let’s just stick with search on them just because of the ROI you receive as compared to having that all in one tool.

16:30.480 –> 16:35.842
[SPEAKER_00]: There are other providers that do really good job of them, but they’re just not within our budget right now.

16:35.922 –> 16:38.382
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to have them, but we are just not there yet.

16:39.223 –> 16:44.084
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s not just going, let’s have fewer tools for the sake of fewer tools.

16:44.324 –> 16:54.227
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the price and the budget and it’s what gives us the best results and what’s already in place, I suppose, as well.

16:54.247 –> 16:56.008
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s a lot of factors you’re having to bring together.

16:56.468 –> 17:22.634
[SPEAKER_00]: absolutely and the one thing that I’ll say to anyone that is evaluating any tools don’t always just consider that just because you have a best tool available in the market it would deliver the best results because having the fantastic tool is great for then not having the resource and availability to execute what a tool allows you to do won’t get you the results for you to bring in a tool and deliver the ROI you need a dedicated resource to a don’t expect tool to just

17:27.055 –> 17:29.017
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so many of us make that error.

17:29.137 –> 17:31.298
[SPEAKER_01]: I was gonna say so many people, but no, it’s us.

17:31.478 –> 17:32.299
[SPEAKER_01]: I do it as well.

17:32.339 –> 17:35.821
[SPEAKER_01]: You buy the tool and think you’ve, you’ve solved the problems like back at uni.

17:35.861 –> 17:40.084
[SPEAKER_01]: If I scan the book, if I fail to copy the article, it’s the same as reading it.

17:40.184 –> 17:40.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, Chloe.

17:40.905 –> 17:41.965
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish that was really good.

17:42.406 –> 17:43.867
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

17:43.947 –> 17:44.427
[SPEAKER_01]: If only.

17:44.987 –> 17:49.490
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, what does your team look like?

17:50.031 –> 17:53.653
[SPEAKER_01]: And you go, go wider across the D to C channels, if you want to with this.

17:54.117 –> 17:57.199
[SPEAKER_00]: So our team, we are a, no lies here.

17:57.219 –> 17:59.380
[SPEAKER_00]: We are a lean, mean operating machine.

17:59.481 –> 18:02.002
[SPEAKER_00]: We, you know, spread across five brands.

18:02.482 –> 18:05.344
[SPEAKER_00]: There is eight of us, which is a global team base in UK.

18:05.685 –> 18:11.769
[SPEAKER_00]: We are spread across trading, content, merchandising, admin, and technical projects.

18:11.889 –> 18:18.033
[SPEAKER_00]: And sort of as of what I’ve alluded to earlier, we are supported by some incredible partners that we’ve had over the number of years.

18:18.493 –> 18:21.575
[SPEAKER_00]: But strong, very, very, very strong relationships.

18:22.265 –> 18:27.251
[SPEAKER_01]: And that eight is that doing the marketing as well or is that purely keeping the websites running?

18:27.612 –> 18:29.755
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s marketing, that’s website marketing as well.

18:29.835 –> 18:36.724
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s a, yeah, it’s a quite a big task, but somehow the team plouter it and we still deliver results.

18:37.398 –> 18:53.061
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s impressive and I I suppose it till to run it so leanly you can’t do what I was just you know just implement everything and run it and see what happens and then test it afterwards you’ve got to do that to diligence really well before you make those decisions.

18:53.732 –> 18:53.832
[SPEAKER_00]: it.

18:54.472 –> 18:59.313
[SPEAKER_00]: And it goes into that prior to the Moscow, the must-have should-have could-have.

18:59.693 –> 19:02.894
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s going to deliver the highest value with the lowest amount of effort?

19:02.954 –> 19:04.054
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s get implemented first.

19:04.115 –> 19:08.015
[SPEAKER_00]: So then you’re almost when it comes to creating a business cases.

19:08.135 –> 19:21.219
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re releasing the value from a ex-solution or ex-initiative before you’re able to go back to the people that signed the checks and say, hey, now I need ex-amman for this solution because we did this ex-test and looked at

19:23.240 –> 19:26.047
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s how you incrementally build your toolset.

19:26.208 –> 19:30.800
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s all about building the right toolset as I said previously and not just having the tool for the sake of it.

19:31.708 –> 19:37.831
[SPEAKER_01]: And you’re running five brands on the DDC platforms globally.

19:39.251 –> 19:49.036
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you, I suppose, from the tech stack perspective, it’s a little bit easier to work at how to prioritize because you’re building a consolidated tech stack across everything.

19:49.596 –> 19:53.658
[SPEAKER_01]: But as a team to decide, are we going to spend all our time

19:54.418 –> 20:03.186
[SPEAKER_01]: working on website A versus website D. How do you, is it purely based on sales where the effort gets put in or is it potential sales?

20:03.947 –> 20:05.128
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s mixed up both.

20:05.168 –> 20:16.438
[SPEAKER_00]: So because we are UK and US, if US have a specific day coming up, like come and coming up the June, they would have so a fourth of July, then that will get a lot more effort than the UK of website.

20:16.899 –> 20:17.319
[SPEAKER_00]: We know for

20:20.582 –> 20:26.688
[SPEAKER_00]: consumers, they’re more attracted to our Christmas offerings, but that and launch will get more attention than it will get on the UK one.

20:26.708 –> 20:40.780
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s all about the big channel, it’s performing at what level, what events are coming up, what promotional activities we’ve got planned, what product launches we’ve got planned, you know what pricing strategies we’ve got plans, it’s a mix of multiple factors in a way.

20:41.635 –> 20:47.599
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, given you such a text, that can expert in the e-commerce space, no pressure, no pressure.

20:48.500 –> 20:55.724
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, you’ve just done last year, you’ve been doing the big platform consolidation and getting the right platform.

20:56.385 –> 21:01.588
[SPEAKER_01]: What for you are the next must have pieces of tech for an e-commerce story?

21:01.608 –> 21:03.950
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the decisions you really don’t want to get wrong.

21:04.687 –> 21:07.669
[SPEAKER_00]: So the next key one for us is a CDP.

21:07.889 –> 21:09.209
[SPEAKER_00]: So customer data platform.

21:09.690 –> 21:14.052
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that we’ve got our tech in one place, now it’s all about let’s understand our customers.

21:14.312 –> 21:19.535
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s understand how they’re interacting with the websites, the touch points which they’re interacting with.

21:20.115 –> 21:24.836
[SPEAKER_00]: And once we’ve got that idea, then it’s flipping out on its head in terms of personalization.

21:24.937 –> 21:34.299
[SPEAKER_00]: So now of the customers, if customers visited the website once from, let’s say, paid for example, when they come in the next time, they should see an experience which is tailored to them.

21:34.319 –> 21:42.722
[SPEAKER_00]: So if they’ll click on a specific product, a specific collection, whatever have you, when they’ll land on the website, they’re seeing something that’s more catered towards them.

21:42.742 –> 21:46.323
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a really increased chance of that customer converting.

21:46.857 –> 21:53.027
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s CDP next in order to enable personalization on the website and across marketing.

21:53.709 –> 21:56.373
[SPEAKER_00]: Currently it’s just across our websites and not the retail.

21:56.393 –> 22:00.300
[SPEAKER_00]: So we haven’t opened up that kind of one that multi-channel is at the moment.

22:01.198 –> 22:04.602
[SPEAKER_01]: Fair enough is a whole other level of complexity.

22:04.923 –> 22:05.623
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes, indeed.

22:05.904 –> 22:08.727
[SPEAKER_01]: And dare I ask you about AI?

22:08.747 –> 22:15.274
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s so much noise in our space at the moment about AI being the bringer of everything.

22:15.515 –> 22:20.600
[SPEAKER_01]: Clearly, you have some serious knowledge both of our tech ecosystem and

22:21.341 –> 22:26.209
[SPEAKER_01]: with coding and new tools and new things coming in over your careers, you ran us three.

22:26.990 –> 22:28.832
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s your take on AI?

22:28.893 –> 22:33.840
[SPEAKER_01]: You busy implementing it across the business, if you’re not done anything yet, where do you think you’ll start?

22:34.301 –> 22:35.222
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s your take on it all?

22:35.815 –> 22:44.741
[SPEAKER_00]: So in terms of, we have, I say we, at some of us have started using AI just to understand the current processes and how we can optimize it.

22:45.221 –> 22:55.348
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we haven’t rolled it out to the wider business just because before you do, you take on such a brave steps, you need to have a couple of policies surrounding it because if you give it to people,

22:56.028 –> 23:01.895
[SPEAKER_00]: There will push a whole lot of data into the ask it questions and not knowing where the data goes into.

23:01.995 –> 23:04.137
[SPEAKER_00]: That opens up privacy questions.

23:04.218 –> 23:07.982
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are keeping it to a certain number of people really.

23:08.803 –> 23:12.347
[SPEAKER_00]: And we will also establish sort of like AI working group internally.

23:12.847 –> 23:27.421
[SPEAKER_00]: So between some of us that have the working knowledge of various processes within the business, we are effectively sticking all of them in a list and kind of picking a process that we could optimize using AI and all of that we are doing internally right now.

23:28.402 –> 23:29.783
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of extending that

23:31.665 –> 23:41.730
[SPEAKER_00]: I still like to dip in and out of the coding side of things so I kind of use your Claude co-work as my coding partner as I’m going through it as I’m going through my personal website.

23:41.810 –> 23:44.812
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just to understand what the can’t what’s its can’t do.

23:45.272 –> 23:50.775
[SPEAKER_00]: Also when it comes to troubleshooting issues in the website every now and then when you see things and instead of

23:51.455 –> 24:03.058
[SPEAKER_00]: And the previous previously working of Stack Overflow’s Google, so whatever have you now, we have this real-time companion in a way that you can ask a question and you get the answers and they will set you in the right direction.

24:03.078 –> 24:04.819
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s how we approaching it.

24:04.859 –> 24:08.480
[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve got a couple of tools that offer these AR solutions.

24:08.620 –> 24:16.863
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I get a lot of AR experts reaching out to me about how they can solve all the issues, but I haven’t seen anything that’s blowing me out.

24:16.983 –> 24:18.283
[SPEAKER_00]: It has amazed me, so far.

24:19.455 –> 24:35.469
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can get one of my theories around AI and tell me if I’m way off base with this or if you agree, is that actually any commerce the biggest impact with AI is gonna come from it being built into the tools we already use.

24:36.370 –> 24:44.916
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, our merchandising system, our CDP, our website, et cetera, et cetera, rather than it being the team generating marketing graphics.

24:45.256 –> 24:58.505
[SPEAKER_01]: And it feels like just to add another question in there for you, that a lot of the e-commerce tech tools are now building in AI elements on the backend that we use and sometimes on the customer and as well, are you seeing that?

24:59.492 –> 25:18.750
[SPEAKER_00]: yes indeed so the backend wise having AR tools is incredible now because instead of the team having to load them go through multiple reports and get the answers that they need they can ask the question they have the number although sometimes you do have to go to a check it because I’ve seen a couple of examples where the AR will come back with an answer where that’s not

25:19.350 –> 25:20.531
[SPEAKER_00]: what the reports are suggesting.

25:20.551 –> 25:23.612
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s the internal reporting system.

25:23.652 –> 25:27.334
[SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to front and side of things, the AI is incredible.

25:27.394 –> 25:44.301
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are really looking at unlocking that next phase, which is the personalization going on from CDP because that’s whereby if the user comes in and depending on how they browse the website, the next time they come in, the website descriptions and how the website is presented to them,

25:50.725 –> 25:55.586
[SPEAKER_02]: The Ecommerce Masterplan is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.

25:55.706 –> 26:03.828
[SPEAKER_02]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

26:03.989 –> 26:05.869
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s time for the top tips round.

26:08.450 –> 26:15.812
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, I love this section because me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level, Ankit, are you ready for the top tips?

26:16.392 –> 26:16.912
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes indeed.

26:17.333 –> 26:18.655
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, the booktop tip.

26:18.776 –> 26:25.668
[SPEAKER_01]: If everyone listening to this podcast, agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?

26:26.425 –> 26:27.225
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve got two books.

26:27.685 –> 26:29.966
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them is to get the internal files started.

26:30.186 –> 26:36.329
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other one is to keep you balanced as you’re on the path of achieving whatever goes you might have.

26:36.549 –> 26:38.149
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s a ding-yang concept.

26:38.589 –> 26:46.272
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first one before I mention the book name is the quote from the author, which I’ve got it sort of printed and labeled in my head now as well, since the quote is quite simple.

26:46.812 –> 26:53.555
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s, if you think of the price of winning this too high, wait until you get the bill of regret, because that bill is generational.

26:54.435 –> 27:20.604
[SPEAKER_00]: really powerful quote there and that quote is from Tim Grover and if there are any basketball fans listening to this he was the athletic trainer for in my view the greatest of all time Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and the book his book is relentless and it’s pretty much all in the title really you know strip away it gives you that mentality to strip away the excuses and go after what it really takes to perform at the highest level when it matters the most so that’s the first one.

27:21.064 –> 27:25.667
[SPEAKER_00]: and whether you implement it in your personal life or professional life, it really gets the fire started.

27:26.328 –> 27:31.551
[SPEAKER_00]: The second one is to sort of keep your balance and that’s the daily stomach by Ryan Holiday.

27:32.051 –> 27:39.816
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, unlike the other books, this is simply one page a day and it’s using that ancient wisdom for more than life.

27:40.157 –> 27:43.479
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps you building them into resilience and that clarity.

27:44.199 –> 27:45.200
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are my two books.

27:45.934 –> 27:49.877
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the balance between the balanced book and the fire book.

27:50.218 –> 27:51.279
[SPEAKER_01]: Great recommendations.

27:51.299 –> 27:51.999
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Anke.

27:52.119 –> 27:58.545
[SPEAKER_01]: And traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?

27:59.480 –> 28:07.301
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the keeping of the inclusion of organic traffic needs to be on top of everyone’s mind at all times.

28:07.601 –> 28:24.724
[SPEAKER_00]: The one key tip is, keep your products depending on which market you are, keep your products story or orientated and take your customers on that storytelling journey, make it so that when your customers are thinking of your industry or the products that you when you compare it to

28:29.565 –> 28:40.115
[SPEAKER_00]: Funnel where customer comes in and you’re looking to sell them, get them, get into the storyteller and really get your customer to understand the business, the history, and what you’re offering.

28:40.676 –> 28:43.118
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice, okay, tool-top tip.

28:43.338 –> 28:47.803
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone-up, or just a way of working.

28:47.923 –> 28:52.527
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?

28:53.365 –> 28:53.865
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

28:54.126 –> 28:57.307
[SPEAKER_00]: Mine is the Pomodoro focus to do list.

28:57.367 –> 28:59.749
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a simple concept of 25 and 5.

28:59.769 –> 29:03.071
[SPEAKER_00]: So you work on whatever task you may have for 25 minutes.

29:03.591 –> 29:12.076
[SPEAKER_00]: Take a five minute break, get you to just walk away from your desk, refresh, recharge, and you’ll get back in, get back into swing of things.

29:12.636 –> 29:15.458
[SPEAKER_00]: I use it very simply just to list everything that I have.

29:15.878 –> 29:34.760
[SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes I find there will throw you got physical written notes having to fill it through them back and forth Takes a bit takes your time whereas I keep it in a way so that all my tasks are organized I keep my notes in there so when I pick them up the next day I don’t need to refresh myself I’ve got myself in a reminder of what I need to do in a carry on from there

29:35.180 –> 29:37.762
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other tool I would just say is get yourself an AI buddy.

29:38.202 –> 29:46.747
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can throw ideas back and forth and you can move on with your… Whatever idea you may have into something big if there is a rationale behind it.

29:47.467 –> 29:49.809
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice couple of tips in there like here.

29:49.829 –> 29:51.230
[SPEAKER_01]: The carbon top tip.

29:51.670 –> 29:55.252
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

29:55.993 –> 30:01.958
[SPEAKER_00]: So luckily we have a sustainability team here at Port Marion and they’re always on top of search initiatives.

30:01.998 –> 30:05.220
[SPEAKER_00]: So they are constantly reviewing the packaging used in materials.

30:05.600 –> 30:07.742
[SPEAKER_00]: We work with careers that have EV in them.

30:08.463 –> 30:15.928
[SPEAKER_00]: We have sensor lights throughout the warehouse and the warehouse and the offices and they also go energy efficient boats implemented.

30:15.988 –> 30:17.610
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, all cool to see them.

30:18.110 –> 30:23.614
[SPEAKER_01]: And huge impacts all of those on the bottom line as well as the carbon footprint.

30:25.122 –> 30:32.584
[SPEAKER_01]: very much so okay and get before we say goodbye could you please let us know when you can find you and put Mary in on the web and social media.

30:33.244 –> 30:43.687
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely so on the web we are uh portmarion.co.uk, spode.co.uk if you are from the US portmarion.com spode.com and number.com.

30:44.203 –> 30:48.149
[SPEAKER_01]: simple as that, everybody and thank you so much for coming on the show.

30:48.490 –> 30:55.100
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s been great diving into the world of the tech stack, optimiser I suppose, so thank you so much for being here.

30:55.741 –> 30:56.563
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me again.

31:02.416 –> 31:10.681
[SPEAKER_01]: fascinating to dive into Ankit’s world there, and I think lots of bits and pieces I find quite fascinating in there.

31:11.502 –> 31:20.648
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, you know, a lovely reminder for those of us who’ve been around for long enough of all those tools we’ve used over the years, and he’s kind of how he got into

31:24.370 –> 31:29.473
[SPEAKER_01]: Not the slowness, but the consideredness of how they are going about consolidating the text.

31:29.493 –> 31:33.036
[SPEAKER_01]: You get one bit right, then you find there won’t bit that’s going to make the most different.

31:33.616 –> 31:43.963
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m sure a customer data platform is not the easiest next step to take after doing your web platform, but obviously it’s one that’s going to make huge impacts on the business.

31:44.543 –> 31:51.208
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you get your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we discussed by heading over to ecommercemasterplan.com.

31:51.588 –> 32:02.374
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also use a direct episode short links just put ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll be redirected straight to the right episode page.

32:02.834 –> 32:08.918
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get to the website you can also add yourself to the email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other things I share to help you.

32:09.418 –> 32:25.039
[SPEAKER_01]: If you like this episode, then make sure you check out episode 285 with Ainsley Pete from Cox and Cox for more homewares insights, and if you want more homewares than that, then ECMP.info4sash home for that.

32:25.720 –> 32:30.961
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode that you do of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

32:31.241 –> 32:43.625
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including encouraging businesses and consumers to make more sustainable buying decisions.

32:43.705 –> 32:49.346
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

32:49.706 –> 32:50.767
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever great week and don’t

32:55.428 –> 32:58.732
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.

32:59.193 –> 33:04.079
[SPEAKER_02]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.