00:00.031 –> 00:14.246
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I get an order that comes in and I see that it’s from a customer name I do not know So I just had one in good example would be a lady in Aberdeen or did this morning a lovely top So I rang her and I just say I just wanted to let you know You’re speaking to the owner.

00:14.306 –> 00:15.967
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s lovely to have your order.

00:16.028 –> 00:19.351
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for that Can I help you with anything to do with sizing?

00:19.611 –> 00:24.216
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I talk to you at all about you know the item you’ve bought just to check you’ve got the right color way

00:24.196 –> 00:34.150
[SPEAKER_00]: She feels that she has had a quasi bespoke experience that would emulate what would happen if she came into my shop.

00:34.170 –> 00:36.553
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

00:37.114 –> 00:41.180
[SPEAKER_01]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

00:41.721 –> 00:49.832
[SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the highly to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

00:52.242 –> 00:54.545
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome, it’s great to have you here.

00:54.585 –> 00:58.730
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen at the one of our inspiring guests.

00:59.010 –> 01:00.853
[SPEAKER_02]: A short intro this time.

01:00.873 –> 01:06.479
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to say thanks to past guests, Janice Thomas for another great guest introduction.

01:06.840 –> 01:19.195
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you, Janice, and in this episode, we are talking to a smaller than usual business, but you’ll understand why, as you get into the episode, we’re talking to someone running a women’s fashion boutique.

01:19.175 –> 01:31.908
[SPEAKER_02]: with a bricks store and a clicks store so online and off-lied and she’s going to be sharing how she’s going about building the brand and the customer experience into everything they’re doing across both channels.

01:32.849 –> 01:40.456
[SPEAKER_02]: As is often the case, there are some amazing tips coming up, especially the traffic, a top tip when we get to that section of the interview.

01:40.496 –> 01:44.220
[SPEAKER_02]: So make sure you listen right to the end so you don’t miss out on any of it.

01:49.735 –> 01:51.778
[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest.

01:51.979 –> 01:55.385
[SPEAKER_02]: Hillary Lard is the owner at Wardrobe at the Cross.

01:55.805 –> 01:57.348
[SPEAKER_02]: A woman’s fashion boutique.

01:57.708 –> 02:06.944
[SPEAKER_02]: Launched in 2023, they sell via their physical high street store and via their Shopify website and have already built to hundreds of orders a week.

02:07.044 –> 02:08.166
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Hill.

02:08.146 –> 02:09.469
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey there, Clare, how are you?

02:09.770 –> 02:10.291
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m good.

02:10.411 –> 02:26.728
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m really excited to get to talk to you because I think I’m a slight spoiler alert people here, but I always think that the smaller businesses can teach so much to the bigger businesses and I don’t think that’s anywhere more so than in the bricks and clicks.

02:26.708 –> 02:27.229
[SPEAKER_02]: space.

02:27.249 –> 02:30.033
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s very, very cool to have you on the show.

02:30.093 –> 02:33.157
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you get into this world of e-commerce?

02:33.197 –> 02:36.762
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what on earth led you to start a bricks and clicks?

02:37.303 –> 02:40.147
[SPEAKER_02]: Women’s fashion boutique in 2020, 23.

02:40.167 –> 02:45.595
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve worked in the world of e-common digital since

02:45.575 –> 02:47.838
[SPEAKER_00]: really the inception of e-command digital.

02:47.858 –> 02:51.723
[SPEAKER_00]: So my background is firmly in the women’s fashion space.

02:51.763 –> 02:53.285
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve done a lot of that kind of thing.

02:53.866 –> 02:55.568
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve worked in brick and mortar.

02:55.668 –> 02:59.132
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve worked in businesses where digital was nascent.

02:59.253 –> 03:03.097
[SPEAKER_00]: So started my career with the Kingfisher group on a graduate training scheme.

03:03.158 –> 03:08.224
[SPEAKER_00]: When that group owned B&Q and Superdrog and Woolworths and all of that,

03:08.204 –> 03:33.992
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were right, we’re talking 1999, 2000, right back at the beginning of e-commerce, when websites were a lad, you know, and these were tiny websites strung together with bits of string, but we were just working out how to generate online orders, very interesting times, actually did a lot of picking and packing for superdrogs first ever website, which was hilarious in the bowels of their store in Croydon.

03:33.972 –> 03:54.293
[SPEAKER_00]: then I went from there and I worked at the very group for a really long time and actually that was really important to me and that is a group that is built on the background of direct mail and massive, massive catalog maillings, huge amounts of data, data is the machine in that business.

03:54.273 –> 03:56.056
[SPEAKER_00]: And that taught me so much.

03:56.116 –> 04:02.907
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I worked there from sort of 2005 through till about 2011, and it felt like a lot longer.

04:02.927 –> 04:13.504
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, growing the website as kind of the internet and digital group, you know, this is before social was an important part of the ecosystem or any part of the ecosystem.

04:14.185 –> 04:18.492
[SPEAKER_00]: This was when email marketing and news letter marketing was just

04:18.472 –> 04:29.577
[SPEAKER_00]: not even really something that we thought about, but it’s hugely important to me to learn about the way those businesses work, what data could mean in an e-commerce business.

04:30.378 –> 04:35.670
[SPEAKER_00]: And then from there, so I would say those were two really important experiences, but from there,

04:35.650 –> 04:56.480
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve done stints as marketing director of a number of different either pure play e-commerce businesses or businesses that have had brick and mortar and e-com and I’ve led marketing teams, but I always knew and I’m 49 for transparency so I’m, and I’m, you know, I always knew that about this point in my life I would do it myself.

04:57.201 –> 05:03.750
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to a point where I thought, you know what

05:04.085 –> 05:06.528
[SPEAKER_00]: But it’s great to do this for yourself.

05:06.908 –> 05:23.447
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am intensely interested in sustainable fashion, intensely interested in women’s wear and how wearing the right armor, and I use that word advisedly, can radically alter the way you feel about yourself and your presentation of self.

05:23.827 –> 05:26.430
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is what we do here.

05:26.410 –> 05:33.437
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool, so it was kind of like, this wasn’t a moment of realization, so I’m going to open my own fashion boutique.

05:33.577 –> 05:39.062
[SPEAKER_02]: It was something you’ve been planning or having a, having in your vision for decades.

05:39.903 –> 05:52.975
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, back in the day, nobody ever used to talk about vision boards did they, and I’ve never had a vision board, Chloe, I don’t, but I’ve always had something in my head, which said, help you understand women’s fashion.

05:52.955 –> 06:03.344
[SPEAKER_00]: and you also understand e-commerce and customer service and sustainable fashion, although again, that’s a new part of our lexicon or relatively new.

06:03.384 –> 06:06.834
[SPEAKER_00]: Why wouldn’t you do this?

06:06.894 –> 06:08.719
[SPEAKER_00]: This is this is kind of

06:08.699 –> 06:14.490
[SPEAKER_00]: the bringing together of so many different strands of who I am actually as a person.

06:14.610 –> 06:18.157
[SPEAKER_00]: So this place, and I do is my happy place.

06:18.237 –> 06:20.422
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m sat here in the office at the back of my store.

06:20.442 –> 06:24.349
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve got my warehouse on one side and the actual brick and mortar store to the other side.

06:25.071 –> 06:29.219
[SPEAKER_00]: My sense is this is where it was all coming towards and I always knew that that was the case.

06:29.299 –> 06:31.483
[SPEAKER_00]: I always knew there would be one day.

06:31.463 –> 06:36.973
[SPEAKER_00]: When I sat, my husband down and said, right, it’s now, I found the premises, I know where I want to be.

06:37.033 –> 06:38.657
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve got a warehouse.

06:39.117 –> 06:40.320
[SPEAKER_00]: The brands are lined up.

06:40.781 –> 06:41.402
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s do this.

06:42.223 –> 06:49.557
[SPEAKER_02]: So, why was it always going to be bricks and clicks?

06:50.212 –> 06:55.442
[SPEAKER_00]: I always knew from being a very little girl that I loved shops.

06:55.983 –> 07:00.271
[SPEAKER_00]: As in brick and mortar shops before I come, I loved going to the shops.

07:00.411 –> 07:13.435
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved the experience with my grandmother, my father’s mom, what, by the time she was which was born in 1915, but by the time she was 30, she was the head corsetia and Taylor S at Harvey Nichols in Night’s Bridge.

07:13.415 –> 07:15.457
[SPEAKER_00]: and we both loved shops.

07:15.677 –> 07:42.645
[SPEAKER_00]: It missed a generation, my dad and mom could not be less interested, but I was raised at the knee of a grandma who read Vogue and was deeply interested in women’s fashion in the spoke fashion and she would walk me around herids and harbingicles where she worked and would show me things and I would learn about customer service and beautiful stores and how you could turn a customer from browsing and watching her behavior into someone who you could

07:42.625 –> 07:44.571
[SPEAKER_00]: and that that would convert to purchase.

07:45.233 –> 07:46.677
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me that was important.

07:47.379 –> 07:52.855
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m deeply personal in the way I behave and that is reflected in the store.

07:53.290 –> 08:00.779
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the other point is, many of the brands I want to stock will only come to me if I have a brick and mortar presence.

08:01.540 –> 08:03.943
[SPEAKER_00]: So I stock tons of Scandinavian brands.

08:04.543 –> 08:13.854
[SPEAKER_00]: The only way to have that business is if you have a brick and mortar store, they are quite understandably, they can have their own B2C websites, they do, actually.

08:14.315 –> 08:17.779
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m happy to say that I rank above them from an SEO

08:17.759 –> 08:24.587
[SPEAKER_00]: because I’ve worked quite a lot on that, but they have their own B2C sites, but they want reach and brand recognition in the UK.

08:25.247 –> 08:31.194
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s how they get it by being in physical stores here to get their brand footprints known.

08:31.955 –> 08:33.216
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s the why really.

08:34.137 –> 08:39.082
[SPEAKER_00]: But I absolutely love being shopgirl and I only get to do it rarely now.

08:39.963 –> 08:43.227
[SPEAKER_00]: I try and do it at least for four hours on a Friday.

08:43.207 –> 08:45.210
[SPEAKER_00]: and I love every second of it.

08:45.351 –> 08:55.067
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it and I sort of give myself little goals while I do it of, you know, make sure you get the data, get the email address, make sure, you know, those little, you know, are they following you on all your social channels?

08:55.287 –> 09:00.456
[SPEAKER_00]: Check through it into conversation and I set myself these little goals during the day when I do my little stints.

09:00.908 –> 09:10.783
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, a lot of people starting the business that you’ve started would have taken on kind of like a, I’m going to do it all until we reach a certain point.

09:10.883 –> 09:21.880
[SPEAKER_02]: But it sounds like you’ve already started building quite the team around yourself when you’re taking down, say, at a more intelligent perspective on, you know, the manpower will take to grow the business.

09:21.920 –> 09:23.562
[SPEAKER_02]: So what does your team look like?

09:23.622 –> 09:25.144
[SPEAKER_02]: Who have you got on what are they doing?

09:25.685 –> 09:26.967
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have a great team.

09:27.208 –> 09:28.890
[SPEAKER_00]: They consist of,

09:28.870 –> 09:30.272
[SPEAKER_00]: my very dear friends Sue.

09:30.492 –> 09:34.779
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sue Burn runs the store on a Wednesday Thursday and Saturday.

09:34.819 –> 09:37.684
[SPEAKER_00]: She also does a live with me at least once a week.

09:38.365 –> 09:39.366
[SPEAKER_00]: She’s a trained stylist.

09:39.446 –> 09:41.349
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve known her for 25 years.

09:41.409 –> 09:45.776
[SPEAKER_00]: She’s 10 years older than me and she is better than me.

09:45.856 –> 09:48.420
[SPEAKER_00]: She’s better than any body at customer service.

09:48.540 –> 09:51.705
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve never seen she’s the doyenne of customer service.

09:51.685 –> 10:04.750
[SPEAKER_00]: her customers love her, they come to her, they know her by name, and she is, she comes by, she makes the buying decisions with me because she knows the base just as well as I do, she’s just absolutely the best.

10:04.983 –> 10:09.089
[SPEAKER_00]: recently, we’ve also added Val to our team who is literally there through this door.

10:09.149 –> 10:15.357
[SPEAKER_00]: She may well hear what I’m saying, who so Val used to work for a brick and mortar business called East clothing.

10:15.397 –> 10:25.451
[SPEAKER_00]: You may remember that chain store faltered somewhat, but Val was their visual merchandising manager and is what Val can’t do with a color story.

10:25.671 –> 10:27.193
[SPEAKER_00]: One does not want to do.

10:27.173 –> 10:54.750
[SPEAKER_00]: throw her curveballs all the time because I’ll say to her and she’s just been irritated by me because I’ve just gone these coats rear we need to get these coats out now the weather’s going to change and she’s just looked at me and gone oh hell what what am I going to do with this this isn’t the color way that I’d planned this isn’t the texture or narrative that I want to fix but she’s out there now messing with the mannequins in the window and will do a brilliant job and she has she’s only been with us about eight weeks but she has up to the empty

10:54.916 –> 10:59.341
[SPEAKER_00]: from a looking field point of view to an untold degree.

11:00.082 –> 11:15.860
[SPEAKER_00]: I then have my lovely husband, Graham, who does all my web admin and all of my admin generally, he has other businesses, but because he loves spreadsheets and really dislikes most human beings, he’s very happy to sit in his office and do all that side of things.

11:16.120 –> 11:21.987
[SPEAKER_00]: He’s now very competent on WooCommerce WordPress, which is the old ecosystem.

11:21.967 –> 11:29.826
[SPEAKER_00]: and then I also have my two daughters who are 17 and 14 and they are employees in employees four and five because they appear in my socials.

11:30.849 –> 11:34.919
[SPEAKER_00]: And Katie’s almost that my eldest is almost also trained to do some web admin as well.

11:36.422 –> 11:38.828
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah those those are the team.

11:38.808 –> 11:43.641
[SPEAKER_00]: But I’ve chosen that again because I know that my skills are not best deployed on doing admin.

11:43.721 –> 11:44.523
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m terrible at it.

11:44.744 –> 11:46.649
[SPEAKER_00]: My attention to detail is not good enough.

11:47.471 –> 11:50.960
[SPEAKER_00]: Equally, I shouldn’t be on the shop floor all the time.

11:51.040 –> 11:53.086
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not a productive use of my time.

11:53.186 –> 11:54.690
[SPEAKER_00]: I should be building the business.

11:55.413 –> 12:03.184
[SPEAKER_02]: So you are in a space in retail and it’s why is sent in commerce, I suppose, and it’s why it is sent.

12:04.246 –> 12:10.435
[SPEAKER_02]: Where many businesses struggling to work out, we know retail needs to be experiential.

12:10.675 –> 12:16.864
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve talked a lot about the experience already and how much effort you’re putting into the real world experience.

12:16.844 –> 12:19.907
[SPEAKER_02]: But then how do we mirror that in an online space?

12:19.967 –> 12:22.490
[SPEAKER_02]: And so many brands struggle with this.

12:23.290 –> 12:29.497
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re in the lucky situation of starting with both from the very beginning and with huge amounts of experience as well.

12:29.597 –> 12:35.262
[SPEAKER_02]: So have you tried to replicate the experience you get up in store online?

12:36.043 –> 12:40.968
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you seeing the online as a way of converting in store customers to buy more?

12:41.048 –> 12:42.129
[SPEAKER_02]: Are they too different?

12:42.149 –> 12:45.973
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you approach that cohesiveness between the channels?

12:45.953 –> 12:52.300
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had, I had a bit of a, this is where I did have a bit of a, a sort of an epiphany moment.

12:52.761 –> 13:06.036
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve been in all the while I’ve had a website right from the beginning and it did, it did okay right from the beginning because I’m sensible and I know kind of about optimizing for search and those kind of things and it was a well-ordered website.

13:06.076 –> 13:10.020
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was always fast and it could convert and all of that, the basics.

13:10.439 –> 13:15.725
[SPEAKER_00]: But I had a bit of a size of a damsely in moment where a customer clearly wanted to order something, and she rang me.

13:16.286 –> 13:19.069
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going back about two years, and she’s maybe year and a half.

13:19.150 –> 13:27.680
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, hello, you know, an unexplained, you know, I want to make this order of scenes and jeans, but I just wanted to check, are you a real business?

13:27.760 –> 13:38.573
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, you know, you see so many of these businesses, and they end up just being dodgy Chinese businesses and where you’ve got to send things back to China or, you know, that they’re not bonafidey.

13:38.553 –> 13:41.859
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, oh, no, absolutely, you’ll see me on the Instagram.

13:41.899 –> 13:47.590
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m the face of the business and I, you’re speaking to the owner and, you know, and she said, oh, that’s so good to know.

13:47.610 –> 13:48.992
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, I’ll make the order now.

13:50.094 –> 13:52.979
[SPEAKER_00]: And I came away from that and I thought, well, that is interesting.

13:53.741 –> 13:58.249
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a trust issue here and there’s also a

13:58.229 –> 14:04.136
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to signal that I’m a bona fidey business and that you get a personal experience.

14:04.156 –> 14:06.038
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is what will aid conversion.

14:06.639 –> 14:10.043
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought to myself, okay, how can I make that happen for every order?

14:10.563 –> 14:12.445
[SPEAKER_00]: Every new customer order, I should say.

14:13.026 –> 14:18.212
[SPEAKER_00]: So now, whenever I get an order that comes in, and I see that it’s from a customer name, I do not know.

14:18.512 –> 14:25.300
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just had one good example would be a lady and she’s up in Aberdeen, ordered this morning, a lovely top.

14:25.280 –> 14:28.843
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I rang her and I said, I’m really sorry to disturb you morning.

14:29.364 –> 14:31.526
[SPEAKER_00]: I always make sure the customer has time to take the call.

14:32.046 –> 14:33.007
[SPEAKER_00]: I explain who I am.

14:33.308 –> 14:36.671
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just say, I just wanted to let you know, you’re speaking to the owner.

14:36.731 –> 14:39.233
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s lovely to have you all to thank you for that.

14:40.054 –> 14:42.236
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I help you with anything to do with sizing?

14:42.637 –> 14:45.139
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I talk to you at all about, you know, the item you’ve bought?

14:45.159 –> 14:46.821
[SPEAKER_00]: Just to check you’ve got the right color way.

14:46.861 –> 14:48.722
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you want it shipped?

14:48.823 –> 14:50.724
[SPEAKER_00]: I see you’ve selected standard shipping.

14:50.784 –> 14:53.447
[SPEAKER_00]: When do you need it?

14:53.427 –> 15:02.492
[SPEAKER_00]: having maybe, I don’t know, seven minute call with that customer, but by the end of that call, what I know is that that customer A is going to be sent the right item.

15:03.299 –> 15:30.471
[SPEAKER_00]: B is not going to have overordered, so perhaps on the original order, she’s put two pairs of jeans in two different sizes, I can confidently advise her and say, I see you’ve ordered both the 38 and the 40 in those jeans, let’s discuss that fit a little bit because I know exactly how those jeans fit and that means that I keep the product and also that I don’t so I can, the availability is maximised for me from any commerce point of view and my returns rate is minimised because I know it’s not going to come back to me.

15:30.451 –> 15:30.992
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s great.

15:31.293 –> 15:39.311
[SPEAKER_00]: But she feels that she has had a quasi bespoke experience that would emulate what would happen if she came into my shop.

15:39.331 –> 15:41.396
[SPEAKER_00]: So what would happen if she came into my shop?

15:41.436 –> 15:42.759
[SPEAKER_00]: She would be greeted in the same way.

15:42.819 –> 15:44.002
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, you’re new here.

15:44.282 –> 15:44.964
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I help?

15:45.726 –> 15:47.650
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I help you with sizing?

15:47.630 –> 15:54.519
[SPEAKER_00]: And that experience I try to emulate on the telephone and if I can’t telephone her, then I will email.

15:54.599 –> 15:59.725
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ll probably always do that anyway unless I think it’s overkill, but it will be a bespoke email.

15:59.926 –> 16:12.642
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be it’s scripted by me with a bit of heavy lifting from AI so I’m using a lot of AI prompts but I always check everything and it will make sure that she feels that she has had the bespoke wardrobe at the cross experience.

16:12.622 –> 16:18.389
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of the signals from my website again, reviews, I’ve got 125 stock Google reviews.

16:19.310 –> 16:25.778
[SPEAKER_00]: If she reads those, they all point to the fact that you will get a phone call, that you will get an at a personalised experience.

16:26.499 –> 16:34.208
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, that is super important to me because that differentiates me and it makes that customer feel like she’s almost been in the shop.

16:34.576 –> 16:42.764
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a big investment in, you know, found a time to do that, both the email part and the call part.

16:43.304 –> 16:51.772
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned that you’ve, you know, you limit it to someone’s first ever purchase with you, they’re not gonna get this on purchase number 10, which makes total sense.

16:52.613 –> 16:58.118
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you, have you yet thought through how you will do this as the business continues to grow?

16:58.719 –> 17:02.963
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, because even now with hundreds of orders a week, that’s quite a lot.

17:02.943 –> 17:06.649
[SPEAKER_00]: but well, it is, although my retention rate is very, very high.

17:07.230 –> 17:17.908
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’m really lucky because because I’ve invested in this first time acquisition piece, my retention rates really good and as you would expect, I’ve got all my flows set up with in Clavio.

17:18.388 –> 17:26.762
[SPEAKER_00]: So any of those things around, you know, I’m doing a really strong, well-conseries, a really strong nurture series, a really strong gone-away series, all of that stuff.

17:27.223 –> 17:28.545
[SPEAKER_00]: So my retention rate is

17:28.525 –> 17:42.045
[SPEAKER_00]: pretty strong, albeit on a small base, but I would say my retention rate is so many of those orders of those hundreds of orders a week, I would say probably 60%, maybe 65% of them exist in customers, so that’s really strong.

17:42.646 –> 17:43.968
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do use meta.

17:44.208 –> 17:54.043
[SPEAKER_00]: I am using meta-appetizing to generate first-time acquisition, and you’re right, as that scales, that’s going to become harder, but I’ve got some ideas for how that I can handle that.

17:54.023 –> 18:02.577
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve got, I already work alongside of VA who supports me with some of this stuff and helps me pull the data together before I make the call, so I’m not scrambling around.

18:03.298 –> 18:07.405
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, being perfectly honest, again, it’s something that my children can support me.

18:07.445 –> 18:09.849
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, my 17 year old is brilliant at it.

18:09.869 –> 18:12.032
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve watched her do it, so I’ll give her four,

18:12.012 –> 18:14.877
[SPEAKER_00]: phone numbers and I’ll say, right, you need to set, put your headphones on.

18:15.357 –> 18:16.880
[SPEAKER_00]: You’ve got calling these four numbers.

18:17.280 –> 18:18.703
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re saying I work for the business.

18:18.843 –> 18:20.886
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m Hilary’s daughter, how can I help?

18:20.946 –> 18:23.190
[SPEAKER_00]: And she knows the stock almost as well as I do.

18:23.711 –> 18:26.796
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, these things will become less replicable as we grow.

18:26.836 –> 18:29.059
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think it’s important.

18:29.220 –> 18:33.126
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that we got to protect that because that differentiates us.

18:33.494 –> 18:56.903
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it’s that interesting angle of, you know, you often, and I’m sure you’ve heard of it because you’ve got a lot of experience similar to me is that you’ll hear the business who they were doing something great in the early days and they let it drop for efficiency gains and and suffer until someone goes, how do we redo it and you can never redo it as well, can you?

18:56.883 –> 19:04.812
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve seen so many times, Chloe, you’re so right, where I’ve worked in a business, typically I’ve worked in a lot of businesses where they get to sort of, I don’t know, 10, 15 million pound turnover.

19:04.833 –> 19:16.587
[SPEAKER_00]: They take some external investment, external investors say, right, stop doing this, stop doing this, stop doing this, you know, private equity or whatever, because it’s non, it’s either, you know, we can’t attach an ROI to it, we cut, edit it, edit it.

19:16.907 –> 19:20.051
[SPEAKER_00]: So it gets cold, it’s seen as not important.

19:20.431 –> 19:25.337
[SPEAKER_00]: And then suddenly, everybody at the board table and I’ve sat on a few is looking at the

19:25.469 –> 19:34.822
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s happened here and those wonderful things that that owner found did to get it to 10, 12, 15 million turn have gone.

19:35.704 –> 19:37.025
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s what I have to protect.

19:37.106 –> 19:41.071
[SPEAKER_00]: And look, I don’t know what the future is of this business.

19:41.191 –> 19:44.897
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve got very strong plans, but I want that to be protected at all costs.

19:44.977 –> 19:50.024
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will pay absolutely pay people to do things I think they can do.

19:50.144 –> 19:54.210
[SPEAKER_00]: Whilst I do the things that I know I can do well like those first time calls.

19:56.502 –> 20:01.352
[SPEAKER_01]: E-commerce most Atlanta is supported by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.

20:01.493 –> 20:11.895
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

20:14.153 –> 20:19.763
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

20:19.823 –> 20:21.806
[SPEAKER_02]: Hell, are you ready for the top tips?

20:22.307 –> 20:23.029
[SPEAKER_02]: I am in D’s.

20:23.590 –> 20:25.353
[SPEAKER_02]: Excellent, start with the book top tip.

20:25.453 –> 20:30.662
[SPEAKER_02]: If everyone listening to this podcast, agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better.

20:31.043 –> 20:33.006
[SPEAKER_02]: Which book would you recommend?

20:33.256 –> 20:36.641
[SPEAKER_00]: I would recommend the brand gap by Martin Umeyer.

20:37.081 –> 20:39.224
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s incredibly short, so you’ll get through it very quickly.

20:40.006 –> 20:40.787
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not fluffy.

20:41.468 –> 20:48.457
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not waffly, but it’s really good strategic thinking about what a brand is and how to make yours different.

20:49.018 –> 20:50.420
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s just really good for that.

20:50.480 –> 20:53.705
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s not much about data in it, it’s about brand.

20:53.745 –> 20:57.390
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is what I love, that to me is what makes me tick.

20:57.370 –> 20:59.473
[SPEAKER_02]: Love that, we like a short read.

20:59.954 –> 21:01.215
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody likes a short read.

21:01.355 –> 21:07.744
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?

21:08.525 –> 21:19.260
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’m going to go with, I’ve got a few of this, but I’m just going to go with the press, it doesn’t deserve, because this is a great tip for people with particularly who have this is for bricks and collect businesses.

21:19.240 –> 21:23.888
[SPEAKER_00]: do things in your community that you think will not generate business because they will.

21:24.469 –> 21:30.058
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, I did a talk last Thursday to the WI in Heswell, which is about three miles away.

21:30.579 –> 21:31.380
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re all my customers.

21:31.420 –> 21:35.107
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re middle class women above the age of 55, classic me customers.

21:35.868 –> 21:37.410
[SPEAKER_00]: They were 90 of them in the room.

21:37.430 –> 21:40.776
[SPEAKER_00]: I did a talk on style personalities and sustainable fashion.

21:41.110 –> 21:53.112
[SPEAKER_00]: all of those women, I took a QR code with me, they all scanned my QR code, I took their data, they’re now all on my base and they’re all having a good old look at the website.

21:53.593 –> 21:55.697
[SPEAKER_00]: So how’s it led to any conversions?

21:55.717 –> 21:58.622
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I gave them all a code obviously to track that business.

21:58.883 –> 22:02.730
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve got about six conversions out of it now, but again,

22:02.710 –> 22:06.894
[SPEAKER_00]: a room full of 90 women who are absolutely bullseye target audience.

22:07.155 –> 22:13.922
[SPEAKER_00]: And you’d never think that would you go and do a WI talk, but believe me, I’ve done seven of them now and they’ve all been really, really worth doing.

22:14.482 –> 22:22.070
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s the good thing about WI talks as well as Nick, once you’ve done well at one, they all tell each other and then you get to go to later them.

22:22.511 –> 22:23.051
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly that.

22:23.372 –> 22:26.715
[SPEAKER_00]: So, literally, they keep telling each other, so I’m booked with another one in about three weeks.

22:26.735 –> 22:32.481
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m a bit, I change it off each time, so I’m not, because some of them

22:32.461 –> 22:38.353
[SPEAKER_00]: So this one will be a bit different again, but I do a lot around style personality, fashionable fashion, they love it.

22:39.035 –> 22:43.363
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s a great way of collecting data in a soft way.

22:43.403 –> 22:49.997
[SPEAKER_00]: And also generating football brick into the bricks bit of the business, but also generating clicks.

22:49.977 –> 23:00.227
[SPEAKER_02]: love that and it’s so fit so well with all the the the insights you’ve given us to the branding you know the brand and the feel and the vibe of the business too so I love that piece of advice.

23:00.247 –> 23:11.237
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, tool top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone app or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?

23:11.938 –> 23:13.460
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s really boring.

23:13.480 –> 23:14.300
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m so sorry.

23:14.741 –> 23:16.002
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s WhatsApp.

23:16.117 –> 23:16.958
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s really boring.

23:16.998 –> 23:19.863
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a WhatsApp chat for the team.

23:19.923 –> 23:22.687
[SPEAKER_00]: We call it the wardrobe at the cross crack team.

23:22.747 –> 23:24.029
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re called the crack squad.

23:24.610 –> 23:27.936
[SPEAKER_00]: And Val, Sue, my husband, me and the girls on it.

23:28.136 –> 23:29.498
[SPEAKER_00]: And also one of my temporary staff.

23:29.558 –> 23:30.560
[SPEAKER_00]: Why sound is on it?

23:31.241 –> 23:34.185
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s just making sure that we’ve covered everything.

23:34.245 –> 23:39.053
[SPEAKER_00]: So if Y sounds done a shift and she hadn’t expected to and she’s been in on a Friday afternoon,

23:39.033 –> 23:48.108
[SPEAKER_00]: She drops it in the WhatsApp to make sure that when Susan on a Saturday morning soon knows that so-and-so has been in and wants so-and-so, and it’s really boring, but it really, really works.

23:48.269 –> 23:50.332
[SPEAKER_00]: And is it auditable?

23:51.534 –> 23:53.277
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you go back and search it very well?

23:53.457 –> 23:58.566
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but it’s great in terms of, because I could use something that’s a bit more techy.

23:58.886 –> 24:02.813
[SPEAKER_00]: I use things myself, like Monday and Asana,

24:02.793 –> 24:05.837
[SPEAKER_00]: but my store team wouldn’t really, that wouldn’t work for them.

24:05.877 –> 24:14.828
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t think, you know, Val and Wysan, who are lovely, they’re not digitally savvy, not that I expect them to be, why would I want them to learn upon a sauna?

24:15.129 –> 24:17.071
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re actually what’s that’s working for us.

24:17.111 –> 24:20.836
[SPEAKER_00]: So sadly, it’s quite boring, quite pedestrian.

24:21.657 –> 24:23.720
[SPEAKER_02]: But it doesn’t matter if it’s pedestrian if it works.

24:23.840 –> 24:25.442
[SPEAKER_02]: It really is so often,

24:25.422 –> 24:29.406
[SPEAKER_02]: People put in like the most complex tool in the world to solve a simple problem.

24:29.426 –> 24:31.768
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you’re WhatsApp chain is what’s needed.

24:32.529 –> 24:36.152
[SPEAKER_00]: It just works and we can share humor on it.

24:36.292 –> 24:39.795
[SPEAKER_00]: But most of all it’s just like, you know, oh, Sylvia came in.

24:40.116 –> 24:41.136
[SPEAKER_00]: She’s ordered these things.

24:41.217 –> 24:43.318
[SPEAKER_00]: She wants, she doesn’t want to collect them today.

24:43.358 –> 24:45.060
[SPEAKER_00]: She was, but she bought this instead.

24:45.420 –> 24:47.723
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and so I’m going to have left it in your office health.

24:47.743 –> 24:48.423
[SPEAKER_00]: I simple as that.

24:48.483 –> 24:53.708
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I’m literally like, oh, right, that makes sense.

24:53.688 –> 24:57.856
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

24:58.577 –> 25:01.844
[SPEAKER_00]: Massively important to me because I sell sustainable brands in sustainable fashion.

25:01.864 –> 25:03.487
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re always working on this.

25:04.228 –> 25:12.484
[SPEAKER_00]: I am my local plastic waste champion, actually, here in Nested, which is quite sad, quite the claim, but it’s really important to me.

25:12.685 –> 25:12.945
[SPEAKER_00]: So,

25:12.925 –> 25:16.671
[SPEAKER_00]: I make sure that we all bring in reuse and bottles.

25:16.932 –> 25:19.055
[SPEAKER_00]: We don’t throw away single-use plastics at all.

25:19.115 –> 25:22.381
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s just our own behaviour as employees and members of the team.

25:22.841 –> 25:27.349
[SPEAKER_00]: We make sure that we use our own bottles and we fill up from the water there.

25:27.769 –> 25:31.936
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, from a point of view of my e-commerce store, I insist if suppliers don’t do it.

25:32.117 –> 25:39.709
[SPEAKER_00]: I insist they send the garments in recyclable or preferentially compostable packaging.

25:39.689 –> 25:46.109
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve even said I’ll send it to you or I’ll get it to you by hook or by crook, but I don’t want you sending me loads and loads and loads and loads plastic.

25:46.169 –> 25:50.222
[SPEAKER_00]: Now there are two suppliers at the moment who are not bending to my will because they’re too big.

25:50.557 –> 25:54.522
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s very cool, getting them to change, and then maybe they’ll change for everybody.

25:54.562 –> 26:04.875
[SPEAKER_00]: They may or they may not, but actually I think, you know, help, you’ve done your bit there, and you know, and I take, so interestingly, my story is on the cusp of Cheshire and Whirl.

26:05.296 –> 26:11.324
[SPEAKER_00]: Whirl of far better at recycling than Cheshire, there’s our postcode issue, postcode lottery issue.

26:11.724 –> 26:15.349
[SPEAKER_00]: So I take as much of my recycling home with me.

26:15.329 –> 26:19.618
[SPEAKER_00]: because then I can recycle it in a place where I know their facilities for recycling.

26:19.638 –> 26:27.615
[SPEAKER_00]: So my home post code, which is a rural post code, my store is technically chasher, my home is only two and a half miles away, but technically rural.

26:28.136 –> 26:29.218
[SPEAKER_00]: They recycle far better.

26:29.258 –> 26:34.249
[SPEAKER_00]: So I take as much of my recyclable waste actually to my domestic to my own home with me.

26:34.870 –> 26:36.572
[SPEAKER_02]: very cool, loving those tips.

26:36.752 –> 26:42.817
[SPEAKER_02]: So, hell, before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?

26:43.298 –> 26:46.941
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes, I would love for listeners to have a look and share their thoughts.

26:47.421 –> 27:00.213
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I’m on the my website is www.WordrowbackTheCross, which is all one word, spelled CRO, double S at the end, and I’m on a.co.uk URL.

27:01.154 –> 27:02.655
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m also, you can use that.

27:02.735 –> 27:04.877
[SPEAKER_00]: If you type that as a handle

27:04.857 –> 27:08.463
[SPEAKER_00]: You can get me on TikTok, although that’s a very nice and to count.

27:08.824 –> 27:14.113
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m prolific on Instagram and also Facebook where I’m, I have to be honest, far more comfortable.

27:14.654 –> 27:15.375
[SPEAKER_00]: And also I do it.

27:15.395 –> 27:17.098
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a little YouTube channel as well.

27:17.539 –> 27:21.566
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, rather than they sent to the time building it up to do long form content there.

27:22.107 –> 27:23.569
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, that’s how you come to me.

27:23.609 –> 27:24.631
[SPEAKER_00]: Or indeed visit the store.

27:24.671 –> 27:29.920
[SPEAKER_00]: If you’re local and you’re around, come and drop me a DM and come and have a look in the brick and mortar.

27:29.900 –> 27:42.828
[SPEAKER_02]: very cool and despite running all this with wardrobe at the cross, you also spend a couple of days a week helping other brands through your consultancy to evolve their digital and e-commerce activities.

27:42.869 –> 27:49.022
[SPEAKER_02]: So if anyone’s interested in getting your help in their business, how do they touch a bit more about it and how do they get in contact with you?

27:49.002 –> 27:50.767
[SPEAKER_00]: So getting contact with me via LinkedIn.

27:50.847 –> 28:00.131
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you look Hillary large, there aren’t many of us on LinkedIn, you’ll find me and I come on to channel dot marketing so that’s CHA and DOWT marketing.

28:00.833 –> 28:04.322
[SPEAKER_00]: If you Google that, you’ll only find a placeholder, so best to find me on LinkedIn.

28:04.723 –> 28:06.066
[SPEAKER_00]: But basically,

28:06.046 –> 28:17.183
[SPEAKER_00]: What I do is I go into businesses, typically SMEs, I don’t do much in the big corporate world anymore, and I offer support where there is perhaps not enough expertise.

28:17.343 –> 28:33.268
[SPEAKER_00]: So at the moment, I’m doing a piece of work for a client who is in the B2B wholesale space, it’s the garment industry, it’s a peril, but it’s about digital transformation of that business, and it’s great fun, and I love working as well with owner managers who have a problem that I can help

28:33.248 –> 28:50.042
[SPEAKER_00]: to solve that gives me all the fields because it makes me think, do you know actually I’ve really come away from that day and I know I’ve got with I’ve moved us forward and that’s a really good thing for me and it keeps my knowledge fresh as well which is which is another benefit.

28:50.022 –> 28:56.572
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s always great to go and have go and work on someone else’s activity because you find things you don’t know even when you’re there to help them with stuff.

28:57.273 –> 29:03.322
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyone who wants Hillary’s help go and find Hillary large on LinkedIn and getting contact.

29:04.083 –> 29:06.587
[SPEAKER_02]: Hill, thank you so much for being on the show.

29:06.607 –> 29:12.336
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been really fascinating seeing how you’re bringing that brilliant customer experience across all your channels.

29:12.376 –> 29:13.558
[SPEAKER_02]: So thanks so much for being here.

29:13.758 –> 29:15.220
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much for having me.

29:22.355 –> 29:24.139
[SPEAKER_02]: What an exciting business.

29:24.379 –> 29:25.783
[SPEAKER_02]: Hill is building there.

29:26.644 –> 29:36.225
[SPEAKER_02]: She really knows her customer base and she’s listening to them as she evolves the business to find ways to make them happier, better retained and so on and so forth.

29:36.286 –> 29:37.849
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that tip about

29:37.829 –> 29:40.096
[SPEAKER_02]: getting out and doing talks for the WI.

29:40.216 –> 29:42.743
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what a great move when that’s your customer base.

29:43.265 –> 29:50.105
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would have thought that was kind of like a physical retail play, but she’s getting the conversions coming through on the website too.

29:50.125 –> 29:50.907
[SPEAKER_02]: So how cool is that?

29:50.947 –> 29:53.053
[SPEAKER_02]: It works on both channels.

29:53.033 –> 30:08.055
[SPEAKER_02]: And the focus on improving that experience for the online customers and trying to replicate some of what they get in the physical store by calling them and emailing them in a personal way, post-first purchase.

30:08.035 –> 30:11.281
[SPEAKER_02]: such a nerve-wracking time for customers.

30:11.801 –> 30:20.537
[SPEAKER_02]: When they put that first purchase in with you, so anything that works to help them feel more confident, more comfortable in that purchase, sounds good by me.

30:20.557 –> 30:24.323
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact she’s managing to get it to improve her return’s rates, genius.

30:24.303 –> 30:32.035
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on our notes from this episode, including those top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.

30:32.536 –> 30:42.852
[SPEAKER_02]: You can use our direct episode short link to get there too, just put ECMP.info-4sash the number of this episode into the URL bar to go right to the correct page of the site.

30:42.832 –> 30:50.511
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get to the website, don’t forget to add yourself to our email list so you don’t miss out on all the stuff we share to help you improve your business.

30:51.293 –> 30:59.895
[SPEAKER_02]: If you liked this episode, then you can check out all our fashion episodes on the website via ECMP.info forward slash passion.

30:59.875 –> 31:03.882
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

31:04.003 –> 31:14.141
[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new episode every week, because I want to inspire and help you to succeed and thrive with your business, including progressing along that all important partner zero.

31:14.602 –> 31:19.531
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone, this show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

31:19.932 –> 31:22.677
[SPEAKER_02]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

31:25.627 –> 31:29.060
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.

31:29.482 –> 31:34.742
[SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.