00:00.031 –> 00:03.796
[SPEAKER_01]: email is the way that we really operate now.

00:03.896 –> 00:05.859
[SPEAKER_01]: So we keep our lists nice and clean.

00:06.019 –> 00:07.762
[SPEAKER_01]: We make sure we’re talking to people that are really interested.

00:08.202 –> 00:14.711
[SPEAKER_01]: And we make sure that when we email them, it’s a conversation coming from me directly to them as if I was talking to a friend of not seen for ages.

00:15.392 –> 00:20.620
[SPEAKER_01]: And we don’t really subscribe to any of the constant emails just showing products and things that look a bit vague.

00:20.920 –> 00:24.946
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all, hi guys, you know, here’s from me, this is what’s going on in my life.

00:25.246 –> 00:28.030
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think people

00:30.541 –> 00:33.589
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

00:33.609 –> 00:37.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

00:38.221 –> 00:46.322
[SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

00:49.272 –> 00:50.533
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome.

00:50.573 –> 00:51.654
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.

00:51.674 –> 00:55.898
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

00:55.918 –> 01:04.527
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode we’re revisiting a past guest, although this one wouldn’t have happened without the introduction to our guest by Craig Thomas Shopify SEO specialist.

01:04.667 –> 01:05.447
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you Craig.

01:05.888 –> 01:14.376
[SPEAKER_02]: The first time we have Moonphase Studio on the podcast, I was chatting to their CMO about how they’d got from zero to 200k in just eight weeks.

01:14.897 –> 01:16.478
[SPEAKER_02]: That was six

01:16.458 –> 01:26.152
[SPEAKER_02]: So this time, I get to chat to the founder Hayley all about how the businesses matured and grown over those six years and we’ll be getting into what makes them successful today.

01:26.312 –> 01:33.261
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s an incredibly peak focused business and what we’re talking about how she elongates that peak and brings those sales further.

01:33.322 –> 01:44.457
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll be talking about why they’ve chosen to bring fulfillment back in house and discussing why Facebook ads and email marketing are just so awesome.

01:44.437 –> 01:48.726
[SPEAKER_02]: Please listen to the end of the episode because you don’t want to miss out on my guest’s top tips.

01:55.051 –> 01:57.134
[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest.

01:57.154 –> 02:01.219
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley Jones is the artist and founder at Moon Phase Studios.

02:01.559 –> 02:07.326
[SPEAKER_02]: The studio exists to empower its customers to become more attuned to the moon through art, books and rituals.

02:07.787 –> 02:14.115
[SPEAKER_02]: It was founded in November 2020, when they went from zero to 200,000 pounds in just eight weeks.

02:14.635 –> 02:19.601
[SPEAKER_02]: Now they sell via their Shopify store an Etsy store doing over a million pounds a year.

02:19.681 –> 02:20.923
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Haley.

02:20.903 –> 02:22.225
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi Chloe, thanks for having me.

02:22.566 –> 02:28.056
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s awesome to have your business back on the show and to be getting to chat to you the founder for the first time.

02:28.637 –> 02:30.421
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you get into Ecommerce?

02:30.441 –> 02:34.067
[SPEAKER_02]: Was Moonface Studios the first thing you did or have you got a history before that?

02:34.628 –> 02:37.073
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no experience in Ecommerce whatsoever.

02:37.053 –> 02:43.544
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve got COVID story, everyone’s got COVID story, but the business I originally had during COVID couldn’t happen, which was in events.

02:43.985 –> 02:51.318
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a side hustle Etsy project which are my moon calendars, which I paint, and I used to sell those in very sort of modest numbers.

02:51.698 –> 02:55.585
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew that if I could get them to a wider audience, I’d be able to sell more.

02:55.565 –> 03:00.872
[SPEAKER_01]: and then during that COVID year, I also had a toddler in a baby which made it a bit difficult to go and get someone as well.

03:01.372 –> 03:07.580
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I’ve had first into e-commerce, saying that my first website and trying to get as many out as I could.

03:08.341 –> 03:13.188
[SPEAKER_02]: So many people in that situation, many people now would go, well I’m already on Etsy, I’ll do it on Etsy.

03:13.208 –> 03:19.716
[SPEAKER_02]: What led you to decide to go the Shopify route rather than the Etsy route as the primary growth engine?

03:20.101 –> 03:35.646
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you can’t really scale with Etsy, so Etsy obviously that’s great if Etsy wants to direct customers to you if it doesn’t, doesn’t matter if you’re paying for advertising you’re stuck and you can’t retarget to them and I knew it wasn’t really going to do very much.

03:35.626 –> 03:57.432
[SPEAKER_01]: I’d heard from friends that I knew there in the industry that doing Facebook ads would probably be better and saying that my own website would be better and then leaned into anybody I knew and did a bit of homework and sort of threw the whole thing together quite fast in order to get these calendars out before the time ran out for them not to be available products to sell anymore.

03:57.952 –> 04:05.262
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just quite a good but nightmare thing about a good old perishable product, is it does focus the brain, doesn’t it?

04:05.322 –> 04:10.629
[SPEAKER_01]: It really does, and the other good thing about it was, I mean, it’s a paper product.

04:11.189 –> 04:16.396
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you commit to having something printed on Lytho, the costs just come straight down.

04:16.496 –> 04:20.922
[SPEAKER_01]: So the cost of getting 500 printed to get him 2000 printed wasn’t that massive.

04:20.902 –> 04:24.327
[SPEAKER_01]: but I oversee then and with 2,000 of them, rather than 500.

04:24.748 –> 04:31.938
[SPEAKER_01]: So once I decided to go for that, I had all of these and then I just needed to sell them, which meant there was no distraction for anything else.

04:32.018 –> 04:35.143
[SPEAKER_01]: It was all about getting going on the marketing wheel, really.

04:35.924 –> 04:39.990
[SPEAKER_02]: And six years on, the business is somewhat more

04:41.118 –> 04:41.900
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s the right word?

04:42.041 –> 04:46.375
[SPEAKER_02]: Ad, not necessarily a Vance, but, uh, make sure, we’re short.

04:46.435 –> 04:51.109
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the business is matured, so tell us a bit about it as it is now.

04:51.230 –> 04:53.878
[SPEAKER_02]: Where in the world are you and where are you selling to?

04:54.095 –> 05:04.356
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re based in Redruth in Cornwall, we sell all over UK, direct to customer and we have a nice base of customers, loyal customers in the USA.

05:05.017 –> 05:09.727
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we’re all on Shopify, it’s all direct to customer, we still have a little bit from Etsy.

05:10.408 –> 05:11.310
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that’s it.

05:11.864 –> 05:13.967
[SPEAKER_02]: and what’s the product these days.

05:14.909 –> 05:16.411
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’ve moved on from just the calendar.

05:16.451 –> 05:21.619
[SPEAKER_01]: So the calendar was a big poster with loads of information on and to sort of paint a picture of what that is.

05:22.360 –> 05:30.092
[SPEAKER_01]: Got every day of the year ahead and all of the moon phases, all the meteor showers, all the information that you could read about maybe from sort of

05:30.072 –> 05:46.174
[SPEAKER_01]: data given in a bit more of an artistic way so it’s a bit more of a visual piece and we’ve done really well with our calendars and we dabbled with other products that we could do in and around that that never really did as well and then three years ago we launched a journal 13 moon journal which is

05:46.154 –> 06:01.100
[SPEAKER_01]: In essence, it’s a diary, but it’s completely formatted by the lunar cycles, so it starts with the last new moon of the previous year and takes you through the 13 moons rather than the 12 months of the year, and that has completely changed the business.

06:01.200 –> 06:08.753
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s absolutely our best setting product now that we’re known for, and that’s the bread and butter behind Moonface Studios now.

06:09.357 –> 06:14.684
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of trial and error to find that product, but it’s now overtaken the calendars.

06:15.165 –> 06:15.906
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, totally.

06:16.166 –> 06:16.947
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

06:18.149 –> 06:20.572
[SPEAKER_01]: We still have people who buy both loyal to both.

06:20.833 –> 06:24.978
[SPEAKER_01]: We have some that are completely separate, but no, the journal really resonates.

06:25.179 –> 06:28.724
[SPEAKER_01]: And there’s not actually anything like that out there.

06:29.044 –> 06:38.537
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to have something similar, you can, but it would still fit with the, the Gregorian calendar with the jammy, the first and the Monday to Sunday format, whereas ours doesn’t do that.

06:39.040 –> 06:42.765
[SPEAKER_02]: And is it dated or is it evergreen?

06:43.286 –> 06:44.127
[SPEAKER_02]: It is dated.

06:44.147 –> 06:51.877
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be dated and order to be able to get the information across over when is the equinox, when is the super moon, when is the sun, so.

06:52.338 –> 07:00.709
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has to be dated, which I think has also been a bit of a boon for us in terms of you can’t actually just buy it once and keep using it every year.

07:00.729 –> 07:07.258
[SPEAKER_01]: We do have to completely design and redevelop it from scratch each year, which means we’ve got good returning customers, actually.

07:07.627 –> 07:14.660
[SPEAKER_02]: But it does, it makes it, it gives them another reason to buy it next year is not just because it’s a useful journal, but also because it’s going to look different.

07:14.680 –> 07:17.144
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s updated and it’s got the right data in it too.

07:17.265 –> 07:21.232
[SPEAKER_02]: So is there’s that it’s not like just buying another Gregorian calendar each year.

07:21.733 –> 07:22.935
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a bit more to it.

07:22.915 –> 07:33.350
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s a lot more to it and because of the, I mean, go into it because of the fact that we’re trying to squeeze the lunar calendar into a normal calendar but make it really easy to read and comprehensible.

07:33.771 –> 07:38.638
[SPEAKER_01]: You do have these odd gaps and we do quite a lot of nurturing people with art and quotes and stuff.

07:39.098 –> 07:44.186
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’re not just doing a Monday to Sunday diary and then slapping a new front cover on it.

07:44.586 –> 07:49.413
[SPEAKER_01]: People are excited to get the new one because it is brand new and it’s been developed and we’ve spent months working on it.

07:49.533 –> 07:52.197
[SPEAKER_01]: So they do definitely get a new product each year.

07:52.531 –> 07:55.295
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is a yearly thing.

07:55.776 –> 07:56.477
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a yearly thing.

07:56.697 –> 07:57.658
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is a yearly thing.

07:58.099 –> 08:13.341
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we, the start and end date very because they might start on the 24th of December, next year it might start on the 21st of December, but generally we do try to cover what people would expect from a normal diary but make it work with the 13 moons.

08:13.743 –> 08:16.811
[SPEAKER_02]: So your business is very, very peaky.

08:17.212 –> 08:17.873
[SPEAKER_02]: So peaky.

08:17.893 –> 08:19.237
[SPEAKER_02]: Because of this calendar.

08:19.257 –> 08:20.339
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so peaky.

08:20.981 –> 08:21.843
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s so peaky.

08:21.883 –> 08:22.806
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s a little bit scary.

08:22.826 –> 08:31.026
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do try to do what we can in amongst the other times to help, I think, one of the downsides about having such a peaky business is

08:31.006 –> 08:43.759
[SPEAKER_01]: the costs obviously shoot up because the volume you’re doing and everyone wants their pound of flesh for all the apps and all the stuff and all the software and then we sort of left with these you know big bills to pay and March April May etc.

08:44.479 –> 08:59.494
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah we we do have bits that we do throughout the year but ultimately it just takes such a long time to design make these products and redevelop them from scratch each year then that’s just has to be a quiet time to crack on with that and then

08:59.896 –> 09:07.792
[SPEAKER_02]: I always think it’s a peaky business isn’t too bad if you at least acknowledge the fact it’s peaky.

09:08.173 –> 09:08.734
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

09:08.754 –> 09:10.918
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, we’re not doing the same thing every month.

09:11.159 –> 09:18.934
[SPEAKER_02]: We have October, November, December, which is the crazy selling months and the huge amounts of dispatch and all the rest of it dribbling over into January.

09:18.914 –> 09:35.961
[SPEAKER_02]: But then maybe February we we analyse and we wrap up and then March April May is planning and design and then yep we’re in you know if you understand that cycle and you adapt your daily activities to it then it’s all right to be peaky.

09:35.941 –> 09:54.861
[SPEAKER_01]: It is and we also we do do a big pre-order season and actually that is a massive boom to us but I don’t know how we’d be able to accommodate putting the orders that we receive in our pre-order season which saw over the summer so people get a nice little discount to help us get these big print runs through and they get to watch the journey of these products being developed.

09:54.841 –> 09:58.387
[SPEAKER_01]: and then it means we have a bit of a pause and a mad scramble to get all its preorders out.

09:58.767 –> 10:03.916
[SPEAKER_01]: But people are getting them in September and October when actually they can’t really use them until December.

10:04.416 –> 10:08.803
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is a massive boon to us because we get those orders through and we get them out of the door.

10:09.384 –> 10:14.132
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we start running our campaigns for our ready to buy next peak season.

10:14.635 –> 10:15.637
[SPEAKER_02]: Super clever, isn’t it?

10:15.657 –> 10:19.424
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you get the cash when you need it more, broke, bring that forward.

10:19.445 –> 10:22.471
[SPEAKER_02]: But you’ll also bring back the workload of dispatching those orders.

10:23.212 –> 10:23.773
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.

10:23.793 –> 10:31.328
[SPEAKER_02]: So your workload during the primary selling period is lessened because some people order earlier.

10:31.696 –> 10:50.201
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and because we have so many people returning and it works out well and people who’ve just found us, if they now know that we do pre-orders, I mean they’re obviously going to want that little percentage off next year, if they know that’s what they want, so that’s good for us, it keeps that sort of email list ticking over in the summer, it gets that working for itself.

10:50.922 –> 10:56.950
[SPEAKER_01]: It helps lessen, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to fill the volume that we do over six months into three.

10:57.351 –> 10:59.053
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be a tough challenge, I think.

10:59.405 –> 11:09.361
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned they’re keeping the email active and I think that’s one of the other things that is really challenging when you’re super peaky is that You can’t just switch your female from nine months and hope it’s going to work.

11:09.381 –> 11:12.626
[SPEAKER_02]: You can’t just switch off the ad algorithms for six nine months and hope they’re going to work.

11:12.646 –> 11:19.337
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to come up with something to send otherwise you massively damage your your performance during the peak season.

11:19.469 –> 11:20.310
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, totally.

11:20.330 –> 11:27.139
[SPEAKER_01]: And that’s one of the things that I know that we’ve really developed is making sure that emails are kind of interesting.

11:27.640 –> 11:28.561
[SPEAKER_01]: People want to open them.

11:28.801 –> 11:31.044
[SPEAKER_01]: They’re following this journey throughout the year.

11:31.104 –> 11:34.248
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they’re ready to purchase on the times right.

11:34.328 –> 11:41.157
[SPEAKER_01]: So, our emails is actually one of the biggest primary focuses of the whole marketing strategy for the business.

11:41.930 –> 11:43.638
[SPEAKER_02]: So who is the business?

11:43.818 –> 11:45.124
[SPEAKER_02]: What does the team look like?

11:45.144 –> 11:51.754
[SPEAKER_02]: So we kind of, I think everyone can work out is not just here, who, so who have you got and is there anything you’re outsourcing?

11:52.122 –> 11:53.023
[SPEAKER_01]: So there’s me.

11:53.343 –> 12:04.454
[SPEAKER_01]: There is my wonderful sister-in-law Rachel who is the first ever employee when I was drowning in emails for that first year for those first eight weeks where we turned over so much and she’s been with us ever since.

12:05.615 –> 12:09.780
[SPEAKER_01]: Next to that is our designer Anna who is fantastic who makes the journal happen.

12:09.940 –> 12:18.248
[SPEAKER_01]: So it went from being an idea in my mind to somebody with the computer skills to actually make it happen and her beautiful artistic talent.

12:18.228 –> 12:27.488
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, the next one was my husband, husband to be, shall I say, who came on when Rob left, so you’ve had Rob on your show before?

12:27.669 –> 12:28.270
[SPEAKER_01]: We did, yes.

12:28.631 –> 12:29.673
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we love Rob Dealy.

12:29.833 –> 12:33.241
[SPEAKER_01]: He has got loads of other amazing things that he’s going on in his life.

12:33.401 –> 12:38.312
[SPEAKER_01]: So when he departed, Matt came in, we were running another business, actually.

12:38.292 –> 12:40.614
[SPEAKER_01]: during the first couple of years of moon phase.

12:41.075 –> 12:44.258
[SPEAKER_01]: We solved that when we realized this was the horse to bark.

12:45.279 –> 12:46.120
[SPEAKER_01]: So Matt came on board.

12:46.420 –> 12:49.103
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, he does a lot of the invoicing paperwork.

12:49.563 –> 12:50.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Making us profitable actually.

12:51.005 –> 12:51.966
[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve got to credit Matt with.

12:52.967 –> 12:55.830
[SPEAKER_01]: And then last employee is Simon.

12:55.950 –> 12:58.913
[SPEAKER_01]: So Simon does warehouse logistics all of our packing.

12:59.673 –> 13:04.758
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’re in the process of taking somebody on to do the marketing, because that’s kind of my stick.

13:04.839 –> 13:08.282
[SPEAKER_01]: The minute alongside the art.

13:08.262 –> 13:12.508
[SPEAKER_01]: six, and then it goes up to about 12, maybe 13, over Christmas.

13:13.229 –> 13:14.852
[SPEAKER_02]: And is that to staff the warehouse?

13:15.232 –> 13:16.434
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they’re all pickpackers.

13:16.494 –> 13:17.195
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.

13:17.796 –> 13:19.699
[SPEAKER_01]: All of our freelance, we do have really good freelancers.

13:19.759 –> 13:23.605
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got Craig, who does our Shopify site, thank God for him.

13:23.645 –> 13:31.436
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we’ve got an amazing team that do our digital ads, meta, Google, etc.

13:31.696 –> 13:36.143
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, we’ve found a really lovely little

13:36.848 –> 13:41.477
[SPEAKER_02]: always nice when you find that magic ad connection.

13:42.278 –> 13:54.080
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, it’s been so good because we’ve had trial and error with that and there’s nothing quite like feeling like, oh, I don’t trust this process and I’m not sure about you whereas these are stand up guys who get us really good results who are lovely.

13:54.140 –> 13:55.262
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s brilliant.

13:55.360 –> 13:57.182
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s unfortunate.

13:57.222 –> 14:07.113
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would like, you know, having, having higher agencies, having run an agency for 10 years and having spoken to many people about their problems with their agencies, their agencies, about their problems with their clients.

14:07.754 –> 14:12.659
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish I could come up with a formula for doing the perfect matching, but it is trial and error.

14:12.939 –> 14:16.403
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s really hard, because it, a lot of it, I think, is mindset and values.

14:17.024 –> 14:21.108
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, not average order value and price point and budget size.

14:21.168 –> 14:22.650
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s completely different.

14:22.867 –> 14:23.768
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

14:23.808 –> 14:25.511
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we found our magic fit.

14:25.631 –> 14:31.420
[SPEAKER_01]: So let’s hope that we can all continue to work harmoniously for ever more.

14:32.001 –> 14:34.885
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’re talking about fulfillment there.

14:35.105 –> 14:38.951
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned to me before we hit record that you had outsourced of fulfillment.

14:39.772 –> 14:41.835
[SPEAKER_02]: And now you’ve chosen to bring it back in again.

14:41.876 –> 14:43.558
[SPEAKER_02]: What was the…

14:43.538 –> 14:56.329
[SPEAKER_02]: was the reason around that because as a as a peaky business of a film and it’s one of those massive headaches of a peak that I’m sure many people would think well let’s outsource that and then things are more normal day to day.

14:56.409 –> 14:58.695
[SPEAKER_02]: So how come you’re bringing it back in?

14:58.810 –> 15:06.624
[SPEAKER_01]: So we, I mean, the reason we went over to America and had a full film at Center in America, this is when we were just doing calendars.

15:06.664 –> 15:22.371
[SPEAKER_01]: And that purely came from a bit of an environmental thing of, well, why would we want to have stock over here that we’re shipping over one at a time, or have it, you know, we can just send a digital file, find printers over there,

15:22.351 –> 15:26.898
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did that, and then when we launched the second product, everything was getting a little trickier.

15:26.979 –> 15:36.053
[SPEAKER_01]: So finding actually the right paper sources, all the stuff that could still be forest certified, all of that became a little bit more of a headache.

15:36.073 –> 15:42.604
[SPEAKER_01]: Then when we had trying to post one big,

15:42.584 –> 15:48.190
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt like the only way to sort of get more profitable with that was to massively increase volume.

15:48.371 –> 15:50.213
[SPEAKER_01]: And we felt like we were doing quite good volume anyway.

15:50.753 –> 16:00.484
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it was, well, to solve these niggles over the shipping costs from, you know, Seattle to Florida, you have another fulfillment center, and maybe you have another fulfillment center in the middle.

16:00.544 –> 16:08.153
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you’ve got the stock that you’ve got to pay them to keep and it felt a little bit like it was getting away with ourselves a bit.

16:08.133 –> 16:16.189
[SPEAKER_01]: And where we are at the moment where our studio is, we had a unit that came up next door, and we just thought, let’s just rain all of this in.

16:16.249 –> 16:17.852
[SPEAKER_01]: We’d outsourced it from the get go.

16:17.992 –> 16:25.908
[SPEAKER_01]: It literally went from my dining table, being filled with tubes and stock to boom, just going into full film and centers.

16:26.248 –> 16:27.070
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’d missed

16:27.050 –> 16:35.327
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Stepp, I felt like we hadn’t actually got the logistics around, how we wrap stuff, how we pack, how we make it all, how we want the customers to receive it.

16:35.868 –> 16:44.907
[SPEAKER_01]: So we brought it all back in, we did it all ourselves, we captured the amount of volume, and then just saw so much more profit.

16:44.887 –> 16:47.109
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we’re not giving it away.

16:47.930 –> 16:56.279
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve held on to it and actually, I kind of think we’re at a stage now where I’d have to seriously be tempted to go back to being doing full film that centers again.

16:56.299 –> 16:57.941
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the business that we’re running now.

16:58.402 –> 16:59.162
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the small team.

16:59.202 –> 17:04.828
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the fact that customers can get in touch and we can pop in a little note saying, sorry, it arrived damaged here’s the so-and-so.

17:04.868 –> 17:10.995
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there’s so much less sort of stress actually having it all under one roof.

17:11.178 –> 17:19.498
[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose you’re in a space where you’ve got only a very small number of skews and they don’t take a huge amount of space to keep.

17:19.959 –> 17:23.628
[SPEAKER_02]: So there’s space, space requirements when you’re doing it yourself is not huge for you.

17:24.149 –> 17:26.976
[SPEAKER_01]: No, in fact, the packaging is the thing that takes at the most of the tubes.

17:26.956 –> 17:36.249
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we sell thousands and thousands of calendars which come on a stack, like on one pallet, but actually if you were to roll them all and put them in their tubes, they take up rooms full.

17:36.389 –> 17:42.257
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are the little unusual bits, but no, we don’t have a huge volume of stock.

17:42.277 –> 17:47.464
[SPEAKER_01]: We can also then, having ourselves means that we can just go right this weekend, we’re going to pop in a free so-and-so.

17:47.484 –> 17:49.567
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s not, there’s enough to be checked over.

17:49.587 –> 17:50.649
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t have to have that agreed.

17:50.669 –> 17:52.191
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t have to find out how much it costs.

17:52.231 –> 17:56.136
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s all just,

17:56.538 –> 17:58.421
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ve been tempted to fold the calendar.

18:00.104 –> 18:01.606
[SPEAKER_01]: I can’t do that, Chloe.

18:01.626 –> 18:02.268
[SPEAKER_01]: You can’t do that.

18:02.288 –> 18:03.570
[SPEAKER_01]: You don’t want to crease in the middle.

18:03.590 –> 18:04.271
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you could.

18:04.331 –> 18:05.353
[SPEAKER_01]: Don’t give me wrong.

18:05.593 –> 18:06.034
[SPEAKER_01]: You could.

18:06.895 –> 18:09.920
[SPEAKER_01]: But we felt like that sort of little idea that it was like wall art.

18:10.060 –> 18:12.805
[SPEAKER_01]: So no, we decided to shy away from that.

18:13.406 –> 18:14.007
[SPEAKER_01]: So no.

18:14.527 –> 18:25.847
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are currently talking as you have finished peak 2025 and you must be somewhere into the planning for peak 2026.

18:26.668 –> 18:30.595
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s got you excited about 2026?

18:31.216 –> 18:44.309
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so exciting things on the horizon for 2026 is we have such a great relationship with our customers now that they are kind of really telling us what they want to see and are giving us some really good ideas.

18:44.629 –> 18:52.918
[SPEAKER_01]: So the stuff that’s going to go alongside our main products which we do these big bundles where we can put extra bits and bobs in, those are super exciting.

18:53.198 –> 18:57.342
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s quite nice to have these other elements that run alongside.

18:57.322 –> 19:03.679
[SPEAKER_01]: And we’re launching a letter writing set, which actually is a passion project of mine, which would be quite nice.

19:04.281 –> 19:13.626
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re using like handmade boxes and it’s all going to be really beautiful, so that’s a bit of a buzz for me, because that’s going to be a product I’m really keen to see come to life.

19:13.606 –> 19:14.948
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we’re taking more units.

19:14.988 –> 19:19.055
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’ve got more warehouse spaces around us that are coming up.

19:19.555 –> 19:23.421
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we’re growing and we’ve got all of these more products coming out, we can take those on.

19:23.461 –> 19:25.825
[SPEAKER_01]: And then yeah, a bit of increase in the team.

19:26.446 –> 19:27.748
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, lots on the horizon, really.

19:28.229 –> 19:28.650
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.

19:28.670 –> 19:30.593
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned bundles there.

19:30.613 –> 19:35.901
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that I’m guessing that’s, you know, to drive sales outside of the peak period.

19:35.881 –> 19:45.462
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that that you’re bundling your own creating other short-term products of your own to bundle in or is it that you’re taking other people’s products to bundle in?

19:46.043 –> 19:47.406
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they’re all as they sort of go along.

19:47.426 –> 19:52.557
[SPEAKER_01]: So we’ve got, like for instance, the one we did last year, it retailed at £120.

19:52.537 –> 19:57.284
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s a good big ticket number for us and it really massively has helped with the average order value.

19:57.724 –> 20:05.836
[SPEAKER_01]: So sort of selling these little products on their own for a bit of a discount at pre-order, these bigger bundles for really loyal customers who are excited about what we do.

20:05.896 –> 20:14.308
[SPEAKER_01]: They get a beautiful velvet book sleeve for their journal to go in, they get nice set of tens, they get some of the notebooks, they get a pencil case, they get whatever.

20:14.288 –> 20:24.122
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, those bundling of those things are kind of evergreen items that can sit on the website, drawing out of the periods, but they really do bump up that AOV for us when we need it.

20:24.803 –> 20:36.740
[SPEAKER_02]: Or you say they’re sat on the website, should anyone want one, but their real reason for existence is that they’re ready to go into a bundle to really drive sales from those core customers.

20:37.281 –> 20:37.962
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.

20:38.423 –> 20:38.743
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

20:39.112 –> 20:50.805
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we caught up with Rob, who at the time as your CMO, it was all about the Facebook ads, all about the Facebook ads, is Facebook ads still a big thing for you?

20:51.646 –> 20:53.308
[SPEAKER_01]: Facebook ads is a major thing for us.

20:53.488 –> 21:02.678
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually, I will have to hold my hands up to say, credit to Meta for that, because it has been a massive boon for our business.

21:02.698 –> 21:04.680
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that we were able to,

21:04.660 –> 21:09.146
[SPEAKER_01]: Interrupt people scrolling to show them something that they were genuinely interested in that they didn’t know about.

21:09.206 –> 21:10.188
[SPEAKER_01]: You can’t really do that.

21:10.268 –> 21:13.111
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s not many other platforms that you can do that as well on.

21:13.752 –> 21:21.182
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s really good, but email is better and email is the way that we really operate now.

21:21.283 –> 21:25.889
[SPEAKER_01]: So the email is taking over Facebook in terms of what it’s actually bringing into the business.

21:25.909 –> 21:27.892
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a really loyal following.

21:27.912 –> 21:31.917
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got nearly a hundred thousand subscribers and I would say,

21:31.897 –> 21:42.587
[SPEAKER_01]: of our emails that go out we have nearly 50% open rate, 47% is like a low one and then when we have our big launches that can go up to like 70%.

21:43.548 –> 22:01.566
[SPEAKER_01]: We keep our lists nice and clean, we make sure we’re talking to people that are really interested and we make sure that when we email them, it’s a conversation coming from me directly to them as if I was talking to a friend of not seen for ages and we don’t really subscribe to any of the constant emails just sharing products

22:01.546 –> 22:08.075
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi guys, you know, here’s from me, this is what’s going on in my life, and I think people resonate with that, and I think it gives no reason to open it.

22:08.315 –> 22:23.757
[SPEAKER_00]: And does, yeah, does as well, I think email so Facebook has been good, but emails are our next hero.

22:29.896 –> 22:32.200
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s time for the top tips round.

22:34.865 –> 22:39.934
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me an honester some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

22:39.994 –> 22:41.536
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley, are you ready for the top tips?

22:42.198 –> 22:42.859
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I’m ready.

22:43.600 –> 22:44.762
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.

22:44.842 –> 22:51.634
[SPEAKER_02]: 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?

22:52.340 –> 23:18.668
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I would be stupid not to plug my own book the 13 moon journal, wouldn’t I really Chloe because actually one of the top tips that any business owner could take out of it is to maybe plan a little bit of rest and I think someone who has worked really hard on their own business the last few years and has sacrificed quite a lot being reminded why it is important to maybe take a little break

23:18.648 –> 23:20.851
[SPEAKER_01]: is not really mentioned enough.

23:20.951 –> 23:25.136
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s plenty of productivity planners, there’s loads of get up at 5 a.m. and do all this.

23:25.557 –> 23:39.375
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don’t actually think that necessarily works for middle-aged hormonal women with young children, I think, maybe, at some point around their menstrual cycle, or every few weeks, they could just do with putting their feet up and having a bath and not doing that.

23:40.356 –> 23:43.440
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, are preaching to the converted in so many ways.

23:43.420 –> 23:44.561
[SPEAKER_01]: But you are, you need to continue.

23:44.601 –> 23:45.943
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to get a 30-moon journal.

23:46.384 –> 23:51.430
[SPEAKER_01]: At least in a Friday you could read the intro section and it would be life-changing.

23:52.010 –> 23:53.893
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I’m at cracking recommendation.

23:53.913 –> 23:59.479
[SPEAKER_02]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you the prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?

24:00.641 –> 24:07.569
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, we already said, I mean, you know, I’ve said, meta has done really well for us and anyone who was starting their business, and yes, I would absolutely say that.

24:08.130 –> 24:11.554
[SPEAKER_01]: I followed that up with email and what I think that is

24:11.534 –> 24:25.610
[SPEAKER_01]: If you get someone interested, keep them interested, get them there again, you want them to be their audience and I would say spending loads of time on organic social media content is just a bit of a full zero and really when you can be doing better things to shift the needle.

24:26.210 –> 24:27.632
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally agree with you on that.

24:27.912 –> 24:32.918
[SPEAKER_02]: A tool top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in, a phone up or just a way of working.

24:33.038 –> 24:37.643
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?

24:38.028 –> 24:39.449
[SPEAKER_01]: We really like Triple Whale.

24:39.650 –> 24:47.518
[SPEAKER_01]: I don’t know if you’ve ever covered Triple Whale on your podcast before, but yeah, we do rely on that, which, for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a Triple attribution.

24:47.578 –> 24:51.762
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyone that you’re paying any money to will say that you’re getting customers from them.

24:51.883 –> 24:56.768
[SPEAKER_01]: So Google will over inflate and say, yeah, we got you customer and Facebook saying, no, no, no, it was definitely us.

24:57.368 –> 25:05.757
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you try and pull all this together and you’re trying to work out where to put your next pound to find your next customer, we think Triple Whale is actually

25:05.737 –> 25:18.868
[SPEAKER_01]: showing us who came their first, they searched first, what got them over the line, was it a Facebook ad in the end, did they finally see us on Pinterest, did they have a little watch of some videos on TikTok and we can get all of that information which actually is invaluable.

25:19.051 –> 25:20.252
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, solid recommendation.

25:20.272 –> 25:32.603
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think you have to have some kind of approach to attribution if you’re going to succeed with ads these days, because, yes, not everybody lies, but everybody’s quite greedy with their localized attribution.

25:32.623 –> 25:37.227
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and I think everybody is quite kind of like, oh, you know, that was definitely me.

25:37.247 –> 25:39.549
[SPEAKER_01]: You can, you can find cause for that customer.

25:39.569 –> 25:49.058
[SPEAKER_01]: You think, well, I can’t find all of you, because it looks like I’m taking a lot more in revenue, and I’m really am, if I believe all of you, whereas this says it is, and it’s nice and accurate,

25:49.038 –> 25:50.022
[SPEAKER_01]: tool to use.

25:50.042 –> 25:50.343
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

25:50.363 –> 25:51.568
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the carbon top tip.

25:51.588 –> 25:55.183
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

25:55.737 –> 25:59.201
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, actually removing fulfillment centers was the best one for us.

25:59.421 –> 26:05.649
[SPEAKER_01]: I think realistically, just that we could just trim off unnecessary volume, the less waste.

26:05.669 –> 26:08.312
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, we’ve just done whatever we can do.

26:08.352 –> 26:10.274
[SPEAKER_01]: We don’t have plastic wrap on stuff.

26:10.495 –> 26:15.400
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got rid of all of the unnecessary plastic within us.

26:15.461 –> 26:16.342
[SPEAKER_01]: We have glass brothels.

26:16.402 –> 26:19.345
[SPEAKER_01]: We’ve got paper wrap for toilet rolls, et cetera.

26:19.646 –> 26:20.867
[SPEAKER_01]: So,

26:20.847 –> 26:23.271
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we’re just doing a bit a little bit by a little bit.

26:23.532 –> 26:35.093
[SPEAKER_01]: We do actually, we’re part of the Ocean Network for surface against sewage, and they’ve been really good at signposting us to use for things that we’ve not considered in order to go through their plastic free accreditation process.

26:35.208 –> 26:35.588
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

26:36.430 –> 26:36.770
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

26:36.950 –> 26:42.437
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley, 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?

26:42.938 –> 26:43.559
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, of course.

26:43.579 –> 26:52.611
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find us at moonphasestudios.com and we’re available to be found on all platforms, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.

26:52.651 –> 26:53.532
[SPEAKER_01]: Moonphasestudios.

26:54.173 –> 26:54.633
[SPEAKER_02]: Great forward.

26:54.653 –> 26:56.255
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that everybody going check it out?

26:56.496 –> 26:59.299
[SPEAKER_02]: Haley, thank you so much for coming on the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

26:59.319 –> 27:00.701
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been lovely chatting with you.

27:00.721 –> 27:01.983
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for sharing so much with us.

27:02.724 –> 27:03.645
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.

27:09.346 –> 27:17.013
[SPEAKER_02]: Huge thanks again to Craig, putting us back in contact with MoonFage Studios and Hailey because, so cool, such a cool business.

27:17.133 –> 27:19.095
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s definitely one of those e-commerce business.

27:19.115 –> 27:32.428
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m like, oh, I quite, it might be P.K., might be P.K., but that’s some really cool products with some passionate customers and some really clear reach to market and they’re quite small enough to do a small scale fulfillment in house.

27:32.928 –> 27:35.691
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, interest fascinating business, some really cool,

27:35.671 –> 27:39.360
[SPEAKER_02]: clear, take on on e-commerce there from Hailey.

27:39.440 –> 27:53.292
[SPEAKER_02]: The clarity, you know, talking to her, clarity on what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and why they’re not doing other things, just really rings through and I think it’s not surprising listening to her that she’s making a huge success of this.

27:53.272 –> 28:07.356
[SPEAKER_02]: So lots, lots of bits and pieces to pick out there, especially if you’ve got a really peaky product, so those strategies to pull your sails a bit forward and ease off that peak with the pre-order piece, the bundles piece and so on and so for some really clever stuff in there.

28:07.376 –> 28:14.588
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, you get your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterpland.com.

28:14.568 –> 28:23.741
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also use our direct episode short links, just put ECMP.info-sash the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll go straight to the right page.

28:24.222 –> 28:32.053
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get there, please add yourself to the Chloe Thomas newsletter email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other things we share to help you improve the business.

28:32.033 –> 28:47.047
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you like this episode, then make sure you check our episode 386, which is our first catch-up with Team Moonface Studio, which adding to Rob about that 0 to 200,000 with Facebook ads back in 2020.

28:47.788 –> 28:58.918
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more on Shopify users, then ECMP.info for us has Shopify’s the page on the website where you will find all our interviews with Shopify users.

28:58.898 –> 29:03.304
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

29:03.324 –> 29:14.740
[SPEAKER_02]: We bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses, including encouraging businesses and consumers to make more sustainable buying decisions.

29:15.301 –> 29:20.288
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

29:20.749 –> 29:23.573
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

29:26.388 –> 29:29.843
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.

29:30.265 –> 29:35.588
[SPEAKER_00]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.