00:00.031 –> 00:21.820
[SPEAKER_02]: The economy is getting a little bit harder, and people have got a little bit less money, but they still like the nice things, and that’s why people are starting to move towards seconds and returns, because the majority of the time, you know, when you sort of work with all the premium tea brands, different nominal products, and keeping them in circulation as long as possible is definitely the best thing to do.

00:24.027 –> 00:26.534
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

00:27.175 –> 00:31.146
[SPEAKER_01]: Air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

00:31.687 –> 00:39.808
[SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

00:42.758 –> 00:43.940
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome.

00:43.960 –> 00:45.123
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s great to have you here.

00:45.163 –> 00:48.910
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

00:49.411 –> 00:54.842
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode I’m catching up with a retailer I first chatted with for a virtual summit a few years ago.

00:54.882 –> 01:00.092
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s great to get to catch up and to finally be able to share what he’s up to with a wider audience.

01:00.072 –> 01:04.038
[SPEAKER_00]: because it’s a super clever business model where everyone involved really wins.

01:04.539 –> 01:14.215
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we don’t get hugely into his business model here because we get a little bit distracted with the bigger picture of what’s going on in the fashion sustainability space in Europe.

01:15.056 –> 01:19.023
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we’re talking ESPR, but we’re not getting hugely techy into it.

01:19.043 –> 01:25.293
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re more talking about the massive ramifications for consumer sales, e-commerce, and far more.

01:25.353 –> 01:25.894
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s real,

01:25.874 –> 01:27.278
[SPEAKER_00]: real thought-provoking one.

01:27.318 –> 01:37.048
[SPEAKER_00]: I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Simon, so prepare to be intrigued, I think, is probably the right word, and make sure you listen to the N so you catch his top tips as well.

01:42.513 –> 01:44.958
[SPEAKER_00]: and now to introduce our special guest.

01:44.978 –> 01:54.997
[SPEAKER_00]: Simon Payne is the co-founder at Soul Responsibility, a sustainable retail business specializing in the resale and takeback of seconds in the footwear and clothing space.

01:55.417 –> 02:02.050
[SPEAKER_00]: They resale tens of thousands of subprime shoes and garments a year with growth at 30% year on year.

02:02.110 –> 02:03.332
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello Simon.

02:03.352 –> 02:04.234
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we help you?

02:04.889 –> 02:13.543
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m good, really excited to be talking to you about all of this, because I think your business is fascinating and your space is insanely fascinating at the moment.

02:14.124 –> 02:17.409
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into that, how did you end up in the world of e-commerce?

02:18.150 –> 02:24.400
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that’s a very good point, so we’ve been doing this for quite a while now, we’ve been in the space for…

02:24.717 –> 02:27.361
[SPEAKER_02]: probably the best part of 15 years.

02:27.421 –> 02:29.464
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say working with seconds of returns.

02:30.085 –> 02:33.610
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think we were, we were probably slightly ahead of the curve.

02:34.551 –> 02:37.636
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve kind of cut our teeth for quite a long time.

02:37.656 –> 02:41.882
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think we know the space hopefully inside out with a bit of luck.

02:42.875 –> 02:56.143
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, I think you definitely do given the years you spent doing this for big names on the high street, you’re not just taking back some not dodgy trainers, but some random non-branded trainers that someone knows about.

02:56.163 –> 03:00.833
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re taking back big name brands from big name high street brands, aren’t you?

03:01.032 –> 03:01.713
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, very much.

03:02.494 –> 03:14.671
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve been with JD Sports as a sustainable part and now for sort of five or six years, we’ve also worked with several of the main retailers.

03:15.252 –> 03:23.563
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, we’re seeing brands like Nike, Adi, on Hulk, you know, put a click like that when we’re working with the retailers.

03:23.543 –> 03:33.334
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, certainly, it’s a fascinating space to be in, you know, when we started out all those years ago, it was super exciting then.

03:33.354 –> 03:42.205
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, it was a lot tougher than because we were pushing forward something that we thought, you know, very confidently that was going to happen.

03:42.885 –> 03:49.433
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we’re sort of in the mix with it all, is a little bit madness, but it’s, it’s all good, it’s all, it’s very exciting.

03:49.902 –> 03:57.672
[SPEAKER_00]: And it must be product-wise, it must be really complicated because every skew is different.

03:58.293 –> 04:01.997
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not like you can list trainer X in various sizes.

04:02.518 –> 04:05.942
[SPEAKER_00]: Each one has some kind of thing that’s made it a second or made it a return.

04:06.042 –> 04:09.767
[SPEAKER_00]: So do you literally have to photo graph everything?

04:10.169 –> 04:12.233
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, everything is different.

04:13.956 –> 04:16.520
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn’t choose an easy project, did we?

04:16.540 –> 04:24.774
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you can have anything from a toolbox issue to a heal issue or, you know, slice or to the marks.

04:25.015 –> 04:32.768
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it is interesting, but yeah, we do pretty much have to photograph.

04:32.900 –> 04:50.385
[SPEAKER_02]: every single issue which I think certainly from a retailers and brand perspective thing is the absolute exact opposite with a lot of these guys you can just upload a spreadsheet and you know within a couple of hours you you know might have 20, 30,000 different skews.

04:50.365 –> 04:53.371
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s certainly not the case with us, although I wish it was.

04:53.893 –> 05:02.912
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we deal with everything pretty much individually, although we’ve got really good tech in the business now that helps us to get on top of what we’re doing.

05:02.952 –> 05:05.337
[SPEAKER_02]: So it doesn’t really speed things up for us.

05:05.907 –> 05:21.435
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it’s another reason why these big brands need you is that being set up to do the type of product listing and product selling that you’re doing, compared to doing what JD sports, for example, is doing it’s completely different workflows isn’t it?

05:21.787 –> 05:22.488
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, massively.

05:22.609 –> 05:34.613
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, for example, when we’ve been working with retailers and brands, we do see product that will come in as seconds of returns in different pallets or different forms.

05:35.394 –> 05:38.901
[SPEAKER_02]: And we’ve sort of invested internally in,

05:38.881 –> 05:40.664
[SPEAKER_02]: AI software.

05:40.804 –> 05:45.291
[SPEAKER_02]: So AI has been really, really key for us without giving the game away.

05:45.351 –> 05:59.033
[SPEAKER_02]: We have software where we can take photographs of products, the products are then automatically identified, so we could point it basically with a camera and iPad point it at your foot.

05:59.013 –> 06:06.143
[SPEAKER_02]: take the photo and it will tell you within a high accuracy range of what you’ve got on your foot really.

06:06.544 –> 06:25.932
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I’m wearing a Nike Air Force one it’ll tell me I’m wearing a Nike Air Force one it’ll tell me the colour and then it’s got a really strong chance of deciphering the rest of it and then from when we’re listing on certain platforms it automatically puts into a listing

06:25.912 –> 06:35.787
[SPEAKER_02]: One phase is tells you what it is and then onto the next screen puts into item specifics and then off you pop and then they start to list it

06:36.273 –> 06:42.220
[SPEAKER_00]: even occurred to me you’d have to do item identification before you can even start creating the listings.

06:42.240 –> 07:01.842
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no it’s crazy I mean you know because we’ve been doing this for such a long time and there’s probably not many people in our space certainly at the levels that we kind of go out we’ve created that that’s one part of our tech that we’ve created and then the other part of the

07:01.822 –> 07:10.177
[SPEAKER_02]: is looking to sort of plug in to retailers and get the retailers to basically send it direct hidden to others as a full circle.

07:10.738 –> 07:25.686
[SPEAKER_02]: So I know we’ll be discussing a little bit of the ESPR sort of with indie interview, but it’s kind of sitting as that sort of sustainable partner for for retailers and brands and you know helping with that kind of solution that’s going forward.

07:26.189 –> 07:34.221
[SPEAKER_00]: So rather than a return coming back to their warehouse to be processed and then sent to you, it just comes straight back to you to be listed and resold.

07:34.822 –> 07:35.843
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, pretty much.

07:35.944 –> 07:45.478
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we’re trying to work on different sort of parts of either carbon emissions or convenience, you know, what works well for the retailers and brands.

07:46.179 –> 07:55.032
[SPEAKER_02]: And from a full circle perspective, it’s kind of how would you make it slicker and smooth that, you know, returns are

07:55.012 –> 07:57.716
[SPEAKER_02]: not ideal for retailers or brands.

07:58.357 –> 08:05.307
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, moving forward, the consumers actually like these products because you get like the brand recognition.

08:05.327 –> 08:10.614
[SPEAKER_02]: So you might have a slightly used knife, but the important thing is to keep it in circulation for as long as possible.

08:11.135 –> 08:13.138
[SPEAKER_02]: And you’re certainly finding that

08:13.118 –> 08:42.248
[SPEAKER_02]: the retail is now our understanding this and you know I suppose on a slight in depth is the economy is getting a little bit harder and and people have got a little bit less money but they still like the nice things and and that’s why people are starting to move towards seconds or returns because the majority of the time you know it’s when you sort of work with all the premium tier brands you know the phenomenal products and keeping

08:42.650 –> 08:55.714
[SPEAKER_00]: it’s a fascinating time in certainly the UK consumer space at the moment because we’ve kind of got this, this multi-wame, a whole lot of like there’s been a cultural shift.

08:55.947 –> 08:59.354
[SPEAKER_00]: to, you know, mainly I would say driven by the likes of Vinted.

09:00.416 –> 09:11.758
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we’ve seen eBay playing catcher with some love island getting on board, this whole like the cult of the second hand clothes and all of us seem to have vintage problems, addictions these days.

09:12.339 –> 09:17.128
[SPEAKER_00]: But there’s been like that consumer piece that’s then coupled with the economic piece of

09:17.108 –> 09:18.470
[SPEAKER_00]: having less money to spend.

09:19.251 –> 09:34.674
[SPEAKER_00]: Combined with, as you mentioned, ESPR and the other legislation coming down on bigger businesses and ever smaller businesses to force them to care more about the end of life of the product, not just, it’s left our warehouse, we don’t care anymore.

09:34.934 –> 09:42.846
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s so many things now pushing from the consumer side and from the legislative side to make businesses

09:43.484 –> 09:49.212
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say is possibly the biggest melting pot that you could ever get involved in.

09:49.232 –> 09:59.026
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the synergies are absolutely massive and what is going on with the resale platforms and everything is just crazy.

09:59.827 –> 10:06.336
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got places like, you know, Vincent who are doing absolutely phenomenal and

10:06.316 –> 10:10.947
[SPEAKER_02]: think I’m correct in saying within France they’re probably the biggest retailer or something like that.

10:11.107 –> 10:13.012
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s some statistics around that.

10:13.573 –> 10:17.262
[SPEAKER_02]: So everyone is going on to places like Vinted.

10:17.703 –> 10:21.372
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s also, you know, so it’s likely talking about the economy.

10:21.352 –> 10:32.786
[SPEAKER_02]: people are putting together a little side hustles or they’re just sort of having the need to start selling their, you know, their old t-shirts or their old shoes or anything like that.

10:32.806 –> 10:46.363
[SPEAKER_02]: So there’s probably economic pressures as well, that sort of pushing one side as well and the kind of pushing families that, you know, to afford the next thing that they’re then having to definitely definitely sell more and more.

10:46.343 –> 10:53.852
[SPEAKER_02]: So there’s economic pressures on families that are probably accelerating the places like like Vincent.

10:54.232 –> 11:00.779
[SPEAKER_02]: But then on the other side, you’ve got platforms like whatnot and tilt who are doing the social shopping.

11:01.320 –> 11:09.229
[SPEAKER_02]: Now that’s completely different because what you’re finding is that you’re moving away from what is a transactional model.

11:09.209 –> 11:17.516
[SPEAKER_02]: where people actually go and review and have a look at it on the website and everything and they may be sending the odd question and then they purchase it.

11:17.977 –> 11:37.714
[SPEAKER_02]: To places like what not until where they are social life shopping and you’ve got guys and presenters who are selling the product there and then and that’s across sorts of seconds of returns and you and you know

11:37.694 –> 11:40.317
[SPEAKER_02]: turning your mobile phone into a QVC.

11:40.858 –> 11:46.605
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s massively spiking the demand for actually stock as well.

11:46.986 –> 11:49.329
[SPEAKER_02]: So the whole thing is massive.

11:49.349 –> 11:57.519
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you’re looking at what is just the tip of the iceberg for the ESPR, I don’t actually know what that’s going to bring.

11:57.980 –> 12:06.250
[SPEAKER_02]: If I’m completely honest, because it hasn’t been implemented as yet, but it will be very, very soon.

12:06.230 –> 12:08.234
[SPEAKER_02]: interesting, scary.

12:09.156 –> 12:13.465
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t know if anyone knows what’s going on, but slightly exciting, I think.

12:14.547 –> 12:18.675
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you know more about what’s going on, the most of us, and probably most of our listeners as well.

12:18.715 –> 12:23.104
[SPEAKER_00]: So Simon, could you give us the quick bullet point guide to ESPI?

12:23.184 –> 12:27.192
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it stand for, where is it coming in, when is it coming in, who is it going to affect?

12:27.560 –> 12:32.728
[SPEAKER_02]: So ESPR is eco-design for sustainable product regulation.

12:33.269 –> 12:46.009
[SPEAKER_02]: So what we deal with from our side of it is predominantly the seconds of the returns, so the kind of the unsold goods, so the responsibility and accountability for that side of it.

12:46.530 –> 12:48.813
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s what we kind of take from the legislation.

12:49.334 –> 12:55.744
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s just making sure that I think it’s the 19th of July, this year.

12:55.724 –> 12:57.709
[SPEAKER_02]: and it’s predominantly within Europe.

12:57.809 –> 13:07.854
[SPEAKER_02]: So there isn’t anything specific within the UK, as yet, but businesses over a certain volume within Europe brands as well.

13:08.376 –> 13:13.328
[SPEAKER_02]: They are responsible for their seconds of returns, which is fantastic news.

13:13.983 –> 13:19.530
[SPEAKER_00]: And for those brands who are in Europe, is that your business is a European business?

13:19.771 –> 13:23.776
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, you’re a registered in France or Germany or Spain, et cetera.

13:23.796 –> 13:27.241
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it that you sell insufficient quantities into those regions?

13:28.262 –> 13:31.407
[SPEAKER_02]: My understanding is where you sell within those regions.

13:31.987 –> 13:35.372
[SPEAKER_02]: So obviously there are global brands who sell within those regions.

13:35.893 –> 13:39.197
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s kind of what I interpret as has.

13:39.835 –> 13:54.575
[SPEAKER_00]: It would make sense that it is that way around and that’s how what little I’ve read about it suggests because otherwise you’d just see a mass outflux of fashion businesses suddenly registering in New York or London going as a very easy loophole.

13:54.695 –> 13:57.960
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not that easy loophole, but a lot more straightforward.

13:58.580 –> 14:01.945
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you’re a UK business only selling in the UK,

14:01.925 –> 14:08.162
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re not currently affected, but I think we can be pretty certain that this is the way the legislative waves are going.

14:08.182 –> 14:13.656
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you’re a UK business selling significant quantities into Europe, then this is going to affect you too.

14:14.092 –> 14:19.340
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think a lot of the smaller brands, I mean, there is a banding over the next, I think it’s in the next five years.

14:19.360 –> 14:26.892
[SPEAKER_02]: I at least to do with, to do with revenue off the top of my head, I believe two million pound businesses seem to be exempt.

14:27.914 –> 14:30.157
[SPEAKER_02]: Then up to 30 million is geese coming soon.

14:30.217 –> 14:35.205
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s more a case of the bigger businesses and at least.

14:35.185 –> 14:38.109
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s probably aimed at a larger brands.

14:38.410 –> 14:43.378
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say, you know, there’s quite a few or global brands who are specifically out there.

14:43.798 –> 14:46.102
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s applicable to them, I would say.

14:46.923 –> 14:47.744
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s it?

14:48.285 –> 14:56.738
[SPEAKER_00]: And basically this legislation is around as the manufacture of the goods you’re responsible for its lifetime.

14:57.072 –> 15:12.039
[SPEAKER_02]: Pretty much, I think that’s the kind of just behind it is that, let’s say, for example, you put it into a country and it did end up in a landfill somewhere, the accountability is coming back to the brand, which is super, super key.

15:12.500 –> 15:16.667
[SPEAKER_02]: It also means that, you know, certainly throughout the cycle, there’s

15:16.647 –> 15:21.073
[SPEAKER_02]: there’s going to be a lot of trusts, you know, with who everyone is, is working with.

15:21.534 –> 15:26.180
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think the changes are just going to be, did you just going to be so massive?

15:26.240 –> 15:41.440
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s hard to understand what what it will look like in 6, 12, 24 months when it has actually kicked in and then what the remnants afterwards are and the enforcement and everything else set and see how that kind of works.

15:41.420 –> 15:47.790
[SPEAKER_02]: because when you’re looking at traceability of products, generally it’s exceptionally hard to trace products.

15:48.211 –> 15:59.909
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, once it’s gone and it’s kind of out in the ether as it were and it’s been worn, the actual sort of network to find stuff is exceptionally hard.

16:00.410 –> 16:06.820
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, a five-ball pair of shoes and then again this is kind of when it goes on the vintage

16:06.800 –> 16:16.152
[SPEAKER_02]: goes into the re-sale and tracing that all the way through is is super difficult and you know there’s not really an infrastructure for that as yet.

16:16.192 –> 16:35.035
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it’s going to be really fascinating how it evolves in Europe and then how it ends up evolving elsewhere in terms of legislation but also in terms of what the companies proactively do, either because they’ve made changes in Europe and have seen that deliver for them

16:35.015 –> 16:47.047
[SPEAKER_00]: because some of the elements of this should be cost-savours or profit-improvers, you know, adding a second-hand market place to your store, creating less waste in production, less over stock, etc.

16:47.868 –> 16:59.200
[SPEAKER_00]: But also how countries not even in Europe learn from those, so companies are even in Europe learn from those and start pushing things further forwards in how they deal with their own products.

16:59.517 –> 17:13.473
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the key things probably within kind of vintage and a lot of these resale platforms is the good thing that you are doing is that you’re keeping using the product for as long as possible, which is fantastic.

17:14.033 –> 17:26.267
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of sort of, but where including can be worn for a very long time, I think that the knock on effect at some point will be, it may well actually drop initial production.

17:26.247 –> 17:39.625
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have got so many that it’s been produced, but if you keep putting new products into the market and a place has been to our really, really kicking off, then it’s going to keep going through and through all the time.

17:39.766 –> 17:46.435
[SPEAKER_02]: And you’re actually going to start using it, you know, say, for example, you know, you might go for a year to two years.

17:47.076 –> 17:55.427
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I was at a meeting about two or three weeks ago, as we can to a chap about the new materials that are coming in.

17:55.407 –> 18:01.136
[SPEAKER_02]: and we were saying, well, vintage brilliant and everything keeps being recycled and being reused.

18:01.156 –> 18:18.124
[SPEAKER_02]: But how do you get the market penetration of these new materials actually coming into the marketplace because you’ve got all the different sorts of chemical mixers and all the different blends, which is sort of what people want to get out because they’re not easily recyclable.

18:18.104 –> 18:47.689
[SPEAKER_02]: you’ve got this massive kind of flywheel effects of going on and you know having onto numerous different conferences, everyone’s pushing or you know there’s all these different materials that we need to get in and be easier to break down and then all this you know wonderful new shoes shoe design and everything else and which is which is wonderful you know there’s like module shoes which are coming out and that’s

18:47.669 –> 18:49.050
[SPEAKER_02]: you reusing out with it.

18:49.090 –> 18:53.234
[SPEAKER_02]: When does it all sort of come in and then do we start producing less?

18:53.314 –> 18:57.918
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s I think it could be absolutely madness if I’m honest.

18:59.880 –> 19:03.704
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, these new materials do need to come into the marketplace.

19:04.204 –> 19:17.136
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, realistically, if you see the sort of a prize of these platforms, you know, you’ve got to be increasing, you know, full market penetration

19:18.078 –> 19:30.650
[SPEAKER_00]: we have to be moving from a world where you buy a dress and it sits in the wardrobe for five or six years and you may be where it two or three times.

19:31.190 –> 19:39.378
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s a two or three times and then you give it to a charity shop and then it may be gets worn by someone else once or twice and then it gets thrown away.

19:39.398 –> 19:42.180
[SPEAKER_00]: It took like 90s and 90s and 90s behaviour here.

19:43.041 –> 19:47.545
[SPEAKER_00]: So that seven times

19:47.525 –> 20:02.580
[SPEAKER_00]: You might just have rented the dress, so it’s getting worn once a week or once a fortnight, or you’re in a scenario where you wear the dress, you sell it on vintage, it gets bought by someone else and it gets worn at a four times a year rather than three times in five years.

20:02.560 –> 20:06.684
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we’re, you know, there’s only so many clothes a human can be and can wear in a week.

20:07.204 –> 20:23.699
[SPEAKER_00]: So so if we’re, if we’re making better use of the clothing that already exists, then the amount of new clothing that needs to be produced outside the world of socks and pants and bras, because you know, they do get worn out and you probably don’t want second hand of those.

20:24.880 –> 20:32.247
[SPEAKER_00]: But outside of them, we are presumably going to be in a space where less new will need to be bought

20:32.227 –> 20:36.714
[SPEAKER_00]: We certainly have so much space in our wardrobe, we can do still only wear so many pieces of clothing a week.

20:36.774 –> 20:39.317
[SPEAKER_00]: If we’re increasing the number of wears per garment.

20:40.379 –> 20:46.107
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that’s a such a good way of putting it across the amount of wears that you have.

20:46.788 –> 21:00.208
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other thing that we’ve kind of got, and this is quite a big sort of retail shopping, but in the UK, there’s a lot of socials, there’s a lot of drops, a lot of designs, and a lot of influences.

21:00.188 –> 21:04.878
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a lot of people who are influencing us within the market to buy new stock.

21:05.719 –> 21:15.379
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we’ve got places like Manchester, huge shopping centres and everything, always pushing the latest to the new.

21:15.359 –> 21:25.217
[SPEAKER_02]: you have got what is probably going to be two very compelling and competing narratives over the next 10 years and that is going to be.

21:25.678 –> 21:36.658
[SPEAKER_02]: Well maybe three potentially, you know, you’ve got the filtered and those platforms and the pre-live garments and keeping it going which is absolutely imperative.

21:36.638 –> 21:41.086
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got the retailers who have produced the garments in the first place.

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[SPEAKER_02]: They’re now being really sort of well used and heavily used, but then they’re also the retellens of the brands are wanting to sell you the latest drop and everything else.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And then on the third side of it, you’ve probably got what is going to be legislation driven and you’ve got

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[SPEAKER_02]: you know certain percentage of the new materials within ranges.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of the a lot of the brands are only putting small percentage of their range with the new materials like you know some of them are maybe five to seven percent of their range has the new materials and then it’s all competing for the same thing.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So where are you buying and the brands and the retail is kind of

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[SPEAKER_02]: They’ll want these new materials in, but then they’ll also want to be a massive activist for sustainability.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But then they’d also like to sell you a new droplet, a new pair of trainers.

22:37.704 –> 22:41.569
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s just going to be interesting how that comes.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I think the younger generations, certainly my daughters, love-vinted and places like that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And do the thing is that stigma’s being removed as well, you know, sort of 2030 years ago, second-hand was not what it is now, now that that sort of generation of 16 to 25 is hugely embracing it, which is incredible to see.

23:08.540 –> 23:20.975
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think if I think back to my uni days, which when eBay was just starting and the port as large was starting to get over well with a number of eBay parcels, I reckon right now they would be drowning invented.

23:20.995 –> 23:31.527
[SPEAKER_00]: I think absolutely drowning invented if we were, if we were at uni, you need to day, because that eBay was buying, our eBay habit was buying really random stuff.

23:31.507 –> 23:35.921
[SPEAKER_00]: really random, so it definitely wasn’t reuse, recycle, etc.

23:35.961 –> 23:42.141
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn’t very worthy, but properly random, but I think it is interesting what the role of.

23:43.150 –> 23:52.788
[SPEAKER_00]: The fashion brand business is going to be as we move through these changes, fashion in particular, which I think is going to be the most impacted by this consumer shift.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because yes, there’s ways of making money out of your second hand market, but does that enable you to still support the infrastructure, the humans, the space,

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[SPEAKER_00]: And the brand that you have that is currently founded on new new new new new new endless amounts of new and more and more and overstock and it’s a huge huge it’s going to be a huge shift in the space.

24:20.647 –> 24:40.900
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you will, and you know, eventually at some points, you know, and I don’t know if this is going to be 10 years plus production will have to be reduced, M.O.Qs, and what their M.O.Qs are in fact, trees, and either reducing them, yeah, it is going to be fascinating because

24:40.880 –> 24:45.169
[SPEAKER_02]: The, the eventually will be competing against one another.

24:45.710 –> 24:56.794
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, again, it’s the it might be 10 years, but the brands and retailers will be selling obviously their the garments and the footwear and they’ll want it to last a long time.

24:57.074 –> 24:57.876
[SPEAKER_02]: But

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[SPEAKER_02]: I just don’t know what is going to happen.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t know.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I’m a huge advocate of obviously what I do and I always buy second hand and I have done for a very, very long time.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But I like the brand equity.

25:11.995 –> 25:24.051
[SPEAKER_02]: I like the brand equity and I like, you know, sort of being able to keep that going and that for me, you know, I’ve done that for the past probably 35, 40 years.

25:25.093 –> 25:26.074
[SPEAKER_02]: I am that young.

25:27.708 –> 25:32.834
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have to have to do it for a long time and the next generation is starting to do that, which is great.

25:35.838 –> 25:40.604
[SPEAKER_01]: E-commerce master plan is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.

25:40.744 –> 25:48.714
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

25:48.734 –> 25:51.117
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s time for the top six round.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking up businesses to the next level.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Simon, are you ready for the top tips?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you’re nervous.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the book top tip.

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[SPEAKER_00]: 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?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Outliers, who’s one of my favorite books.

26:16.137 –> 26:18.439
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m not sure if you’ve ready to or not.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t think I have

26:23.041 –> 26:25.886
[SPEAKER_02]: Outliers was a, what are my favorites?

26:26.167 –> 26:33.160
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the 10,000 hour broken, and that, for me, was absolutely fascinating.

26:34.101 –> 26:39.852
[SPEAKER_00]: And the traffic top tip, which marketing method do either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.

26:40.608 –> 26:46.156
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously across the socials, you know, there’s places like, I would say places like LinkedIn.

26:47.097 –> 26:48.659
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I quite like that.

26:48.859 –> 27:00.395
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it’s a very sort of set market who you’re working with and for me, huge, you know, you’ve got a kind of dedicated pool of people, I think sort of within our industry.

27:00.896 –> 27:06.143
[SPEAKER_02]: So kind of communicating with in the industry for me on LinkedIn is super, super key.

27:06.646 –> 27:16.889
[SPEAKER_00]: say for anyone who wants to keep on top of what’s going on in a fashion sustainability following Simon is a great idea of LinkedIn because he’s very up to speed with it off.

27:17.089 –> 27:19.555
[SPEAKER_00]: I must admit I get a lot of my knowledge.

27:19.635 –> 27:21.820
[SPEAKER_02]: I try to do that myself.

27:21.800 –> 27:29.983
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think when you go through major shifts and changes, I do get a lot of questions quite regularly on there.

27:30.003 –> 27:31.186
[SPEAKER_02]: Which I’m very happy to answer.

27:31.768 –> 27:37.564
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to sort of have a chat with people because it’s not always on the top of people’s radar as it is.

27:37.966 –> 27:38.808
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And as you said several times, it’s evolving.

27:41.454 –> 27:43.018
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not yet fully formed anyway.

27:43.078 –> 27:45.625
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s got to try and work out what’s coming.

27:45.825 –> 27:56.110
[SPEAKER_00]: And tooltop tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plugin, 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.

27:56.815 –> 27:59.581
[SPEAKER_02]: So we use everything is done on Trello.

28:00.202 –> 28:03.248
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m told at times just to put everything in Trello.

28:04.350 –> 28:11.044
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s just I kind of, if anyone’s used it, you put your different cards in Trello your date.

28:11.064 –> 28:15.313
[SPEAKER_02]: And for a lot of my team, I’ve run separate boards.

28:15.293 –> 28:43.056
[SPEAKER_02]: one with the top team constantly putting ideas and I actively encourage everyone to just sort of brain dump into the app and then we’ll just deal with it later and then we just sort of start moving it around and then we also use it within the rest of the active teams, you know, customer service and streaming and listing everyone has their own Trello board and we communicate through that.

28:43.036 –> 28:47.241
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it works really well as a comms tool to be honest, keeps the teams nicely together.

28:48.142 –> 28:55.791
[SPEAKER_00]: It is mad how many different ways you can use a tool like Trello, you know, from the brainstorming in the idea, capture through two systems management.

28:56.212 –> 28:57.594
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s so, so adaptable.

28:58.515 –> 29:04.622
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, getting into the consumer was part of it.

29:08.697 –> 29:27.819
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where I kind of, come in as our future potential help and we’re looking to sort of put together from a circular, circular business perspective of working with retailers, et cetera, and actually taking returns directly into us.

29:28.980 –> 29:32.905
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s a looking to cut down a large part of carbon emissions.

29:32.885 –> 29:36.830
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s something that we’ve kind of been working on internally for quite a while.

29:37.370 –> 29:43.918
[SPEAKER_00]: Very cool work Simon, 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?

29:44.879 –> 29:56.193
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that the best place to probably find me is posting on LinkedIn, as they tend to do most days, just sort of going, going, what’s going on within sustainability?

29:56.794 –> 30:01.980
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, always available to be messages, just drop as a message and always happy to help.

30:02.399 –> 30:02.740
[SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant.

30:02.880 –> 30:09.781
[SPEAKER_00]: Simon, thank you so much being on the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast and for sharing so many insights and thoughts with us, I really appreciate it.

30:10.382 –> 30:11.486
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you always.

30:11.566 –> 30:11.987
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

30:17.873 –> 30:20.299
[SPEAKER_00]: I continue to find Simon’s business fascinating.

30:20.319 –> 30:28.701
[SPEAKER_00]: I highly recommend going and having a look at their eBay store and there are other stores around the place because what’s so responsibility up to is it’s really impressive the systems of the business.

30:28.741 –> 30:31.609
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that we got into a lot into it here, but it really is.

30:31.789 –> 30:32.912
[SPEAKER_00]: And then,

30:32.892 –> 30:42.005
[SPEAKER_00]: To get a little bit of insight into the bigger picture of what’s going on in the product life cycle, I suppose, more so than just sustainability and the fashion space is fascinating.

30:42.025 –> 30:44.889
[SPEAKER_00]: So hopefully a very thought-provoking one for you all there.

30:45.290 –> 30:53.021
[SPEAKER_00]: I bet it’s a good thing if you’re in the eye of that storm at the moment, is there are a lot of solutions providers like Simon who can solve elements of it for you.

30:53.421 –> 30:55.204
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn’t have to be

30:55.184 –> 30:57.566
[SPEAKER_00]: 100% solved by every company in-house.

30:58.027 –> 31:04.974
[SPEAKER_00]: You get your hands on our notes in this episode including those top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.

31:04.994 –> 31:20.550
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also use the short links that’s ECMP.info forward slash the number of the episode and that’ll go ahead take you straight to the correct page and when you get to the site you can add yourself to the Chloe Thomas newsletter so you don’t miss out on any of the things I share to help you improve your

31:20.530 –> 31:31.420
[SPEAKER_00]: If you liked this episode, then have a listen to Episode 536, where I am chatting to another founder, building their business on other retailers deadstock.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That’s Jules Haines from the Haines collection, who operates in the Homeworth Textile space.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want more on fashion, ECMP.info, or slash fashion, we’ll take you to a page on the website where we’ve listed out

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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So if you know someone this show can help please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com Slash Podcast.