00:00.551 –> 00:11.139
[SPEAKER_00]: Being that close to performance data and having the content production in-house just really allows us to understand the customer better and to really work on and continuously improve our brand.

00:11.499 –> 00:22.407
[SPEAKER_00]: It pushes us to catch friction points or fall-off questions that people have about our products and figure out how to respond to them, which we really wouldn’t be doing if I just delegated it to an agency.

00:25.157 –> 00:27.541
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

00:28.082 –> 00:32.168
[SPEAKER_01]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

00:32.689 –> 00:38.217
[SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the hide-off to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond.

00:38.477 –> 00:40.481
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

00:43.811 –> 00:45.932
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome, it’s great to have you here.

00:45.992 –> 00:49.955
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

00:50.635 –> 00:56.899
[SPEAKER_02]: Huge thank you to Siri from Dema, D-E-M-A for introducing us to this brilliant guest.

00:57.239 –> 00:58.920
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Siri.

00:59.060 –> 01:00.341
[SPEAKER_02]: Really appreciate the intro.

01:00.981 –> 01:10.968
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode, we’re talking to a fashion business who are over 10 million euros about how they are keeping their head off his team down to just eight people.

01:11.368 –> 01:12.689
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they’ll be talking about AI.

01:12.789 –> 01:17.713
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they will be talking about prioritization and we’ll be getting into some stuff around meta ads too.

01:18.313 –> 01:24.097
[SPEAKER_02]: Please listen to the end of this episode so you don’t miss out on my guest’s top tips and my own take on this episode.

01:28.094 –> 01:30.056
[SPEAKER_02]: and now to introduce our special guest.

01:30.456 –> 01:36.921
[SPEAKER_02]: Douglas Holm is the head of online at Merquist, sellers and designers of quality classic men’s shoes.

01:37.322 –> 01:47.190
[SPEAKER_02]: Founded in 2016, they now sell via their Shopify store and four stores in Sweden, Norway, New York and London, plus a select group of partner stores.

01:47.670 –> 01:50.673
[SPEAKER_02]: Turn over is now at 10 million euros a year.

01:50.913 –> 01:51.754
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello Douglas.

01:52.194 –> 01:52.975
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, how are you Chloe?

01:53.522 –> 01:55.043
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m good, it’s great to have you here.

01:55.083 –> 02:02.608
[SPEAKER_02]: We don’t often get a Swedish business on the show, so it’s very cool to get to find out a bit about what’s going on with you all in Sweden.

02:03.048 –> 02:07.051
[SPEAKER_02]: But before we get into all of that, how did you get started in the world of E-commerce?

02:07.671 –> 02:09.152
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that’s a great question.

02:09.933 –> 02:20.820
[SPEAKER_00]: One that I always, people usually ask, and I haven’t really put together the best answer to, but to make a long story short, my journey in E-commerce started way back in 2016.

02:23.002 –> 02:29.888
[SPEAKER_00]: When an acquaintance of mine made a killing selling stickers on Shopify and I thought, well, if he could do it, why can’t I do it?

02:30.708 –> 02:31.789
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s kind of where it started.

02:31.929 –> 02:35.172
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it grew into a first and obsession and then a passion.

02:36.433 –> 02:37.934
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I’ve worked with it for 10 years.

02:38.235 –> 02:39.215
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s basically all I do.

02:39.395 –> 02:40.536
[SPEAKER_00]: I live and breathe the e-commerce.

02:41.397 –> 02:44.480
[SPEAKER_02]: So what other than cheese, what products have you sold over the years?

02:45.087 –> 02:59.399
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, back in those days, we were tested everything from jewelry to botches to to whatever we could come up with that without the algorithm but like but then as I transitioned into a serious role at an actual company at first I sold supplements.

03:00.720 –> 03:16.274
[SPEAKER_00]: at a supplement chain so I handled their BTC at first and then I took over the whole BTC BTC to be operation, the commerce there and ran both and then I transitioned over to the request five years ago now and I’ve been here ever since growing along with the company.

03:17.188 –> 03:22.652
[SPEAKER_02]: I was thinking, should I ask you, do you prefer shoes or supplements, but that’s a loaded question isn’t it, and your boss might listen to this.

03:22.672 –> 03:24.093
[SPEAKER_02]: So let’s not ask you that question.

03:24.113 –> 03:25.574
[SPEAKER_00]: I can go out of the answer.

03:25.714 –> 03:26.795
[SPEAKER_00]: I must prefer shoes.

03:26.895 –> 03:31.038
[SPEAKER_00]: Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been very, very style-interested.

03:31.238 –> 03:32.479
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s just a perfect fit.

03:33.159 –> 03:33.539
[SPEAKER_02]: Excellent.

03:33.559 –> 03:36.541
[SPEAKER_02]: So when the sample sale happens, you’re first in the line.

03:37.162 –> 03:42.786
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I really, I prefer it’s a huge perk having that early access to upcoming releases.

03:43.563 –> 03:44.083
[SPEAKER_02]: definitely.

03:44.964 –> 03:51.989
[SPEAKER_02]: That is one thing I definitely miss about not being clients side anymore is the ability to get your hands on the product at that point.

03:53.170 –> 03:55.432
[SPEAKER_02]: But this isn’t about my or your shopping habits.

03:56.072 –> 03:59.174
[SPEAKER_02]: So Douglas tell us a bit more about Merckworth’s.

03:59.254 –> 04:01.876
[SPEAKER_02]: Where in the world are you based and where are you selling to?

04:02.597 –> 04:03.598
[SPEAKER_00]: Another great question.

04:03.738 –> 04:05.299
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re based out of Stockholm.

04:05.439 –> 04:08.321
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re we’re founded here right in the city.

04:08.481 –> 04:10.603
[SPEAKER_00]: I’ve been located here since the beginning.

04:12.074 –> 04:20.040
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we of course have our four stores across the world, but we sell essentially to every market where we have demand.

04:20.281 –> 04:23.343
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re very international and very horizontal in our mindset.

04:23.363 –> 04:35.032
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re really trying to find early adopters across the board instead of, well, this is historically instead of drilling down and really starting to figure out how to gain major market sharing

04:36.865 –> 04:45.592
[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose that’s one of the challenges when you’re coming out of a country, the size of Sweden is there’s any so big you can grow within that country before you have to start looking overseas.

04:46.533 –> 04:49.415
[SPEAKER_02]: So how early on did the business go into Nastar?

04:49.435 –> 04:53.198
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it a day one strategy or a realisation a couple of years in?

04:54.032 –> 04:57.234
[SPEAKER_00]: So the realization, I mean, it was always there.

04:57.435 –> 05:03.819
[SPEAKER_00]: We were always open for international business, but we really pivoted after I joined the company and we did a data deep dive.

05:04.740 –> 05:19.470
[SPEAKER_00]: And just saw that the data point to us to the fact that we could get customers both overseas, of course, in the US, and Australia, and wherever, but also in other European countries for a lot, less money than we could in Sweden, because those early adopters in the shoe business at least back then.

05:20.311 –> 05:24.653
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re a lot easier to get to than the mass market appeal, push you as of our kind.

05:25.633 –> 05:31.655
[SPEAKER_02]: But you so it’s partly a cost of acquisition decision of comparing these countries and going actually.

05:32.155 –> 05:34.716
[SPEAKER_02]: That is where the lovely green pasture is.

05:35.097 –> 05:36.037
[SPEAKER_02]: Let’s go over there.

05:36.577 –> 05:37.497
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, essentially.

05:37.698 –> 05:41.759
[SPEAKER_00]: Back then, I think we used to call it a horizontal scaling.

05:42.980 –> 05:45.280
[SPEAKER_00]: So just always trying to be a where the customer is.

05:45.861 –> 05:48.142
[SPEAKER_00]: And in our case, that was like finding the right.

05:50.063 –> 06:00.993
[SPEAKER_00]: niche groups in the right countries instead of just trying to build massively invest in building up like that mass market appeal that we’re now starting to achieve in Sweden.

06:01.814 –> 06:09.459
[SPEAKER_02]: So I’ve described in the intro that the product is shoes, but you’ve expanded into a couple of other product range that are kind of shoes adjacent as well.

06:09.499 –> 06:13.681
[SPEAKER_02]: So can you explain much better than I would a little bit about the product range?

06:13.881 –> 06:21.226
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I mean, the founding idea was premium footwork without a premium price tag.

06:21.966 –> 06:25.728
[SPEAKER_00]: So we wanted to come out and fight the big British brands.

06:26.008 –> 06:28.490
[SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, the sales shoes that are very close in quality by

06:30.571 –> 06:36.453
[SPEAKER_00]: And that, of course, we came up with the most classic shoes that is possible at Panilofer and Oxford, and so forth.

06:36.493 –> 06:40.694
[SPEAKER_00]: But over time, we’ve kind of matured into a really broad array of shoes.

06:40.714 –> 06:50.917
[SPEAKER_00]: So now we offer everything from Black Pan and shoes for nights at the Opera to very contemporary areas, sneakers that are fit for essentially any occasion.

06:51.617 –> 06:55.838
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you’ve also then got the socks and accessories and other bits and pieces too.

06:56.451 –> 06:57.172
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course.

06:57.192 –> 07:10.943
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have our best selling socks or the first that’s a given cross selling product and then of course we have the shoetries that are we’re like the first thing we actually sold and then that grew into the company world today.

07:11.823 –> 07:12.824
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, very cool.

07:13.324 –> 07:15.666
[SPEAKER_02]: And what does the team look like at

07:17.097 –> 07:29.311
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had office where it people now in the e-commerce team, it’s myself, and then we have one full-time support customer experience employee.

07:29.731 –> 07:37.159
[SPEAKER_00]: I took half a person that does logistics and customs because it also works in the supply chain team.

07:38.020 –> 07:47.602
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have one person running supply chain and one person doing it, a joint retail and product development department, running that.

07:48.282 –> 07:50.103
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have one person that does brand marketing.

07:50.123 –> 07:51.023
[SPEAKER_00]: And that, of course, I see.

07:51.243 –> 07:54.304
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s a very lean team is crazy lean.

07:54.324 –> 08:03.366
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s in-house, in-head office, everything, including customer service, but not including manufacturing or fulfillment.

08:03.386 –> 08:05.306
[SPEAKER_02]: That’d be a fair way of simplifying it.

08:05.855 –> 08:17.903
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, essentially we of course we have partner factors where we work with instead of our own in-house at this this stage and then we do have a 3PL but yeah, I don’t know that we’re pretty much in-house.

08:18.824 –> 08:30.612
[SPEAKER_02]: And on your, within your micro e-commerce team, marketing team, are you doing everything or using agencies for Facebook ads, Google ads, email or is that all being done across

08:34.305 –> 08:41.670
[SPEAKER_00]: So I handle everything except Google and which we have outsourced because I just kind of be asked.

08:41.710 –> 08:48.394
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s too much optimization and a little time in the list and that’s the list fund and platform that is creative once.

08:48.794 –> 08:51.316
[SPEAKER_00]: So we kind of just offload of that at least for now.

08:52.176 –> 09:05.444
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s working out fine for us, because we really appreciate having many hands in house and being that close to the data and seeing how our customers react to different kinds of creatives and like our brand at large.

09:06.545 –> 09:17.871
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s kind of mind-blowing that you’re running a business of doing 10 million euros on eight people in head office, including the customer service and all the logistics and all

09:22.429 –> 09:28.131
[SPEAKER_02]: running substantial business across multiple different territories with that tiny team.

09:28.812 –> 09:34.534
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you, I mean, is that like a central goal of the business to keep the team small?

09:35.114 –> 09:36.695
[SPEAKER_02]: And if so, how do you achieve it?

09:37.323 –> 10:01.782
[SPEAKER_00]: In a great question, and yes, it is for us as like the North Star operationally for us as to, I mean, at the beginning of the year we kind of landed in the fact that I think we can probably release double, it’s not more without adding any headcount at this stage because we’ve always been listening focused on optimizing processes and removing friction, which has been, of course, hard, historically.

10:02.502 –> 10:10.967
[SPEAKER_00]: But now with everything that AI is enabling, we’ve just been able to automate and fix so many things in our business that I’ve been block-rissed before.

10:11.627 –> 10:16.750
[SPEAKER_02]: Does it like a blazer sharp focus on how do we systematize this?

10:16.810 –> 10:17.930
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we systematize this?

10:17.950 –> 10:26.535
[SPEAKER_02]: Which might mean AI, I might mean automation, might mean simplification, but it’s that reduced the amount of time someone has to spend on it, basically.

10:26.879 –> 10:32.101
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the essential idea is that no one wants to do basic work or at least they should it want to.

10:32.542 –> 10:46.668
[SPEAKER_00]: And by fixing that, we can instead let the people that work here actually spend their time on things that provide value and it is fun to do instead of spending time reading invoices manually, we can just scan them and like have the system take over things like that.

10:46.788 –> 10:50.230
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the same thing with customer support, I mean that’s for us the most obvious.

10:51.473 –> 11:05.384
[SPEAKER_00]: Touchpoint where customer facing AI has been the first like the first AI we deployed in since we could very easily at least automate the low hanging fruit questions about Oh, how does this shoe work with these pants?

11:05.744 –> 11:19.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, a human doesn’t actually have to respond to that and the customer Of course they value the human touch there about what they’re really seeking is reassurance and if an automated reply within one minute of the email Can achieve that then that it’s a net positive

11:20.074 –> 11:36.200
[SPEAKER_02]: not just the customer service questions around where’s my parcel, which is often where people start with automation and chat boards, but the will this look good on me, which I think people would assume is a more difficult thing to automate, but presumably not.

11:37.059 –> 12:04.231
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I mean, it is, and it was, and that’s kind of, so this whole automated income education thing, income conjunction with us rolling out on-site AI search as a pilot project about a year ago, kind of kicked off our first reel, or gave us like the first nugget information we needed to really start on this journey, because when the on-site search didn’t function as well as we thought it would, it came really apparent that, okay,

12:06.796 –> 12:21.546
[SPEAKER_00]: So the product descriptions, the actual information we have on the website about everything isn’t, doesn’t cover enough subjects and it isn’t structured in a way that allows all al alams to break it down and understand what this should really is and what it’s for and what it would work with.

12:22.287 –> 12:29.972
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re working really hard on building that out because I mean sure it’s it’s it’s it’s sexy to talk about it in the

12:31.673 –> 12:37.016
[SPEAKER_00]: But just like good SEO used to video or still is, it’s just good customer experience.

12:37.477 –> 12:40.559
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you’re cycling fast, navigation, functioning, and everything like that.

12:41.219 –> 12:45.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Optimizing for LLAM is essentially just optimizing for the customer journey anyway.

12:46.022 –> 12:46.903
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s like a win-win.

12:47.732 –> 13:01.436
[SPEAKER_02]: Had a feeling we were going to get onto the data underlying the AI because I was assuming you’d spend a lot of time on it, so I’m glad you bought it up and it does strike me as if you go through the effort of getting all that much that data right.

13:02.376 –> 13:08.098
[SPEAKER_02]: The obvious things first things to do with it are site search and support chatbot.

13:08.858 –> 13:15.669
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, because they’ve suddenly got everything they need to deliver for the customer, so I wouldn’t wouldn’t you do them.

13:15.910 –> 13:18.174
[SPEAKER_02]: So you started with those.

13:18.754 –> 13:19.736
[SPEAKER_02]: Where did you go next?

13:21.681 –> 13:27.963
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the next and the like the ultra long-term scope and vision is, of course, off-site.

13:28.324 –> 13:37.987
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we place an inshagivity in cloud, or in in Gemini, or whichever model people use to search, how does Google rank our content?

13:38.007 –> 13:45.010
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s the long-term goal, but it’s a lot harder to optimize when you can’t really measure the outcome in a reliable way.

13:45.870 –> 13:49.512
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re just trying to do both at the same time because they both feed into the same core

13:51.238 –> 13:56.300
[SPEAKER_02]: It does strike me that if you’re getting that, especially the product information, right.

13:57.240 –> 14:01.362
[SPEAKER_02]: And by which I don’t just mean the sizes, I mean the richer product data as well.

14:01.822 –> 14:08.825
[SPEAKER_02]: Then it’s supporting your use of AI as a customer service tool, be that search, be that bots, be that emails, whatever it might be.

14:09.385 –> 14:14.147
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s also supporting your ranking in AI search.

14:15.647 –> 14:17.988
[SPEAKER_02]: and it’s supporting your SEO as well.

14:18.428 –> 14:21.669
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s supporting credit customer experience if it’s customer facing data.

14:22.029 –> 14:37.855
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s kind of just such an obvious thing to improve, because it’s, yeah, yeah, you can’t categorically measure the improvement it’s having on the AI search at the moment, but it’s improving so many different areas of the business all at the same time through one project.

14:38.707 –> 14:52.577
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, I don’t like in a business like ours where our whole core business idea is going up against like a hundred-year-old heritage giants In the in the man’s shoeware game being able to be this fast And move this fast in this question.

14:52.597 –> 14:56.220
[SPEAKER_00]: It really gives us an edge because we know that our competitors aren’t doing this

14:57.000 –> 15:09.629
[SPEAKER_00]: which means that the field is wide open so any improvement we make is going to be a huge leap and like, immediately it’s going to be a moon landing essentially for us and that’s kind of what makes it so exciting.

15:10.489 –> 15:19.475
[SPEAKER_00]: But then of course the hard part there is and how do you actually understand what the user is asking because that in the if you really assume how to look at it what the

15:22.117 –> 15:47.590
[SPEAKER_00]: is essentially based on what the AI thinks the prompter wants to see right and to get there our content has to be able to kind of answer those questions and I’m bringing a bit of another word there so we’re working with one partner there they work really hard with like off-site measuring what kind of conversations are going on about our products okay how if people are are looking for black panel offers which questions are they asking what people saying on Reddit

15:48.630 –> 15:57.305
[SPEAKER_00]: where are the gaps between that we have and what people want to know and then that of course instantly fits into just an improved on-site experience.

15:58.240 –> 16:06.509
[SPEAKER_02]: As you talk about it, it makes it, it helps me remember that we are now becoming quite evolved in how we approach these things.

16:06.529 –> 16:09.312
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there’s a research process that’s pretty standard.

16:09.332 –> 16:13.116
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a where we put it in how we handle it, that’s now become pretty standard.

16:13.637 –> 16:20.004
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you seen, I know, it’s hard to track, but if you’ve seen this starting to pay off in terms of traffic and sales, already.

16:20.728 –> 16:25.209
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, so as I say, it’s super hard to measure because we only get a fraction of the data.

16:25.910 –> 16:32.051
[SPEAKER_00]: The referral, like the referral pointers and UDM tags are usually stripped from a land traffic.

16:32.452 –> 16:38.313
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can still see like that the small fraction we can see, we see a 400% increase year over year.

16:38.373 –> 16:42.655
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is of course both combined like overall LM usage going up.

16:44.162 –> 16:51.327
[SPEAKER_00]: but the graph core is very well to when we started really doing making big leaps here on the on the content side.

16:52.031 –> 17:13.426
[SPEAKER_02]: because whilst the traffic may be, you know, the usage of LLMs is going up by the consumer, at the same time what’s also going up is the sophistication of the LLM model and as we, if we assume it follows the path that Google took, it’s going to become harder to rank well as it becomes more sophisticated and then you’ve also got more people waking up to the fact that

17:15.367 –> 17:21.534
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s I think if you can if you can track the same growth as LLM usage at the moment, you’re probably ahead of the curve.

17:22.015 –> 17:24.377
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have thought based on a finger in the air.

17:25.753 –> 17:27.494
[SPEAKER_02]: rather than precise data, but I think.

17:28.055 –> 17:31.157
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, and it’s super hard.

17:31.297 –> 17:38.823
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, we were starting to get anecdotal evidence, like someone came up to me that I commented and said, oh, I heard about your brand when it started.

17:38.863 –> 17:41.925
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I found you guys, I’m shetched you, but they were looking for a sweet spray.

17:41.945 –> 17:45.688
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went to the store and I bought a spray, which was a lot of fun.

17:46.409 –> 17:50.072
[SPEAKER_00]: She had no idea that we enabled a woman as well, which makes it even more interesting.

17:51.323 –> 18:02.330
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no idea we have like we’re doing so much work on this side of things and we somehow managed to plays really well for something as generic as a Swede spray which is super fun to see.

18:03.148 –> 18:09.754
[SPEAKER_02]: And changing tax slightly, but going back to the lean team idea and how AI fits into that.

18:10.754 –> 18:18.721
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you deciding which part of the business to test AI on next or to automate next?

18:18.741 –> 18:26.707
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would assume you must have endless time sheeting going on or like a whiteboard where you write down something that’s annoying you day to day.

18:27.588 –> 18:36.972
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there’s lots of theories for how you go about working out what’s the next thing you should automate, reduce the human time in, etc., etc., but how do you go about doing it?

18:37.012 –> 18:41.174
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a big strategy or is it more of a vision and everybody does it their own way?

18:41.864 –> 18:55.296
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, it’s a great question and I don’t really have an answer to quite yet because we started really data into the six weeks ago, but in that time, we’ve kind of completely reworked how we do customs, how we do stuff like that.

18:55.357 –> 19:06.006
[SPEAKER_00]: So, of course, we had a couple of low-hanging food things we could attach, but now we’re looking at, okay, how do we continue this work, how do we do this over a longer time it’s bad, how do we really prioritize?

19:06.767 –> 19:21.837
[SPEAKER_00]: The model we’re trying to turn in now is that I started playing around and then I had that moment where I just clicked and I understood okay this is probably what’s possible and then I’m continuing to drill down and now I’m trying to help my colleagues to have the same kind of epiphany.

19:22.997 –> 19:39.903
[SPEAKER_00]: On the product side, we’re now super AI-heavy in the ideation phase, we’re trying to figure out the design to view different material options, because in fiscal selling fiscal goods sampling takes a lot of time right, because you have to have it made and then ship, then you have to have another round.

19:40.543 –> 19:49.666
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we can, instead of going from a sketch to like a sample guess from the factory, we can send the final design to the factory right away in less than a week.

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[SPEAKER_00]: of coming up with a concept so it’s really fast tracking that side of the business as well.

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[SPEAKER_02]: wouldn’t have assumed it would help in that space, but I can totally see how it would.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And I love how you’re saying about how you are, you’re kind of like the person on the front foot with AI and then it’s key for the business to have you up-skilling everybody around you, as she make those decisions.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So they can then see how it can apply in their areas.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Personally, I find it difficult to work out which bit next to do because I can see,

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[SPEAKER_02]: like there’s a huge opportunity there, that bit’s difficult.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But I can think that would be really hard to automate to AI to improve.

20:31.333 –> 20:36.916
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we’ve already bought this tool which could solve that problem but that’s a tiny problem but we’ve already got the tech to do it.

20:37.696 –> 20:42.478
[SPEAKER_02]: Or I saw a great webinar yesterday that showed me this and I got really excited about it.

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[SPEAKER_02]: How do you, you know because I like you said there was some really obvious quick wins.

20:48.000 –> 20:56.326
[SPEAKER_02]: but you can tend to get past those quite quickly and then it’s very easy to get distracted and spend a lot of time optimising something which there was no benefit in optimising a tool.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So have you got any tips on how to navigate that mindset?

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[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think there’s a perfect way to do it but anything you found that’s helpful that works.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So for me personally, in my very broad role, the way I scan the field right now is, I always try to look at cost savings.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that’s the easiest, the lowest hanging fruit, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s why we’re now not using any external development consultant anymore.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I’m just avoiding everything on the website, which is, I mean, it has improved the output quality and the speed at least 10x from what we used to have with our offshore.

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[SPEAKER_00]: consultants that that was like an obvious first win and now we’re just looking at okay how many hours does this take and the verse how we say this to automate I mean it’s I don’t have a more sophisticated approach than that right now

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[SPEAKER_02]: But I don’t know that it necessarily needs to be that more sophisticated.

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[SPEAKER_02]: If you talk about money and time, those are the two biggest costs for any business.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So if you’re tracking those, then you’re presumably pretty well ahead of things.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Now, you also mentioned Douglas, it’s all right to pick your brains on this, that you’re running all the Facebook ads in-house.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Which I know a lot of businesses are on the fence about at the moment.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you put the creative production?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you put the management of the actual ad account in house outhouse, work it all out?

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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there’s lots of different opinions.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So tell us about your rationale for keeping it in house and how that’s how you’re making that really deliver for you, especially

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I mean for us, it all began with cost like everything else, but over time we kind of quite early we realized that after taking in-house, being that close to performance data and having the content production in-house just really allows us to understand the customer better and to really work on and continuously improve our brand.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It pushes us to catch friction points

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[SPEAKER_00]: full of questions that people have about our products and figure out how to respond to them, which we really wouldn’t be doing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If I just delegate it to an agency and do it to a being in-house, we’re now also looking at like everyone else.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, how can we, we need to 10X or conduct production?

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[SPEAKER_00]: How can we do that without breaking the bank?

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[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s a huge challenge for us, but it’s a lot of fun as well.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, there’s the cost saving, but there’s also that all the nuances of the customer behavior that you’re able to feed back into the wider business is, I’m guessing with where you talk about it, it’s not being out, so I said he’s time soon, is it?

23:33.455 –> 23:34.896
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you do much value coming out?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, for us it’s key, essentially, since we’re so online heavy, being close to the way the brand is perceived, has been key for our continued growth at the rate we’re growing.

23:50.459 –> 23:55.084
[SPEAKER_01]: The Commerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the e-commerce sector.

23:55.204 –> 23:56.645
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

24:07.949 –> 24:14.999
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because because me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level, Douglas, are you ready for the top tips?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.

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[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?

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[SPEAKER_00]: That is such a great question.

24:27.216 –> 24:47.389
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, sadly, the way my schedule looks this this, I don’t really have any relevant business books anymore, but the thing I find that works the best for me, then especially actually if it is on a Friday, is just living work with that one issue you can’t solve on your mind and then letting it brew at the back of your mind overnight.

24:47.469 –> 24:50.771
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you cook a nice dinner, maybe have a glass of wine and put on some nice music.

24:51.752 –> 24:58.916
[SPEAKER_00]: and just let some lean back into the weekend and then you should let it bridge with that epiphany that I need to take things at the next level.

24:59.816 –> 25:03.178
[SPEAKER_02]: I am letting the sub-conscious work it out for you whilst you do something else.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome tip, definitely.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I totally agree with you on that one.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize over all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that’s a great question, and this is going to be like an omnischanal brick and motor plus online specific tip, but a lot of people are probably under investing in their retail space if they have it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And like by now, we have really good data on this, but the value of a storefront and that storefront window for online sales over time is just immense.

25:36.223 –> 25:41.847
[SPEAKER_00]: Like our fiscal presence feeds into all my presence, which brings back people back into the brick and mortar.

25:42.748 –> 25:52.357
[SPEAKER_00]: So really looking into and seeing if you can find those patterns and then trying to up the game in the way you function in the physical world has been just a huge step for us.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean that’s what we have three huge screens on the second floor of our New York store blasting out, brand content every day.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Even though we cost a lot of money for us, it’s just been driving crazy growth in the surrounding area.

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[SPEAKER_02]: love that because so often people are doing a collect that physical store and just see that you know, allocate the costs in arguably the wrong places.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s such a good one.

26:14.951 –> 26:22.537
[SPEAKER_02]: And anyone who wants to see what Mark Quest stores look like there’s some great photography of them on the website.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Having had a look at it earlier today, I am not surprised Douglas mentioned that as being a key traffic driver.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Tooltop tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone app or just a way of working.

26:34.167 –> 26:38.471
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a call little tool you use to make you and your team more efficient from day to day?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Now Douglas, I’m expecting something impressive here after all we’ve said already today.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I’m going to hit everyone with a 2026 cliché, but like my one number one tip, especially if you’re finding it harder to get started with the whole AI.

26:54.866 –> 27:12.245
[SPEAKER_00]: the AI by coding and everything like that internally it’s just to find one small task that you do repeatedly that you spend time on and then just try to make it make an app for it in lovable it’s not going to work the first time I had to do three or four iterations

27:13.206 –> 27:19.569
[SPEAKER_00]: But just finding that one thing, one simple little process to try and automate and work on in your free time.

27:20.189 –> 27:23.610
[SPEAKER_00]: Because once it works, you’re going to have that boat with clicks.

27:24.251 –> 27:27.332
[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s going to feel like you just won the World Cup essentially.

27:28.148 –> 27:41.154
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we a lot of people are falling into the trap of approaching AI as though they’re about to create Michelangelo’s David on their first attempt and it’s like, no, you need sort of with plasticine.

27:41.434 –> 27:46.917
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s how you, if you want to create Michelangelo’s David, you need to start off sculpting with plasticine for a bit.

27:47.437 –> 27:58.524
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s like, so I love your tip because it’s like, pick one small, simple thing, learn the basics, and then you can start working up to your micro-angelo’s David at the end of the complex project.

27:59.064 –> 28:05.308
[SPEAKER_00]: And it could be, as is just, okay, I have to read this as we file and translate it to this other format.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, just figuring out how to do that even like inside of cloud or shenchipiti.

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[SPEAKER_00]: or whatever, it’s a great first step because you kind of need to play around with it right to really be able to dig your claws into it.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.

28:20.356 –> 28:25.418
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the carbon top tip, what’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m in here again, you know, this is coming from both.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I cover for print and a commercial standpoint because I do really care about both.

28:34.588 –> 28:38.051
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I’ve, I’ve dropped a lot of second hand, but this suit is second hand.

28:39.372 –> 28:46.578
[SPEAKER_00]: But for us, like the biggest contributor to our common footprint that is completely unnecessary because we have a very slim supply chain.

28:47.118 –> 28:49.821
[SPEAKER_00]: But it’s, it’s grading issues with our shoes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So unnecessary returns is one of the the the the the best.

28:55.209 –> 29:09.947
[SPEAKER_00]: things to work through both because it’s going to save you a lot of money in locked up stock and logistics costs back and forth, but it’s also going to save a lot of emissions that are completely unnecessary because I mean no one buys because they want to return right.

29:10.628 –> 29:14.292
[SPEAKER_00]: some people do, but you can’t give rid of those, but most people don’t want the wrong size.

29:14.392 –> 29:25.683
[SPEAKER_00]: So ensuring that your size guide is right, or that you have accurate pictures on your website, whatever it may be, to try and reduce that return rate is, it’s really key the way I said.

29:27.143 –> 29:31.789
[SPEAKER_02]: the whole piece of helping the customer by the right product in the first place.

29:32.230 –> 29:35.314
[SPEAKER_02]: So there doesn’t have to be a second journey of the parcel basically.

29:35.394 –> 29:36.636
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly and it’s good for everyone.

29:36.656 –> 29:38.158
[SPEAKER_00]: The customer has a better experience.

29:38.478 –> 29:43.205
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s less emissions and you have a better profitability at the on the older level.

29:43.978 –> 29:49.861
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m sure it’s the case you get a better customer lifetime value of the customers, not having to go through the hassle of a return as well.

29:49.961 –> 29:52.123
[SPEAKER_02]: So, an awesome tip.

29:52.203 –> 29:54.804
[SPEAKER_02]: Always love it when someone brings up returns at this point in the show.

29:55.545 –> 30:01.048
[SPEAKER_02]: Douglas, 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?

30:01.697 –> 30:05.421
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, this is the part I’ve been scared of with the name of Swedish is this.

30:05.562 –> 30:14.672
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m gonna have to try and figure out how to say it at the end, but it’s Mirkvis, so it’s MYRQVIST.com.

30:15.433 –> 30:18.497
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, that’s you’re able to pause that.

30:19.064 –> 30:26.466
[SPEAKER_02]: We will add links to that, obviously in the show notes, and wherever you’re watching it, you can see it’s felt because it will be in the name of the episode.

30:26.606 –> 30:28.827
[SPEAKER_02]: So, a Merquist, as fine.

30:29.687 –> 30:32.908
[SPEAKER_02]: Merquist.com to go and find out all about it.

30:32.928 –> 30:38.030
[SPEAKER_02]: And I believe Douglass, you’ve got a special deal for the audience if they want to check out your shoes.

30:38.630 –> 30:45.312
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if you’re interested in checking out what we do for all listeners, use code master plan for 10% off.

30:45.392 –> 30:50.713
[SPEAKER_00]: Sharp shoes, socks, belts, shoe care, whatever you may need, both online and in our stores.

30:51.694 –> 30:54.054
[SPEAKER_00]: Just stop by and have a chat if nothing else.

30:54.694 –> 30:55.015
[SPEAKER_02]: Brilliant.

30:55.335 –> 30:57.335
[SPEAKER_02]: Douglas, thank you so much for coming on the show.

30:57.355 –> 31:05.017
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been fascinating chatting with you and learning how you’re approaching keeping your business so lean and you’re marketing and everything else.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being here.

31:06.578 –> 31:07.258
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.

31:13.088 –> 31:26.634
[SPEAKER_02]: resonating to hear how Merquist have set themselves the goal of remaining a head office team of just eight as they double to ten million euro turnover over the next few years.

31:26.734 –> 31:28.075
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they might just make it.

31:28.175 –> 31:33.878
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems like they’re doing all the right things, and really interesting to hear how they’re approaching

31:34.898 –> 31:58.017
[SPEAKER_02]: using AI to help them achieve that goal, but also the approach to the meta-ads and deciding initially to keep those in-house because of the cost saving, but then also the alignment with the creative team who are in-house, which gives them the flexibility to double down on what’s working, but also gives them all that new-one-state are coming back out of it that they can feed in to

31:59.558 –> 32:01.200
[SPEAKER_02]: thoroughly enjoyed our chat with Douglas.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you did too.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You get your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and links we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterpland.com.

32:09.008 –> 32:17.057
[SPEAKER_02]: You could also use our direct episode short link that’s ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode to get to the right page of the website.

32:17.557 –> 32:20.881
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get there, why not add yourself to our newsletter list as well?

32:21.401 –> 32:30.529
[SPEAKER_02]: If you like this episode, then make sure you check out Episode 367, where I’m chatting with Ash Hubbard from Grants and Shoes, which really builds on this episode.

32:31.109 –> 32:38.455
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more on fashion, then head to ECMP.info for all the fashion episodes on the website.

32:39.295 –> 32:43.457
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the e-commerce mass plan podcast.

32:43.858 –> 32:55.863
[SPEAKER_02]: We bring you a new interview every week because we want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners like you, to succeed and thrive with your business, including encouraging businesses and consumers to make more sustainable buying decisions.

32:56.824 –> 33:02.107
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce mass plan podcast.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Over Great Week, 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.