Latest / Leaders on Shopify with John Readman / The unglamorous secrets behind luxury brands on Shopify

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The unglamorous secrets behind luxury brands on Shopify · Leaders on Shopify with John Readman

• John - Leaders on Shopify: So welcome back to another episode of Leaders on Shopify. today I'm really pleased we've got Tom from Wiro joining us. Tom's an expert in all things Shopify, specifically luxury and design. So we're gonna get into what really makes luxury brands stand out and why Wiro are the best place people to help those luxury brands scale online. So for the benefit of those listening to the podcast who are you Tom and who are Wiro and why are you special and different? Tom - WIRO: Yeah, thank you for having me. So I'm Tom, I'm founder of Wiro We're an e-commerce growth agency specializing in Shopify Plus for luxury fashion brands. John - Leaders on Shopify: And I suppose you had, you've been in the business quite a long time now, Tom, 10 plus years. When you first set up, why Shopify or were you playing around with different e-commerce platforms? What was it about Shopify that sort of got you in there? Or was it a case of you were fiddling with everything in Shopify one? What was the sort of connection with Shopify? Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I think when we first got going, we were very much a design and print based studio where actually we hadn't yet quite found the digital space. we were then being asked more and more for websites on the side of the digital or on the side of the design and print side of things. quite quickly found Shopify as solution in addition to other things like Squarespace, WooCommerce, WordPress, everything else other than Shopify. and quite quickly found that our clients liked Shopify, our clients' customers liked Shopify, our designers, our developers liked working on the platform. And we decided quite early on to niche down into it and actually to bin off everything else. So whilst we're exclusively Shopify, when brands come to us and they say, well, why not this platform? It's kind of like we've worked on that platform. And actually we this is the exact reason you shouldn't be on that platform, is actually because Shopify is just so much more intuitive to The admin, to the merchant, to the brands and the and the customers ultimately using it. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. So, and you're like the top level partner, one of a handful now in the UK and Europe. What do you have to do to sort of get to that stage and maintain that? What's the secret sauce there? What's what the hurdles? Tom - WIRO: the hurdles are the beast that is Shopify, I guess. it's a constantly evolving community, network, platform, ecosystem. so there's a lot of hurdles and and hoops I think we have to jump through as partners and the goalposts do constantly change because the nature of the beast is that it does grow and evolve, as every big large platform and and company I guess knows. so I think that's one of the the challenges, shall we say, of such a b a big business. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. also understanding what our Shopify requirements but it's like getting that face time with Shopify, and understanding what the rules are, but you seem to be in the right place now. So hopefully they're passing you lots of leads. And if there's anybody from Shopify, give Tom some more listening, give Tom some more of those luxury leads. You've been at this sort of 10 years and over 500 brands you've worked with. If you were to sort of look back now, what is the thing you sort of know about e-commerce growth that maybe you wouldn't have believed back in sort of 2016 when you sort of kicked all this off? Tom - WIRO: I think we were very naive when we got going and that a lot of the work that we did was very design orientated without strategy, without data, without best practices. It was more so about what it looked like as opposed to how it may have functioned or how from a U user experience perspective actually the site was navigated. Whereas now everything's almost like flipped on its head that we don't make decisions within design if we are not benchmarking off of best practices, competitors. data like leveraging key insights that shape the recommendations that we make for our our clients and our merchants. Whereas back then, yeah, it was very much about what it looked like as opposed to how it actually felt and how how a user would actually navigate the the sites that we were building for our brands. John - Leaders on Shopify: how do you balance that? look and feel and I suppose that luxurious visuals, video content, etc. with the practicalities of a highly performing e-commerce site. Tom - WIRO: I think it's inviting the right people to the right parts of the process at the right time. So key stakeholders within design or inviting the right people from the brand team, for example. We host a lot of workshops ahead of any audit or discovery when working with a new brand, either on a retained model or on a build or a migration model. where ultimately we're bringing them in to give their feedback and and to give their opinion or equally if they've got a roadmap or a wish list of things that they wish to do over the next six, twelve months, for example, or they've got a vision for what they want that brand to look like. We want their opinions because ultimately it's us that's collaborating with them. so their imp their feedback and involvement is important. It's finding balance between where do you want to go as a business and where are you trying to get to and how do we help you achieve that through strategy, design, data, best practices, but shaping that identity too and and kind of colliding the two together into into the process. John - Leaders on Shopify: I'm not going to ask you to sort of name names or projects. Yeah, Tom - WIRO: Name names. John - Leaders on Shopify: I bet you've had some ones where you're sat there going, yeah, you might want that, but that's just not going to work, right? Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I think I think we're quite candid with the lot of brands that we work with. We even say in the sales process, like we're very transparent, we're very open and honest. And if you want a partner that is gonna challenge and push back throughout the process, that's very much us. Like we're ultimately doing it for the best interest of the brand, like ultimately generating the best results. But that isn't always necessarily had by just giving a brand what they think they might need. There's a lot of self-diagnosis and then there's kind of reality of what actually needs to happen in order to shape whatever the solution is that we're providing for the brand. So we're quite transparent throughout the sales process and when we're onboarding any brand, that the conversations that we're going to have throughout the workshops, the sessions, the design process, once we get into feedback cycles, that we're we will push back and we will challenge if you want that. We can equally work with the brand if you just want us to be more of the here's what we want and we can go away and execute it. But most of the success we have with the brands that we work with and and some of the biggest accounts we work with are those that They can lean on our team, depend on our experience and expertise with other brands that we've worked with. And that's often what generates the best results, is where they've come with a vision. We've we've been able to challenge or push back and said, look, here's the here's what's worked for another brand in this same space. And actually the solution that you're suggesting, we've already tried it and actually didn't work with other brands. So rather than waste budget, waste time finding out something that we might already know, we can at least share insights as to what has or hasn't worked with previous brands in the same space. take those recommendations into whatever the solution looks like moving forwards. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And I suppose ultimately that's why people are coming to experts like yourself is because you've arguably done the test and learn on someone else's budget and you go, right. We know what works, what doesn't work. They might have a new idea that you don't know what works and doesn't work, but then for the next client, you'll then know what works and doesn't work. And that's the beauty of working with a specialist who's an expert in their craft. Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I think that was the beauty of niching down quite early on within like the the fashion, the luxury brand scenes. We've worked with hundreds of brands in this space. So we can go, well, do you know what? We've done this for ten others and here's what we know works. We've done this for ten others and it didn't work. So we don't want to repeat the same mistakes. I think something as an agency we're very much big advocates for is like learn from the mistakes. so yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And who was that sort of first breakthrough client in that sort of luxury space that really sort of put you on the map? Tom - WIRO: we've worked with a brand called KitGame for the last few years. it was actually really exciting. Kind of we worked with them five or six years ago. They kind of came back for a second time, which was really nice. It was nice that they came under new management. So it's almost like we won the same client twice, not because we knew someone there almost on the second attempt at winning their business, which was great. So I'd say they were a great brand in a space that I'm very passionate about. I'm a big lover of sneakers, footwear. used to John - Leaders on Shopify: sneak ahead, sneakerhead Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I used to used to go to all the the the kind of Crepe City events. was in a lot of the Facebook groups where actually I met a lot of my network that I now kind of work with, have clients with in the same space. but they were a big that was a big brand for us back then where this is like, okay, this is the kind of brand that we want to be working with. So that was a big milestone and achievement for us in working with brands like that. and like I said, it's nice to now be working with them again all these years later. We've worked with brands like Piglet in Bed is another good example of a brand that came to us very early on in their journey and now they're they're huge compared to where they were when they came to us five or six years ago. so yeah, I would say those are two really big brands, but have worked with some really fun names over the last few years. John - Leaders on Shopify: Okay, cool. So, and in terms of your business, you're Suffolk based as a business, and you do a sort of remote first approach. Has that helped or hindered you? And I suppose what does that say about where to find amazing ecommerce talent? Tom - WIRO: So it hasn't always been the case. So in our infancy, we were fully office based. So we had a smaller office. I think within the first six or twelve months, we'd outgrown that, got to another office, outgrew that, went to another office. I think we did we went through something like five offices in the space of about three years. but what we found was we were very limited by the talent where where we were trying to hire in-house within Suffolk, a lot of the talent was going to Bigger agencies or full service marketing agencies, or ultimately they were going into London where the salaries were a lot higher. And then came around COVID, where I think salaries were kind of I don't know, they were a lot a lot more similar across the board, regardless of where you were in the country. It was more so around what you could do as opposed to where you were necessarily based. Obviously, COVID forced everyone to kind of work from home. And as agencies, I think everyone either adapted to the fully remote way of working or then the form of a hybrid. And then obviously some have now gone back to kind of the office way of working full time or on a hybrid approach. But for us, it's like we never went back to the the full in-house way of working. So we had 18 of us in-house at the time. We're now a team of 30. But actually internally like culture is probably the best it's ever been. Team dynamic is the best it's ever been. Communication is brilliant. Like something we're we're big at and we use Slack obviously on day-to-day communications, as I'm sure a lot of people listening in the agencies do too. we make a point of not almost overcommunicating, but making sure that the right people at the right time have insight as to what's going on. We use tools like Fireflies, which means there's transparency across the board. I'm sure there's other agencies that are using Claude as to have to house a bit of a brain as well around transparency ins inside the agency so that everyone's got exposure as to what's going on and when. and from a communication perspective, I'd say everything has moved forwards a lot. Those AI tools have really helped and accelerated that. But we'd be doing that before Fireflies came out. We were doing that before like Claude kind of found its feet in the last kind of 18 months or so. so those are things that I think we set a really solid foundation for. But now these tools are accelerating that even more so. but yeah, it just worked really, really well for us as a team. We've got around 10 of us over the UK. we've got some across Europe and then some across Southeast Asia too. As an agency, we're very process operation and and system driven. It's what's moved us forwards over the last five or six years. We had a lot of growth in a very short period of time over the COVID era, which was great for us in accelerating our business from a cash flow perspective. But we grew very, very quickly that it was almost we were our own worst enemies in how quick we grew. So we scaled things. John - Leaders on Shopify: It's almost like a champagne problem that isn't it? It's like you don't want Tom - WIRO: Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: to down the new business, but I don't want to let them down and how am going to deliver? That's a sort classic agency growth challenge. So how did you do Tom - WIRO: Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: that? Tom - WIRO: So we maintained the retainers that we had at the time, which was ultimately covering our costs as a business, but we we were reluctant to take a lot of new business. I'm talking probably six years or so ago now. We were reluctant to take new business. We we were maintaining the retainers that we had in order to keep the business operating, but we made a real point about focusing on operations and systems. So putting at the time what was one of our designers into a more operations based role, which is now ironically the operations director within the business. And bringing in additional people into the business that could help like designers, developers, project managers, account managers, which at the time we were very flat as an organization. We were very kind of a couple of developers, a couple of designers, we lacked account managers, we lacked project management, whereas now structurally we are very sound as a business. But I think it was really taking it back to its core around what was ni needed in in order to deliver. results for our clients and follow through John - Leaders on Shopify: And then any. Tom - WIRO: when when we said we're going to deliver something, we would make sure it was delivered when we said we would. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And I do think in the agency space, it's that sort of Ronseal approach. People want transparency and visibility and do what you say you're to do when you say you're to do it. I think people still had bad experiences and being let down. So if you can get a reputation of, hang on, they said this date, this is when it happens. It's a really good reputation to get. And having been in this world a long time, luxury is hard. I think it can be hard, the expectations are higher a lot of the time and these businesses really are particular about how things are done. So that raises the bar even higher. So what sort of... Why did you sort of niche down into that and what's made you commit to that instead of maybe taking on other brands with other budgets that maybe aren't in the luxury space, but let's just do that one because that's a good bit of revenue. You must have to imagine now, take the briefs and decide, right, that is one or that isn't one. So it's a why luxury and what's made you commit to that? Tom - WIRO: Yeah, we have a very clear, almost internal ICP around what a good client looks to us looks like to us in terms of size, space that they're in, like I said, fashion, footwear, luxury, and lifestyle is typically like that that main vertical. but yeah, we do equally say no to a lot of business. where it's just not a good fit for us in terms of we can't deliver the same caliber or quality of work that we could for brands that do sit within that ICP and within that space. so it's frustrating, but at the same time it's kind of it's allowed us to get the business to what it is today. I think also we've brought in a lot of experts into the business where when you've got experts that have a certain amount of experience and exposure to brands working in a certain space, then trying to service brands that are in a completely different space the same way doesn't really work. Because best practices are slightly different. You're working with brands, let's say their food and beverage brands or supplements brands, it's very different to working with a brand that sells, I don't know, luxury fashion or footwear, like they're completely different products. it can be that there is a lot of similarity where it's brands that are very high ticket price. but yeah, it's just I think very early days, we got a load of brands that were almost in a similar space. kind of space and naturally the case studies then attract more brands that are in that kind of space. And I think we hang in circles where it's more of those kind of brands. So it's more brands naturally in the fashion space too. whereas naturally we're not necessarily networking or hanging with as many brands that are in slightly different kind of verticals. John - Leaders on Shopify: And I suppose once you've got a few people exactly want to hang out with other people. It's like, and I suppose sometimes picking an agency, senior decision makers are often thinking around, right, what's going to give me the best protection as a person who owns that decision? Well, it's like, well, hang on, look at the references. These are the other brands they've worked with. So it feels like a safe space. So I think niching down is definitely a good idea. And around Tom - WIRO: Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: luxury, Who do you think is, and you don't necessarily have to name names, but luxury done online is hard, right? And I think it's harder than maybe luxury in a store, because it's a lot more tactile. Where do you think people get it wrong and what are the sort of common mistakes you see luxury brands making? Tom - WIRO: think trying to be too creative or almost like on brand with the experience. I think brands can sometimes take it a bit too far where actually as users, we go onto sites and naturally expect to see search in a certain place, the navigation in a certain kind of place. And it's when they introduce styling that is so on brand that it almost like detracts or takes away ever so slightly from what we would deem a kind of standard or best practice almost customer experience. That said, executed well, like it can work very, very well when you look at brands that have implemented, I don't know, things like loyalty, retention models, rewards, tiered systems, stuff like that, on brand and taking that a step further, I think can can work very, very well for a brand. So I think it's finding balance between like the on brand on brand aesthetic and design to ultimately not hindering from a UX perspective. But I think that's the John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And I suppose, Tom - WIRO: same across any brand. John - Leaders on Shopify: yeah, I think from a user point of view is you sort of expect certain things in certain places. And then I think you're absolutely right. If the brand is executed and it's obvious, amazing. But if they, if they haven't don't mess with that DNA of what we know works. And it's about, and I suppose your job and your project managers and designers job is to sort of marry those two together. So, and. So you're fully immersed and 100 % focused on Shopify and Shopify has built a lot of its capabilities through the sort of app store. You've been around for 10 years plus, you'll have seen that sort of evolve and change a huge amount. When someone comes to you, what are the sort of go-to partner apps that you put in your tech stack? Tom - WIRO: So we work very closely with the guys at Swap. in addition to those guys, we work closely with the team at Gorgias, Okendo Yeah, we've we've got plenty of partners in that we that often make up almost like a core tech stack of the builds and the brands that we work with. but I'd say those three are probably the one of the biggest three that we we work with regularly. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, and is there any super cool, interesting, new random apps that you've maybe come across recently that people should have a look at or play with? Tom - WIRO: Plenty. I mean, especially in the in the era of AI, there seems to be apps cropping up every day. whether or not that's from larger kind of larger technology deploying almost like a second or a third app or a product, or whether or not that's like a bedroom kind of startup AI tool that was kind of an idea yesterday and this afternoon it's an app. we as an agency focus more on the established tech, those that we already have relationships with, whilst Still having our finger on the pulse as to what's changing in the space, we we don't want to almost like take the chance with the brands that we work with. We want to make sure that the brand becomes or the technology becomes more established. And it's more more so from the standpoint of mitigating risk for the merchants and the brands that we're working with. Ultimately, we take responsibility when we're offering advice on what apps to bring into their tech tech stack. So it's making sure that the technology is credible before we make the introductions and the referral to it. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Cause you see, it's a big risk cause you're, it might look super cool and might do something really exciting, but if they haven't actually got a depth in customers as poor or what I suppose an apps only as good as the support if or when it goes wrong and Tom - WIRO: And I think that's often where it's let down is the the concept is great, the vision for the for the technology and and the purpose of it is great. And it might look great from a design aesthetic or the landing page that the tech partner has, for example, when it actually comes to the support or the documentation. We've had a few kind of poor experiences before where documentation or API documentation or support has let us down, but ultimately that's what the merchant remembers when stuff starts going wrong is the support that they got when it went wrong. Like if if the issue is rectified within five, ten minutes, you don't really remember the the issue that you had when the support was frustrating and it's gone on for weeks. That's the bit they're gonna remember. John - Leaders on Shopify: And suppose the challenge is if you've also been part of that recommendation journey and then you're struggling to get support and they're struggling to get support, it puts friction in that relationship. the last thing you want to be doing is recommending stuff that could put friction in your relationship. You want Tom - WIRO: Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: stuff that's going to make you look good and that's concrete. Tom - WIRO: Hence more of a focus on the established technology. If you're working with a tech partner that's got thousands of employees and you know that they've got customer service and you know that they're that customer service team have KPIs based on response time and things like that, around how quick can we close a ticket? That's where, as from an agency perspective, making the recommendation to the partner, the technology's great. It might be a little bit more expensive than a startup AI piece of tooling or technology, for example, but ultimately the support. for these larger merchants and it's the way we operate and work as a business that we're probably not the cheapest solution, but actually we will mitigate the risk as much as we possibly can through our discovery and through our product offering and the way in which we work with a merchant is to make sure that the support you get and and the experience that you have with us when we're delivering our service is where it needs to be. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, I think there's often a false economy in some of these cheap, cheaper apps because actually when you need them, that's ultimately what the, where the money comes in. But yeah, there's been this rise of sort of, I think you call them what would made her in the bedrooms or AI wrappers people doing copycat apps, spinning stuff up. We actually changed something in our Shopify app store page, which I never thought would be like a USP, which is real human onboarding. and customer success and real human account managers. Because actually people want to talk to people who actually understand their business and their problem and know they can either pick up the phone or jump on it and get actually a dialogue with somebody who understands them. Tom - WIRO: Yeah. Yeah. And I think and I think there is a I think it's more of a problem where it's a one, two man team as opposed to where it's a, I don't know, a small piece of or a small app or start up piece of technology where it's a growing team and it has legs. When you look at tech partners of ours, like Audit Editing, for example, that grew super, super quickly, that's a great example John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. Great. Yeah. Tom - WIRO: of where it's been backed and they've grown very, very quickly and it's got support that's needed. But ultimately great reputation, great kind of stack of credible brands that are utilising the technology, which agencies partners can get behind and recommend. so I do think there are also equally tech partners out there where there are some great bits of kit. but it is becoming a very saturated space with everything that you can now do with concept or kind of vision to concept very, very, very quickly. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And historically, a lot of people have sort of said, Shopify. And I, and I think we both know this is changing, but I'm just interested on how you position this. Is Shopify very much smaller business, mom and pop shop, but now some of the world's largest brands are migrating to Shopify. How do you position it to somebody who comes along and says, we're not sure why shop is Shopify. Okay. For a luxury brand. And why are people still nervous about that? Tom - WIRO: I think we actually have that conversation very, very rarely. I think last year we may have had that conversation once with a brand where we're having to really sell Shopify as to why you should be on it. I think ninety-nine point nine percent of the time brands are coming with us already accepting that they need to move over, whether or not that's an introduction that we got directly via Shopify, whether or not there's an introduction that came cold, inbound through the website that knows they're on an old legacy platform that actually they know they need to be on Shopify. So it's not a conversation we have very often. And to be honest, it's not always a great fit where you're really having to to sell as to why. Like the the features, the benefits and and often the total cost of ownership makes total sense as to why you should be on Shopify. So yeah, it's a very rare conversation. We don't have it very often. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, that's good to hear because I almost think the conversation now is, well, why wouldn't we move to Shopify? It almost feels Tom - WIRO: Yeah, a hundred percent. John - Leaders on Shopify: like, hang on, I've really got to have a good reason not to go on to Shopify at the moment. And you're betting your business on Shopify, we're betting ours on it. And it just Tom - WIRO: Yeah. John - Leaders on Shopify: felt like that's where the momentum is. Tom - WIRO: I I think a lot of the brands that we work with, it's typically in the mid market space. It's brands doing ten to fifty million in the luxury and the fashion space. So often those brands know they need to be on that platform. I think we often have conversations with brands where they might be kind of rather the mid market, more large market or enterprise, where they're starting to question as to whether or not it might necessarily be the right platform. But again, I think that's a bit of a misconception around where the market was several years ago, before B2B, where it was before where it was as a product. And actually what that can do now from a capabilities perspective. and it equally as well to the platform. There's there's no other platform like Shopify that's releasing hundreds and hundreds of updates per year across the board as aggressively as what Shopify is growing, that platform, as well as the the partner network and ecosystem community. Like there's there's no other growing community like that at that sheer size. Even when you look across if it's B2B tools like I don't know, Webflow, Framer, those communities aren't necessarily growing at the same rate as what I I think Shopify's kind of commerce ecosystem is. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, They've got five, what is it? 5,000, five and a half thousand developers. All right. Just getting your head around that. If you think about how much stuff you guys can build with the developers you've got, just think what you could do with five and a half thousand developers. Tom - WIRO: Yeah, and that's really hard to quantify until we went to dot dev and you see that many people from Shopify, what was it, six thousand, eight thousand people, I can't remember. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, in the street at the block party. Tom - WIRO: and then you can start to quantify quite how big that organization is and how they're able to execute as much as they can like as much as they do and as growing as aggressively as what they are. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And I think also just the energy and the excitement that we're all energized and excited because we've got our small businesses. We're trying to roll off, I suppose, follow the juggernaut, but they seem to have that energy and drive and passion within that. there seems to be something in that DNA, is, which is fascinating. So Tom - WIRO: Mm. Mm. John - Leaders on Shopify: when, when you, you must speak to lots of people. As you said, that sort of mid market who are replatforming from something, maybe a Magento, maybe a Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or they've outgrown their WooCommerce or whatever it is. What does a sort of first month after migration look like for a luxury brand? And I suppose what are the surprises they might not have thought about? Tom - WIRO: I guess to to answer the la the latter part of your question first, I think that's ultimately on us at the start of the process to risk mitigate as much as we possibly can and to foresee what's ultimately going to happen post launch. So within our discovery phase of our projects, like we're looking to import as much test and kind of data as we possibly can so that we're not having to do it six months further down the line once we've designed and built the solution, product's been imported and we're ready to go live and we're not having to wait for the the data to all be exported from the legacy platform and move it over. We're looking to design the solutions based on exporting test data that they have, real data, to make sure that by the time it actually comes to being live, like we have real data ready to import, it's not going to hold back the process and we're not going to be having to almost like adapt solutions that we've built because we haven't fully foreseen what may have cropped up during the build. So that's where discovery, I think, from from our perspective is super important. And I think often I'm sure there'll be brands or agencies listen to this which they may have gone through that process where discovery hasn't been as thorough as perhaps in hindsight that they would have wanted it to have been. And they've found out the hard way where the process has either taken longer than it's needed to have been, it's cost them more than it needed to have done because ultimately they they hadn't risk mitigated as as in detail as perhaps what they could have done. so I I would say that's where brands that are going through the RFP process or they're doing their due diligence with agencies that they're speaking to, how thorough is the agencies that you're speaking to in terms of their discovery process, because that is where all the detail is very much picked up on what the success of the project looks like. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, and I think you're right, that you might in your mindset think, there's a bigger upfront cost here, right? But actually over the period of doing this migration, we're not going to get any unforeseen extras or unforeseen car crashes because we've spent the time altogether thinking about everything. Tom - WIRO: Yeah, 100%. I mean, in the last 12 months, all the projects that we've done, there hasn't been any unless it's change requests from brands. Like there hasn't been where we've we've gone through discovery and we've said, right, okay, that build is going to cost X. And then we haven't had to go back and say, we missed this. We now need you to we now need to charge you an extra ten K, 20K, for example. All of the builds in the last twelve months, it's taken the time that it's going to take. And if not, they've been delivered sooner than the scope of work has said it's going to be delivered, which is great. But it Yeah, the the only r the only changes would have been where a brand has said, right, actually before Go Live, we need to do X, Y, and Z because that's something that is a preference. It's been a change of priority and actually we need to get it done. So I think that's where the discovery process is super, super, super important. But I don't think always we've worked with some great brands recently where there've really been green flags throughout the sales process and they've really understood the value of what what the purpose of discovery is and it's to mitigate the risk as much as we possibly can for them. Our discovery is a little bit d different to perhaps other agencies too, in that we do a lot of the heavy lifting almost up front. So we're doing a lot of that data piece of work when it comes to migrating or a migration, for example, where we're taking legacy data data out of an old platform and then obviously importing it into Shopify. We go through the full UX process, so we wireframe absolutely everything across the board. We do the full information architecture. So the brand is aware going already into design within the process. They're aware of every single section that they need to design content for. So that when it comes to having built it and handing it over to them, they know what they they should have had several months to collate and design assets ready to basically drop in. so yeah, there's a large part of the process which we actually include within Discovery because it does everything up front for them. So then we can provide design concepts and we can roll into design and then the build very, very nicely, naturally. And it's a very seamless process too, because we've done everything almost up front rather than waiting. to get into month three to go, crap, we didn't realise you needed this or we didn't know you needed this piece of functionality. And John - Leaders on Shopify: about this, what about this, what about that? Yeah, yeah. Tom - WIRO: the minute that happens, that's when timelines start pushing and that's when costs start creeping in that hadn't been accommodated for. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah. And it helps you plan a better business as well. Cause you know what capacity looks like and what way you have capacity to win more new business and et cetera. So it's just, yeah. When we're talking about it here, Tommy, sounds like common sense, but I know a lot of agencies Tom - WIRO: Hundred percent. John - Leaders on Shopify: don't do that or have been caught out by just trying to rush projects. then you get that, I don't know, scope creep. it's then as a client, like if you're the brand, you get that, what do mean it's not included? well, that wasn't on the original scope of works and da, da, da, da. And then that just creates that tension and friction within a relationship between an agent and a brand. So. Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I mean there's a there's a there's a number of mutual benefits as well. I mean that the brand benefits from if we say it's going to go live in November, going live in November because as an agency, if I quote a four-month build, I can't have it take seven months or six months because we're a business. We whilst we do it because we love it, like we don't do it for free and that we want to make money from it as a business too. So it means that from a capacity and a resource perspective, we know that December onwards, like that project is gone. They're into month one of testing post live, and that That client then might might move on to retainer. So it's in everyone's best interest that we stick to the timescale that we're going to because I'm sure that brand also has plans post go live as to what happens then too. If is it retainer, is it in house support? is it a blend of the two and what that looks like. So it's mutually beneficial. John - Leaders on Shopify: AI, agentic commerce, when we were both in Canada, there was a lot of chat about AI. Shopify were all AI first. And I do think you as an agency and brands on Shopify are in a good place because Shopify is thinking so much AI first. One question. I'm keen to understand though is, agentic commerce in luxury is going to be interesting because luxury is a lot about the brand and about that brand experience. So I suppose from what you've seen so far and what you're thinking, how would you think agentics commerce is going to play in luxury? And what, if you're a luxury brand listening to this, what should you be thinking about? Tom - WIRO: I think as agencies and e-commerce as a whole, I think agentic is going to or the market is going to pivot. Right now we optimise website storefronts from a data, from a UX, from a design perspective. I think in years to come we'll look back and essentially we'll be optimizing agentic storefronts where it's still a storefront, it's still on brand for those brands wanting to kind of dabble in the agentic and AI kind of space within this AI era. But I think we'll be optimizing a different front end. I don't think it'll be a storefront anymore. The same way we've kind of gone through apps, web apps, online stores. And then I think we're we're just going into a slightly different era where you can take a lot of the same principles. But I equally think that comes with a lot of opportunity for both the agencies, but also technology partners, but equally the brands too. So I think, yeah, that there's a a large piece around custom agentic storefronts that I think is going to be had over the next few years. but I equally think around search and discoverability is going to become a large piece too, because how do you stand out John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, nice. Nice shot. Yeah. Tom - WIRO: from from that perspective? John - Leaders on Shopify: I think it could be the rebirth of proper digital PR executed well, where it's not just for link building and it's not just for, it's like what is, and it should play well into smaller scaling up niche luxury brands. Cause if they've got a point of difference, they should have some good content, some, a good experience, which should surface well to the LLMs within a shopping, my sort of ecosystem. So, And I suppose, yeah, you're at the cutting edge of a lot of this. What do you think is the most overhyped thing right now in e-commerce and what's the most underrated? Tom - WIRO: Good question. I think it could potentially be the same answer for both. I think agentic is almost overhyped right now because it's the the buzzword on everyone's lips around what's going on within the Shopify space, within the commerce space. I think it's underrated where brands may think it is a bit of a buzzword, and that actually, whilst it's here right now, there is a larger educational piece that needs to be had within the market around the consumers that are actually using it. So as agencies at the forefront of what's going on, like we can create and design these experiences for these brands. But are the market as consumers are they actually using it yet? So there is a transitional era, I think, where There's the time required as consumers to learn to actually understand how these agents can work for us, to purchase products for us, or to at least find, discover products for us. So I don't know if there's a bit of a a cheat, almost like using the same answer for both. But John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tom - WIRO: I do think I think it's underrated, but I also think it's overhyped at the same time. It's like it's like when Hydrogen was first released several, several years ago and all of the brands, especially on Shopify, they they jumped over to it only to find out that actually It was actually a limit limiting or that kind of thing. I don't think it's the same thing, but I do think it's a buzzword that we're now seeing in a lot of the RFPs John - Leaders on Shopify: Okay, that is it. Tom - WIRO: and the briefs that we're re we're kind of receiving, we're seeing the same kind of words almost used. John - Leaders on Shopify: We should probably, we could probably get into a whole conversation around headless, not headless and like luxury brands want headless because it gives them more control, but actually does it, doesn't it? But Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I don't think it does. John - Leaders on Shopify: yeah. And if someone said to you and the RFP said, we want headless, what would you actually go back and say to them? Tom - WIRO: I would ask why, because I think it has its time and its place if you do want headless. But I think nine times out of ten when we speak with brands that they've put it in, again, like there's often a lot of buzzwords that you receive in RFPs, and I think that's potentially getting worse with the use of Chat GPT and and Claude generating briefs for us. John - Leaders on Shopify: Hey. Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I I do think that is getting somewhat worse. but often it's understanding of the why, and it's the same with any of the solutions that we provide. We we don't jump straight to the diagnosis or or the solution as to what that might be. We first need to kind of diagnose the challenge, the pain points that you're having, why we might even potentially propose what the solution is. So I think it's like going to the doctors and saying this is what I need is like you don't know until you've actually spoken with them, you've consulted with them. They've asked you a ton of questions John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, it's interesting. Tom - WIRO: as to what might be going on, as to what the prescription or the solution might be. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, and also we're seeing people now migrating back, all right, because they've realized the total cost of ownership and actually that grass being greener maybe isn't green and actually it's a bit brown and patchy on both sides and there's always Tom - WIRO: Well John - Leaders on Shopify: an element of compromise. It's just different compromises. Tom - WIRO: Yeah, we see and have saw we we've seen the same thing. everything they said it was, it wasn't. Like it's gonna be cheaper, it's not, it costs more, it's gonna give you more free reign and control, it doesn't, it's more limiting. the apps that you can utilize, like it's it's way more limiting. There's only a certain amount of of apps on the App Store which you can ultimately plug into the same experience, which limits the tech. Which might then mean your tech costs naturally go up because it's limiting the amount of partners you can ultimately work with. So yeah, we as an agency, we don't do any headless. it's not something kind of on our our radar. Well, it's on our radar, like we know what it is and we know the benefit that it has. But I think it's really asking the brand is this project for us if you do want headless? And but if it is, why do you need it? And ultimately understanding the why allows us to then say, Do you know what? Don't need headless, and here's the solution. Or actually, do you know what? Yeah. You do need headless and here's here's a partner that can ultimately help with that. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, yeah, I get that. So you're a global business. You've got people all over the world. And where do you see the sort of biggest areas of growth in luxury right now? Tom - WIRO: Search and discoverability with the whole LLM and agentic side of things I think is huge. I think we do a lot with merchants when it comes to their navigation, when it comes to filtration on collection pages. I think there's a lot of brands that I think still don't even know where they have luxury brands, they still don't do the basic or foundational things quite right or well enough necessarily for given where perhaps the stage of the brand might be. yeah Often more times than not, I think it's a lot of the foundations or kind of the simple things which could be done a lot better. So we work with brands and we'll often do an audit where the audit is broken down into a series of deliverables. But one of them is like a full teardown of everything from a customer experience perspective. and concepting where, okay, here's a best in class example of the same area across both sites, but actually here's where they're doing it very, very well, and ideas that we can ultimately not have to recreate the wheel for and here's where this brand is doing this really well and perhaps we could look to implement that. All of which is hypothesis because ultimately until you test it you don't really know. It could work for one brand and it might not work for another. Like we have to split test it and actually measure whether or not it's going to have an impact. And what might work for one might not work for another. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, completely get that. And you're not just a founder of Wiro, you also started another business, So for those who don't know what Tote.AI is, where does Tote.AI fit in and why start a second business? Tom - WIRO: So there is a couple. So there is Tote.AI. It's ultimately the B2B equivalent of Wiro. So Wiro is the e-commerce agency for fashion brands on Shopify, I guess. Our B2B solution is Tote.AI, and we work with brands when it comes to web flow of framer solutions, so more B2B service-based sites. We've essentially taken the learnings of everything that we've built in the agency over the last 10 years, almost applying the same principles to a commerce-based website design and development agency and almost replicating that across another agency in a similar but very different space. Building out a separate team has been really, really fun. And that's whilst whilst that's still sm small and in the early kind of stages, it kind of feels where Wire was several years ago, but almost a lot further forward because we have ten years worth of knowledge and learnings and mistakes that some of which have cost us a lot over the years. but yeah, we're kind of that that better off. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, I and think it's a smart move Tom, because you're not diluting the essence that makes Wiro great, but you can still service a market here that you've got knowledge. And again, you're saying, well, we're niche here, we're niche here, and we're niche here, but we're not diluting the overall thing. But there's a lot of, I suppose, systems and processes that you can lift from one to the other and learnings that will benefit them all. Tom - WIRO: Yeah, I think the concept kind of came about a few years ago where we had a a large business that worked with us that didn't align with the ICP of where Wyro was going. We were going through a large reposition and rebrand at the time and we were kind of at the point where we said, I think we need to let this brand or that this business kind of go, sadly, and that ultimately we were gonna have to kind of terminate. because it just wasn't aligned where we were going as a business. And I Well The alternative could be we could shape a business around this where it's more for B2B service-based solutions where we can rinse and repeat a lot of the processes of what shaped WiRE, but in a very different business where it it's not in the commerce space, it's not c competition whatsoever because it's very different kind of design and build of sites, but it's in a space that we're very what much familiar with and from an experience perspective is a solution I can very easily sell and scale. When it comes to selling those websites. So yeah, a lot of those learnings have been taken into that. And hopefully they'll move a lot quicker and a lot faster than almost of what the the first few years of Wiro did, because we can learn from a lot of those mistakes much earlier on. Whereas a lot of them within Wiro, they cost us a lot. John - Leaders on Shopify: I'm not going to ask you this question, but it's almost a question I ask myself a lot is what would I do differently if I started this business today with the technology and the market and the network and all that learning I've got. It's like those years could just roll into months. Tom - WIRO: Yeah. I mean I would have loved to have had Claude or Chat G P T or some of these tools. When I started this ten, eleven od odd years ago, I would have loved to have some of those because I think where would we be now if we did? So it makes me laugh when you when you see people that they're like, I don't know what to do next or it's like the the opportunities are kind of infinite. John - Leaders on Shopify: there hasn't, I don't think there's been a better time to start a business or in any, whether it be an agency or a brand or what it right now, the, the potential opportunities in front of a founder and the access to capabilities and tools is, has never been like this. So it's a, if you're smart and curious and you've got an idea that the world is right in front of you right now. So a couple of Tom - WIRO: Hundred percent. John - Leaders on Shopify: quick final questions before we wrap up. And if there's a founder or a head of Ecom for say a five million pound revenue luxury brand looking to replatform or looking to engage, what advice would you give them? Tom - WIRO: good question. I think where comparing agencies we often find Then not always comparing apples to apples. So if often brands will come to us and they'll say, Yeah, but this agency is prepared to do the discovery for free, they're like, are they doing the discovery for free? Or are they just kind of re kind of reimagining what you think you're getting for free when actually you're paying for more of it within the process? But yeah, making almost like making sure you're comparing apples to apples, because our discovery process is what sets the project up for success. A lot of them will do. Some workshops and to do some sessions up front, which you think is the free discovery, but that's not free. That's just like to get to rope in the brand and then you go into the main part of discovery. So I would say ensuring that the deliverables, if you're comparing them, actually somewhat stack up with what you're paying for. I also think whilst we understand there's a large part of discover or there's a large part of due diligence done when kind of scouting out different agencies and speaking with different agencies. I would say speak with three agencies. We've sometimes spoken with people and they're like, we're talking with like eight, twelve, fifteen agencies. I think you're wasting your time. Like find really s find three really solid recommendations from people that have actually worked with the brands. And I think my last bit of advice would be if agency offers you to speak with the brands, speak with the brands that they've worked with. Like we've worked with brands for the last four or five years on retainer where we've done two or three builds with them. We are always more than happy to connect prospect brand that we are talking with, with a client that we have worked with, or a series of clients that we've worked with, because, like I say, to to the brands that we're kind of or prospecting in the sales process with, like we can tell you how good we are. And we can tell you how good our process is, and we can tell you how good discovery is and the build. John - Leaders on Shopify: We're going to tell you why we're amazing. Tom - WIRO: Exactly. And we can do we can do that until we're blue in the face, but like hear it from someone that's actually worked with us and they will tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly and the ugly. So they will be able to tell you all the questions that you have that For whatever reason you feel you might ask, you might not get from the agency yourselves. Ask the merchant that that we have worked with, that we've delivered two or three builds. Like was it on was it on time? Was it to budget? Like what might the challenges have been, for example? I think that is the best way to source the agency in terms of like the word of mouth referrals where you've actually heard it from someone that's done it firsthand. John - Leaders on Shopify: Yeah, no, you're absolutely Tom - WIRO: Because it might be a it might be a culture fit or they might feel like you've got a a really strong relationship with them. But just because the relationship is there, th all the line all the the boxes have to kind of all the stars have to align. It can't just be that John - Leaders on Shopify: And also they can just have a frank brand to brand conversation. How do I get the best out of the agency? What would you have done differently now if you know what you know? The other thing about that long list of people on a tender list, I think the minute agencies find out they're one of 10, right? Some good ones might just pull out or they won't necessarily put the right effort in because they think they'll just do a generic response and you're just going to end up with, everybody's going to have a bad experience in that. and we've seen it so many times in different worlds before. You're Tom - WIRO: Mm. John - Leaders on Shopify: absolutely right. Do your research, pick three for a reason. So, no, some really good advice, Tom, and yeah, thank you very much for coming on the Leaders on Shopify. That's been absolutely brilliant. If people want to find you or find Wiro where can they find you? Tom - WIRO: LinkedIn is probably the best place. I'm on there all day, every day, sadly. John - Leaders on Shopify: So Thank you very much for coming on. Yeah, that's been absolutely fantastic. And I will see you at an industry event soon. Tom - WIRO: Thank you for having me.