Latest / The Retail Podcast / Brick-and-Mortar CAC • Aesop’s $2.5B Playbook • DigitalFirst Meets Store Staff • Marketplaces

Transcript

Brick-and-Mortar CAC • Aesop’s $2.5B Playbook • DigitalFirst Meets Store Staff • Marketplaces · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to another exciting edition of Five
• 0:04
  Things Friday. I'm joined by my Co host Laura
• 0:08
  Reeve. Hello.
• 0:10
  Hello, Alex. On another sunny day in Sydney.
• 0:14
  It is very sunny in Sydney today.
• 0:16
  It's not raining. No glory.
• 0:18
  It's it's cool. It's cool and crisp and clear.
• 0:21
  Oh, wow, OK, it's, it's in the UK, it's coming to a heat wave.
• 0:26
  And in Spain it already is a heat wave was like 30 something
• 0:30
  degrees. So it's very, very hot.
• 0:32
  Well, listen, without any further ado, let's let's jump
• 0:35
  straight in. Laura, why don't we start with
• 0:37
  you? OK.
• 0:39
  Hi, everyone. So something that has been on my
• 0:42
  mind some. My first point is as physical
• 0:45
  retail or should I say rent the new CAC, the new customer
• 0:49
  acquisition cost. So let's caveat this probably if
• 0:53
  you're a very deep data-driven pureplay, you might disagree
• 0:58
  with us completely. So maybe more thinking about mid
• 1:01
  market direct to consumer brands going up to more enterprise
• 1:05
  level brands and retailers is who my audience or who I'm
• 1:08
  thinking about is. So I know that of investors are
• 1:12
  potentially CFO's like fixed price, fixed costs as enemy, but
• 1:17
  I think we're definitely seeing even globally this kind of move
• 1:20
  that everyone's kind of retail, physical retail is not dead
• 1:24
  Online is not the Holy Grail with came here consensus that
• 1:28
  the digital channel is the gateway, it's your storefront,
• 1:32
  it's your flagship store. But we're still seeing a
• 1:35
  majority of the retailers going into the physical retail.
• 1:38
  They want to touch, see, feel, experience the brand.
• 1:42
  So yeah, I'm I'm seeing why is that happening?
• 1:45
  I think that what's happening is this X we've spoke about it last
• 1:48
  week, the experience piece and retail has to be better.
• 1:51
  Stores are now becoming a little bit of theatre and he I guess
• 1:55
  it's like, have you got your open physical retail?
• 1:57
  Make sure it counts, pack the right place, do your research
• 2:01
  first. Obviously all these things, you
• 2:04
  know, you can't just open a store and the wrong area.
• 2:06
  It's not going to work. But if you're doing that
• 2:08
  investigation, you know it's right.
• 2:10
  And a little bit this is driven because of the way people want
• 2:13
  to shop. But also it's when I say the new
• 2:15
  CAC, it's so expensive now you acquire a new customer on Maya.
• 2:20
  That's just the truth. And we're seeing a lot of mid
• 2:22
  market brands direct to consumer brands that are leaning back in
• 2:25
  a storefront because it's cheaper, it's cheaper to get a
• 2:28
  new customer. And someone described it like
• 2:31
  online marketing is like hunting, whereas the physical
• 2:35
  stories like fishing. So so that's my number one
• 2:39
  point. It kind of dovetails into my
• 2:41
  second point of what I want to speak to.
• 2:44
  Since we've been doing this, I've been like, where are the
• 2:46
  hero Australian brands that really like that David and
• 2:49
  Goliath thing? Who's the, the the brands from
• 2:52
  this market that could really step up and show the world like
• 2:55
  how, what is best class Omni channel retail?
• 2:58
  And that leads me to Aesop. So Aesop as a pretty phenomenal
• 3:04
  story. It was it's a Melbourne.
• 3:07
  It's a Melbourne company originated from Melbourne in a
• 3:10
  store in the 1980s and it was acquired by L'Oreal 2 years ago
• 3:14
  for 2.5 billion. It's actually the biggest brand
• 3:18
  purchase ever. And I guess the reason why I
• 3:20
  love that when there's been a lot of doom and gloom about
• 3:23
  brands like Aesop isn't cheap. And actually, I don't know if
• 3:28
  any of you guys have experienced the what happens with Aesop.
• 3:31
  If you're in a Westfield, someone called it an an
• 3:34
  upholster dead scent market and you can smell the store.
• 3:37
  It's you know, more, more brands should do that scent marketing
• 3:41
  piece. But the the thing about Aesop,
• 3:45
  they've got over 400 stores in 27 countries really cushion in a
• 3:49
  North America and Asia. Every one of their store is
• 3:52
  thoughtfully designed and there's no standard template and
• 3:56
  they've really integrated digital and physical very well.
• 3:59
  So what I mean by that is we know that the whole the point is
• 4:04
  like a lot of the customers that went any store, we don't know
• 4:06
  who they are ace offer a real leader.
• 4:09
  And what they do is that first purchase is often done in store
• 4:12
  and what they're really thinking about their online as
• 4:15
  replenishment. So they're really about that
• 4:17
  customer data. How do they know who Laura is
• 4:19
  whether I'm online or in the store has been they're really
• 4:22
  clear in that. And something that I think would
• 4:25
  be great to take away for a lot of brands here is, is having
• 4:29
  that digital lens or that skill or understanding the C-Suite,
• 4:34
  which I do think is, is often missing because even as I say
• 4:39
  this, right, like physical retails in your CAC and then you
• 4:43
  look at Aesop, that's got 400 stores, they're actually really
• 4:47
  leading through digital. But what they're doing is
• 4:50
  they're not expecting the return on investment or the conversion
• 4:54
  rate isn't maybe the metrics has shifted right.
• 4:57
  Digital now becomes the gateway to the whole business and the
• 5:01
  the data points to how you measure success has to change.
• 5:03
  It's really propping up the whole of the store network as
• 5:06
  well. So yeah, I love the fact that
• 5:09
  ESOP are really clear. They want, you know, I think
• 5:11
  last year they had a 10%, a target of 10% new new customer
• 5:16
  activation, 30% win back rate and 12% retention growth.
• 5:21
  So yeah, and they've got a very good mindset of like it's like
• 5:26
  land and expand. So I think the, what's his name,
• 5:29
  Richard Landmark, who's been leading a lot of this and he
• 5:32
  calls it minimal lovable products.
• 5:34
  So even though they're back, they definitely have to kind of
• 5:38
  prove test case and then expand. So that's my to over to.
• 5:44
  I don't know if you guys have got anything on that you want to
• 5:47
  say or we just. I could jump in there because I
• 5:49
  think for me the thing that I'm seeing around the region has
• 5:53
  been this real desire for digital and mid market as Laura
• 5:57
  talks about to actually tell you know what, I need to put down
• 6:00
  roots. I need to, I need to come in to
• 6:02
  set up physical retail. I, I am, I am, I have built
• 6:06
  scale in a digital business, but I need to have physical retail.
• 6:09
  And that bit to Laura's point too, in these businesses, the
• 6:11
  Exco really understand digital, whereas some of the additional
• 6:15
  retailers, there's, there's a bit of a gap in knowledge.
• 6:17
  And because of that, they really struggle with the concept of
• 6:21
  what I would call anonymous transactions.
• 6:24
  They can't really, you know, with a when someone makes a
• 6:27
  transaction across the ASOP website, they know exactly who
• 6:31
  they are. And then I had to greet them
• 6:33
  either when they arrive on the site, let alone before they
• 6:36
  start moving into the transaction.
• 6:38
  And so these I mean, and we and I had we had Dion song from love
• 6:41
  Benito speak social she was. Very good.
• 6:44
  I saw her, yeah. She and she talked a lot about,
• 6:47
  you know, because they deeply understand their customer.
• 6:50
  Actually, do you want to give us some context about love, Benito?
• 6:52
  Because most people won't. Know yeah, yeah love Benito love
• 6:55
  Benito is a purpose driven female fashion brand it's a very
• 6:58
  fairly accessible price point it's got retail accessibility
• 7:02
  across Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore owned and
• 7:05
  led and founded but really across the region actually
• 7:08
  really built for Asian women too.
• 7:10
  So I know and that and sort of more petite sizing, but for
• 7:14
  them, they, they, as Zion talked about, she said that, you know,
• 7:18
  we can't have people coming into stores and us not know them.
• 7:22
  They can't just buy something on top and walk out and we don't
• 7:25
  know who they are. So that, that's something really
• 7:28
  important. So they've really worked on
• 7:29
  understanding their customer, but also meeting them and, and
• 7:33
  addressing them of who they are and, and making sure that
• 7:36
  they're not anonymous when they make that purchase and then
• 7:39
  building using the digital channels to wrap and so they
• 7:43
  understand some of the requirements.
• 7:45
  So when they went into physical recoil, I started to learn about
• 7:48
  things like, you know, on a, in a, when I'm shopping online,
• 7:51
  it's just me. When I'm shopping, you know, in
• 7:54
  a, in an outlet in Asia, I'm usually there, it's an outing.
• 7:58
  So I'm with my partner. So therefore, I can't, I can't
• 8:02
  have my shopping experience cut short because my husband and
• 8:05
  boyfriend has had enough and wants to go.
• 8:07
  So they're building facilities based on learning online, like
• 8:10
  things like partner benches. So you see a whole bunch of men
• 8:13
  sitting outside on on the benches outside on their phones,
• 8:16
  you know, but then because they have built this beautiful
• 8:20
  digital experience and they know a lot about their customer.
• 8:23
  The role of the in store salesperson is different.
• 8:27
  And I should have referred another example up there in
• 8:28
  terms of a company like Castleri, which is a bit like
• 8:31
  Temple and Webster in Australia, or a real digital first, you
• 8:34
  know, homewares, furniture type company.
• 8:38
  And so their role, their stores, that their store is their
• 8:41
  flagship store is beautiful. But the role and they have
• 8:44
  really beautiful right room builders on their website,
• 8:48
  really good functional tools. So you can really, you know,
• 8:51
  build it, you can build your own experiences at home.
• 8:54
  So therefore, the role of the staff now, because they've done
• 8:57
  this pre work means that they've become consultants as opposed to
• 9:00
  sales staff. And so they're, they're, it's
• 9:03
  evolving the role of the people in store to enhance the
• 9:05
  experience because the, the person's no longer anonymous.
• 9:10
  They're known to the organisation and they're coming
• 9:12
  in, coming in halfway through the journey and really
• 9:16
  completing with when they can touch and feel and, and see this
• 9:20
  and create some spatial awareness around the, the
• 9:22
  products they're looking to buy. So that's quite, that's quite
• 9:25
  cool. So that that real leak from
• 9:27
  digital with digital heritage into physical, but never, never
• 9:32
  relinquishing the fact they cannot know the customer, they
• 9:34
  must know the customer, all parts of the journey.
• 9:36
  The second one that I'm finding really interesting at the moment
• 9:39
  for me and and it really was uncovered this year when I
• 9:43
  started going through the advisory process is the role of
• 9:45
  marketplaces at a regional level as opposed to a domestic level.
• 9:50
  We in Australia are very familiar with eBay obviously,
• 9:53
  and we obviously have had Amazon turn up because Amazon saw
• 9:56
  Australia as an opportunity because we didn't have, you
• 9:59
  know, the, the, the marketplace platforms 1 entirely dominant
• 10:03
  and, and, and Amazon's done an amazing job at becoming #1 and I
• 10:06
  think Laura, you were talking about them being the most
• 10:09
  searched retail retailer. Yeah, I don't think they've got
• 10:12
  as big as shooting wallet as the US does yet.
• 10:15
  Not the highest. I think in one of the search
• 10:19
  results I looked at the they're the highest, I guess searched
• 10:23
  website in Australia. So they they're definitely not
• 10:27
  behind the scenes anymore. It's just, it's just took them a
• 10:30
  lot longer to penetrate this market.
• 10:32
  They've just went at a lot slower pace.
• 10:35
  And I think if it might have been as well you do with COVID,
• 10:37
  COVID kind of stopped at them, almost shouldn't have stopped
• 10:40
  them in the tracks because it did.
• 10:43
  People. We have Kingfisher over here and
• 10:46
  English is like home DIY being QS their brand in the UK and
• 10:51
  there's lots of other brands across Europe and and there
• 10:55
  because I interviewed the guy who's in charge of their
• 10:58
  marketplace, their whole growth strategy into new markets is
• 11:03
  through the marketplace. But this is where it gets
• 11:07
  interesting because this is in, you know, home improvements,
• 11:10
  paint screws, you know, all these types of things.
• 11:14
  So it's interesting to see whether or not you'll see more
• 11:17
  fragmentation in marketplaces into subcategories or people
• 11:23
  want this one store that does it all, which is the Amazon.
• 11:27
  And, and, and that's sort of building on that was really much
• 11:30
  the, the Southeast Asia experience where you look at a
• 11:33
  look at a marketplace like Shopee, for example, right.
• 11:37
  And Shopee is serving a purpose for good now.
• 11:40
  So if you're, you know, if you're a retailer, one say
• 11:43
  you're a Vietnamese retailer, OK and you have your website and
• 11:46
  you have physical stores, but you only operate domestically in
• 11:50
  Vietnam. But Southeast Asia is quite
• 11:52
  close together and that it's very easy to find partners to
• 11:56
  put DC's together and those sort of things.
• 11:58
  Your ability to sell to customers outside the market, it
• 12:02
  become really important. And what we're seeing is if you
• 12:05
  say you're a Malaysian consumer and you like the pair of shoes
• 12:08
  that's on the Vietnamese website, you, you, you, you're
• 12:11
  choosing to buy it not via their website, but via shopping
• 12:15
  because you can see it in your language.
• 12:18
  You can buy the currency and you've got the shopping
• 12:22
  guarantee that the product doesn't turn up.
• 12:24
  You get your money back first. If you're buying from a ball
• 12:28
  outside your market from a website direct and you don't
• 12:30
  know the brand, then you there might be some hesitancy.
• 12:33
  And then also too, the payment mechanisms are all different.
• 12:36
  Like Malaysia. Malaysia is all digital wallets.
• 12:39
  Credit cards aren't really a thing in in Southeast Asia.
• 12:42
  So except for maybe Singapore. So there's different payment
• 12:46
  mechanism as well. So you you can you can talk
• 12:48
  about payments, you can talk about language and you can talk
• 12:52
  about tapping into the trust of the platform that overcomes some
• 12:56
  of the trepidation of buying from a retailer in another
• 12:58
  market that you don't know. So that's been a really
• 13:02
  interesting thing for me because all of a sudden marketplaces
• 13:04
  play a really important role that, you know, that open up new
• 13:08
  market to retailers. And so then for if you're that
• 13:10
  Vietnamese retailer and discovers all of a sudden you're
• 13:13
  selling volumes of shoes in Malaysia, maybe there is a time
• 13:17
  to actually say, well, OK, there's an opportunity here to
• 13:20
  go and expand into that market because we know, we know we have
• 13:23
  appetite for our product in that market.
• 13:25
  But yeah, that's really interesting itself.
• 13:27
  So that's MI 2. So a bit about yeah, that that,
• 13:31
  that launch into physics physical experiences from
• 13:34
  digital, digital heritage brands and mid market businesses.
• 13:37
  And those are marketplaces which are really transcending cross
• 13:40
  culture border currency to actually open up opportunities
• 13:43
  for retailers and consumers that otherwise wouldn't have been
• 13:46
  there. Do you think that's the future
• 13:48
  of it then? Is that where we're heading?
• 13:50
  More, More Amazon. I don't, I don't know.
• 13:54
  If if you think about it right, like you think about it like I
• 13:58
  can't it's called clear. Is it called clear pay?
• 14:01
  What's after pay called in the UK, right.
• 14:03
  Yeah. So if you think about after pay,
• 14:06
  in a way after pay is becoming a marketplace.
• 14:09
  Yeah, right. They're doing their sales days.
• 14:11
  They're they're doing it. I think it's like the the world
• 14:14
  as it's a free for all with marketplaces now and we've kind
• 14:17
  of 10 years ago, I mean, I was at eBay what when I first got
• 14:22
  here like 15 years ago, it was a little bit of a dirty word and
• 14:24
  people were like worried about it.
• 14:27
  We didn't own the customer you did.
• 14:29
  I think that has. How will my brand be portrayed?
• 14:34
  You know, is context that sort. Of stuff and how do you how do
• 14:36
  you play with them? And like that song, I think I've
• 14:38
  sang it before for you, Alex, but you know that one you got to
• 14:41
  know when you hold them, know when you fold them, know when
• 14:45
  you run away, No. Or when you hide.
• 14:48
  Yeah, Kenny Rogers. Look at you, Laura.
• 14:50
  You've changed. I'm sorry, I wish I could sing
• 14:53
  it for you, but I think that's the the coin me marketplaces.
• 14:56
  You have to be like that. They're there.
• 14:59
  Everyone's been one. I mean, Shopify with a shop pay
• 15:03
  as a marketplace, like really, so I, I think the world as
• 15:07
  marketplaces, I think we're within a little bit of a
• 15:11
  consolidation phase in marketplaces.
• 15:13
  I think there was a lot of people, a lot of marketplace
• 15:16
  solutions. Everyone was trying to be one.
• 15:18
  They realised it's actually harder than you think to become
• 15:20
  it. And now what we're starting to
• 15:22
  see is who are the marketplaces that we should be with have a
• 15:26
  bit of a strategy and focus. It's interesting as well re from
• 15:30
  that Asia like you know, from the more like was it Singapore?
• 15:34
  Is it or or Thailand cash and delivery.
• 15:38
  So, Alex, I don't know if. Oh.
• 15:40
  Yes, Philippines. Philippines so.
• 15:42
  Cash and delivery even in Thailand, I think it is as well
• 15:45
  or it's it's massive. It's probably like 30 to 40%
• 15:50
  they want it. So I think the marketplaces is
• 15:52
  leaning in like you said, Reef. You'll want to pay with cash.
• 15:56
  Do you want to pay with cash? It's it's cash on delivery.
• 15:59
  OK, Yes, the Philippines is all catch.
• 16:02
  No, I talked to Hewlett Packard and they didn't they've they
• 16:05
  withdrew from the Philippines because if you buy a laptop from
• 16:10
  HP laptop, you've got two issues.
• 16:13
  You turn up at the house that you're delivering laptop and if
• 16:15
  the person is not there or they don't have any cash and the
• 16:19
  margin on selling a laptop is quite skinny.
• 16:22
  So taking it back to the DC because someone doesn't have any
• 16:24
  money when you've turned up with the products is a bit of a
• 16:27
  problem, you know? So, you know, in that current
• 16:31
  paradigm, HP chose not to operate in that market, you
• 16:35
  know. It's too, yeah, it's we were, I
• 16:37
  worked with JD Sport locally and like the Thailand and Singapore
• 16:41
  and they hadn't been using cash and delivery, but with their OMS
• 16:45
  and ship it, we're using the integrations enabled cash on
• 16:50
  delivery and the the, the best and safest way that you can do
• 16:53
  cash and delivery. And it's significantly like the,
• 16:57
  the, the revenue increased significantly because it's a big
• 17:00
  portion of the way people want to shop.
• 17:02
  So I think that leads into that whole marketplaces and big
• 17:06
  retailers, they have to be trusted.
• 17:08
  There's a little bit more scepticism in there, you know,
• 17:10
  and and the region about the trust factor is, is probably why
• 17:15
  we've seen a lot of the the Asian shoppers up until maybe
• 17:18
  recently would like to buy from Australia.
• 17:21
  They'd like to buy from American brands.
• 17:24
  That's starting to pivot, but security and trust is still a
• 17:27
  bit of an issue. But I like I I spoke refasia, we
• 17:31
  bet as well an angle on the the marketplace piece retail media,
• 17:37
  Alex, more probably in your world.
• 17:38
  We it's obviously important in Australia, but we don't have as
• 17:41
  many mass big, big retailers. We're kind of we've got like the
• 17:45
  coals and willies there's but Amazon is going is the biggest
• 17:48
  retail media platform. So if you think about anyone
• 17:53
  like want to play in that space, they're going to start to want
• 17:56
  to get any Amazon. Does that mean that they want to
• 18:00
  also list the products potentially that's a bit of a
• 18:04
  draw card to listing on Amazon as well because they're going to
• 18:06
  play in the retail media space as well.
• 18:09
  But, but I think Amazon is well placed now and, and this is, we
• 18:14
  all know this is that, you know, if you're trying to work out
• 18:17
  whether they're buying a house or having a child or buying a
• 18:19
  new car, you know, the guys like Amazon have got these signals so
• 18:23
  far down South locked down that their predictive modelling can
• 18:27
  really tell. So they've got real value in
• 18:29
  their data they hold about their customers.
• 18:31
  And so therefore, you know, that that that retail media offering
• 18:35
  compared with, you know, with the supermarket versus, you
• 18:39
  know, versus a department store is a little bit different
• 18:43
  because I just don't have the depth of knowledge that the
• 18:45
  people at Amazon have. Yeah, You know, I mean, I
• 18:48
  remember working with Trade Me in New Zealand a decade ago and
• 18:51
  they were, they had, they had really drilled into this and
• 18:55
  really worked out the value of their data because they're, I
• 18:59
  mean, Trade Me is more ubiquitous than eBay is in
• 19:01
  Australia. It's incredible.
• 19:03
  Everyone, every, every, everybody has a Trade Me account
• 19:06
  in New Zealand. So that's why it's been so hard
• 19:08
  to penetrate. But the fact is that they just,
• 19:11
  they, they could see it was like playing poker.
• 19:13
  They had everyone's tail down. If they knew you would tell for
• 19:16
  having a kid or buying a house or, you know, moving across town
• 19:20
  or whatever, they, they could tell you what the people were
• 19:23
  going to do. But what they were doing on on
• 19:25
  the site, it was incredible. So next week I'm moderating at E
• 19:29
  Tail London and it's really interesting.
• 19:31
  It's sort of touches on what, what, what you've both, both
• 19:34
  been talking about, which is sort of the post purchase and
• 19:38
  how much. Well, I guess this for me, I'm,
• 19:42
  I'm going to be listening because what, what's interesting
• 19:45
  is that 4, potentially 5 fellow speakers or panel members are
• 19:51
  all female led founders. And so you know from intimate
• 19:56
  products, which I I'll be curious to, to.
• 20:00
  Do people want to be recognised on this check out or do they
• 20:04
  just want to be, you know, just let me get out, You know, I want
• 20:07
  to shop my products and and get out.
• 20:09
  I don't necessarily need to build a relationship.
• 20:11
  I don't know, obviously female hygiene products, probably you
• 20:15
  do because there's nothing embarrassing about that.
• 20:17
  But maybe it's my teenage brain. There's thinking, you know, for
• 20:21
  the other products you don't want, but maybe you do, right.
• 20:23
  And so there's a whole element around there.
• 20:26
  But then how does that contrast to food right in, in sort of
• 20:31
  these sort of cake products? It's super fascinating in this
• 20:35
  whole again, how much effort do retailers put or e-commerce
• 20:41
  brands in this case, into making sure that that the post purchase
• 20:46
  journey is as effective as the path to purchase?
• 20:50
  And, and actually to be fair, I think it's probably we'll find
• 20:54
  out that it's, you know, it's difficult, it's complicated
• 20:58
  because you know, whether or not you have the systems in place to
• 21:03
  be able to build those relationships with your
• 21:05
  customers, there'll be something missing.
• 21:08
  So that's that's what I'm going to be focused on next week, I
• 21:11
  think Tuesday, so I'll be able to bring it back.
• 21:14
  That's like, that's quite a, that's quite an interesting area
• 21:17
  as well because everyone knows in retail, the work really
• 21:19
  starts when someone presses by, you know, we, we, we in
• 21:22
  Australia, we have a, a, a company called Birds Nest that
• 21:25
  everybody knows. And Jane Kay, who's the founder,
• 21:28
  female founder of that business, her claim to fame was her
• 21:31
  handwritten notes they used to send out with every package, you
• 21:35
  know, So it was that that post per purchase moment they created
• 21:40
  just to say thank you for being a customer.
• 21:43
  Yeah, I've had that. But like, you know, these unique
• 21:45
  touches that you put in the delivery box when people are
• 21:48
  opening them and and trying to keep that sort of special
• 21:52
  moment. I, I don't know, it's
• 21:53
  interesting because you think about you, you guys were talking
• 21:56
  about marketplaces, how you do that at scale, right?
• 22:00
  How does that then an industrial level, how do you create post?
• 22:06
  And for me, returns is, is you can't talk about post purchase
• 22:09
  without talking about returns. And we've gone through this
• 22:12
  cycle here with returns are free, know now you're going to
• 22:16
  pay for them or there's going to be some form of cost to deter
• 22:20
  people from returning. Although Amazon is still for
• 22:23
  prime members offering free returns.
• 22:26
  It's it's just an interesting area.
• 22:28
  I think a lot of focus has gone into.
• 22:31
  And again, you know, we it wouldn't be complete if we
• 22:34
  didn't talk about AI. You got perplexity, who doesn't
• 22:37
  want? If you're searching for an item
• 22:39
  on Perplexities AI platform, they'll take you to the buy page
• 22:43
  directly so you circumvent the whole website that you know the
• 22:48
  retailers spent so much money on.
• 22:50
  I think it's like Alex, like that whole thing post purchase
• 22:54
  should have been the most important thing always, But it's
• 22:57
  I think it's becoming more important to look at now because
• 23:01
  the funnels completely shattered dry.
• 23:04
  People are coming in from different places.
• 23:06
  If you're on marketplaces, it's even more do it, but know that
• 23:10
  they own the customer. And if you have a customer
• 23:13
  directing your site, you've got first party data, use it,
• 23:16
  leverage it, harness it as as becoming, you know, it's like
• 23:20
  that retention piece, you know, I mean, one e-mail could get
• 23:23
  them to buy something again. I think the piece and as we
• 23:27
  would know without is it needs to be more considered as well.
• 23:32
  So everyone's doing post purchase, everyone's doing
• 23:34
  retention marketing and now, yeah, it's like how you do it,
• 23:38
  you know, how sophisticated is it becoming as is the game that
• 23:42
  but. Also, it can be quite simple,
• 23:44
  could be handwritten. I'll give you an example, which
• 23:46
  is a very male domino. When I buy, I, I love motorbikes
• 23:49
  as everybody knows and I have and I and I buy gear online all
• 23:54
  the time. After pay is my friend because I
• 23:56
  never, they never see the total cost.
• 23:58
  My wife never sees the total cost of a pair of boots or a
• 24:01
  helmet or whatever. But my son has a particular he,
• 24:05
  I think we, we buy at AMX, which is one of the big brands
• 24:08
  retailers. And we buy there because
• 24:10
  there's, there's a sticker pack that basically arrives in every
• 24:15
  little package of stuff. So my son, he's 11 is going, you
• 24:19
  can't, if you're going to buy that dad, you've got to buy it
• 24:21
  from AMX because he gets all the stickers.
• 24:23
  So it's just simple things like that, which create momentum for
• 24:28
  the next purchase, right? Yeah.
• 24:30
  And it's because, you know, we all started, we started full
• 24:34
  circle and talked about CAC, right?
• 24:35
  An acquisition, right. But we, we it's those little
• 24:40
  things that means that the the 2nd and 3rd and 4th purchase,
• 24:45
  you don't cost any money for the retailer because that little bit
• 24:47
  of magic happens post the first purchase.
• 24:50
  Yeah. So, and sometimes we overthink
• 24:53
  things too, you know, people are people.
• 24:55
  They just want things to work, you know?
• 24:57
  Yeah. So there's a bit of that OL.
• 25:00
  I'll come back and report back on on what what the outcome was.
• 25:04
  I'd love Alex to hear if they say anything because I think
• 25:08
  what's happened as well is that post purchases became like,
• 25:12
  what's the ROI and that what's the conversion rate?
• 25:14
  And now we're going back to a wee bit of the art and the
• 25:17
  feeling side, which is a little bit hard to measure the
• 25:21
  attribution. And yeah, and it's, you know, if
• 25:24
  we just have every e-mail out is to try and get them to buy
• 25:28
  something, you know, you've got to lose the brand story.
• 25:32
  So it would be good to hear how they're thinking about this,
• 25:35
  the, the sales, the repeat purchase versus like the brand
• 25:39
  recognition and longevity and positioning.
• 25:43
  Otherwise. Do we just all, should we just
• 25:46
  all become a big marketplace and, and you know.
• 25:49
  The market My my, my honest feeling on marketplaces could be
• 25:53
  wrong. We'll go the same way as apps.
• 25:56
  There was a time where every retailer had to have their own
• 25:59
  app and then they realised over time that sunk cost into having
• 26:04
  an app isn't giving the returns, right, because you need to keep
• 26:07
  updated. It needs to be cross-platform.
• 26:09
  There needs to be a reason for someone to go to your specific
• 26:12
  app. And so therefore apps went away
• 26:15
  and people moved on to, you know, e-commerce sites.
• 26:18
  And so Laura, I will report back.
• 26:20
  Thank you. Closing thoughts.
• 26:22
  Anything with all the technical problems that we had, I've had
• 26:27
  fantastic. Well, guys, thank you so much.
• 26:30
  See you same time, same place next week.
• 26:33
  All right, Bye. Thank you.
• 26:34
  Thanks, Laura. Bye.