Joshua Chin 8:30
You know what, I’m curious. After 16 years of this, this being partner for 11 over years. What was the first thing that you did once the deal was? Was was closed money in the bank? And the entire thing’s done? What do you do first?
Matt Edmundson 8:54
The first, well, the first the first thing that I bought is maybe the question that people want to know the answer. I I bought a van, a Ford Transit man. And it’s the might sound really odd, but I, you know, I’ve been driving since I was 17, which is a wireless 30 odd years. And so I’ve always had cars, mainly sports cars, because I was a bit of a sports car fan and I enjoyed owning sports cars. When you have kids, of course that changes and you have to go a bit more sensible. Yeah. And but my kids now they’re quite well, you know, my oldest is at uni, he’s fast approaching 21. My middle child, he’s 18 and my youngest, my daughter, she’s about to hit 15. So these are full grown people. And they so I thought, Man, I need a bigger car to carry all these around. And I think I like everybody over the pandemic. I got caught up in this whole van life thing. Not that I rented a camper van but I was like, You know what, I could get a van. I could have some seats put in the back so the kids have space so we can do Take adults everywhere I can use it to, for work, I can transport stuff around, which is, you know, super helpful in any. But also what I can do is and what I love. What we’re doing at the moment, my project is I’m building an office in the back of my van. And so I just last summer, I had a makeshift office in the back of my van and I would take it down by this is a really quiet spot in Liverpool where I live down by the river, I would open the doors, a beautiful summer’s day, and I’d sit and I’d work down by the river. It was just fantastic. And so I’m pimping out my van with some nice office equipment. And I’m going to have this mobile office so I can just drive wherever I like whether it’s the Lake District, which is a beautiful part of the UK, north Wales, which is also stunning. And or just the river here in Liverpool just go and work wherever like, is, yeah, that was the first thing that I bought.
Joshua Chin 10:55
Great raising, Matt, that’s interesting to me, because of two things. One, you took remote work and to another level, and two the first thing that you bought was another way for you to do even more work and not rest. What What’s the thought process behind that decision? I would imagine, obviously, coming from my biases and my perspective, I would imagine you buying something that allows you to relax and unwind and, and do things that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do with a business? Why find new ways of working?
Matt Edmundson 11:36
Whereas again, it depends on how you define work and how you define rest, right? Is a lot of conversation around work life balance, isn’t it, you know, we need a good work life balance tonight, I subscribe to that theory to a point. I guess it depends on how you define work and how you define life. So yes, the van is a mobile office, but I’m in that office, or I’m in the other office working right. So it’s just this to change of location. So I could argue that I’m resting more and I’m more serene and peaceful when I’m working down by a river or down by the lakes or whatever, Jermaine is much more quiet, much more contemplative, contemplative type work. So therefore rest is improved, it’s increased the stresses is sort of goes down. When I suppose the van I mean, what I didn’t say is the desk actually drops down and turns into a bed so I can also camp in it and sleeping. And so there’s a mixture of rest in there as well. But I find for me, work is as much about I mean, it’s about obviously what you get done. But it’s the environment that you create, to enable you to work in a way that really makes you thrive, that makes you come alive, that enables you to give your best to what you do. And so I enjoy working in the office with a team, I enjoy working at home, which is where I am now recording this in our studio. And I enjoy getting out in the van. And just being quiet. You know, one of the things that I bought last year was I got the van. But then I went and bought a big awarning, sort of four square meter awning, which is an inflatable thing. And you just take it down takes like 30 seconds and you just blow it up, you can put it outside the van. So now it’s not just me that can go work down by the river, I can say to the team, just bring your laptop, bring a chair or sit down by the river, or work on our laptops. Because you know, we’ve got we can tether to 5g now, so you can work anywhere and get some beers. And we’ll have some amazing conversations. And I think you get more done that way. If I’m honest with you. So yeah, it’s an interesting question, Joshua. And like I say, for me, it depends on how we define work and how we define, you know, the rest and the rest. And can we merge those two things together somehow?
Joshua Chin 13:57
I want to latch on that a little bit. And I find Matt you to be a really passionate person in the most genuine sense of the word because a lot of people talk about passionately, it it really isn’t kind of masked with financial motivations. What drives you now? And how has it changed to stay five years ago before selling the business and early on in your career, when you’re just starting out? Has it? How has that shifted over time?
Matt Edmundson 14:30
Wow, has a very deep question. And there’s an old saying I just don’t know if it’s old or not. To be fair, there’s something that I’ve sort of grown up with in my head which I found to be true, and that is a man in his early 20s. And of course want to say man any it could be man or woman, but it was just anything in their early 20s are searching for success, right and you define success usually by monetary gain as A man approaches his 40s that shifts from success to significance. And so you stop searching for success as people define it and understand it. And you move to this concept of significant, what can I do, which is significant. And you start thinking about later legacy, and you start thinking about all of these other things that maybe you didn’t really think about didn’t need to think about, or certainly I didn’t think about in my early 20s. So when I first started out in my business career, I was very motivated in some respects by money. Which I don’t think money is a bad motivator, I do think the love of it is the root of all evil to go back to, you know, ancient texts of wisdom. And so I think there’s a balance that you have to be careful. But as I’ve got older, I think I’ve cared less and less about money, if I’m honest with you, and that it’s important that I have it, it’s important that we, you know, we make profits, I’ve got to pay the staff, I’ve got to pay the team. I’ve got to pay the mortgage, I’ve got to you know, I have a lifestyle, which I which needs money to sustain. But actually, the question starts becoming about meaning and it starts becoming about significance. And it starts becoming about what difference Am I making in this world? In the lives of others? How am I? How am I bringing this good news? How am I? How am I making the world a better place to me and I see it sounds a bit cheated. But your brain, I think the way you the way you interpret life sort of shifts, as you certainly minded as I got a bit older. So yeah, I think that’s probably what drives me is always this sense of call the sense of, actually, you’ve got to leave this world in a better place than when you found it. And you’ve, you’ve got to have an impact, you’ve got to make a difference in everything that you do. And I think if you have that mindset, you can.
Joshua Chin 16:52
Now here’s a here’s a tough question. Knowing that that’s kind of the trend that people go through, and I see that as a, as a pattern that repeats. Is there anything that someone in their early 20, 20s could learn from what you have experienced? And is there anything that they should? Or could do differently? I think
Matt Edmundson 17:23
maybe, if I think about it slightly differently, I guess, to answer your question, what would I tell myself in my early 20s, that I now know, I would say a number of things, I would say that you have got to work hard, you have got to hustle, you have got to work hard, there is no shortcut to success. But you have to be really clear on what success means to you. And so what I mean by that is I had an eye I didn’t really think it through in my early 20s. I’m just like, I’m gonna get up, I am going to work hard. And I’m going to try and make more money today than I did yesterday to remain it was as simple as that, I suppose in a lot of respects. Yeah, what I what I didn’t do until my 30s, which I wished I’d done early, I think. And I did this exercise with a coach, where I understood my personal values, what really, really mattered to me. And it wasn’t until I verbalized it until I understood it that I thought, actually, this should be what drives me. And so if I was to go back to myself, in my 20s, I would say, understand your values, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes, you’re gonna lose a lot of money, you’re gonna, you’re gonna have, you know, opportunities to really mess it up, which will take full force, cuz, you know, that’s just part of life. But if you understand the value, so I don’t think I would change anything bad that happened to me, I think I would change my understanding of perception of who I was my identity, my values, in my early 20s. I think if I had that as a much more secure thing, life would have, I would have been much stronger at dealing with some of the, you know, the sort of the trials that we all face as we go through life. So I think that would be the sort of conversation I would have.
Joshua Chin 19:18
Fascinating, that is absolutely fascinating. I think that on the on the I guess to some degree on the contrary. There are, I guess, pay respect to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. There are certain fundamental stages that one has to kind of overcome, like shelter, food, just basic physical needs, in order first think about our values and what truly drives us and what passion means, what meaning means to us. So maybe this combination of both of that and understanding that sometimes it’s about survival, doing what it is takes whatever it takes without crossing boundaries. And then once once you have some kind of a, some kind of a foundation, some kind of stability, then we think about the core values and what truly is meaningful to us.
Matt Edmundson 20:16
Yeah, and that’s what I did. And I think that would be the thing that I would reverse. I think that, yeah, I, you see the shelter, the money, the taking, taking care of stuff. I live in a country where we are super fortunate, you know, we have a system in place from the government, which says, If I don’t make x, then they will give me y, not a lot. It keeps it. I’m not saying it’s great. But I’m saying it is something. And so I remember, when we started our web agency, a guy approached me, and we were broke. We were I mean, flat broke, I had Josh at the time. So we had our first son, we had no real money, and I needed to pay the mortgage. And a guy came to me and said, Listen, I need you to do me a website. And we talked about some of the key things that he wanted. And in my head, I’m thinking this is a bit of a massive development, this is going to save us for the next few months. This is great. The more we talk, though, the more it became obvious the website he wanted was going to be a porn website. Right he wanted to do. It was, you know, it was back in the day where the internet was growing, and he wanted to be have a porn website. Right? Here, you’ve got this fundamental question between your personal values, and your need to pay the mortgage. Right? Which one do you do? Now? I’m not, I’m not saying what’s right or wrong here. I’m just saying for me, actually, it was more important not to do that website than it was to do it. So it was more important that I was true to my values. And I understood. I mean, I understood back, you know, back then, in my 20s, that actually, I definitely don’t want to do porn. I don’t want to do gambling. I knew enough about me to to know that I didn’t want to get involved with those. Yeah. But I think if you’re showing who you are, if you’re showing your character and your identity, if you’re sure in the reason you’re here, and if you’re sure what’s good and what’s not good, then actually, it wasn’t a difficult decision for me to turn around and say, Tim, I’m sorry, I can’t do that. It was an instant decision. It’s not something I had to go and spend weeks thinking about, and get me wrong, I really needed that money. The fascinating thing about that story, as soon as I said no to him, was what was the same sort of time I was having conversation is like a few days later, I then had conversations about Joseph each company, and that one came to fruition which you know, generated over 50 million in worldwide sales. So it’s sure I mean, yeah, there’s an I, I do wonder if I’d have gone down that road of porn, and I’d have sold my soul for one to better exposure to doing that, where my life would have gone all for that quick book. So I think, I think yeah, survival is good. Understanding the hierarchy of needs for Maslow is good, and the principles of that are fine. And that’s helpful when you’re understanding your team and your company culture. But fundamentally, there are there are values that we have as human beings that are so core to us. And identifying those sooner rather than later will really really help you.
Joshua Chin 23:27
That outside of business and and in what you do for for work, is there anything in particular that you’re you obsess over? That? That’s a good word? Yeah. obsess
Matt Edmundson 23:41
about anything? Yeah. So outside of work, I love to do wood work. And I would shut Yeah, I have a little woodshop in the basement of my house. And in fact, we’ve just, we’ve just moved our warehouse, we’ve got a new warehouse, which has taken a bit of an awful amount of time. But in my new warehouse, I have sectioned off a part of it at the back to be my new workshop, which was the second thing that I did, I suppose after I sold jersey, I went and bought some new tools. Yeah, so I have a brand new table saw bandsaw and that sort of stuff. So I’ve got my dream workshop, which is I’m building at the moment down at the back of the warehouse. So I just love working with wood. It’s it’s just the complete opposite digital domain. You’re working with your hands.
Joshua Chin 24:35
It’s analog, it’s yeah, it’s literally physical raw material. What like why do you think that’s the case? Why do you think you obsess over working?
Matt Edmundson 24:45
I don’t know why i It’s I’ve always been intrigued by craftsmen. I’ve always been intrigued by people that can do things really, really well like phenomenal artists and yeah, I remember years ago There was a TV show called The New Yankee Workshop that started to come on TV. And I started to watch it. And I just got inspired by this guy who was doing just incredible stuff. I wouldn’t I thought actually doesn’t look that complicated. You know, to quote Jeremy Clarkson, how hard can it be. And so when we got married, Sharon and I, when we got married, back in 98, we bought our first house, and the house needed a new kitchen. And so here I am, 25 year old man, this house needs a new kitchen. But we had no money, and I couldn’t go to the store and buy a kitchen. So I went and got a bunch of cheap wood. And I built the kitchen from scratch using woods, built the whole thing out of wooden. And when I finished it, I looked at it and thought, You know what, that’s not half bad. And I actually enjoyed that process. And so over the years, I think I’ve, you know, with the help of YouTube, but I’ve learned sort of growing those skills. And so I like, this weekend, I was dispatched to finish making a door for a new unit we had at the house, I just like I really enjoy making the furniture for our house. So yeah, it’s just one of those things. And it’s something I can do with the kids as well. You know, it’s not easy to sit down with the kids and go write kids. Let’s build a website together. That doesn’t make sense. Yeah. becomes quite complex. So but Woodworking is something you can do from any age. And so I’ve got great memories of the kids building stuff with me and you know, and all that sort of stuff as well. So yeah, I do I obsess about maybe I do. I don’t know, I but I really enjoy it. Yeah.
Joshua Chin 26:38
Obsessed the the obsessive quality of, of entrepreneurs is something that I’ve come to find as a common, a common trait, a common thing. Yeah, I’m not necessarily in this in the negative sense of the word, but just that there is this sense of passion and curiosity that drives people that are in businesses and building businesses to go really deep in topics that people may just kind of scratch their heads at? Why wouldn’t someone be so obsessed over something like that? Yeah, very cool. Now, with Jersey Beauty. So you’ve brought the company from, from from basically from zero to generating 50 million in global sales, before selling the business having successful exit? Is there a framework over the years they have identified that you now apply to your new ecommerce businesses and brands?
Matt Edmundson 27:42
That yeah, there is there is, and I used to call it the jersey framework. I’m just not allowed to call it that anymore. Because I’m not allowed to use the word jerseys and selling jersey, since rolling Jersey Beauty. But in essence, we found that there were these sort of seven areas that whenever you were starting a business, or if I would ever go and consult with companies, which you know, I have fantastic privilege of doing with companies all over the world. So whenever I go in, I, I always look at these seven areas, it’s the seven areas that I focus on. And if I’m starting a new ecommerce business, it’s seven areas is that so it doesn’t matter whether it’s a new start, or whether it’s established, there are these seven areas that I always look at. So the first one is branding. And by branding, I don’t, it’s more than just your logo, you know, your understanding who you’re trying to reach your understanding your target market, what drives them, where do they shop? Where do they relax, you know, I have keynote documents with 1000s of photographs in you know, which helped me tell the story of our brand, you know, colors, fonts, all that sort of stuff. And actually, you don’t need an agency to do that. I mean, you can get agencies to do that. But that’s something I think you can you can do yourself with a simple keynote, or PowerPoint kind of document, you can go ahead and you can create something around that. But you want to know, who am I reaching? And what’s the story that I’m telling these people? You there, so you’ve got your brand, you then move on to your product. So who am I reaching? And what am I selling to them? Their branding and product are two sides to the same coin. So you’ve got to have a product that I think for me, the product has to fulfill two criteria. One, I have to know about it, or I have to be able to learn about it, if I don’t already know about it. So when we started doing Jersey Beauty, I knew nothing about beauty products. There’s a Burt’s such as the beauty industry, it doesn’t actually take that long to become an expert in beauty products. You know, you can learn about it relatively quickly. So that was not a drama. So I fulfilled Like the can I know about it? And the reason you want to know about it is because of the stories that you’re telling the education, you’re going to bring customers, your marketing is much better. So on and so phrase, right? And the second thing you have to think about when it comes to a product is, is it in demand? Right? So you’re looking for products that you have high knowledge and high demand. Isn’t may sound like a really obvious statement to make. But I would say 99% of startup entrepreneurs that I see online fail because they’ve got a product, which they either don’t know about, or is not in demand. And, you know, you take the classic example of someone who goes, right, I’m gonna set up a website, I’m going to go to Shopify, buy a theme 200 bucks, I’ve got my website, I’m going to go to AliExpress. And I’m going to buy sunglasses for like, $1. And then I’m going to put them on my website for 20 bucks. I’m going to run some Facebook ads, and I’m a cleaner, right? Okay, so we failed on brand straightaway, because we’ve not understood who our customers are, we’ve just literally gone and found a cheaper product that we can think we can sell higher. And we’ve also felt on the product school because it’s not a high demand product. I mean, people all over the world want sunglasses, but what makes yours different? Why are they demanding yours with the same sunglasses? You’re selling for 20 bucks, 20,000, people have also had the same idea. They’re selling them for 20 bucks. So there’s nothing distinctive about you, which means everything is beige, which means there’s no demand, right? And in terms of knowledge, you don’t you don’t you’re not buying these because you care about the product or them or have knowledge about it. You’re buying this because you’re looking to make a quick, Buck, right? And I think it’s I think it’s the wrong product. So when once you’ve got your branding, your product positioning sorted out, then you look at technology. And we call it the technology stack. So what technology stack do I need to reach the customers that I’m selling to? And so it’s not until I’ve understood the brand and the product that I think about what website platform am I going to use? Am I going to use Shopify Squarespace, am I going to use my own platform? Do I need something bespoke making all those questions get answered, when you understand who your customer is, and what it is you’re selling to them, because you now understand that you’ve got to find the best way to reach them. And, and, and that might not be Shopify, it might not be WooCommerce, it might not be Magento, it might be square aspect, it might be the ghost blogging platform, it might determine you have to understand that customer and the product before you understand the technology. So once you’ve then worked on your website, you have got to then work on your traffic. So your marketing, how do you get people to your website. And this is a big one everybody wants to talk about because we had a client come to us. And this is quintessentially what happens all the time I had a client come to us and he said, listen, we’re turning over, I think it was a couple of million a year online, we need to double our revenue, right. And we’re currently spending whatever it was 200 grand on marketing, bringing in traffic, and our nearest competitor is doing twice what we’ve got. So I’ve got another 200 grand to spend in marketing. What should we do? And I was like, Well, dude, you don’t have a marketing problem, you actually have a conversion problem. And so that the thinking was, the more I spend on marketing, I’m going to double my business. I mean, it’s just there’s some silver bullet somewhere, what’s the, what’s the key marketing trick. And marketing is important. You’ve got to think about email, you’ve got to think about mobile marketing, you’ve got to think about paid media, you’ve got to think about your content, and so on. And so there’s a lot to think about in marketing and is super important. And we spend a lot of time understanding what’s the best way to reach our customers. Because again, think about the system. Once you understand your customer, once you understand your product, marketing becomes an awful lot easier because you know where they are, you know, the language that they’re speaking, you know what problems they’ve got. So you can reach them quite easily. So that’s the that one. So you’ve branding, product website marketing, the fifth one is conversion. So how do you know how do I optimize my website? The sixth one is going to be what we call experience. It’s the whole it’s what happens to your customer after they click the Add to Cart button and they’ve paid. So they’ve gone through the website, they’ve purchased the product, they’ve paid for it. So what happens after that point to the point they receive the product, right? That whole journey is the most neglected journey in any ecommerce business owner. It’s for most ecommerce businesses. It’s all about getting that sale. Yep. I would venture to say what you do after that sale is more important. And I’ll explain why I think that But that hot looking at that whole section of experience is super, super critical. So that’s customer experience, the way you pick and pack, the opening experience the customer has who you use for shipping. There’s a whole bunch of questions you’ve got to ask in there. And then the final aspect of our framework, we call it yo yo. Or repeatability and refer ability, how do I? How do I get customers to keep going around the cycle? How do I get them to keep coming back to me, so I don’t sell for example, I know people do sell them and make a lot of money with it. And but I don’t sell one off what I call one off items. So I don’t sell carriages, and pool or you know, a car or something that people only buy once. Unless, yeah, because there’s a long repeat rate, right? Yeah, unless there is something that they will buy in the meantime. So a good friend of mine, for example, he runs a cart, the car dealership, local to me, he runs a local Lexus dealership, and great guy, love his family, brilliant, brilliant people. And he doesn’t hardly make any money on the sales of cars, makes the money on the servicing, to getting these guys to come back year after year for annual servicing, right, that’s much more profitable for those guys. And so if you’ve got a product like the car, you’ve got to have a product like the servicing where you can generate consistent, you know, high streams of income from your current customer base. And so yeah, there are seven sort of elements that we look at, in a nutshell, not so much in Excel. But Jeremy, that’s what we look at with any client with our own businesses. And if you can focus on those seven areas and work on those seven areas, consistently, you’ll have a great ecommerce business.
Joshua Chin 36:49
Now, what are some of the more interesting ways that you’ve seen brands introduce repeatability into their businesses?
Matt Edmundson 36:57
One of the most obvious ways, I think, has been the growing trend to do subscription models. So you look at the Dollar Shave Club, you know, fascinating business story. And, and what did they do? They, they basically said it’s $1 a month, it’s like, well hang on a minute, oh, whatever their pricing is Harry’s and all these guys now that DO IT group. They all have a basic and it’s like seven bucks a month and for most people, and certainly the customers that they’re reaching, okay, their target audience. seven bucks a month is nothing. I mean, absolutely nothing. And you can’t it. First you kind of go that seems quite cheap for what I’m getting. But actually, when you take seven bucks a month, and you multiply that out, that’s 84 pounds a year on shaving products. I was probably spending 20 quid a year on shaving products Jimmy and before the, but they made it seem cheap, and they made it seem easy. And I think subscription for example is a brilliant way to introduce repeatability. But the most the most successful way to introduce repeatability comes from the step before so repeatability. Step seven, what was step six experience. So if you can create a really great experience for your customer, as we mentioned at the start, if you can treat them the way that you would want to be treated in that same situation, then you do really well. So at Jersey, for example, we we’ve started to dig deep on our customer’s values and understand why you know, what was really going on with them. Why were they buying skincare? Why were they spending on average, you know, 50 60 70 pounds an order. It’s like $100 US dollars. I mean, that’s a shedload of cash to spend on a moisturizer, but they were doing it all the time. And so we I needed to understand why so yes, they had skin concerns that they wanted to deal with, but the majority of them didn’t. And we started to look into their values. And we realized quite quickly, these guys are investing in themselves. They’re wanting to feel special, they’re wanting to feel pampered Germain in it’s like, and this was them investing in themselves in their, you know, in this in their skin and their appearance and so on and so forth. And so we were like, Man, if I if I understand them stand their values and contrast that with how I’m delivering a parcel, they will poles apart. We descend our products out in a brown box with plastic bubbles to keep the product safe. And we were like Goodness me. Does that. When you get that box? Does it feel like a gift? No. Right? I mean, it just feels dull and boring. like Amazon, you know, it’s just, it’s just soulless. And so we worked really hard on that whole section. We improved our customer service. We invested in it quite heavily. We changed our packaging. And so we took out the the plastic bubbles and on the cardboard box, we printed some beautiful text and graphics, which made people feel special and unique. And tell people how amazing they were we wrapped the whole thing in tissue paper. So when you got it, you felt like you were opening a gift. Any other thing that we did was we took out all the plastic bubbles, and we put in popcorn instead. And it turns out, yeah, popcorn. And cool. Popcorn is like an amazing packaging material that, you know, one of our values is that and this comes back to exactly what I said, you know, a year, my 20 year old self needed to understand my values. But as a company, you need to understand what makes the company tick. And one of our values as a company was sustainability. We needed to be sustainable, and plastic bubbles just weren’t sustainable. And so when we’re looking at this whole thing, we were like, well, let’s get rid of the plastic bottles, let’s do something that’s kinder to the environment. So the obvious answer was then to use paper or recycled paper or something like that. And we’re just like, that’s just a bit boring. And so another one of our values was fun. So how could we do something that was fun and sustainable, and have that overlap with this idea that the customer needs, a gift needs to feel special and unique? Well, you need a special and unique packaging material. And so I remember really clearly sitting in, in our room one day, we’re brainstorming this and I thought, What about popcorn? I don’t know why I said it. I’m just like, that’s just popcorn, everyone laughed, and so I’d be amazing. And so we literally went out and bought bags of popcorn, different types of popcorn. I mean, there’s I didn’t know this, Josh. But there are so many different types of popcorn. It’s ridiculous. We bought loads of bags, and we bought machines. And we tried different types of popcorn until we found the ideal one. And one of the interesting things about that little exercise was as soon as we changed the box, we put the tissue paper in and we put the puck on the net increasing cost to me was like two or three pence per box. It wasn’t a lot of money, right? But it was all of a sudden, it’s unique. It’s different it vibes with the customer values. Do you know what happened? All of a sudden? What? Let me ask you a question. Do you know how many people shared on social media a picture of the packaging?
Joshua Chin 42:14
It’s a no brainer, you got to share that stuff like you’re no expert, you’re 100% not expecting that from anybody, let alone a brand. They just bought off the if the switch
Matt Edmundson 42:27
unique right? And so it’s super Yeah, it was all over the internet. And here’s the interesting thing, when we started to tie our customer for our experience in with their customer values, right? Our repeatability rates started to shoot up, we didn’t have a subscription model with our whole repeatability thing. So we had a I mean, you looked at the industry average hours was well above industry average for return people coming back and buying from us tissue paper and popcorn and custard in Germany, and because our customer service was great. And it’s little things like that make a massive difference.
Joshua Chin 43:02
That is fascinating. So a little bit of creativity and, and trial and error. Has a has anything backfired in your time. Jersey, it sounds like you’ve been experimented with novel ideas and incorporating fun and in your entire experience process. Did anything backfire at all?
Matt Edmundson 43:24
Oh, lots of things backfired. Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to be prepared to fail. Right? I remember when we moved jersey from Jersey Jersey originally was based on a on the island of Jersey, which is a small island off the north coast of France. And it’s kind of independently British, this place. And we moved it from Jersey to Liverpool and I took a much more ownership overview of the company. And I ran it. And we changed our focus we moved from we moved our business model where we were aiming to be quite cheap, because you could from Jersey because of the tax rules. And so our prices in effect went up when we moved from Jersey to Liverpool. And when I changed our model, we had to increase our price. If we’re going to invest in customer service, you’ve got to you can’t be the cheapest. If you’re gonna sell a quality product, you just it’s almost an impossibility. And so our prices went up. But I knew that there was something in this whole focusing on the experience and building that aspect. And so when we started this transition as sales fell, as sales fell, you know, they started going down for the first time in six years. And we were like goodness me if we made the right decision here. But we had to hold on to it on into the belief that we knew what we were doing. And it wasn’t until the following year that our sales grew. And they grew by one and a half million. I mean it was it was a massive difference, but it took a little while for it to sort of lead man. But we’ve done all kinds of things over the years we did this thing called. We did this thing called smocks. which stands for sexy moments of customer service. Right? Oh, it was an it was an internal thing. Yeah. smokes, right. It was an internal thing we did at the company, right? So we basically said to all the staff, listen, we are I am super keen on this whole idea of smokes. And so we told the guys in the warehouse who did the picking and packing about it, we told the guys in customer service. And we basically said to them, Listen, you can do anything up to this value without getting my approval or permission to do it. Or if you feel like it’s going to create a sexy moment of customer service, and I want you to go for it. And so, we’ve done all kinds of things over the years, you know, but one lady who worked for us, she was absolutely lovely. And she would go and buy, like different types, because she would always say to herself, well, what would I want, if I was a customer, I’d want a bit of chocolate jahmene. And so she would, she would buy things like chocolate and she would put them in the box despised chocolate. And because she was in the warehouse, she recognized names that were coming up all the time. And so she would write these handwritten notes going Hey, Jane, listen. Thanks, again for being part of the jersey family just love wrapping these parcels. And here’s some chocolates just for you. Just to say thanks for being part of it. Right. And so she put those in with a handwritten note and she’s sent it out and Jane was loving it. And it was great. But one time, one lady, I she got the chocolate I guess you didn’t get a handwritten note in the box. Because she, she she emailed us and said, Listen, I have part of somebodies lunch from your warehouse in my package. us crying, are those really funny? And so we, my guest, the learning experience we took away from that was it’s great to do these things. But you have to tell your customers what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. For them to really get behind it. When we started doing the popcorn thing. One lady wrote on social media, I’ve got popcorn in my parcel from Jersey, it’s amazing. Me and my granddaughter sat here eaten it while we’re watching a movie. And we were like, no, no, this is so wrong. Because the popcorn was not produced in a food safe environment at all. It was not sealed in any way. And it was just like, I would have not eaten that at all. And so that then becomes a learning experience. And so we started to put a sticker on the on the box saying, this is a popcorn. We we love popcorn, because it’s lightweight, eco friendly, makes great packaging material. It’s biodegradable, you can feel it to the birds, but please, please, please don’t eat it, because it’s not food safe. And we will just kind of we made it, you know, sort of, we will find out about it. And we joked about it in our marketing. But it’s like popcorn, great packaging material from Jersey, but definitely not edible, just meaning you can use it in your lanes and stuff. But yeah, so we’ve had a few things like that sort of backfire. I think the biggest the biggest problem we ever faced as a company was our suppliers, though. So we, and this was a massive learning experience for me. At one point in our history 90% of our sales, were one specific brand. Which when you’re turning over five, 6 million, Sterling, a year was set about eight $9 million. That’s a lot of one brand to sell. Yeah. And that supplier in 2013 changed their terms and conditions of supply. They they came up with a policy, which basically said the more you buy, the more you pay going forward. No. Yeah. I mean, it did. So I have theories as to why they did this. And I certainly am not going to talk about that on the podcast. So I wouldn’t be called liable. But they, they increase the price. And so because we were one of their biggest customers, all of a sudden our prices went up by 30%. overnight. I I thought our business was going to collapse. I genuinely thought our business was going to collapse. And we will make in the start of that year, the first four months were horrendous. I had to let people go. I mean, it was the most horrible time we’ve had as a business. But a big chunk of that was my fault, because we were 90% dependent on one supplier. Right. And we had no real contract with them. We had no real way. But we had a contract with them. But it didn’t protect us in any way. From them being crazy. Now you can understand it from their point of view because they were a brand which went to people like me, you know, they went to wholesalers and then the wholesalers went to the public and I bought from there. So to the public. They were changing their business model they wanted to go direct to consumer because they were like well I can make all this extra profit and I and the way to do that is to price everybody out and it’s it’s still Little bit of a gray area for me whether it was what they did was legal or not. Because you know, there’s price fixing, you can’t do price fixing. And yeah, but it was a way of them trying to get prices higher on everybody’s website. Without really price fixing it was either very clever, I’m not quite, I’m still not quite sure what it was all about to be fair, but a bottom the learning was, for me, we were so dependent on this one supplier, and it nearly destroyed us as a business. And we had to rapidly innovate and change our entire thinking almost overnight as a result of that one action from a supplier.
Joshua Chin 50:35
That is, that that’s not it, I think that applies to pretty much every other aspect in, in building an ecommerce brand when you’re over reliant, and I’ve seen this with some of our clients as well. In the peak of the the ecommerce boom in 2017 18. We saw brands going from basically six figures a month to seven figures a month, in a matter of 30 days. And it all came crashing down because of either a over reliance on Facebook and that person bonkers or an over reliance on one supplier and that supplier couldn’t fulfill the orders. And all that over lines are just one traffic channel, one supplier, one thing often led to the downfall of very fast growing ecommerce brands, which is a shame. But on a more positive note, Matt, what are some of the brands that you are selling consumer off, or that you admire? From yourself, I’ve done a really good job in this seven aspects of your cell line.
Matt Edmundson 51:57
I think there’s a lot of brands that have done a great job. I mean, I there’s a there’s there’s the obvious for me, which is Apple, Apple, I think have have quintessentially done a great job of keeping me in their ecosystem. You know, they, they’ve thought about it remarkably well. And they’ve kept me in that ecosystem. One of the things which I find quite interesting when I think about experience, for example, Apple now I never go to their website and buy anything. Because I have an account manager at Apple and every couple weeks every month or so he emails me Hey, Matt, how you doing? He getting on. And I know if I want to buy anything, I’m just gonna email him. And I just say to him, Dave, listen, this is what I want. He’ll go away. He’ll, he’ll, he’ll put together a deal for me, he’ll come back. And so there you go. And I got awesome. And and it just makes the whole process seamless and easier. germane and it works for someone like me. And so there’s a there’s a small Power Tool Company here in the UK. PTC that website, I have to be honest with you, some of them aren’t great. And they’ve got some tools, and I can remember the name of their website now come back to me. But I, I never use their website. Now. I just I know one of the guys at the company, I just email him and he sorts everything out. And so there’s this whole thing about experience and tying into your customers. I’ve seen done remarkably well by big businesses and small businesses. And that’s often just by old fashioned account management, despite somebody emailing me and saying, Hey, how’s it going? How you doing? Right? There’s, there are brands, which I, I think have done a phenomenal job like the clothing brand. Patagonia, right. I think here’s a company that is built around values, and have done a remarkable job in telling that story and building that brand. And until iOS. Yeah, that is phenomenal. And I hope they can continue with it. Because I think I think what they do is is truly outstanding. And I hope it’s not all fluff and mirrors. You know, you kind of taken a bunch of fun trust, but I’m a big fan of the Patagonia brand. I like I like I like websites that tell stories very well, that there’s a there’s a reason for their existence. So there’s a company called tradecraft here in the UK. And they’re a fair trade organization. And I their websites, okay. I don’t think it’s a particularly great website. But I think what they do in terms of repeatability and refer ability is just extraordinary in terms of how they generate businesses, how they generate business, through something called the what they call the fair trading network. So they have people, literally raving fans all over the UK that promote what they do for very little in return, if I’m honest with you, but they’re so passionate about the cause of fair trade, which is what tradecraft stands for that, I think. Phenomenal. I mean, it’s phenomenal what they’ve done. So yeah, there’s that, again, I could go on about this all day. But there’s a there’s a whole bunch of companies that I, I admire, and I think you guys have done a brilliant job yet.
Joshua Chin 55:16
And it’d be really good to grow in number as, as new ecommerce brands come about and scale into, into our field of awareness. And so I’m excited. Matt, what are some of your favorite podcast episodes? You’ve done? Over 80 episodes at the at the eCommerce Podcast? What are some of your favorite?
Matt Edmundson 55:44
It’s a really hard question. There are definitely some which stick out more than others. And so I remember when we first started doing the eCommerce Podcast, and it was basically me talking about you know, our framework and about me talking about ecommerce and how to do ecommerce better. And it was a bit kind of Amy Porterfield, it just me and a microphone to set chatting away. Yes, the trouble was Josh, at the end of that, even I was getting bored by the sound of my own voice, right. I was just, I wasn’t really good at it, I guess. So. We did one or two episodes where we interviewed guests. And the first guest, I remember interviewing was a beautiful lady. And we did this podcast called How to Sell a $6,000 Sweater Online. And it sticks out in my head. I mean, she was great as a guest phenomenal, but it sticks out in my head because that was the first interview I’d done on the podcast, and that one conversation changed how we did the podcast going forward. So after season one, we were like, we just need to go and get guests out on the show. And right. And so I remember in sort of season two, when we were started podcast, and we were hustling. You know, we were going to guess trying to get people on the show. And there were a bunch of people just get Sure I’ll help you out. I’ll come on the show, you know, and it was great. And it was wonderful. And like, I mean, you probably find this Josh now with your podcast. I I don’t think I’ve ever gone and had to find a guest for the show for I don’t know how many seasons because when your as your show grows, everybody wants to be on it. And everybody wants to gamble. Yeah. And so yeah, I but that one, the $6,000 Sweater one is probably the one that sticks out. Because it did did change the direction of what we were doing.
Joshua Chin 57:33
The thing that Do you remember the name of your guests or the title of the episode?
Matt Edmundson 57:39
The title of the podcast is How to sell a $6,000 sweater online. And yeah, I’ll pull up the and it’s it’s all on. It’s all on the website.
Joshua Chin 57:54
Gotcha. That’s, that’s episode number four. So like, yeah, early on. Awesome. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson 58:03
Yeah, check them out. And you know, we’ve had some great guests on the show more recently, Reece Spykerman. She was she was great. She was great. She was She said at the start of the interview, she was an introvert. And there’s no way she’s an introvert. Not at all from that interview. And we literally spent an hour talking about the about us page for your website. That was the whole conversation. And it was fascinating, you know, fascinating conversation. And I just think I just love the podcasting thing like you because you get to connect network with so many phenomenal people from around the world. And you get to ask them so many amazing questions. And so yeah, I love it. I made some good friends actually, as a result of it and, you know, people that we’ve carried on connecting with over the years, so yeah, it’s a great thing to do.
Joshua Chin 58:50
I agree. I agree, guys. Good. I believe you’ve you’ve been on Chloe’s podcast clay Thomas.
Matt Edmundson 58:57
Yeah, I’ve been on Chloe’s show and Chloe has been on mine actually, Chloe and I got to know each other quite well, because obviously a fellow Brit fellow eCommerce Podcast and so
Joshua Chin 59:06
that’s right, a fellow veteran as well. She’s been in the inner game for a long time. And I’ve had her on the show as well. Oh, great. Um, Das. Yeah. So guys, listening if you’re, if you’re interested to learn more, Chloe, definitely go check out the episode I made that were interviewed her. We talked about all kinds of stuff, but her story is fascinating. And She now runs a very, very popular podcast called The eCommerce Masterplan Podcast. She’s got like, over 360 episodes now. I think.
Matt Edmundson 59:44
Machine Chloe Oh, she’s got two podcasts now. She’s Yeah, she’s like, Yes, I’m out. Yeah, she’s
Joshua Chin 59:50
exactly the ones Lana really good quality
Matt Edmundson 59:52
to what Chloe does is great, you know, and she’s got two very distinctive shows and very Yeah, I admire Chloe a lot.
Joshua Chin 59:58
Matt, for people listening, interested in connecting with you what’s the best way to get in touch?
Matt Edmundson 1:00:10
You can reach out to me via the website, MattEdmundson.com. You can find me on LinkedIn, the search Matt Edmundson or the eCommercePodcast. We should hopefully come up. But yeah, if you wanna know more about the podcast, check out ecommerce podcast.net. But yeah, the easiest way to do is to stream edmunds.com.
Joshua Chin 1:00:27
And as usual, all the links will be in the show notes, go to chronos.agency/podcast for the latest episodes, and more. Matt, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been a pleasure. This has been super fun and insightful.
Matt Edmundson 1:00:44
Thanks, Josh. It’s been it’s been a blast. Yeah, I really enjoyed this one.
Outro 1:00:49
Thanks for listening to the eCommerce Profits Podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click Subscribe to get notified of future episodes.
