[Ad]: This episode of the Checkout is brought
[Ad]: to you by E Suite. Whether you're a retailer looking to grow your team or you're an E commerce gun looking for your next role, E Suite are here to help. At E Suite we connect fast growing retailers with the best Australian e commerce talent. We're working with some of the best in the business including Accent Group, Incoo, Aus, Hair and Beauty and Black Milk. So if you are in the market or interested in where the e commerce market is at, reach out. Visit esweettalent.com for all the latest job list or contact me directly on Nathan sweettalent.com au now let's get into today's checkout.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get you through your Friday.
[Ad]: Today's checkout features Nadi Harpaz, Co Founder and Executive Director of Tradesquare. Many of you who have been in E commerce for a while will know Naati from his time as Managing Director of Katch and the director, CEO and Chairman of Octomedia, which publishes Inside Retail. Today, Nadi joins me as the co founder and the Executive director of TradeSquare Australia's wholesale one stop shop for business with over 150,000 products and 8,000 buyers. Recently, TradeSquare announced Tradesquare Connect, which allows retailers to turn into wholesalers.
Nathan Bush: All right Nadi, welcome to the checkout. I have five quick questions to learn a little bit more about you as a follow up to our main episode. Number one, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Nati Harpaz: I actually bought everything online. Anything you can think of that could have been bought online, I bought it. But I don't think anything was weird. Like I'm not, I'm not a weird guy. So scooters and bicycles, trampoline. I bought a big in ground trampoline recently.
Nathan Bush: I suppose when you come from somewhere like Katch, nothing's really weird to you anymore when you kind of stock everything. All right, number two, this might put you in a tight spot given all your history. Who is your favorite retailer?
Nati Harpaz: So when I was working at Catch, Katch was my favorite. Right now I don't have a favorite. And I think that goes to the point that loyalty is not the same as it used to. I mean what I do, by the way, I'm using Google Lens now quite often. So if you haven't used it, it's really efficient. If I see A product that I want and it's hard to find. I use Google Lens and I then. And then it puts the different website I can buy generally pretty reliable.
[Ad]: Like it picks it up most times.
Nati Harpaz: It always picks the product like 90% of the time. So Google Lens is my favorite retailer right now. But look, I'm, as a retailer, I struggle to find to pay full price. Doesn't matter how much money I want. I want to have a good price. So I look online and then I just my Google Ads and I check things. I usually cross check. I mean if it's in Australia, I would cross check, Catch and Amazon just to see what's the thing.
Nathan Bush: Makes sense. All right, number three, which retail fad do you wish was history?
Nati Harpaz: You know, contradicts what I said. But online, it shouldn't be a race to the bottom in terms of pricing. Right. And I think the reality is you need to create value for the customer. So it's not about just cheap prices. So I think that that's one. The other thing is I've been asked recently by a group about opening another marketplace in a B2C. I think that the notion that it's easy should be out of the world. It's not easy anymore. It's become very expensive to acquire customers. You have to be really good at what you do. And I think product as opposed to technology, which what you said before is going to become a big differentiator because everyone's going to have very similar technology. The platforms out there will do 90% of the work. It's not about writing your own code anymore. Right. It's about actually everything else around it. How you buy the product, how you show it, how you do your marketing and your communication more than are you using Shopify or Magento or whatever.
Nathan Bush: And to your point, the experience of it, how do you make people feel during that? All right, number four, we've already talked about Ray Dalio.
[Ad]: Do you have any other books or
Nathan Bush: podcasts that our listeners should immediately get into?
Nati Harpaz: Well, actually, I'm spending a lot of time now not on a business podcast, but on health podcasts. Spending a lot of time on learning about the world of biology, nutrition, longevity. It's so fascinating and so complex, by the way, but so fascinating what's happening. And that's the next frontier, by the way. Also for digital, I mean, by the way, a lot of these companies only sell online. So there's a company in the US Called Elysium. They have a supplement called nad. It's very important for your aging and longevity. You can only buy it online and it's a subscription base. So this is the future. Right? So you can buy a one off package but you can buy subscription. And I'm seeing a lot of the world of vitamins in that. So I listened to Peter Attia who's got a podcast called Drive and talks about different complex things about medicine. I listened to David Sinclair is actually an Australian professor was in Harvard Medical School who writes about this. So that's really my, my latest thing is really around not so much business, it's more about health. So. And I think I'm probably going to do something in that at some point.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. I just, I'm blown away by your journey every time we speak and hearing all your different backgrounds from in the army to being a lawyer, to being in retail to going into health. I just love how open you are to all different parts of the world. Last one I've got for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is unpredictable. Nice. Nice.
Nati Harpaz: You could see who would have known 20 years ago that this is where retail will be today, right? And imagine 20 years ago where drones are going to be delivering to your door. Or maybe you order something and it's made for you on demand rather than that. Who knows, right?
Nathan Bush: So be ready to change.
Nati Harpaz: Exactly.
Nathan Bush: Nadi, thank you very much for joining us on the checkout.
Nati Harpaz: Thanks mate. Have fun.
[Ad]: To hear more from Naati, jump back into episode 128 where Nadi covers topics like the differences between B2B and B2C in E commerce, why product managers and trading managers are the most crucial roles in E commerce in his view, and why he didn't do any research before launching Tradesquip. He just went for it, went with his gut. He also shares a bunch of invaluable business advice and personal advice, including why E commerce reminds him of being in the army. I've felt this many times, but I'm just too scared to be in the army. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep those customers adding to car.
