[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.
Nathan Bush: Today's checkout features David McLean. David is the founder and CEO of Hubbed, a technology solution giving e commerce businesses and their customers an alternative way to receive their products. With Hubbed, customers can opt to pick up their package from their local corner shop, newsagent or petrol station at a time that suits them. David, thank you so much for joining
Nathan Bush: us on the checkout. We've learned all about Hubbed and what you and the team are doing there. Really exciting stuff about changing last mile delivery. We're going to learn a little bit more about you. Five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
David McLean: Hiking sticks. I'm doing the Oxdam, you know, that 100k hike thing. I had to buy these sticks. I couldn't get over just how technical these things are and the right size and grade and I just thought they were just a pair of sticks to walk through the bush with. So it kind of freaked me out. Just, it was ridiculous. But anyway, I bought them and they are so expensive I nearly. It's ridiculous.
Nathan Bush: How much are walking sticks?
David McLean: Just a pair. You see these movies where you see, you know, old codgers like me walking through the freaking mountains and stuff and you think it's just a couple of pairs of sticks, but it just freaked me out how expensive they were and how technical they were and you got to open them and close them. They got all these different bits you can add on the bottom. It was, it's ridiculous. But anyway, I bought a pair and I've got to admit I quite like them now I've used them.
Nathan Bush: Are you walking around the neighborhood using them?
David McLean: I haven't yet, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna see what happens if I do.
Nathan Bush: And when's the hike?
David McLean: A couple of weeks time. 100k a hike. So it's a 24 hour walk and it's for the Oxfam charity and all of that. So we've been doing all these training walks and stuff like that. We got lost a couple of times. We needed to get a boat and an Uber, which was a bit pathetic, but yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
Nathan Bush: Well, that's brilliant. Good luck to you.
David McLean: Thank you.
Nathan Bush: Number two, who is your favorite retailer?
David McLean: Moneys.com. they're a music store. I play Bass. I'm much better with it. When it's not plugged in, I sound amazing. When it isn't plugged in, I'm obsessed with it and I just keep going to this website and finding things to buy that my wife and everyone in my family just disagrees with. But I just love it. I love the site. It's easy to express, great pictures, everything looks amazing and the shopping experience is. Is excellent for me anyway, so that's my favorite website.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. Are you in a band?
David McLean: I am in a band, but the Whiskey Blues at Nathan, where we need work, but we, we. We enjoy it. You need whiskey. We've done a couple of gigs and as I said, we need some work, but we're enjoying it, so leave us alone.
Nathan Bush: That's great.
Nathan Bush: You've got some good hobbies outside of work.
Nathan Bush: I love it.
David McLean: Yeah, a few things. A few things. I think they're my two favorites. I also coach my son soccer team and we're just into our grand final next week, so we're pretty happy about that as well. So life is good at the moment.
Nathan Bush: That's great. I coached last year and it was an absolute disaster.
David McLean: What age group?
Nathan Bush: Eight. No, seven. They were at the time. Yeah. That was like babysitting, basically.
David McLean: Yes. Good on you.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I didn't do it this year. All right, number three, Which e commerce practice do you wish was history?
David McLean: People who buy in bulk and expect free returns, but when they know they're actually going to be sending it back. I think people don't understand just how hard it is for retailers, especially online retailers, to make money. And that's a practice that fundamentally annoys me that people do that. They think it's a victimless crime and it isn't. And I'd love to see the back of that behavior.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And it's not just from a commercial perspective, from a sustainability perspective as well. It just doesn't make any sense, does it?
David McLean: Everything about it is just wrong. The e commerce industry has just conditioned people to have such high expectations. We fermented it, quite frankly. And I just think that we now need to start to see it come the other way. I think announcements from the likes of Zyra and boohoo.com recently about their returns policies and charging and stuff like that is a part of the way. I think more effort needs to be put into analyzing a customer's purchase history and what they like and making changes around that to sort of start to really put some implication on those behaviors. But it frustrates me to know. And I can only imagine what it does for the average online retailer. And it's fundamentally just bad for the environment. So it should stop.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into, if they haven't already?
David McLean: Start with why by Simon Sinek. I've read that over and over. It's not a new book. It's been around for many years. I just love that book. I think both for business and life, in terms of the way you think about marketing and you think about what your purpose is, I actually think start with why makes a lot of sense. It really just to me resonates and I've read it often because of that.
Nathan Bush: Have you been able to get your personal why down pat?
David McLean: Yeah, I think so. What I did is I removed the reasons, the things I definitely didn't want the why to be. If saidnut hub was just to become a trillionaire or something, that's not a good reason. So why did we set it up? Well, we really wanted a meaningful purpose and we think that helping the world become more sustainable is a great purpose. And then the things behind it, if you start up a company, why? Well, I want an environment that I really enjoy working in and I want people to enjoy working here. So it was easy to sort of build around the back of those. And then as we think about the products, I really don't like saying buy this because it's cheap. It's by this because this is the why of it. This is why it's important, it's sustainable, it's good for the environment, you're doing a good thing. And so I like that. And I've surrounded myself with people now who think in a similar fashion.
Nathan Bush: That's good.
Nathan Bush: So well articulated. Number five, can you finish this sentence? The future of retail is boundless.
David McLean: I generally think that Microsoft, for 15 years before my set, hubbed up, very passionate about what technology can do. And I think about the AI advances, the AI advances that we have here, the way we're getting more and more of an understanding of our customer. I think a lot of it at the moment is just a soup of different opportunities that technology can provide. And we haven't well landed as an industry on the four or five key things that I think are going to make a difference. I think experiential changes about retail really matter. I think, you know, from the out of boxing experience right through to I don't have a physical location, how do I create a real connection with that customer through technology through my site and also, you know, traditional retail. What they're actually now doing in terms of giving people experiences, understanding that that real estate can never hold all of the inventory they may have. So if they can really tie that real estate to experiences and couple it with a great omnichannel experience online, how good would that be? More choice, more convenience is coming through. No more of this. You'll get it. And if you're not home, go to the post office. There are other options, other ways to receive your consignments. And I do think, especially over the last two years, sustainability has been taken seriously. And I mean just as a sort of tick box, I generally think people have taken it seriously if they want to support the customer base that is entering the market and the way they think about shopping and the way they think about sustainability. So I think the opportunities are boundless. There's plenty that we can work with to really redefine E commerce and retail in general.
Nathan Bush: All right, you have just described retail nirvana and I love it.
Nathan Bush: So David, and obviously Hubbed is a
Nathan Bush: big part of that solution. And you can hear more about Hubbed and your journey back into the main episode.
Nathan Bush: But thank you so much for joining
Nathan Bush: us on the checkout today.
David McLean: Pleasure, Nathan. Thank you.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from David, jump back into episode 222 where David shares the benefits that the hub solution can bring, not only for retailers selling products, but also for retailers who become the hubs. He also talks about the sustainability impact Hub is making and why he's asking for a punch in the face from me. Trust me, he's a lovely, gentle man.
Nathan Bush: Thanks for listening.
Nathan Bush: And until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
