Andrew Maver: They go to the effort of designing, manufacturing, importing, getting it into their physical stores, training their staff up, putting it on their website, advertising and marketing it, and then they don't actually tell the customers exactly what store to actually get it from. Truth be told, there were times along the way when we struggled and there were times when we were going to pull the pin. That's the never ending challenge of retail is getting the right product in the right place at the right time.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite and an e commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course keep your customers Adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart.
Nathan Bush: My name is Nathan Bush, host of
Nathan Bush: Add to Cart and director at E
Nathan Bush: Commerce talent agency E Suite. Now, your product probably familiar whether you say it or you've heard your uncle say it a thousand times with the old saying it does exactly what it
Nathan Bush: says on the tin.
Nathan Bush: Well, today's guest not only says what it does on the tin, it knows precisely where all the tins are. Andrew Maver is the co founder and CEO of Stock in Store, an omnichannel SaaS platform connecting online and physical stores so retailers know exactly where their stock is. To be able to tell customers where to buy it makes sense, right? With clients such as Adairs, Cookeye, priceattack and Scanlan Theodore, Stock in Stores allows customers to find store locations, check product levels and lots more, creating more integrated
Nathan Bush: and convenient shopping experiences.
Nathan Bush: In this chat, Andrew shares his thoughts on the product categories. Hardest to keep track of what tips he has for staying on top of stock and how growing up as a long distance swimmer it helped him build a technology business.
Nathan Bush: I wouldn't normally say water and technology go together, but there you go.
Nathan Bush: Now before we get into this chat, this might be your last chance to register for our very first live Add to Cart in Brisbane, brought to you by Convert Digital. We have a very special guest, Athan Didiskillau, Co founder of Luggage Brand July how good's that? Tickets are free but almost gone, so head on over to events.convertdigital.com add to CartLive.
Nathan Bush: We'll put the link in the show notes it might be a little bit
Nathan Bush: easier to get to and I hope to see you there. All right, let's get into today's episode. Thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Paclio here. Here's our conversation with Andrew Maver, co founder and CEO of Stock Install.
Nathan Bush: Andrew, welcome to Add to cart.
Andrew Maver: G', day, Nathan. It's good to be here.
Nathan Bush: Good to have you here. We've got your bio and I've given you that lovely opening there. But I believe you describe yourself as a crap programmer, is that right?
Andrew Maver: Way back in the day I actually came from a retail family, so my dad had menswear retail stores and when I was 16 he said to me, do you want to get involved in the business? I'll teach you everything. And I said, dad couldn't think of anything worse and he devolved himself into business. I went off and did a double degree of business and IT and I was stronger in the business, but I went, oh, this IT thing is something that's the future of the world. But I did information systems and I'm really good at the concepts around it. But technically I'm a crap programmer. I've made my way through and got my way through and passed. But there are far better programmers that now work for me. The do.
Nathan Bush: The do. And what does your dad think about you've now combined your tech background and retail together for a career?
Andrew Maver: My dad is a technology dinosaur, so he has absolutely no idea or concept. Right. He does not know what online shopping really even is. Right. So it's as far from me as he could possibly be.
Nathan Bush: That's brilliant. All right, we are here to talk about Stock Install and your journey at Stock Install. Can you give our listeners an overview of what Stock in Store is and how it helps retailers in Australia? Sure.
Andrew Maver: So Stock in Store is a platform we've developed. We came from a web development background, so we were building e comm websites for lots of retailers and we saw they had the same problem in the omnichannel space and a lot of it was driven around inventory management. So we've done a lot of systems integration with them and it really came out of their own requirements. So our first find in store solution in the suite really was about surfacing and showing the customer what was available in their physical stores. And we saw a lot of the Google Analytics and metrics that were coming off our clients sites and when you've got kind of one one and a half percent conversion rates on an e commerce store that says to people who know and understand retail that people are browsing online and shopping in store. And so it just felt completely foreign to us that retailers weren't actually showing what was available in their physical stores. And so they would have customers. And I explained this to a lot of our clients. They go to the effort of designing, manufacturing, importing, getting it into their physical stores, training their staff up, putting it on their website, advertising and marketing it and then they don't actually tell the customers exactly what store to actually get it from. So for us that was the principle behind starting stock in store and the finding store solution was really the foundation of what we did.
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Nathan Bush: when did you make that transition from building websites to narrowing down and focusing on that inventory problem?
Andrew Maver: We probably did it in 2017. Late 2017 was when we went away and re architected the stock solution to scale. So originally it was just an MVP that we put on a number of our client sites to go. Is this something that actually has an impact? And we looked at conversion rates and all of those sorts of things and we were tracking what was going on and we thought that there was something there that was really valuable from a retail perspective and an online retail perspective. And so we went away and the way that we've done it, we can't actually add 100, 200, 1,000 clients. So we actually need to build an admin area and help them with visibility and all of these sorts of things that were there. So we went away and did that for a good 18 months, 20 months, and then kind of came back out to the market in 2017. And so it's kind of been the journey since then.
Nathan Bush: And you picked up some pretty big clients pretty quickly.
Andrew Maver: Pretty quickly. It's always an interesting thing. So I mean, I guess it's been five years now since that time. But truth be told, there were times along the way when, when we struggled and there were times when we were going to pull the pin, like we were really, really close and you know, we were lucky enough to get ideas as a client early on that really kind of solidified our belief in and Cookeye as well, who were still with us. And you go, you know, that solidified in our minds that it was valued by some bigger, really good retailers that were out there. So yeah, it's been amazing and a lot of it is just word of mouth and branding and good reputation and all of those sorts of things that come with it.
Nathan Bush: And so can you explain so just exactly how it works? So assuming I'm an E commerce retailer, I've got my store set up, I might have a few physical stores, I got my E commerce store. Whether it's Shopify, Magento or otherwise, what role does stock in store play in terms of adding on to that? Do you actually store all the inventory and product or are you an integration in between?
Andrew Maver: We're a bit of both. We actually do integrate with their point of sale with the ERP system. So we do actually have everything that's available. So one of the things that we saw from a web dev perspective was the platforms were getting really complicated when you had to set up multi inventory locations and all of these sorts of things that they all do in different ways and required some significant planning and architecture and all of this sort of stuff that was there. And we went, well, there's an easier way if we can solve that problem. So initially just with a fine install, yeah, we keep a record and we have kind of four or five different ways that we integrate with the retailer so we can pull it from them, they can give it to us the FTP, we've got a real time API endpoint that they can push to us every minute if they want to. There's all different ways we actually get access to their stock on hand and then we also get a feed of actually all their products and skus that are actually available across their website as well. So we normally get that feed from their website and then we have a little JavaScript plugin that sits on their website from a finding store perspective. A little bit more complex from a click and collect perspective. But by and large it's a similar sort of thing and we control that button and so we can place it wherever they want, we can brand it, we can do whatever we want in that way and it means that it becomes a really low frictionless type of Set up from a web dev perspective. If they can give us a stock feed, then typically with an API connection to their website and a little JavaScript added to their PDP page, it's a way we go kind of thing and it can be tested that way as well. So there are a few sites that we've got out there that we're onboarding at the moment that you wouldn't even know that our code is actually on there because it's in kind of test mode or demo mode as we call it. And we, only a few of us can see it, the client and we can all test it and just make sure that it's got accuracy and then it just checks against our availability. And yeah, there might be some, some differences in terms of what there is in terms of in store, but we've got some buffers and thresholds and things like that to manage the customer's expectations, not to disappoint them.
Nathan Bush: Do you typically become the source of truth then for inventory or does it vary depending on retailer?
Andrew Maver: I think it varies and I think it varies depending on what the outcome is. So for online, certainly not. But for our ship from store solution, absolutely. We actually control all the inventory, we'll aggregate it, take off buffers, all of that sort of thing. So yes, we do the source of truth for inventory. So it really just depends what solution I guess the client adopts. So for someone like Toy World Australia that we're doing that ship from store solution or the guys need to sport, we do control all their inventory and they can add and remove stores as and when they need to. So if last year when we had floods and we had Covid and all of these sorts of things that were going on, we were adding stores and removing stores depending on whether they'll open or closed along the way. And it was, you know, it was just, it was a crazy roller coaster
Nathan Bush: kind of period of time that would have been mayhem.
Andrew Maver: It was a little.
Nathan Bush: So we've talked a little bit about click and collect and ship from store as out of the box, for lack of a better word, solutions that stock in store offer. Having a look at your website, it seems like it goes well beyond those two solutions. How else are retailers using stock in store?
Andrew Maver: We've added in some solutions like store locator. We built that out of a request from our clients, really. We have this thing called a special trading hours module that's there that controls for public holidays and things like that. The retailers can change their trading hours and we wanted to be able to show the customer when the store was actually open and to make it really easy for them to manage it. Retailers were coming to us going, you've got better store information than we do on our stores page. And it's easy to update it. So can you actually build a store located? So we kind of built that for them and then we've done things like Google local inventory advertising. So we're big believers that for omnichannel retailers, those that are bricks and mortar and online, that is really important for them to be able to leverage their stores as a competitive advantage against the pure plays. So we see things like Google local inventory advertising feeds and all of that sort of stuff. We know what's going on in their stores. So we actually, it took us about 18 months to work out the Google ecosystem in that area. And we kind of mash up the Google my business and our local fees that we get and the shopping feeds and all this sort of stuff. And we. And we update it multiple times a day. And it's designed to then be able to let them advertise and drive people into their physical stores. And we think that that's a really good solution.
Nathan Bush: It's funny that you mentioned store opening hours because it seems like something that is so simple from a retail perspective. How can you not have the right opening hours, but the amount of omnichannel retailers you work with and have a look and either the contact, the addresses are wrong, the opening hours are wrong. It's a really basic piece that's often overlooked. Do you often find the same with invent because it is difficult to keep track of inventory, but from a customer's perspective, it's so important to understand what's available available. Do you often find with retailers that inventory they recognize as important, but they just ignore it for so long?
Andrew Maver: I think it started to change a lot. I think Covid changed a lot of that when they realized they had stock sitting in physical stores and they couldn't open them and they weren't churning it over. I think that's when they started to appreciate how important it was and how to maximize their inventory. So I think that mindset has changed. I mean, we looked at it and we went the three biggest costs that a retailer has inside their business is their staff costs, their leasing costs and their inventory costs. So if we can help them by maximizing the use of that stock and that inventory in their physical stores, using this stuff they've already got, then it kind of makes the most of those resources without actually taking on board any really additional capital costs from that perspective. So that's kind of why we think that the solutions that we've got really work well for them.
Nathan Bush: Makes a lot of sense. This might be a dangerous question for you, but are there any of your clients, your retailers, who you would hold up as someone who is just on top of their inventory and using it to really take that customer experience to the next level?
Andrew Maver: It's interesting because sometimes we're not really. There's so much data that we deal with that you're actually getting into the minutia is actually really hard. And so, you know, we have buffers and thresholds and those sorts of things to put in place, some cautionary buffers, so to speak, so that we don't disappoint customers. So I don't necessarily get into the minutiae. We talked to them about some of their inventory problems and those sorts of things. Some have implemented RFID and now have like a 99% inventory accuracy. It's not 100%. And, you know, we all know that things get faulty, they get stolen. You know, somebody has it in the change room, when it's been ordered online, all of these sorts of things happen. So we thought about that when we were architecting the solution. We've seen so many retailers in the way they thought about it. So I don't have anyone specifically. I mean, I don't want to name anyone specifically, but there are some really good operators that are out there. And it gets harder. The more volume you have that go through it, I think the harder it is to. To manage it. In that regard, I'd be. It'd be bad of me to actually mention money in particular. I'd get in a lot of trouble
Nathan Bush: sitting on the fence.
Andrew Maver: They know who they are.
Nathan Bush: It was interesting you mentioned that, because a couple of weeks ago we had Simon Molnar from Flagship and they're using Bluetooth stickers to keep track of products in store. Do you see solutions like that playing an important role in helping physical retailers keep track of inventory?
Andrew Maver: Absolutely. I mean, it's a bit like the RFID kind of concept that's there to help them. But I still think that. I'll give you one example, and this is something you can never avoid. We had a client who sells shoes and they had a sale for a size 10 and a half shoe. And one of the things that we did was they had a sale, they went to the store, it was a ship from store solution. And they went there and they said, yeah, we can do it. Yeah, yeah, well, I've got one. It's in stock. There's the box, pulled it out. Inside was a size 10 and a size 10 and a half. Somebody had done a switch on them. How do you manage for that sort of situation is, you know, whether Bluetooth or RFID actually does it, it probably doesn't. Like, it's just impossible. Those sorts of situations are always going to come up in real life.
Nathan Bush: And so when you mentioned buffers, what's the typical buffer that you see? Where do you start with buffering rules? And can you, for people who may not have come across buffers in retail before, can you give us a little bit of a background on how you approach it?
Andrew Maver: Yeah, my Tecos are going to kind of probably go nuts at me when I get it wrong. We've got buffers and thresholds and they work kind of slightly differently. So we'll turn around and say, all right, if you've got 30 of these across the country, we're going to take off 10 as a buffer to kind of say, all right, only expose yourself to 20. So you're kind of saying, hey, we want to leave some available, because we might only be updating every 30 minutes and you've got a promotion running or whatever it might be that's there. So you've got that buffer in place so that you don't oversell. That's essentially what it's about in that regard. So the other way is you can take it off and you can say, all right, when you get down to 10, consider it's completely sold out, and that's the different way of managing it. So you've always got the exact number until you get to 10, and then you go, nut we're done kind of thing. So there's a few different tricks to the trade.
Nathan Bush: And is there a typical number that people usually allow a buffer on, like 1, 2, 3, or am I being too prescriptive?
Andrew Maver: One of the things that we actually see is, as a result of implementing some of our solutions, is they become far more diligent about managing their inventory. So what might start as a one or a two actually becomes a zero. And then we can control it at store level as well and go, well, that store is actually really good at managing it, so we'll just let it ride. But that store is not so good. So you can change what those buffers are on a store by store basis that they're. Some of our clients actually can do it on their end as well. So whatever they give us has already been pre buffered on their side. So it can happen in a few different ways depending on who they are, what systems and capabilities they've got.
Nathan Bush: And you've mentioned some of those retailers that you work with. Going from toys to fashion to hard goods and more put you on the spot. Which type of retailer do you think has the hardest job in keeping track of inventory?
Andrew Maver: Anyone in fmcg I think is hard to keep track of inventory or anyone that has like a really big footprint can stock and be in multiple places. I mean, I know we've spoken to some people before, then they've got a promo space over there, but their normal style shelf spaces over the other side of the store and they've got some out the back as well because they've got extra space. So I think those sorts of retailers that do have that, that it's not just a structured location and those retailers that mix it up, I mean the FMCG guys are the ones that are hardest as well. I think things like bottle shops where you can break a case of beer down into a six pack into individual bottles, that's really hard to do. So I think those bottle O's and wine places have got a really hard job as well. So I think they're probably the hardest ones to deal with.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And in terms of how you see stock and stock counts being important for the online experience, I know we're talking about an omnichannel experience here, but where do you see the opportunities for taking it to the next level?
Andrew Maver: Oh wow, that's a big question. One of the practices that we do talk about with our clients is actually about having rolling stock takes. So stock taking parts of their store frequently and getting into a good practice of doing it, I think that's really important, especially when you are an omnichannel retailer and you're surfacing, not just servicing but you're actually making available for sale, you know, stock that's actually in, in a physical store. I think we'll see some, some changes that will happen and there'll be some shifts that will come in the next 12 to 18, 24 months that'll make it even more important from that regard. But I think that rolling stock take and a really good method for doing stock takes, fundamentally that's the key to it and then having good procedures and policies in place and making sure that they adhere to it. So one of the things that we do is we monitor how many rejections stores place on their orders and then we share that information. And service that information with our retailers so they can do some store performance metrics around it so they can identify the stores that need to be further trained that they can identify reasonably quickly so it doesn't get out of hand. Typically what you might find is a store hasn't done a stock take for a year and it's completely out of hand and there might be miles out of date. So doing that, I think becomes part of the overall philosophy and that's where that continuous improvement, I think results.
Nathan Bush: And when you say some major shifts coming in 12 to 18 months time for retailers, did you have anything in mind when you're saying that?
Andrew Maver: I think the shift has already started to happen towards that absolute last mile delivery and getting it to a customer as fast as possible. I think you'll see some, some changes start to happen maybe with things like drones and those sorts of things as the legislation kind of clears that sort of space that's there. I think those sorts of things like that hyper local being able to actually buy something and have it delivered to you an hour later in this country is pretty phenomenal. And then just some really interesting ways about being able to hold inventory. So we see and we work with a number of clients that might have 50, 100, 150 stores across, across the country. And you know, they're able to actually get products to their customers pretty quickly because they're a national retailer. So I think they will be at some competitive advantages over some others that are shipping from a single warehouse where they might have how much does it cost to have a warehouse and to staff it and have systems and management and all of those sorts of things that are there. They've got all that infrastructure already in place they're paying for every single day. So I think those sorts of shifts will start to transpire over the next 12 to 20, 24 months.
Nathan Bush: So that makes sense from an omnichannel perspective. Who may have stores that can be localized for that last mile delivery for D2C and Pure Plays. What models or what tips do you have for those looking to spread out their inventory to be more localized?
Andrew Maver: I think they almost start to do it anyway by some of the marketplaces that are out there already getting a lot of their suppliers to actually ship the goods for them. So they've almost got it in that regard, but they don't have it. I think to the next degree some of them do because they're going to go, they're going to retailers who actually have a distributed network of locations. So I think it'll be about partnering with those that actually may have it. But it's then you've then got the problem of getting the right product in the right location at the right time for the customer. And that is the challenge that we always talk about with our clients is that's the never ending challenge of retail is getting the right product in the right place at the right time. So I don't have the perfect answer.
Nathan Bush: Same problem though, isn't it? Same problem we've been talking about for a long time.
Andrew Maver: A long time and will continue to. I have no doubt.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. You mentioned before around the uplift in conversion that you see, have you got any data or any insights for us in how different solutions and visibility of inventory for the online customer to what's available across the network, the impact that it has on conversion rate?
Andrew Maver: We do. It's one of the things we actually started to measure from the very early days and was one of the factors that really convinced us to kind of go down the find install path. So I mean we saw where retailers had like a 1 or 1.5% conversion rate. We were seeing kind of 6, 8 12% conversion rates when our button was being used. And it came down to really human psychology more than anything else. Like we stumbled across it more so ourselves because we were diving into the analytics and the metrics and we realized having had a conversation with one of our clients that when inventory was scarce in their physical stores, we saw the conversion rate go up. So one of the things that we do is by providing customers who are browsing online with the opportunity to check whether that product is available in a local store. If it's not right, then you've actually got the information to be able to make a decision to say I can buy this online, so I will. So I'm not wasting a journey walking into store getting disappointed. I've actually got the information to go. It's not available in my three or five nearest stores or any stores within 30km from me. So if I want it, I'm going to buy it. And that became the reasoning behind a lot of conversion rate increases that were being done. And we did a lot of work around our widget to make sure that we could provide customers with that information. But it also helps us provide some analytics back to, to our customers as well our merchants and to give them insights into actually what customers are looking for in what physical stores at what times and all of these sorts of things that's just incredibly invaluable to them that they never thought they'd have access to.
Nathan Bush: Are you getting any insights or do you have a rate for us in terms of omnichannel retailers, the amount of click and collect orders that they're receiving, verse online orders.
Andrew Maver: I think it varies really by industry. I think by and large it tends to be around the 20 to 30% mark is what we tend to see.
Nathan Bush: 20 to 30% for click and collect.
Andrew Maver: Yeah. 20 to 30% clicking, you know of all orders are click and collect. I think that's generally the ballpark. I think it varies. I spoke to one who was not a client who said recently said they've got 80% click and click orders and I went oh my God. Like that is insane. Right. So I think it really does. It varies. It could also depend on what your store network looks like and how convenient it actually is that it's there for you. But you know, that's why I think it varies significantly.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant.
Andrew Maver: One of the things that we do see is that we kind of see a ratio of 3 or 4 to 1 of people that are still looking for things in a physical store as opposed to click and collect. So that's a big metric that continues to drive us to understand that people are still want that, that in store experience and want to walk into a store and actually touch it, feel it, try it, get advice, do whatever it is that you know that we do to walk into a store.
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Nathan Bush: And your gut feel on that walk into the store. Motivation. Do you think it is to touch and feel it or do you think it's the immediacy of being able to take it home with them or is it service? It's obviously a mixture of all of that.
Andrew Maver: It's all of them. I think it's absolutely all of it and I think it varies for some of us and I think Will depend on the product. Like there are some gadgets that you want to go and touch and feel and do I want to feel the weight of yo, I listen to one of your podcasts, like you go into Bunnings and I want to feel the weight of a blower back. You know, is that one heavy? Is that one like that's what you actually need to. Yes, you can see the weight of it, but can you actually feel it that way? What are the dimensions, all of these sorts of things from that perspective? I think some people want that sort of stuff, others want you to get advice. And then you go into places like the Body Shop or Aesop or those sorts of places and you want to smell it and immerse yourself in it. So I think there are all of those sorts of things that happen.
Nathan Bush: Makes total sense. Now you mentioned before around it paying for itself. Can you share the commercial model of stock in store for retailers?
Andrew Maver: It can get a little complicated just by talking. So it also depends what solution. So one of the things we wanted to do was to make it available and achievable for all retailers. Like was really one of the drivers behind creating the platform. So typically what we'll do is we'll have a smallish setup fee that's there. And it's because we actually need to do integration whether it's with their ERP or whatever it is that we need to do. And then there's a per store per month fee that's generally there. And then for some of our more transactional stuff like click and collect and ship from store, there's a per transaction fee. And we were big believers. We hated the concept of percentage of sale. That's one of my little pet hates. And we heard a lot of retailers whinge about it all the time going, there's just no margin in there. You know, everyone takes a percentage. So we just take a flat fee that then has a volume basis on top of it. So that's probably it in a nutshell. And you know, we only charge. So we see some clients that might have 100 stores, that might only have 40 or 50 of them and able to collect at any time. Maybe they're training, maybe they've had Covid closures. Whatever it is that they had, we will only charge them for their click and collect enabled stores. And there are other stores that just show finding store. We'll show them for the finding store fee that's there. So it can really get kind of complicated in that way that gets used. So but that's by and large, that's the model. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Great. And then from an integration perspective, I can imagine that you just work with retailers on a one to one basis to understand what the environment looks like rather than kind of a plug in from an app store.
Andrew Maver: Yeah, you can't really plug in from an app store. It's a never ending conversation that we have. It's their number one biggest barrier and issue that they worry about. With good reason. Because we see some, we see and we talk to some retailers who have had some horrible solutions and typically because they've wanted mainly to take some shortcuts or you know, they've gone with a plug in solution that can only do it one way. We have I guess, four different ways that we actually do integration and we have that flexibility built in. So one is we do have some retailers that are actually not integrated at all. And especially in the franchise space, it kind of makes a little bit of sense that, you know, they might have three, four, five orders a day that a franchisee might get for their store and they'll happily put that in into their system and record it as a sale. So they're happy to do that in that way. But then others have got some sophisticated IT teams that know and understand the system. So we will just do a consulting piece that actually works with them and we have a webhook notification system around our systems to notify them when status of orders changes and all of those sorts of things, what's going on in store. So they can do it themselves. They might have a systems integrator that does it or integration as a service or we will actually do it for them. So there's all of those sorts of permutations that I think are really important to give every retailer some flexibility around what that solution might look like for them.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, makes a lot of sense. It's definitely not the entry level. Get started, plug it in. The way we go. It's for the more sophisticated retailers by
Andrew Maver: the semicolon it is. And it's one of the reasons why it's hard to put a plugin in place on the app store on like Shopify or Marketplace or whatever it might be that the Ecom platform has got is because it's so hard and you can get it wrong if you just do it yourself without actually having some level of consultation. And we want to make sure that everyone gets it right.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. Now you've got kind of unfiltered access to the stock levels and how retailers are going in terms of their stock We've seen that being a huge challenge over the last 12 months. What's your feeling overall on where retail in Australia is sitting at the moment with a grip on stock to meet demand in the market?
Andrew Maver: I think there's a lot of stock that they would like to get on their hands. So for retailers that have multi branded stores, so someone like a toy world that has like Lego and Monopoly and all of these sorts of things that are there, sometimes they're at the mercy of what is available globally and that supply chain type stuff that has no influence over how well a retailer can manage their inventory. So really they know like we saw that last year with some stuff in the LEGO space that there was huge demand for some of these Lego products that were out there and they couldn't get it in the country, they couldn't even get it from Singapore. Like. Yeah, that just wasn't available anywhere in the Asia Pacific region. So I think there are challenges like that that go well beyond any retailer's capability. And then there I think are, are potentially retailers who maybe hedge their bets and we don't want to actually invest so much in our inventory because we don't know what's going to happen with this Covid thing. And that was a decision they made 12 months ago to make that investment in design and inventory and how much stock they'd carry. And now they're probably saying that there's significant demand. And I think the next three or four months in the lead up to Christmas is going to be the big time, as it always is from a retail perspective. I think some of the, some of the retailers did really, really well during COVID and some of them got absolutely obliterated. You know, they couldn't open stores, they couldn't try things on. You know, they had stuff like luggage that people were traveling with. So I think, you know, it's a mixed bag and you'll see that reverse a lot like people are out there traveling at the moment and want luggage and all of those sorts of things that go with it. So I don't know there are smarter people than me that they're managing it as a full time job.
Nathan Bush: We've got Ethan from July Luggage joining us at Add to Cart Live in early October. So I can't wait to hear from him around how they manage that over Covid.
Andrew Maver: Yeah, he'd be getting smashed at the moment. Everyone seems to be going to Europe or Bali or somewhere like that.
Nathan Bush: So I'm keeping Facebook and Instagram closed. You mentioned before that you almost threw it in at certain points in the journey. I'm really interested in that around. Can you share what led to that and what made you come out the other side? How do you stay motivated to keep pumping through?
Andrew Maver: Listen, I think anyone who starts their own business, no matter what it is, would have those moments of doubt. Are we doing it the right way? Is our message getting through? Do we have something that's being valued? I think everyone has those moments of doubt. I think one of the things that continues to drive us a I have a business partner that I can actually spitball with and we can talk it through and do that. I think that that's a huge help to have and a bit of yin and yang and I'm normally the optimistic, positive one. So if I have moments of doubt then he sees it and actually flips it around and kind of can take the other side and he's kind of that balancing act on the seesaw, so to speak. And I think that's a really important facet of having a business partner that, that a good business partner that helps. And I think just I grew up as a swimmer, as a long distance swimmer that teaches you some toughness and you know, a work ethic and self belief and I think that those sorts of things are really important. And that's kind of the story that I think gets you through is, is sometimes it's a bit of craziness and I'm sure there are people out there that have the same belief that may not be able to succeed. And that's frustrating and disappointing. But I think maybe if we'd gone on another six months and hadn't got the clients that we got, it may have been a different story. And that can be the difference between success and failure.
Nathan Bush: Yep. Well, Andrew, you're solving some very real problems that have existed in retail for a long time and no doubt will continue to exist, but you're making life easier for some really, really great retailers. So well done. Can you tell us what's next for yourself and the stock in store team?
Andrew Maver: Some pretty exciting stuff. Probably next for us is about international growth. We always saw what we were doing as being a global problem. Retailers have the same problem all around the world. It wasn't just limited to Australia and New Zealand and we do have a, we've got a small presence with some clients in, in Asia. So you know, we spent a lot of 2019 going multilingual. So you know we've got a client like Triumph Lingerie that their Hong Kong site is in Chinese. So all the store information and all the click and collect information and find a store is all in Chinese and they're going to open up in Thailand and Vietnam soon, so they'll be likewise. So we just had our first client launch in the US as well. So it's really about growing internationally and going through exactly what we've just done in Australia, but doing it at an international level. So hold on for the ride.
Nathan Bush: I think apart from language, any other challenges internationally that you don't face here in Australia?
Andrew Maver: Listen, there's some cultural obviously challenges that you get along the way that are always important and I think we're really lucky. We've actually got a very multicultural group of people in our business. I think out of the 14, 15 people that come from 12 different countries already. So we do get that blend and that different perspective that I think has added a lot of value to us as a business. But I think the biggest difference is around logistics locally over in the different countries. We've already started to see it with some of our clients and that's why I think that last mile delivery solution and how you do it, I think that will probably change, will be slightly different depending on who the local players are that are in there because they've got their tentacles out there in all the little nooks and crannies.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely great.
Nathan Bush: Andrew.
Nathan Bush: People have heard this, retailers especially, and they've said we need a solution like this. How can they get in touch?
Andrew Maver: Website's always good. There's a form that's there, we'd love you to fill it in. LinkedIn, available on LinkedIn. Hit us up on LinkedIn. They're probably the two best places for us as a big business to get us. As you can tell, I probably like a chat, so pick up the phone and, and call me as well. But we've got a great team who are there that will help you and that's what we're about. We're actually about helping retailers improve their businesses. So yeah, one of those two is probably the best place.
Nathan Bush: Awesome, Andrew. Well, I've enjoyed the chat, so thank you very much for coming on and sharing the stock in store story so far.
Andrew Maver: Nathan, thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Nathan Bush: All right, are you a stock expert yet? If not, here are the three tips that I took away from my chat with Andrew. Number one, Stocktake shouldn't be an annual activity. Now, I feel we've talked a lot about Stocktake recently on Add to Cart. Not everyone's favorite topic, but it's crucial in terms of giving customers great experiences. Andrew added to this conversation when he said that rolling stock takes were needed rather than the traditional annual ones. Stock taking parts of the store frequently and having a good procedure in place for regular counts is crucial and will have a direct impact on your customers experience and conversion. So if you're still doing those annual stock takes, have a think think about whether that is good enough in today's retail environment. Number two Stock communication. Andrew gave the example of a company contacting a segment of their audience when they noticed that they were out of stock in this part of Australia and told them when it was back in stock just for this audience. And I believe that full price stock notifications are the untapped gold for many retailers to create urgent urgency but retain margin at the same time. And number three Localization of Stock One of Andrew's trends that he identified and he believes will be a differentiator for e commerce brands is the localization of stock and how quickly you can get that stock into the hands of your customer. Whether this be via a store, via a drone or a 10 minute bicycle. If you don't have stock close to the the majority of your customers, you might just be caught out to get the highlights of today's episode, head on over to addtocart.com and sign up for our free newsletter each Tuesday. We will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, come and Visit us at eSweet. We're a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free e Commerce Salary Guide and sign up to our weekly e commerce job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to car.
