[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 Adam Schwab, co founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes. This is the brand that you no doubt know and is a travel brand offering highly curated, easily bookable holidays with with exclusive discounts and inclusions. Don't we all love just browsing what we could get and where we could go? What began in Melbourne as a small startup in 2013 now has over 4.2 million global members and major offices in Australia, India, New Zealand, the US and the uk. One of Australia's great travel stories. Adam, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout. We've heard all about what you built with Luxury Escapes and the exciting things. Coming up on I've got five quick questions to learn more about you. Number one, what's the weirdest place you've ever traveled?
Adam Schwab: Probably the most fast flung place is we went to Lapland in Finland. So that's seeing northern lights and there's a. You said basically going there's one of those igloos. So we have the kids there. We're in the glass igloo, not the snowy glue. But yes, you open the, you can, it's like a dome roof and you can look up and send all the lights from your room. So that's probably the most bath flung place where I've been to, which is so cool.
Nathan Bush: All right. Number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Adam Schwab: Probably has to be Amazon. I think in terms of just the customer experience, it's just incredible. I think it was about a month, a couple months ago I went to buy a slow cooker. It was nine o' clock on a Saturday and I jumped on Amazon ordered one. It was there like seven hours later. Like it's and I bought stuff I stuff all the time online and often it's like seven to 14 days for really anyone else Amazon get you something within seven hours. It's just excellent. Actually I thought Milk Runs is incredible. I don't know how long these guys will last but I think Milk Runs is an unbelievable experience as well. The range is actually really good and the speeds delivery even at half an hour is pretty incredible. But Amazon is just next. I think their search is frankly shit. It's just too monetized with Amazon Media. But in terms of if you can find what you want the ability for it to come so quickly so reliably I've never had a parcel. Can't go missing. It is next level and just so far above everyone else. You got to feel for the catchers and the coconuts and those guys who are great retailers themselves. We compete against this juggernaut that's willing to lose 300 million bucks a year.
Nathan Bush: Oh, it's incredible how quickly it's become normal for us to expect the same day. I remember when Amazon was first here over the first three, four years and I was like, well, they're not really doing anything, but they just crept quietly, crept quietly. And now it's just the expected, right?
Adam Schwab: Yeah, exactly.
Nathan Bush: Number three, which e commerce practice do you wish was history?
Adam Schwab: There's no real e commerce practices. I hate maybe retargeting. I don't love like especially. And we obviously do it, but look at TripAdvisor or booking.com or Expedia. If you go to some random hotel and they're still emailing it three weeks later, that to me it's a pretty shitty experience. The understanding of half life, the understanding of relevance. I think personalization is something that most e commerce does really badly. Where I'd include us in that for now. We've got a great team working on it. Hopefully we'll have it solved somewhat within this year. But I think personalization is one area that e commerce really struggles with with.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Top tip number four. Can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Adam Schwab: My favorite podcast still is probably Pivot with Scott Galloway. Kara Switch. It's a great rap of news. Great tech podcast other than your own podcast, obviously. Nice. But people listening already know that because they love Pivot. I think it's great. And how I built this is always a classic as well. Yeah, I just listen to Jabani episode recently, which is an absolute belter. Just to this sort of team of eight producers on that. On that show and guys and superstars. So it's a high heavy investment. The fact that kind of stuff's free is actually incredible.
Nathan Bush: Oh, it is, it is. And we can't leave here without plugging from Zero your own podcast, which everyone should get on there. There's actually a really great overlap with some of our e commerce guests as well.
Adam Schwab: Oh, those are.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I saw you had the Kim from Mr. Yum and Anthony from Linktree. Some really great people.
Adam Schwab: Great guys. Great guys and girls.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. All right, last one I have for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is.
Adam Schwab: Is personalized.
Nathan Bush: Makes sense. Omnichannel as well.
Adam Schwab: Yeah, I think Omnichannel's here now so I think most great retailers already Omnichannel even like from both ends look Amazon has gone obviously to Whole Foods for example and then you've got Bunnings which was one of the probably the last holdout is now is now very much on me so there really are very few obviously there's a few actual competitors that aren't likes of booking.com and Expedia but they're the exception it's the exception not the rule now to be single channel like I think most businesses are especially established businesses and there's a good reason for it makes sense.
Nathan Bush: Adam, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Adam Schwab: Thanks mate.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Adam, jump back into episode 248 where Adam shares why content creation is so important for luxury escapes. He also shares his tips for developing enduring partnerships and tells us where the travel market sits now after what could be described as a rocky few years. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to car.
