[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.
[Voiceover]: Today's checkout features Andy Lee, co founder of the Wodlife. The wildlife is the home of training, looking after athletes, gym goers and battlers. Just giving it their best me as they sweat and strive to be better. Starting with a humble order of 30 skipping ropes, the Wodlife now ship all over the world, carrying leading brands such as Nike, Reebok and Under Armour, as well as their own range of workout gear. Andy, thank you so much for joining
Nathan Bush: us on the checkout. We've heard all about what you've built with the WOD life and some of the exciting things you've got happening there. A couple of quick questions about you. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Andy Lee: Yeah, I love E commerce. I'm long on E comm and sometimes it causes me to get laughed at. The weirdest thing I bought was a blower vac. I tried to buy a blow vac online. I think it was from ebay. And here I was thinking I was buying a cordless blower vac to do my parts in my garden. When it arrived, it was about 10 cm by 10 cm. It was tiny. It came with a cord as well. I think I paid 50 bucks for it. I thought I was getting an absolute ripper of a deal, but it was terrible.
Nathan Bush: What was it for? Cleaning your desk.
Andy Lee: Well, that's what I probably could have used it for. I wish I spoke to you earlier, mate, but it was supposed to do my driveway and my path from all the leaves, but it was so small, it was actually like something for a desk. So I got that wrong. And I know my partner and her mum give me so much stick for it because they call me the super shopper online because I just love e comm and love buying stuff online, invested in it. But I got that one wrong.
Nathan Bush: That's funny. It's actually amazing the amount of founders that we speak to E commerce founders that don't like shopping online, but they found themselves in E commerce. But you're the opposite. You love shopping online.
Andy Lee: Yeah, I do. And I love supporting other brands and businesses as well. You know, I think there's something to say about that and sort of the karma effect and what goes around comes around. I love hearing about new products, new brands, whether it's, you know, luggage to sleepwear, whatever it might be. I'm just fascinated by that. And, yeah, I'm in the industry, but it's because I love it as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great stuff. So that leads me to question number two. Who's your favorite retailer?
Andy Lee: There's so many out there, but it's called Kith K I T H. I don't have a list, but that's how it's sort of spelled. It's basically a streetwear and luxury retailer based out of the US Started up by my guy called Ronnie Feig, but it's online and offline, so they collaborate with brands like Nike or Adidas or Asics or New Balance. It's a really cool product. They also have their own line as well, really elevated gear there. But they have this really cool retail space which they've got a few sites across the US in LA or New York, also Paris and Tokyo as well. So they have these really cool, unique retail locations which represent the city. In LA, they launched it with LeBron James on all Star Weekend in Paris. It just looks like this Parisian hotel and they serve beautiful pastries there. So that's one that I just go, wow, what an experience. Not only, yeah, they have the online experience, but it's really what they do offline and how you feel when you walk in there and look. The fact that they've got something called Kith Treats as well, where it's basically like an ice cream bar mixed with cereal. So I could never go there without getting my fix of ice cream. And they collaborate with a lot of, you know, famous artists, sportsman or musicians to create some sort of cool ice cream delight. So, yeah, that's one of my favorite retailers that not necessarily everyone might know, but whether it's your style or not, that sort of experience is super cool and love it.
Nathan Bush: Dangerous for the wallet and the hips.
Andy Lee: Absolutely.
[Voiceover]: All right, number three, which E commerce
Nathan Bush: practice do you wish was history?
Andy Lee: I could be dividing the listeners here, but for me, buy now, pay later options, popular, unpopular opinion. Quite a challenging thing over the last few years have obviously exploded with afterpay, Klarna, zip. Before we knew it, there was 20 different payment options. And the real thing for me is, is this delivering a better experience for the consumer? I think initially it was, but now with so many options out there, it's really diluted. That and the price as a merchant and as a retailer that you pay is crazy.
Nathan Bush: You are not alone in that answer.
Andy Lee: So I'm glad that's well supported there. Obviously, share prices have gone up and down and same with the team size of a few of these guys. But for me it says, does this enrich the experience of E commerce? Yes, it does to an extent. But to what cost? And I think now that almost, yeah, people are using that sort of like. Like candy. So it's, it's been. Been pretty wild. And it's definitely not cheap for the merchants either.
Nathan Bush: Are you still offering buy now, pay later?
Andy Lee: We do, we do. We've definitely seen a decline of that over the last year. People use less and less options. PayPal is has the pay in four, which we're seeing more people use as well, which is good because it helps the consumer, but it's not as painful for the retailer either. So hopefully through this we see some innovative new options come to the market as well, which are a bit more sustainable.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. It's a really good insight. Thank you. Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Andy Lee: Yeah, I love a good podcast and as a business owner, sometimes I can get a bit too into the details. So the one I always come back to is how I built this. Absolutely fascinated by how businesses work and I love hearing the stories of how business have been built, understanding it's not always easygoing and that concept of an overnight success. Always love to hear that. That journey. And that for me really gives me a lot of motivation to help continue to grow our business and understand it's not all smooth sailing. There's roller coaster r that you go on, but always been fascinating how businesses are built and how to create a really cool business. So, yeah, if you haven't listened to that, How I built this with Guy Raz out of the US super cool, brilliant podcast.
Nathan Bush: And as a podcaster, it's something that I look up to as well. It's just so well done. You mentioned in our main chat a book. Was it called the Athlete's Business Book or something along those lines?
Andy Lee: I think it was called the Corporate Athlete. The Corporate Athlete, yeah, the Corporate Athlete is one. Because my boss, basically, I was. I always wanted to go, go, go. I always wanted the next deal, the next thing. What are we on to next? What are we up to? And he just said, mate, just relax. We can't always be running at 110 miles an hour. I'm sure my parents would say the same thing about me as a kid. But yeah, he handed me this book one day and that concept of almost sport into the professional setting of understanding that there's going to be preseason, there's going to be the season where you need to be at your best and you need to peak at the grand final and then also understand that you need to have an off season as well. Once you've achieved those heights, you need to stop, reflect, recover before you can sort of go again. So love sporting analogies. So my old boss knew really well there and that's something that I've, I've taken forward.
Nathan Bush: I love that analogy. That's really cool about the off season and peaking for the Grand Final. That's fantastic. Last question I have for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is community.
Andy Lee: So big believer in, you know, people say D to C, direct to consumer. I'm a big believer in direct to community. You're going to have these big businesses like Amazon that sell everything to everyone, but not everyone can be like that. So we, we talk about community being the essence of what we do at the Wildlife. So big believer in that. The future of retail is community driven, developing products that help enrich a community, that help them achieve what they want to achieve and help solve those sort of pain points. So a lot of great businesses are really going to come from the community and help support that and vice versa. The community will help support really meaningful businesses that add value to their lives.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, and we talked a lot and I really enjoyed that conversation around community back in our main episode. Not just how you engage your community and learn from them and work for them, but also how having that strong community helps in those relationships with your partners and your suppliers, such as the Nikes and the Reeboks as well, how it becomes a business asset as well. So it was a really nice conversation. I thought so. Thank you for sharing that, Andy. It's been a pleasure to have you on the checkout.
Andy Lee: Thanks a lot. Enjoyed it a lot.
[Voiceover]: To hear more from Andy, jump back into episode two, 228, where Andy shares how he and his co founder Ben bootstrapped the wildlife from a personal credit card. We also uncover the art of building an authentic community, how to develop strong relationships with wholesale partners, how pre sale orders saved their business, and why Andy dives into the deep dark depths of Reddit as part of his customer platform research.
Nathan Bush: Scary stuff.
[Voiceover]: Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to car.
