[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 Becca Stern, founder of Mustard Made. The place to go online for stylish functional lockers. Becca's lockers have evolved into a range of sizes, shape, shapes and colors. Mustard being one of them, of course. Now a multi million dollar company selling in Australia, the UK and the US Mustard Made is well and truly well, well, they're made. Becca, thank you so much for sharing
Nathan Bush: the story of Mustard Made.
Nathan Bush: We are here to learn a little
Nathan Bush: bit more about yourself. Got five quick questions for you. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Becca Stern: I'm going to have to say toilet paper. I never would have predicted that I would buy toilet paper online. I mean, when the Internet sort of first existed. Is that what it was meant for? I'm not sure, but who gives a crap have really nailed that.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it was one of those ones that we were always going, has that email arrived from who gives a crap yet saying our delivery's on its way because you know, it's about that time your lockers would go for that. Actually you could lock away the toilet paper in the great toilet paper shortage.
Becca Stern: We have a whole locker full of toilet paper in our office. Spot on.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Becca Stern: I'm gonna have to go with one of our local stockists which is Common Circus. They are a beautiful store and cafe and I think they just, they just really epitomize community for me.
Nathan Bush: And where are they?
Becca Stern: In Newcastle. They've now got two stores and kind of female owned business. Absolute boss lady running it and just such an inspiration. And you know, as much as you know, online is really important, it's lovely to be in a beautiful store where everything has been considered and they, yeah, just have absolutely gorgeous products.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. All right, number three, which e commerce practice do you wish was history?
Becca Stern: I'm going to be controversial here and say free shipping, it's a tough call because you know, who doesn't love something for free? But the truth is it's never for free. And I would say especially after everything that the world has gone through and how we relied on Korea so heavily, isn't it time that we acknowledge the service that they offer and that there is a price for that, both financially in terms of the time and the packaging, environmentally, the gas that it takes to get across this huge, huge country. Can we just put that one to one side and know that that shipping is something that we are receiving. It's a service that we get.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And would your preference be customer pays whatever that shipping cost ends up being based on their product and their location?
Becca Stern: That's how we do it here in Australia. Yeah. I mean, for us, like our products are so big and bulky that the price can vary literally based on what we pay. Not being really honest, we charge the customer what it costs us. So it can be, you know, just under $10 for the, for one product to go from our warehouse in Sydney to another area in Sydney and it can cost $150 to go somewhere remote. And that's the kind of like variety of pricing that we just, we just decided we don't want to absorb that. And it's not really honest to charge the Sydney customer $70 to kind of land somewhere in the middle of that. So yes, if you're remote, there's a bigger price to pay, but you are getting a better service. You know, you're getting a bigger service there. So that's kind of always been our choice. And, and it's a, it's a tough choice because it's not always popular and people do often ask for free shipping. But we've, we've really stood, kind of stood by our values on that one.
Nathan Bush: Well, I was just about to say it stands exactly by your value of honesty and being upfront with people. So it all makes sense in terms of the whole story and the experience.
Becca Stern: Absolutely.
Nathan Bush: Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Becca Stern: Yeah. The first one that comes to mind is actually very much value based. It's called A Book about Innocent and it's about Innocent Smoothies, which is an incredible smoothie brand in the UK that was set up by a couple of guys who started a festival and now they've been bought by Coca Cola, but have still really remained true to their values. And it's, you know, through that, from their packaging to the produce that they whiz up to make their smoothies. And I just found that really, really down to earth and inspiring.
Nathan Bush: That's cool. I can definitely see similarities between the brand personalities.
Becca Stern: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the fun part is that, you know, you take a smoothie, you could sell it in a million ways. You know, the marketing around it and the structure of the business around what is essentially just, you know, a smoothie. It's not something that no one else could make, but they, they've given it such an identity and they always have such cute wording on their bottles. Like every time you get a smoothie bottle, you, you will read what it says. You just will. Because you know it's gonna have some funny joke or like some really cute way of describing how many bananas are in it or something like that.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, there's a lot of thought that goes into the whole experience. Last one I have for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is.
Becca Stern: You won't be surprised by this one. I'm gonna say the future of retail is value based. It seems to be the running theme today.
Nathan Bush: Becca, thank you so much for joining me on the checkout.
Becca Stern: It has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Becca, jump back over into episode 173 where Becca shares her formula for calculating risks. She also shares the upcoming work trip
Nathan Bush: she's taking with her sister.
Nathan Bush: And we find out what Kim Kardashian's mustard made locker was filled with. It's not what you expect. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
