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[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.
[Ad]: Today's checkout features James Wakefield and Robin McGowan, co founders of In Stitute In Situ Custom designed suits at a fraction of the cost of traditional bespoke designers. Starting with a 5K website, they now have a team of 60 including 5 in house developers. They have 13 showrooms throughout Australia and customers all over the world. Robin and James, welcome to the Checkout. Five quick questions for you guys. We'll do them at the same time. Whoever jumps in first gives the other one a bit of thinking time to think about their answer. Question number one. What is the weirdest thing you've ever bought online?
James Wakefield: For me that's a tailor made suit. You might ask why? I like to keep my finger on the pulse and just you know, whenever I see a competitor pop up, just go through the online process, order the suit. So I've got a wardrobe, well not a wardrobe. I've got a box full of suits that I'll never wear.
Nathan Bush: Do you have fun with them at least? Do you kind of like at least
[Ad]: make a tiger king suit or something like that?
Nathan Bush: Something a bit layer sometimes something like that.
Robin McGowan: He is like a voodoo doll like sticks pins in them.
James Wakefield: Yeah.
[Ad]: What about yourself?
Robin McGowan: I was like using Etsy a lot where I was ordering a lot of vintage tires which was kind of, yeah, a bit of a hobby I think recently you know with, with Amazon, you know coming to Australia I've been using Amazon a lot more and I think this week I bought like I was buying one thing and you know they're the king of upselling. I bought it's like a scrubbing brush but it attaches to your drill so it's like super high powered scrubbing brush. It looks good at the time. I don't know why I bought it. Still sitting in the plastic bag. I'm waiting for something to get really dirty so I can use it.
Nathan Bush: I'm the same. It's. We're recording this during Amazon Prime Day, second day of Amazon Prime Day.
[Ad]: It's so dangerous. Yesterday I bought a Bosch toolkit, like, of drill bits, and they had like 30 piece, 45, 60, 75, 90. And I was like, yeah, I reckon.
Nathan Bush: I reckon I drill like three things a year.
[Ad]: And I'm like, I would never use
Nathan Bush: 90 pieces, but I bought it.
Robin McGowan: It makes you feel like a man when you buy a 90 pie.
Nathan Bush: We're getting our house renovated, so we've got real builders around all the time at the moment.
Robin McGowan: You just tell them, guys, step aside.
Nathan Bush: There's nothing that makes you feel less manly than having people actually build stuff really quickly around us. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
James Wakefield: My favorite retailer will be Good Pear Days, which is a subscription wine business. They do great things. You do a little palate survey and then the master Somalia sort of algorithm will match wines to your palate and just arrives each month. And I get to enjoy drinking some lovely wine.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. We actually had Michael Beveridge, who's the
[Ad]: creative director for them, on a little while ago and doing really cool stuff.
James Wakefield: So, yeah, very cool business.
Robin McGowan: Awesome. If we're staying on the direct to consumer business, I really like what allbirds are doing out of the U.S. i think they're an awesome company. Doing some really cool stuff with. With innovative fabrics and I guess focusing on sustainability, I think. Yeah, I think it's a great brand.
[Ad]: Have you ever had a conversation with them kind of sharing fabrics and all
Robin McGowan: that sort of stuff? We know we haven't managed to get that far, but I'd love to have a chat to the founders. I think one of them, the Kiwi, the other one's, yeah, Yank. So I'd love to have a chat to them because they make some awesome fabrics and they're not. They're not against us sharing them. I mean, they just did a collaboration with Adidas where they basically just shared their kind of recipe for like a full sustainable sneaker. Which was cool to see, you know, two competitors working together.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, pretty incredible.
[Ad]: Okay, number three, which retail fad do you wish was history?
James Wakefield: To me, it's just non stop discounting. Everywhere you go, no matter what the time of the year, it's just discount after discount and it's not sustainable and sort of a race to the bottom and then you see someone doing it, so then you feel like you've got to do it as well. But yeah, it's got to end sometime. And hopefully, hopefully it's not too far off.
[Ad]: Do you have rules around when you will and won't discount?
James Wakefield: I mean, the way that we try to offset that is by having, you know, package deals where ultimately to it ends up being a great discount, but it is when you spend more, so to speak. But that said, I mean, right now we've got to end the financial year sale on at the moment, but one of the offers that we do have is, you know, two suits for $1,000. So that's a great deal. Again, but it's a package deal one, but we do discount, but not a huge fan of it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, understood.
[Ad]: Robyn, what about yourself? Any retail fads out there that you wish was history?
Robin McGowan: Retail fads? I was going to say Birkenstocks as a product.
James Wakefield: Hey, I just bought a pair.
[Ad]: Oh, no.
Nathan Bush: Well, we can tell who the fashion guy is in here.
Robin McGowan: I didn't approve that purchase. Well, maybe you can change my mind. James, give me your feedback on them.
James Wakefield: Not on everywhere.
Nathan Bush: I was about to say, Robyn, you might be a single co founder now.
[Ad]: All right, guys, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
James Wakefield: Yeah, a good book that I always recommend to people is the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Great book. Full of little stories about, you know, what has been, I guess, the tipping point for various, you know, growth phenomenon, whether that be, you know, products or just, you know, trends. But fascinating and definitely a good reading.
[Ad]: Great recommendations.
Robin McGowan: Yeah, I think podcasts, I would say there's an Aussie one, really good one called Equity Mates, which is useful if you're thinking about trying to get into investing or just wanting to learn about investing otherwise. Acquired out of the US is a really good one. Just does deep dives on interesting companies and just how they've gotten to where they are today.
[Ad]: Brilliant. Thank you, guys. Really good recommendations. Last one I've got for you. Finish this sentence and you can each finish it differently. The future of retail is custom products
James Wakefield: and the end of fast fashion.
[Ad]: Nice. Robyn.
Robin McGowan: I would say the future of retail is exciting.
[Ad]: Absolutely. I think you both nailed it and it definitely sums up what in Stitch is. So thank you for sharing your tips and everything about In Stitchu.
James Wakefield: Thank you, Nathan. It's been great being here and great chatting.
Robin McGowan: Yeah, thanks, guys.
[Ad]: To hear more from James and Robin, jump back into episode 97 where James and Robin share how they made custom product profitable, why they built a tech stack from the ground on up, and how these high school mates have remained mates during the ups and downs of business. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cars.
