[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 Josh Howard from Single Use Ain't Sexy. He's come up with a unique product which is a massive hack to save time, save money, and hopefully save the planet. He calls it Barocca for hand soap. Josh, welcome to the checkout. We've heard all about Single Use Ain't Sexy and your friend's housemate that ate the tablet. We're here to learn a little bit more about you. Five quick questions for you. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Josh Howard: That is a very loaded question and I don't know if the answer is nsfw.
Nathan Bush: It can be. See, I've seen you've already had a few items go through your head that you've already tried to filter out.
Josh Howard: I bought some custom T shirts recently for an event that I thought were very funny and they went down very well.
Nathan Bush: Can you tell us what they said?
Josh Howard: They had very, very rude messaging on the back of them for someone's business launch that will probably never see the light of day because they were for their Finster account, which is a private Instagram account that no one else will see.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Josh Howard: I really like Sephora in the us. I think they are brilliant and I think Target in the States is really interesting. Different from a Target here. It feels a little bit more high end and every cool D2C brand that is in the States seems to have a presence in Target. So I think they've done a really good job.
Nathan Bush: They have phenomenal omnichannel approach and fulfillment from store and all that. They've really got that network effect happening. Number three, which e commerce practice do you wish was history?
Josh Howard: I hate people holding themselves out as gurus who know nothing. Like, do they think that we're all idiots? I just kind of confused by this whole like guru culture. Like if you have had a massive brand and you have smashed it and you are genuinely, you know, really, really good at what you do, then by all means, like, yes, we can all learn from you. But we're living in this weird time, especially in this e commerce world where I think there's a lot of like snake oil salesmen who think that they're in it for like quick wins. And it kills me when people like that are holding themselves out as role models and then people trying to emulate what they do.
Nathan Bush: Well, there goes my dream of making eight figures through dropshipping then.
Josh Howard: Thank you. Exactly what I'm talking about.
Nathan Bush: All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Josh Howard: I just read Obama's two part memoir and I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
Nathan Bush: It's good, isn't it? Long?
Josh Howard: Very long. But I read a lot of political books and they really helped me when it comes to E commerce. I'm not saying that because this is an E commerce podcast. I feel like a lot of the tricks that politicians use when they're running campaigns in terms of branding and messaging and making things hopefully clear for people to understand in a concise way is something that a lot of online brands can do well as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. Last one I've got for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is sustainable consumption. Why would it be anything else? Josh, thanks. Thanks for joining us on the checkout.
Josh Howard: Thanks, mate.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Josh, jump back into episode 171 where Josh says how single use ain't sexy's impact is not only in reducing over 100,000 plastic bottles from circulation, but also removing water from the supply chain. We also discussed how it took 93 discussions with suppliers before he cracked the formula, how Josh raised their initial funding from their own supporters first, and why he thinks Australians are a little bit sick of subscriptions. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
