Nathan Bush: This episode of the Checkout is brought to you by E Suite. Whether you're a retailer looking to grow your team or you're an E commerce gun looking for your next role, E Suite are here to help. At E Suite, we connect fast growing retailers with the best Australian e commerce talent. We're working with some of the best in the business including Accent Group, Incoo, Aus, Hair and Beauty and Black Mill. So if you are in the market or interested in where the E commerce market is at, reach out. Visit esweettalent.com for all the latest job list or contact me directly on Nathan sweettalent.com au now let's get into today's checkout.
[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
Nathan Bush: inspiration to get you through your Friday. Today's checkout features Julie Mathers from Flora and Fauna. Julie is E Commerce royalty in Australia after placing as the number one person in E commerce multiple times including last year, and successfully sold her vegan, ethically sourced, cruelty free and low impact e commerce business Flora and Fauna to BWX earlier this year. Now Julie is the Managing Director of both Flora and Fauna and Nourished Life. Talk about doubling your workload. She's also on multiple boards including boards and advisories of the National Retail Association, Australia Post and the National Online Retailers Association. All right Julie, welcome to the checkout. I have five quick questions to learn a little bit more about you. Let's get straight in Number one.
[Voiceover]: Oh good.
Nathan Bush: What is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
[Voiceover]: My wedding dress. Oh yeah, that's probably, that is actually. Yeah, it's probably the. It's probably is the way this thing I bought that we got married when we get married 2013 and I've never been someone who's really wanted to go and do the whole let's dress up and blah blah blah. I'm not very girly girl so I just thought it's more efficient, I'll just buy it online. So I bought it online in America, got it shipped to a freight forwarder in America and then got it sent to me and I saved a few bucks in the process.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. And it all worked out fine. No alterations, everything's good.
[Voiceover]: I just took it. So it was super cheap because I'm also very, very thrifty. So it didn't cost me very much. Cost me like 500 bucks. And when I got it here I just had to get it taken in a little bit. So I just took it to a little lady, I think in Mosman or something and happy days away.
Nathan Bush: She went, oh, one question that I had for you in our main episode that I never got to, but I'm still curious about it. So I'm going to ask it. I'm going to use this question to ask it. What is the weirdest thing or the thing that surprised you most that you stock at Flora and Fauna? Because I look through there and I go, oh my God. IPhone cases that are eco friendly. Mushroom tea. There's so much different stuff in there. Has anything ever surprised you?
[Voiceover]: Well, nothing's massively surprised me because I sign off on all products. So. Yeah. So I suppose some of our weirder things, compostable phone cases, they're pretty weird actually. What we are about to launch and we will have launched biodegradable vibrators.
Nathan Bush: There you go, There you go. Good for the bedroom, good for the planet.
[Voiceover]: Good for everyone. Good for everyone. Yeah,
Nathan Bush: brilliant. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
[Voiceover]: Okay, I have two. One because it's where I started my career, John Lewis department stores in the uk. They will always have an incredibly special place in my heart and I just think their experience is outstanding. So that's, that's the other one who I absolutely love and I, and I, I'm not sure if I'm in a vip, but I get a lot of emails from them from their personal shopper person. Thinner mofo. I spend a lot of money at and I'm constantly sending their emails to my team going, look at what they do. It's really good. What they do do, which is super cool and if anyone's listening to this, it might tempt you to buy some wine from them. Is when you check out, when you check out and you get your order confirmation, they have you see a picture of Tom Hanks and it just goes, thanks, Tom Hanks. Thanks. It's just, it's just, it just makes me smile every time I see it and it's light hearted. Their branding is phenomenal and there. And I think what they've got really, really, really right is their tone of voice. I got an email through from James who is commercial sales which somewhat. And I get personal emails from him. So I think, I think I just drink a lot of wine, clearly because it's commercial sales and I'm like, no, no, it's just me. But I get emails from them going, hey, we've got these two new wine. I got it yesterday. We've got these two new wines coming in. One's a Pinot, one's a Shiraz. They're amazing. I looked it and I went, that's great. He goes, email me back if you want any. And I went, yep. Can I have a case of that one and a case of that one? And I said, have you got my car details? It's in the system because it's so easy to check out vinyl as well. It's in the. It's in the website. And he went, yep, got them. Is this your address? Yep, done, done.
Nathan Bush: And he's. And he's like, already. Already, like, checked them out for you before we had a phone call. Because I knew what would happen.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, exactly. I know. I'm like that. Easiest, easiest, easiest shopper. Their experience is just second to none, so. Love them.
Nathan Bush: That's really cool. No, good call. All right, number three, which retail fad do you wish was history?
[Voiceover]: Okay, jargon, Jargon. I wish jargon was history. I'm not sure if it's a fad. I'm not sure if this is a fad, but I'm going to take it as it's kind of an industry fad. I suppose we use lots of long words to describe stuff, but I sometimes don't know if we know what we're talking about. So we talk about things like big data. Do we even know what that is? Headless commerce. Does anyone know what that is? And I'm a real retailer from base principles, so I just wish we talk about stuff from a customer perspective. I really wish we talk about stuff for a customer perspective. So I can remember being one business in one job a while back. And on the strategy was, big data. We've got to do big data. I'm like, what do you even mean? Do you know what you mean? Do you know what you're talking about? And I think in the business we're in, we tend to chase lots of shiny things.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: And sometimes we need to. We need to remember what the. The basics are and do them brilliantly.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. That's a such. That's so refreshing to hear. I was even doing a workshop this morning for a client and we were going through some stats and stuff. I was like, oh, your sessions are this. But, you know, we've seen a decrease in sessions, which is a bit alarming. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, what are you. Sessions? What are you. What are you talking about? I'm like, oh, like website visits. And they're like, why don't you just say Website visits. I'm like, yeah, I suppose we could do that.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. Yeah. So much talking. Talking as if this is what's quite good, actually, about having some of the team at Flora and Fauna where it's. Some of them. It's your first. Their first role because. Because they do and they will ask questions. And we really encourage everyone to, like, never sit still and don't ask a question. If you don't know what we're talking about, mention it. So they do. And it actually makes you think differently because you just go, oh, yeah, we got to think about what we're saying here. Like, yeah, you cut the jargon. Yeah. Love it.
Nathan Bush: Love it. All right, number four. Can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
[Voiceover]: Yeah. So there is a book and it's really helped me understand who I am because I'm a night owl. It's by Daniel Pink, if you've heard of him. He's got a few books, actually, but the one that I read is called when, and it talks about. He's really awesome, actually. It just talks about when you're at your most optimum. So if you're someone like me who's crazy busy all the time, it's helped me understand Me a lot more because it talks about how you can be more optimal at working in the morning, but if you work at night, then you're not. And I'm really selling it badly. But to be honest, by the way, but read it. It's a lot better, but it just helps you figure out more about you, but also just get more efficient. Like when is so they. He talks about stuff like when's the best time to have meetings. And you're more likely. There's some cool stats in that. You're more likely to say no to something if you have a meeting in the afternoon versus the morning and so on and so forth. So.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, he's an awesome author.
[Voiceover]: He is, isn't he?
Nathan Bush: I haven't read that one, but I've
[Voiceover]: read and I've totally. Yeah, I've totally undersold what he does, by the way, but it's really good.
Nathan Bush: Just basically in general, I love the concept. Oh. Like, even here I don't do anything creative because I do a lot of newsletters and writing and podcasts and I do some work as well, but I don't do anything creative after 3 o' clock because I'm just like, it's going to be shit if I do it after three o'.
[Voiceover]: Clock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. This is it. You've got to find your own rhythm. Right. And listen. Listen to yourself.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Awesome. All right, last one I've got for you, Julie, is finish this sentence. The future of retail is
[Voiceover]: the future of retail. I did come prepared for this. No, no, I'm going to get. I'm going to get there. I actually sort of thought of something, like, straight off the bat and then completely forgot it. Oh, my God. You're going to cut all this bit out, aren't you?
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, we'll cut it out. No worries.
[Voiceover]: This is where my husband always says to me, if we take a video, you have to do the first one because if you go back and do it again, you're terrible at it. I'm going to say it the instant. Regret what I say. But anyway, we'll give it going. The future of retail is the same as the past. We have to listen to our customers.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. Love it. We'll get that framed up and sent out to you.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Julie, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
[Voiceover]: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Julie, jump back into episode 121 where Julie shares how she took a Photoshop course to create the very first flora and fauna website. And we just track that through all the way through the journey to how Julie felt when she handed her business baby over to bwx. We also cover the power of words in retail communication, why retailers are fighting over unit load devices or ULDs, and Julie's advice for any founders who are considering external funding or acquisition. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cart.
