[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 Pamela Yip, co founder
Nathan Bush: of Bubble Tea Club.
Nathan Bush: They're bringing DIY bubble tea kits to the comfort of your own home. They now have over 40,000 customers, or bubblers as they're known, and the company is generating over $2 million in revenue and sold all over the world. They've also been voted in the top 20 coolest retailers by Inside Retail alongside brands like Culture Kings and Country Road. Pamela, welcome to the checkout. We've heard a lot about Bubble Tea Club and the exciting things going on there.
Nathan Bush: Let's learn a little bit more about you. Yes, five questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Pamela Yip: Yeah, I was thinking about this. I was like, personally for myself, I wish I was more adventurous and I had like a better answer for you. But when I was 16 years old, that's when I actually first had my ebay store. And back there I was selling on Tumblr and Facebook. So it's funny. So I brought in like cartons of lingerie delivered to my house and I was living with my parents and they opened it, they're like, ah, do you need this many?
Nathan Bush: What is going on here? How good were the days of Tumblr?
Pamela Yip: Yeah, Tumblr is great. Back then Facebook didn't have pages yet, so we were selling through Facebook friends and it's just so interesting as other type of people that bought from us because you guys are selling laundry at that time. You have people messaging. Can you please pack this in black packaging very securely so that no one can see what I'm buying.
Nathan Bush: You would have learned a lot as a 16 year old about people and business.
Pamela Yip: Yeah, I think I had to learn. The biggest thing I've learned and I wish I overcome at that age was how to take negative feedback. That was really hard for me on ebay because I was 16. I was not used to getting that much critical feedback on ebay where you can't even reverse it if they're just being unreasonable. I wish I, if anything I would wish I persevered for that because like, very honestly, I actually stopped doing it because, because I was doing like uni. I was like, maybe I need to learn a lot more. The feedback was actually like, it got to me. So I really wish I didn't.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's Interesting, because people are brutal on ebay because they probably don't see you as an entrepreneur as much like they don't see you as a brand. They're just. And they know that negative feedback on ebay counts for so much for a retailer.
Pamela Yip: Yeah, yeah. It's so powerful for them.
Nathan Bush: All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Pamela Yip: I have so many. I have, like, the table. And it's actually funny because in our interview questions that we ask when we're hiring for marketers is actually asking them, like, who's their favorite retail to follow? Because we wanted to get a gauge of, like, what they see as being successful on social and digital. Someone I actually really like following, even though I don't really consume the products, is Dunkin Donuts because of how creative they are. And of course, like, I've monitored them. I, like, watch them a lot because of, like, Bubble Tea Club as well. There's a lot of, like, synergy there too. But I like their brand because they're so across TikTok. All of their flavors that come out, the brand, collaborations, activations they do is really creative. So I'll definitely suggest to, like, watch them too. I also love Culture King. Yeah, I feel like, oh, I like a premium brand that doesn't have to rely on any discounts done so well, like transitioning online. I love them. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bush: Two great examples there. I had flashbacks then because in my agency days, ages ago, I used to work on the Donut King account. So I used to make no help digital and social for Donut King. So I was constantly on the Dunkin Donut Donuts pages checking them out. So they've been consistently good for such a long time.
Pamela Yip: Yes. Yeah. It's crazy. Like, they move so fast and they grow. So when they do it really well too. So, yeah, I really love watching them.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. All right, number three, which e commerce practice do you wish was history actually
Pamela Yip: touches back to, like, the podcast that we just did before? Like, one is around paid media and how much emphasis and focus and how big in business that is and learning to see customers more in the lens of them as people as opposed to numbers and metrics from the performance marketing side. I think in ecov, there's a very big focus on metrics, obviously, like your cpc, your roas, your MER percentage, but just remembering that there are people behind there, and if you're too fast and chasing your MER percentage and growing and short temporary moments of a better roas, you might be compromising on your brand. So that's what we're talking about like Black Friday. So having a really good balance of the performance marketing side and those metrics, but also like supporting your brand and focusing on it. Because I think with more larger retailers now entering into E comm because it's inevitable for them, they're going to be really good at branding and their supply chain, all of that they've already figured out. If anything, they're just now learning to market online. So I think it'd be really important for E comm businesses to focus on their community and focusing on their branding because that's the stuff that will help you survive when a lot of competitors start entering.
Nathan Bush: How do you balance that? When you have a gut feel that an initiative or message is really good for brand but it's just not giving you any performance based roi.
Pamela Yip: Yeah, it's actually really hard. I think it's something in our business that we've been trying to monitor and figure out like this brand collaboration. How do I, how do I know it's doing well? And I think it's just like right from the outset having the mentality that this activation, this brand awareness activity is around driving conversations. So we monitor it through Google Trends. BuzzSumo. It's just using those metrics. I think it's just seeing it as an investment. It will pay off over time, but it's definitely hard. That's what I meant by like an E Comm is so driven by like roas and like immediate numbers and you're monitoring all the time. It's very hard to invest into brand and convince all stakeholders that right now it's worth it. You just have to pitch it as an investment. Just pitch it as an investment and show them how your funnel and how brand awareness is keeping you guys on top.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And give it time to work.
Pamela Yip: Yes. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Love it.
Nathan Bush: Number four, can you recommend a book
Nathan Bush: or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Pamela Yip: I think. Does everyone say Etsy quote at this point?
Nathan Bush: They do and they usually get a question.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: It's like this is the little bit where I go. I might be able to get. I might be able to get a little compliment here. This is great.
Pamela Yip: So that's a given.
Nathan Bush: Thank you. No, but.
Pamela Yip: And I will give a book. So the book that's been really. That I could have put down and actually was really surprised about was this. It's called the E Myth.
Nathan Bush: Yes.
Pamela Yip: Yes. I don't know if you've read it before, but it really hit home for why are you starting a business and how everything that you're hitting like all the brick walls. All the obstacles are normal. And I love that it makes you think of the bigger picture first and work backwards. I think a lot of small businesses and business owners just run the business themselves. They don't really think about like the problems that are going to come up in events and realizing how common that problem is. But the emif kind of gives you the framework to prepare for that and to help you, reassure you that the problems that you face as a business is very common and that there is a solution. I think it's a really good book to read.
Nathan Bush: Great suggestion. And there's all sorts of. I think they've done so many different versions, even three, but the original is still so relevant to today's business.
Pamela Yip: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: All right, last one I have for you, Pamela, finish this sentence.
Nathan Bush: The future of retail is, I don't
Pamela Yip: know, it's not personalized, it's personable.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Pamela Yip: I think the future of retail is starting to be very much a two way conversation and that's very much fueled by becoming an E Com. Yeah, the E Comm lens and going digital. I was just on LinkedIn and I just noticed the surge of e Comm roles that's coming out. So I'm foreseeing a lot of the big guys really building out their E Comm teams. But again, for small businesses or those that are already in E Comm, the biggest point of difference and I reckon how we will be able to really keep our customers is through community and building a social media presence and digital presence, where the conversation is two way
Nathan Bush: and is building those communities and social presences the scalable way to be personable? Because I can imagine you guys as founders, can't always be the faces and the ones talking to customers.
Pamela Yip: Yes, exactly. I think it's just empowering your own staff as well. It's funny because internally our team, we tell our customer service, our marketing team, to speak to the customers as if they were friends. And I think just small things like that will help empower your team. Because you're right, it was impossible for us as we grew to be replying back to every single customer. But how do you frame the brand voice the brand tone and really convey that to the rest of your business? Yeah, I think it'd be really interesting. I think even if you think about Facebook, we just did an interview and talking about the trends of 2022 and the emergence of Metaverse and it's very interesting because Facebook is actually enabling you to do a lot of this personalized and VR stuff. But at the very. If it's on a scale to 1 to 100, Facebook is on. Facebook's vision will be on the 100 side. We're still very much on the 1 and twos in the sense of, for us as a business, it's how do we use Messenger Chatbot, how do we use Instagram stories and just existing social media platforms to drive a two way conversation with us actually being there one on one. And what I mean by that is if you look at stories, the very traditional way or the very entry level of the metaverse is just you just put a filter on your face, but you start noticing things like, have you seen the Squid game filter where you blink your eyes and it takes you a step in advance. I think that's like the next level of interaction.
Nathan Bush: Nice. There is bubble tea in the metaverse.
Pamela Yip: Yeah. So even just like. Because the obstacle people have is like, I don't know how it tastes or it's too hard to make. So in our case, it's like thinking about, like, how can we use Instagram stories where it allows them to make the drink virtually to make it fun. For Messenger Chatbot, it's instead of just being an faq, when you go into Facebook, it just pops up like, here are the FAQs. It's just then personalizing a step further. You can actually make games out of it. You can do surveys out of it too. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: I love the way you're thinking about product and experience. It's really refreshing.
Nathan Bush: Thank you for joining us on the checkout.
Pamela Yip: Thank you so much.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Pamela, jump back into episode 166, where Pamela shares what it's like to be a young Asian female entrepreneur. She also shares how she and her co founder nailed their crowdfunding campaign video and tells us about edutainment, which is at the heart of her marketing philosophy. And it's brilliant. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
