Chris Clark: Over the last nine months we've doubled revenue here in Australia, so wallpaper's making a comeback. It's pretty crazy pulling out Mac cables and power cables out of knee deep water and not realizing the power was still on in Australia. We've got 9 million households. In the US there's 127 million households
[Voiceover]: welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online ret. Here's your host, Bushy.
Nathan Bush: Welcome to another episode of Add to Cart. I'm Bushy and I'm joining you from the land of the terrible people otherwise known as Brisbane, Australia on Add to Cart. We welcome everyone to share and listen
Nathan Bush: to e commerce stories.
Nathan Bush: The more diverse the better. I want to especially welcome the traditional owners and the original storytellers the of the land that we are on, our indigenous and Torres Strait Islander listeners to join us in our e Commerce conversations and our community. As we know, business is full of highs and lows and there's no shortage of amazing success stories and setback stories
Nathan Bush: that are out there.
Nathan Bush: We've been lucky enough on Add to Cart to cover both, but I'm glad to say that today's guest has both the ups and the lows and he shares them today. Chris Clark built and ran his own successful design agency. I actually worked with Chris back in my agency days, but it wasn't all roses. It took multiple hits, first through Covid and then through the Brisbane floods. I remember seeing pictures of Chris and his team literally unplugging and lugging MacBooks through waste deep floodwater to try and save the agency. After all of this, he decided to take up an offer from an old friend and actually an old employee of the agency and became the Marketing and e Commerce Director at Milton and King. Milton and King are a luxury wallpaper company and you might think what is a luxury wallpaper company doing on an e commerce podcast? They are actually changing the game. Launched In Brisbane in 2012, the business has expanded into the UK and the US recently opening its headquarters in Dallas.
Nathan Bush: In this chat, Chris shares the unique
Nathan Bush: on demand printing process that Milton and King have developed. He tells us his web designs, do's and don'ts and as someone who has worked with Chris before, you won't get a better person telling you about web design. And then he shares how they've managed the huge growth explosion in the US market. Spoiler alert, they are doing 80% of their revenue in the US. All right, before we get into Today's chat, make sure if you haven't already and you are in Sydney that you get your tickets for the Add to Cart E Commerce social in Sydney May 23rd. We have some amazing speakers, ones that you will recognize from the podcast before. We've got Andrew from croct, we've got Jordana from Rhino Rack, we've got Mark Bartzer from Mark Bartzer Consulting, and we've also got Alex from Cooleenie Keaney's. They are all going to be on our panel talking about how retailers actually use AI. We're going to try and make it a no AI BS zone. So 23rd of May, head along to add to cart.com to get your tickets. $20 with $10 of that going to our friends at Thread together. I hope to see you there. All right, thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Deliver in person. Here's our conversation with Chris Clark, Marketing and E Commerce Director at Milton and King.
Nathan Bush: Chris, welcome to Add to cart.
Chris Clark: Thanks. Thanks for having me, mate.
Nathan Bush: It is good to have you here. It's been a long time since we've worked together in advertising.
Chris Clark: Definitely, yeah. What 14 years since we together.
Nathan Bush: A couple of young bucks dominating the advertising industry. Tell me. Which is why we've ended up on a podcast. Tell me about what you've been doing. I've been observing from afar Milton and King going gangbusters and we're going to get into that story today and I'm really keen because you're doing things so differently. But I'm so interested in your journey to start. How did you end up working with an idiot like me at advertising agencies to getting to where you are at Milton King? Tell us about that journey.
Chris Clark: Yeah, it goes back a while ago, as you know. Yeah, just started as a graphic designer 20 plus years ago. I actually don't want to say the date because it just makes me feel really old. Yeah, we would have been late 90s. I started designing websites and developing sites and just back in the days of Adobe and I was about to say
Nathan Bush: what platforms are you talking there?
Chris Clark: Yeah, like yeah, Photoshop too I think and just producing Straight and Dreamweaver and all those kind of programs. I started my first business early 2000s and in that journey that's where I first met Bryce, my new boss. So I think it was back in 2002 we first met and I just joined advertising agency Ad Gallery. At the time I was starting my own business called New Lake Media and Bryce came in as a fresh graphic designer student straight out of college.
Nathan Bush: So so Bryce owns Milton and King now and he was a graphic designer in your team originally?
Chris Clark: He was, yeah, definitely. Wow. Yeah. And he worked on some of my web stuff and he worked in. Yeah. The mainstream advertising agency as well, so. And we worked together for a couple of years. Yeah. So we went through that kind of journey and that's where we ended up meeting you, I think it was.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Chris Clark: Gfc.
Nathan Bush: Yes. Yeah. Great times. That it was fun.
Chris Clark: Yeah, definitely, definitely. So, yeah, a couple of years at De Pasquale and they sold to Clemiger, so.
Nathan Bush: That's right.
Chris Clark: Plenty of lives back then. And when that happened, I jumped ship and just started my own business again and moved down the coast and got my luck and got out of advertising, more so into the web design development and focusing on WordPress.
Nathan Bush: And was that 13 digital?
Chris Clark: It was 13 digital, yeah. We started that in 2010. Yeah. And ran that down in the Gold coast and moved to Brisbane probably 2018 and just built it from there and then led into Covid. 10 staff, 50 clients. Yeah. A bit of a beast to their feed every month. And yeah, Covid hit and kind of reinvented a few things and then we came out of COVID We hit the February 2021 Brisbane floods and located in Newstead near the river. We. We got affected by the Brisbane river and stormwater drain water and the water came through chest deep through the studio. So that kind of rocked us a bit.
Nathan Bush: You know that nervous feeling you get when you place your checked in luggage on that airport baggage machine? You're kind of just hoping that your luggage arrives at your destination on time and in perfect condition. It's the same in E commerce. You place a lot of trust in your last mile partners to deliver the final crucial element of the customer experience. Now imagine you are a premium product with over 100 years of customer experience expectations. That nervousness increases a lot. That's why Samsonite has chosen Deliver in Person for their reliable on time delivery to drive outstanding shopping experiences, enhance brand reputation and significantly improve key delivery metrics. I mean, you can never be too careful when it comes to making sure luggage arrives on time and undamaged. Don't settle for less. Make your last mile experience the first thing that customers remember. Learn more about the incredible performance uplifts Samsonite has experienced since working with Deliver in person@deliverinperson.com Casestudysamsonite.
Nathan Bush: I remember seeing the images of you and the team just pulling things out of the office in waist deep water. That must have just been such a crazy experience. Yeah.
Chris Clark: It was pretty crazy. Pulling out Mac cables and power cables out of knee deep water and yeah, not realizing the power was storm. Yeah, everyone got out alive. Oh yeah, we got out alive. Just that really rocked the team and we had to, we had to change quite a bit and I think Covid was a bit of a blessing that allowed us to work remotely. So that wasn't new to us. So. But it just kind of took the wind out of the sails and the silver lining in that is that our office wasn't able to be used as an office anymore. So we had to cancel and terminate the lease. So it got us out of that. And then through some personal kind of personal things like my father, who I was pretty close with, passed away suddenly. Some other personal things, health issues and stuff like that. I got a phone call from Bryce who at the time was a client of ours. So we, we designed and developed the Milton King website. And he was on a retainer and he was watching everything, probably like everyone else kind of everything that was happening and called me and said, what are you doing? And I just went, mate, I think I'm done. And he went, well, just come work for me. And it's like, all right, give me three months and I'll come over.
Nathan Bush: So at that point were you thinking about rebuilding the agency, pushing through or were you truly like, I don't think I can do it.
Chris Clark: Yeah, like I said, the wind was taken out of my sail. Like it was. Yeah, just going through Covid pushing through that and then, yeah, coming out of that flood, it was just like just starting over again, not having an office like that. That studio was our home base and it was a really good place to work.
Nathan Bush: It was a beautiful studio too.
Chris Clark: Yeah, it was great, great location and everyone just going remotely. Like I work really well collaborating with people in house and together.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Did it take a while for you to get your head around that you might have to work for someone else after doing your own thing for so long?
Chris Clark: Yeah, I was self employed for 24 years, so the thought of going back to work, working for someone was. Yeah, I was unsure how it was going to work out, whether I could respect some boundaries, understand that's not my business.
Nathan Bush: And Milton and King doing incredible things and I kind of know of you guys through brief conversations that we've had. But also you've got some great partners in the space that do that, really promote you and what you're doing now. For those who may be looking at it, Milton and King obviously a wallpaper company. But it is really underselling it. Can you share to everyone what Milton King do and how you do it so differently?
Chris Clark: The boys, the brothers that own Milton and King, started business and rent organically and grown in a way where they're running it to their own way, really. They're online first, digital first. They don't have any bricks and mortar kind of storefronts. I kind of do now, but I'll jump into that later. Everything's made to order, so we don't have troubles of inventory, out of stock products, anything like that. We've got about 3,000 SKUs.
Nathan Bush: Right. You told me you print about 50,000 rolls of wallpaper a year.
Chris Clark: Yeah. 80% of those rolls are going throughout the US and then the rest is split between the UK and Europe.
Nathan Bush: And as a designer, you must just love seeing some of the designs that come out, because it's not boring wallpaper, right?
Chris Clark: No, it's. Yeah, yeah. The really talented. And that's from. Yeah. Fine artists, illustrators, wallpaper designs covering. Yeah. Florals and all sorts of different kind of art. Yeah, it's very, very inspiring seeing all that kind of different artwork come through.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. To give people an idea. Can you share? For those who may not be in the wallpaper business, what's trending in wallpaper right now is certainly.
Chris Clark: Well, I must say, it's definitely trending in Australia. Over the last nine months, we've doubled revenue here in Australia. So wallpaper's making a comeback in the US it probably never left in the US they love a pattern, they love textures. So, yeah, we find that one house in the US might have three different kind of styles of wallpaper, but here in Australia, it's more. More about stripes, planner colors, simpler patterns. So that's probably more basic colors here in Australia, but in the US it's all about busier the better. Florals. Yeah, florals are probably the biggest seller.
Nathan Bush: Okay. And are they used, like, all throughout a house? I've got no idea on interior design, so I'm useless. But if. If you were going, you know, your style of wallpaper, are they using as like feature walls or whole house fit outs? Like, what's the scenarios?
Chris Clark: Yeah, in Australia, it's more so smaller rooms. It could be a nook, it could be the ensuite. It's usually spots. In the US they're wallpapering feature walls. They wallpaper the ceilings. So, yeah, there's no white walls over in the U.S. just. Yeah. Bright colors.
Nathan Bush: That's cool.
Chris Clark: Definitely. But here in Australia, you jump onto realestate.com most of the walls you see on white, but we are certainly seeing a change in that trend, which is good for us.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. And is there with that, is there a bit of an education piece that you need to incorporate into your product to help people through that cycle automatically?
Chris Clark: Yeah, definitely. I think being a Gen Xer, I grew up with wallpaper and my parents used to talk about horror stories about spending three weeks trying to remove a wallpaper with a, with a hot iron and scrape. I think there's a lot of that needs to be debunked. Like if wallpaper these days is applied properly, you can remove the whole wall within two minutes. So it's. Yeah, it's changed a lot.
Nathan Bush: Okay, I didn't realize that.
Nathan Bush: So it's probably great for people who are constantly looking to update the look and keep things fresh.
Chris Clark: Yeah, exactly. Right, yeah.
Nathan Bush: And do you kind of see that through your data that you get a lot of recurring customers coming through at certain intervals?
Chris Clark: Yeah, we do have quite a few recurring customers, probably more so in the US we do have a quite a big trade in the wholesale market as well. So trade users are the interior designers, the decorators, the builders, and they're. Yeah. Coming for their customers.
Nathan Bush: So talk us through that process of when you are delivering, like how do you deliver wallpaper? I'm really interested in that process too, where you have to line up the wallpaper so that when people get it, they have to, you know, make sure, I'm assuming it's all done via the computer, that it's all done automatically. But tell us about that process of getting that printed out and then how do you actually deliver wallpaper?
Chris Clark: The process is pretty fine tuned these days. So when the boys are printing the wallpaper, they make sure it's on the same batch, the same paper, because it's a digital print. You don't want paste and stretches and all that kind of stuff. So you want to make sure that, yeah, if you're printing several panels that it's all on the same roll. So when it's trimmed it all matches up perfectly. Because if you print today and we print next week, the paper might be slightly out of whack, so it'll never match. So yeah, we just make sure it's all on the same kind of print run. But essentially from our WooCommerce store, we're pushing it via plenty of zaps into Monday. We've had Monday customized to handle all the orders and that then moves into our print rip. So the Boys, print production boys here in Australia and the US can maintain and manage all that through Monday probably. The process of print production is two to five days. So if you ordered it today, within two to five days, where it's packed and it's sent out and how do
Nathan Bush: customers know the volume that they need? Is it all calculated on site based on dimensions of their room?
Chris Clark: Yeah, we've got a calculator on our site which can give you the calculation in imperial metric measurements, depending on your location. We do get big orders. We might get someone that might order 30 rolls. Our could be right on the phone and go, hey, let's just. Let's just check your calculations to make sure you're not overshooting this. And then in those cases we would just adjust the order. But it's usually pretty good.
Nathan Bush: And I assume that rules out any returns or refunds because it is so custom.
Chris Clark: Yeah, I think our refund rate is. Refund return rate globally is about 2%, so it's quite small. So our customer support, which is handled in the US and the uk, they're right on it. So they're pretty efficient.
Nathan Bush: Cool. And you mentioned they're on WordPress and WooCommerce. And is that purely from the point of you just need so much customization and control over the experience? Because it is unique that that is the best platform for that for you.
Chris Clark: It is. At the time we developed the website back in 2018, so Bryce came to us in 2018, they were on Magento and they were struggling with that platform. So at the time, WooCommerce was the best choice. At the time, I think Shopify was certainly there, but it was certainly in its early stages. So I don't think Shopify would have been able to do any of the stuff that we wanted to, but today it's. We just find it gives us full customization. We can create plugins, we can customize the theme, got full access to everything. And I think from a developer's point of view, it's just. Yeah, it's so much easier to manage. And especially when we've got four regions, us, Australia, uk, dealing with translations, we're dealing with different measurements. Yeah, it just gives us that greater control.
Nathan Bush: Makes sense. And I think having someone like you in the seat who has built their fair share of websites and can, you know, find their way around it, you're pretty safe pair of hands for a website where you do have so many options. Because in other less experienced hands probably get out of control pretty quickly.
Chris Clark: Right? Yeah, exactly. Right, exactly. Right. And I do believe that you come up with an idea about an idea and we're not restricted by the technology all the time. I'm going back to our senior developer Caleb and saying, can we do this? It's like, I don't know, but sure, we can work it out.
Nathan Bush: And you mentioned some of your partners there. I know Search Spring put you up as one of their case studies. Who are the key tech partners that you work with to plug into Woo.
Chris Clark: Yeah, I think, yeah, Searchspring was a game changer for us. Being a WordPress site, it's pretty heavy on the, on the resources, pretty heavy on the, on the server. So if we took away that load from our server and let Search Spring handle all the on site searches and the catalog pages, the collection pages and it's just, yeah, sped up. So it's been a bit of a lifesaver. But the other platforms we use like, like the tech stack is probably 20 deep and all sorts of things happening in the back end from Ship Station to Zapier to Yeah, there's mate. I could pull the list up and go through it all. But I did hear at a recent conference at Retail Fest that someone used AI to analyze their tech stack and kind of ask it to work out the best way to integrate all the, all the different technologies. So I think I'll be doing that in the coming weeks.
Nathan Bush: That's funny. How did they say they were going to do that? Like through GPT?
Chris Clark: Yeah, GPT. Yeah, they said they did it through there and they just outlined all their technologies and said how can I best utilize all this?
Nathan Bush: Oh, that's funny. I love that.
Chris Clark: Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Nathan Bush: Because you are print on demand. Does that make your life easier or harder? Because I could imagine you've got no limit to inventory or you probably don't have to worry about inventory, do you?
Chris Clark: No, not at all. Not at all. So yeah, we upload product, we don't have to worry about inventory out of stock. The only time we would ever remove a product is if it's not moving. So every six months we'll review the catalog and say what's not moving, what's not popular. And yeah, we'd remove that stuff. So yeah, so we're very thankful for that. There's. Yeah, the only stock we hold is any returns.
Nathan Bush: Okay.
Chris Clark: And it's not much.
Nathan Bush: So with that inventory, does that mean that you can play around a lot with seasonal prints in terms of new designs, new features, new artists or is it still very much situation based that People will only shop with you when they're ready to wallpaper their walls. Can you convince people with new designs that now's the time to jump and wallpaper their place?
Chris Clark: I like to think we can push a design and encourage people to jump in and purchase from the collections we're releasing. But we find it is pretty seasonal in the warmer months in the us People are more. More probably inclined to purchase wallpaper in the warmer months, especially when they're improving their home. When it gets cold in the U.S. yeah, it's usually snowing and freezing, so people don't want to get out and get amongst it. So, yeah, we find that, yeah, if we're going to launch something, launch it. Autumn, spring, summer is the time to do it through December and January usually dies off a bit.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, okay.
Chris Clark: Yeah. And in terms of the wallpaper we do release, we do watch what people are searching on our site. So yeah, we really tap into Searchspring and look at the zero search results that popping up. So we. A wallpaper called Snake. Lots of people were searching for snakes and baseball snakes. A lot of people were searching for baseball wallpaper as well. So we've launched those over the last couple of months.
Nathan Bush: That's cool. So for those who may not be doing that, that's basically looking at the search results from your on site browsers and working out what people are searching for that you're not serving up any results.
Chris Clark: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And searchpring would do that across all the regions so we can see different regions, what people are searching for and what they're not finding. So based on that kind of skews our next wallpaper release or our next idea for a collection.
Nathan Bush: That's cool. And do you brief because do you do designs in house or you collaborate with designers to create the wallpaper designs?
Chris Clark: Over the years, it's mainly collaborating with external brands and artists and that's something that Bryce would always be on the hunt for. You'd jump onto Instagram, Instagram and socials and yeah, be chatting to artists, whether they're a fine artist or graphic designer. Not necessarily a textile artist. Yeah, people that kind of tick the box for him. He'll approach them and get them to design artwork and those artists would get paid a commission for every sale. But more recently we've hired an artist in the uk, Yasmin, and she's been designing and painting nudes last few months. So we're really pushing more towards, yeah, producing our own artwork. And then that Way we can really control what's trending, what we're releasing, when and where.
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Nathan Bush: isn't a surprise because you've got a beautiful looking website. But what was interesting was that the list of nominees there you are, the only in house team nominated. Everyone else has a brand website that was built by agencies. I thought that was pretty cool.
Chris Clark: Yeah, right, yeah. Didn't even realize that. I think that goes to our credit. I suppose we're playing with the big dogs.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. You must be still scratching that design itch from our agency days.
Chris Clark: Yeah, definitely quite surprised that coming across from agency to a single brand that were. Yeah, definitely ticking that design box.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome.
Chris Clark: Yeah, it's really good. Certainly keeping us challenged for sure.
Nathan Bush: And are all your team as design focused as you like?
Nathan Bush: Does your like enthusiasm for design kind of go across the whole team?
Chris Clark: Yeah, I think it does, yeah. Certainly with Bryce, his background is a graphic designer, has been for the last 20 odd years.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Chris Clark: Jess, who's another designer on the team focusing on wallpaper, she's definitely design and we've just hired a new full time designer in house and a full time EDM specialist as well. So yeah, everyone is very design centric, which is great. So yeah, it makes my life much easier. That's cool.
Nathan Bush: Developing your own little agency in house.
Chris Clark: Yeah. Fun times.
Nathan Bush: When it comes to e commerce website
Nathan Bush: design in particular, do you have any non negotiable principles or you know, design principles that you go it has to at least meet this standard or stick to this principle.
Chris Clark: Overall, it is just a common sense principle. It's essentially just using traditional design standards, really. Logo, top left, making buttons, nice big, bright, using lots of white space. Typefaces. Really important on typefaces. And I think, yeah, getting back to the core design principles is looking at your line heights. Your letter spacing is something that probably goes. Goes missing a little bit these days because everything is kind of automated. But, yeah, really looking at your typefaces and letter spacing really, really helps. So that's probably my kind of. Yeah, do or dies, really. That's cool.
Nathan Bush: Any typefaces you wish would die?
Chris Clark: Nah, I love all typefaces. Even Comic Sans has got a. You're inclusive as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. Now I'm really interested in the US because I understand that Bryce and his brother started Milton and King from Toowoomba. Originally from Toowoomba, but like you mentioned, now 80% of market in the US was that always intended to be us first?
Chris Clark: Well, I think the boys, yeah, when they first started Milton King had no idea of the market in the us and I think it's just come organically. And when it did hit, pretty much spending all their money on shipping to the us so they kind of had to get over there, get over there quickly. They started in Austin first and then, yeah, found out and, yeah, discovered Dallas is probably the place to be. So that was a really good move. But I looked at some figures the other day. Like, in Australia, we've got 9 million households. In the US there's 127 million households. So the market's a lot bigger. So many more walls over there.
Nathan Bush: And how much of that market penetration do you think you've got at the moment? Like, what's the potential?
Chris Clark: Potential? Like. Yeah, I don't think we're even scratching the surface really over there. We're up against some competitors that have been around for 800 years and they're all bricks and mortar and we've come in digital first and, yeah, we're just kind of scratching the surface, I think. Yeah, we've got lots of room to grow.
Nathan Bush: That's so cool.
Nathan Bush: And I can imagine that when you're
Nathan Bush: at the stage of business that you're at where there's still so much potential and so much market growth in front of you, but you've come from Australia with a business model that's set up for the U.S. first and foremost, that that changes a lot of things and how you're set up compared to a lot of other E commerce businesses. Even in terms of how you fulfill, how you ship, how you manufacture, even what technology platforms you use. Are you thinking from a US first perspective?
Chris Clark: Yeah, I think so. I think all the technology that we've set up can work globally. So we're currently kicking into the European market at the moment, same technology. We might have to change shipping partners obviously for obvious reasons over there. But our global print manager is based in Toowoomba. He oversees everything that's happened happening in the US and Amsterdam. He can log in via the vpn, control everything, do print runs. Yeah. Utilizing Monday and from WooCommerce and using ZAPS and everything. Everything just kind of flows really nicely and effectively.
Nathan Bush: It's a really good lesson, isn't it? Like if you do foresee your brand being international or US focused, even if it's in a couple of years making those decisions that are globally recognized.
Chris Clark: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And I think it's setting up good practices early before you get too busy. Yeah. Backtracking. And once you're getting a thousand orders a day. Yeah. It's pretty hard to change your. Your system. So do it early and set up early.
Nathan Bush: It's too late. Too late then, isn't it? It's been so much fun talking to you Chris, to catch up because it's been a long time since we've had a good chat and I've loved hearing about your ups and you know, some of the downs, especially around the flood and 13 what came of that. But it's been amazing to hear what you're doing now at Milton and King and taking on the global stage and I think that sets you apart from other e commerce businesses here in Australia. Is that you kind of head down, bum up and just taking on the world, which is really exciting.
Chris Clark: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We're quite achievers and I think we just put our heads down, bump, bump up and get on with it.
Nathan Bush: So good look, you've given us some hints on where you're going with Milton and King. You mentioned Europe there before. What's in the plans, what's coming up in the next 12 months. That's really exciting you.
Chris Clark: I think the business to business opportunities are quite big so we're looking at setting up some platforms for that. Bit of a kind of exchange platform for our artists and give them greater access to printing wallpaper and access to existing wholesalers out there. So that'll be a big play. A pattern creator where our trade users Interior designers can start creating their own patterns using, utilizing our colors. But that'll give them greater control to print wallpaper, print fabric and match their kind of home designs.
Nathan Bush: I can imagine you, because you are
Nathan Bush: so such a beautifully esthetic brand, even when you are handing over design capabilities to others, you want to put some safeguards around that so it doesn't come off brand.
Chris Clark: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. So we'll restrict the patterns, we'll restrict what kind of sizes they can do, stripes and checks and all that kind of stuff. So. And yeah, we've developed 3,000 kind of list of colors that these designers can choose from. So printed a swatch book, not too dissimilar to the Pantone book.
Nathan Bush: So it's very cool.
Chris Clark: Yeah, should be really cool.
Nathan Bush: You're gonna have to design something of yourself to put like your own wallpaper up on the back because you're going to be doing more interviews here. I can tell you're going to need your own wallpaper up the back behind.
Chris Clark: Yeah, a few comments have been made about my backdrop. So yeah, maybe we need some skateboarding wallpapers or some more baseball ones, some
Nathan Bush: Sydney Swans ones
Chris Clark: maybe. Maybe Carlton go for that.
Nathan Bush: Look at him, he's got his year coming up. All Carlton supporters up and about.
Chris Clark: Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Nathan Bush: Now, Chris, if people have listened to
Nathan Bush: this and they're keen to check out Milton and King from getting their place wallpapered, or I would suggest just going on and having a look at the site because from an E commerce perspective, it is refreshing. It's not a template driven site. There's lots of like nooks and crannies and interesting design features. What's the best way for them to do that? And then if you're up for it, for them to get in touch with
Chris Clark: you, just jump onto miltonandking.com head to the site. I reckon you can spend hours in there just curating your own kind of wallpaper ideas. But yeah, jump onto the website. Instagram is a really good resource as well. We've got a really good Pinterest page. Yeah. So plenty of wallpapers up there. And jump on LinkedIn.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. Chris, thank you so much for joining us on Add to Cart.
Chris Clark: Too easy, mate. Thanks for having me. Great to see you.
Nathan Bush: It has been phenomenal watching Chris navigate his way through all the highs, all the lows to what he is now leading at Milton and King. And it was great to actually have the chance to catch up with him because it had been a long time
Nathan Bush: since I spoke to him.
Nathan Bush: Here are the three things that I took out of our conversation. Number one, you won't get a better person than Chris, but website design, he calls it common sense. But getting the right typeface, the right colors, the right positions for different content is crucial. And there are formulas and ways of doing it that don't have to reinvent the wheel. Whether it's you or whether it's a design team or whether it's outsourcing, make sure you spend time getting design right. Number two, setting up for global success. You heard from Chris that they did originally design Milton and King with the view that it would be an international business and today 80% of their sales is out of the US so that has obviously had impacts into some of the big decisions they've made around making sure technology, payments, legal, product descriptions are all set up to translate well across borders. So if you have the inkling that you will be international, make sure you're getting those foundations right, that the partners, the technology, the platforms can easily expand across borders and they aren't limiting you to Australia. And number three, embrace change. We heard from Chris the ups, the lows even coming around and now working for one of his old employees, he would not have seen that in his future. But what I love about Chris is he's taken it all in his stride and that he is just making the most of every opportunity. And what he's doing now is so cool. Changing the game not only for wallpaper, but in the way that E commerce is done and really taking that brand to the world.
Nathan Bush: What an awesome mission.
Nathan Bush: Thanks for joining us today on Add to Cart to listen to all our E commerce conversations now in the hundreds. You can head on over to addtocart.com there you can also join up to our free private Slack community to share e commerce ideas, tips and questions with other listeners. You can also subscribe to the Add to Cart website weekly newsletter and browse some of the video highlights from our chats. There is a lot there that's add to cart.com au and if I can ask you one thing before you go, if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with a friend or a colleague who could benefit or leave us a review. It really makes a difference. Thanks again for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to Cart.
