[Voiceover]: Your face when I said the word Temu. I thought you were going to vomit on the floor a little bit there.
Phil Leahy: That's my life, mate. It's been one accident after another, let me tell you.
[Voiceover]: You know that's going to be your headline for this episode now, because everyone
Phil Leahy: doesn't want to talk so they just want the sale. They want to move on. I want a connection with the customer.
[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 online retail. Here's your host, Bushy.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Add to Cart. My name is Bushi and I'm joining you from the land of the terrible people here in Brisbane, Australia. Today we are chatting to a true legend in the Australian e commerce space, Phil Lay, founder of Retail Global and CEO of MedCart.
[Voiceover]: In.
Nathan Bush: If you've been to Retail Fest on the Gold coast, that is Phil's baby, so you probably already have a connection with him. Now, Phil has an e commerce career spanning over two decades and he's played a massive role in shaping the e commerce landscape. From running one of the first top performing ebay stores in Australia to founding one of the world's premier retail conferences, Retail Global. Now he has turned his sights to to MedCart, a fast growing marketplace for health products. In this episode, Phil shares his incredible journey from selling signed Silver Chair albums on ebay to pioneering Australia's e commerce conference scene and how he is transforming his brand, MedCart, into the leading platform for healthcare supplies. He opens up about the lessons that he's learned along the way. His approach to customer service, which he got through through a really tough time with MedCart and what it takes to run a successful marketplace in today's environment. Personally, after attending a number of Phil's
[Voiceover]: retail global conferences on the Gold Coast,
Nathan Bush: I'm just excited to sit down with him and understand the backstory as to how it all came about and his motivation behind it all. As always, a really big shout out to our amazing partners. Deliver in person and Shopify for making today's podcast possible. Now let's get into it. Here's our chat with Phil Ley.
[Voiceover]: Phil, welcome to ADD to cart.
Phil Leahy: Great to be here. Pleasure to be here.
[Voiceover]: Been a long time coming. Thank you for joining us. Where are you? You're up sunny north, aren't you?
Phil Leahy: I'm in far North Queensland, about 10 minutes out of Port Douglas in a place called Mulberry Valley on the side of a hill, 10 acres in a rainforest surrounded by a national park. A beautiful spot.
[Voiceover]: It's where all good e commerce happens.
Phil Leahy: It does now.
[Voiceover]: It does now. I love it. I can't wait to get into your story because obviously we met when you were running Founding Retail Global and you're
Phil Leahy: at Super Retail Group.
[Voiceover]: Yep, I was at Super Retail Group. And you ran a brilliant conference, which is still going today, and left a huge legacy there. We're going to dive into that. But then you've got your new venture. Probably not so new now. Probably doesn't feel new. Medcart. But before we get into that, I want to go back because as I was researching your story, I came across something fascinating. I didn't realize how deep your roots in radio and music were before the retail game, but I understand there was a moment that you had with Silverchair that kind of let you into the e commerce world. Is that right? Yeah.
Phil Leahy: But the story goes back further to my Sony Music days. I worked at Sony as a key account executive, did some A R and we launched the Frogstop album with Silverchair. And I was blessed to be in the room as they played their first gigs. And I actually went to America that the company sent me to America. And I got the champ and the album in stores over there, which was a lot of fun. So great memories. But the Silver Chair story was actually the first album. I had a signed copy for my Sony days and I had a radio station. I went broke with my partner and I'm like, wow, what am I going to do? I didn't want to go and work for anybody. And someone told me about ebay and said, why don't you, you know, you've got 2000 CDs, why don't you go and sell some and get some money so you can pay your rent? So the first thing I listed was a signed copy of Silverchair Frogstom. And you know, I've got a zero next to my name on ebay. And it sold and it sold for 100 bucks AU. And I went, wow, this is good. But the best part was a week later in the mail, I got $100 US note for this album. So an American had bought it, paid the Australian dollars 60 cents or something. So I went, how good's this? So I started listing some of my CDs, and then I started buying stock. And then I went into the movie side of things. No one wanted the suppliers because ebay was a dirty word. Selling online was dirty. I had to go out to all the independents and get Them on first. One by one, word got out that we were doing great business. And then finally bmg, Sony, Warner Brothers, they all came on board. And then we ended up having around 50,000 listings of CDs and DVDs in stock in South Melbourne. And we were shipping them, you know, 65% of that we shipped outside of Australia. It was great fun.
[Voiceover]: That's awesome. And what did you do with that business, that ebay business?
Phil Leahy: I actually sold it to deals direct in 2007. It was the end of the era of the the shiny disc. You know, CDs, movies were going like the DVD was gone on the way out. And I was sick of what I was doing, I really was. And I wanted to change. And Paul Greenberg bought the business from me an awful lot. He did pretty well, brought the customers. I think we had a couple hundred thousand customers. And yeah, I started, I thought, you know what I want to do? I want to stay with focus and keep delivering these conferences. So I got out of being a retailer around 2008.
[Voiceover]: So that's how Retail Global was born.
Phil Leahy: Yeah, it was born a few years early because I got to be the number one eBay seller. Not because I was smart, was because I went overseas and met the smartest people in the room at ebay to other retailers, other sellers and we all shared information. There was nothing like that in Australia. There was no help support in terms of conferencing for this sector. So I went to ebay and I went to Australia post and said, I want to do this thing which is happening in America. I want you to back me, I'm your biggest customer, give me some money. And then we launched it and it was really about. And people said, I was mad at the time, going, oh, you're going to share it with all your competitors and all that. And they were in the room, no doubt. But it just felt like the right thing to do.
[Voiceover]: Tell us about the first retail global. How many people were there? What was the vibe?
Phil Leahy: I was great. Well, it was at the time, I think we called it the professional ebay sellers alliance. And the first one was in Melbourne and we got about 400 people to that. It was a one day event and then the next two days later we did one in Sydney and we got about the same amount of people and we did it out at, at home Bush, where the Olympics was. And that was the concept. And for the first few years we introduced the one day event and then we turned them into two then three day. We went between Melbourne and Sydney for a Number of years until about 2010, we thought, okay, let's do a destination event. And we went to the Gold coast and one of the things we chose around the Gold coast at the time was, you know, you could put an event on in Melbourne and, and if you weren't lucky, you could have other events on and then hotel rooms would be 500 a night. The same in Sydney. But the Gold coast was cheap to fly to, cheap to stay in. And you also got your community all in one place. They didn't need the cabot to the venue. They could all stay across the road and then it's like it stayed there. It's been a beautiful thing.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, I think that's what sets it apart. Even today still, it almost feels like a retreat. It's like everyone is on destination. You're all stuck there together for a few days. Some crazy stuff goes down, lots of learning happening, but you're all in it together. Whereas you go to other events and everyone's like, oh, I'm going to pick and choose this event. I'll be over here, then I'll be here, then I'll go into work and then I'll go home and then I'll be around. But Retail Global is all in for a few days.
Phil Leahy: That's the other reason too. And I used to see it in Melbourne, Sydney, that the locals would come in and go to their sessions, they'd miss the network and they'd go home to the, the wife and kids or do whatever they they did. And I thought, well, this is this sort of annoying. So I wanted a place where we could just lock them in for three days, you know.
[Voiceover]: You know, the next iteration is going to be on a cruise line or a boat or something where you literally can't leave the boat.
Phil Leahy: I've seen that happen in America, but people get helicoptered off those sort of things.
[Voiceover]: That's a different level. All right, let's talk about Medcut because I think this is really fascinating where you went with Medcart. So my understanding looking in from the outside was that Medcart was born almost from a Covid perspective, a need in the market. Obviously you've got all your connections at Retail Global and through your career. What was the moment that you went, I need to start MedCart. I need to get back into the retailing game?
Phil Leahy: Well, it wasn't my idea. I, you know, it's a Covid thing. It was a circumstance. I just got back from New York in January, mid January 2020. We just delivered the VIP awards at Gotham hall, which was great, was pumped up, going great, we've really made this thing work and got back to Australia and then this Covid thing started bubbling and I'm like, what's going on here? And then of course we saw what happened. The lockdown started, I think in February. My mother became quite ill and I ended up spending a night with her at Frankston Emergency Hospital. And it was a time when, remember all the press was saying that the hospitals were being overrun and these people were under the pressure. And I saw it firsthand being in the emergency room and thought, wow, with this Covid thing, I don't know how these people are going to cope. I'd see nurses, you know, have a swig of Coke, some chips run to their patient, half an hour later another swigger, Coke, some chips go to another patient. And it got me thinking. I thought, well, I thought it was the end of the world.
[Voiceover]: I really did.
Phil Leahy: I thought it was the end of the world and I thought, wow, I've got to do something to keep my team focused and we're stuck at home. So why don't we build this thing called Frontliners? The idea was to go to the industry, give us pallets of drinks and chips and whole foods and creams and everything we could get our hands on.
Nathan Bush: When you think of your last E Commerce experience that went wrong, how did it go wrong? Was it because there wasn't enough product images? Was it an out of whack mobile experience? Was it that one rogue negative review? I doubt it. I bet it was because of your last mile experience and whether your product turned up on time and undamaged, that's what we remember. Delivered in full on time or die fot for the sexy shortened version is a key metric for retailers and customers. Why? Because it's a critical indicator of reliable on time delivery and the post purchase customer experience. However, many Australian retailers are settling for 70 to 80% delivered in full on time results. That's a lot of unhappy customers. That's why brands such as July, Samsonite and the Party People turn to deliver in person. With an average dye FOT score of 99.6% you are delivering experiences to remember. Do not settle for less. Find out more@deliverinperson.com
Phil Leahy: we ended up being on the Current Affair for all the right reasons, which was good. And we went across the press and we ended up delivering $3 million worth of product over that program for free product to 140,000 healthcare workers nationally. My team did this at the Same time, this incredible team launched virtual conferencing, not just in Australia, but in America as well. So we put on virtual zoom conferencing while our competitors did nothing. We started connecting the industry as well. So all this is going on. I'm like, okay, I can keep. We're doing the right thing in a charitable sense. We've got this business thing going and then the government's going to start paying us. So that took a load off our mind. So we're on a bit of a high. And then Jason calls me, Jason Wyatt. He's a mate from Marketplace. And he said, look, I've been looking around, I've seen you've got all this, you know, you've got all these healthcare workers, et cetera, looking around. There's only classified sites for medical. And I jumped online and I went, wow, you're right, there's nothing. He said, you should do a medical marketplace. And he said, I'll help you if you want to do one. And I went, oh, well, there's a need. My team might be locked in their rooms for the next two years, so at least we could actually pivot and do this thing.
[Voiceover]: I've met Ash. You don't want him locked in a room for two years.
Phil Leahy: No way.
[Voiceover]: I was lucky.
Phil Leahy: He was locked in his own house. And then, look, my housemate at the time, Kate Bean, she's actually a famous actress. She was in Chop at a movie and a bunch of others. But she. I said, we need a name. She came up with a name, I didn't. And then we blindly started launching it and getting it going. And then I think about six months afterward, it worked out that I've actually made a bit of a commitment here, and I either had to make it work or shut it down because it was bleeding money. So I decided to take more my focus away from retail Global and focus on. On Medcar.
[Voiceover]: Great. And so is it always a marketplace for D2C to those frontline workers, the nurses, the doctors and the rest, or is it also a B2B marketplace?
Phil Leahy: Yeah, it was really about B2B and B2C, because when we looked at it, the classified thing was very chunky, was it didn't work. So I'm thinking people wanted to be connected with face masks, with gloves, with sanitizer. That was the basics at the time. So we set up to do those products. I think after a few months onboarding and maybe four or five months, we might have had a thousand products, but they were the staples. You know, there was no COVID test at the time it was, at the start it was gloves, masks and sanitizer. So things evolved.
[Voiceover]: So, yeah, evolving. So coming out of COVID now seems like a distant memory. It's only a couple of years, really. Like, things move so quickly and we move on so quickly. How have you evolved medcart into what it is today?
Phil Leahy: Well, we had a boom bust cycle. We saw that Covid tests were gonna be a big thing before anybody, which was great. We went on Ross Greenwood, we talked about the upcoming demand for Covid tests, and we assembled the most amount of COVID tests we could on the site before it was allowed launched to the public, which was on November 1, 2021, I believe. Then things got. Shit got real. Around December, people got onto these things and then there was an explosion of orders. I think we, in that January period, we did 38,000 orders. We used to be doing 1500, $2000 a month. And we got smashed. It was great. We did 10 million bucks, but we didn't deliver about 5% of those orders. We delivered about probably 30% of those four weeks late. We really didn't know what we were doing and we had some bad actors on the platform. And it was great to get all that money, but it was a really horrible time. I employed a new CEO and Dylan booklist to help sort out our systems and our. And our issues at the time. And we went from, you know, two customer service to 20 very quickly.
[Voiceover]: So I was surprised then when you said that you didn't know what you were doing because obviously the history that you gave us around being number one eBay seller for a long time. You talked retail and e commerce all the times with some of the best in the business through retail. Global had all the connections. What was it around that sudden surge in demand that really caught you off guard that you even you were out
Phil Leahy: of your depth being on the seller side and doing well on ebay, and did well because I was absolutely committed to customer service. If we got an order by two o', clock, I was out, you know, or three o', clock, it was out the door by five, all that sort of stuff, you know. So you assume that everybody's like you. And one of the great learnings was, you know, when we're onboarding sellers was probably not checking them out to the full extent, that they had the same commitment to customer service we did to ethics, to other things. So that was a huge learning. And also there's systems and there's processes and those things. I'm not Great on, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm not an analytical per se. So there's so much I didn't know, but it's out there and we employ the right people to help us get to the knowledge.
[Voiceover]: It's a great lesson, isn't it? Like identifying your strengths and then bringing in the right people to plug those gaps.
Phil Leahy: Yeah, 100%.
[Voiceover]: You mentioned their customer service and I saw on the current version of Medcart, it feels like that is an elevated experience there. I mean you've got the phone number, you know, top right hand corner. For anyone to see a local phone number straight away, there's lots of touch points where people can interact with your team. I'm assuming a lot of this is in response to what you've been through to make sure that customers are having a good experience. What's your approach on customer service today?
Phil Leahy: We've got a wonderful team which we've spent a lot of time and effort with in Cebu. They're ex Telstra, so Telstra, do you remember, I think it was around the time of COVID or something. Telstra had built wonderful teams of people in Cebu and built this out of many years and all of a sudden became politically not cool to have workers in the Philippines. So they just sacked them all. So we scooped up the best of them.
[Voiceover]: There's the entrepreneur.
Phil Leahy: Well, we were lucky. They came into our possession and we're like, we're not letting these people go. They're great. And then it was about, you know, training and them hearing our voice and how we wanted to treat our customer and them learning from that. And we spend a lot of money on paid advertising. Why wouldn't you want to talk to your customer? I don't get it and I didn't get it back then. But even when we had Entertainment House, you know, we're doing we at our, at our best, we're 1000 units out at the door a week. But we had a customer service line. Nobody did. I want to talk to the customer, especially if they've got a problem. I think that that is critical because everyone doesn't want to talk to, they just want the sale, they want to move on. I want a connection with the customer. So we, we got great people and we want to drive those conversations. So two edged sword sometimes and I don't mind that part. You know, you'll get an 80 year old pensioner who wants to send you a check for a $20 sale. You just work it out for them, you help them and then you'll have a customer call up and drop 30k with you. So treat them.
[Voiceover]: I love that. It reminds me of Seth Godin who I saw speak at a mailchimp event a few weeks ago. Yeah, he's awesome. And exactly what you said there. He was like, we've got companies out there spending millions of dollars on Facebook ads and all the other branding and advertising. Yet when a customer is in their moment of need or they actually want to speak to the company that's been trying to reach them for months, or if not years, customers like, okay, I'm ready to speak, let's go. They get a message bank or a queue for half an hour. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
Phil Leahy: Yeah. Or driving them to chat, which not everyone wants, you know.
[Voiceover]: Exactly, exactly. Tell us more around the tech stack that you've got there. You mentioned Marketplace as the core product there. With Jace creating the marketplace. What other tech stack have you got to power? Medcart.
Phil Leahy: Yeah. So we launched with full, full stack Marketplacer and of course as time went on it became real to them that they had to get out of that front end side of the business and concentrate on what they're good at, which is the backend Marketplace software. So we were told of a year and a half out, hey, we're going to make this redundant. Which is, oh great, fantastic. But actually it was fantastic because it was so limited what we could do on Marketplace. So we ended up this time last year or on the 23rd of October last year, we launched our front end with BigCommerce. So we have a stack of BigCommerce. We already had Klaviyo but we plugged in SearchSpring and since we've also plugged in Podium. So that's what we sort of call our tech stack.
[Voiceover]: Cool.
Nathan Bush: And what was some of the use
[Voiceover]: cases that drove you towards say bigcommerce over other platforms, especially like the Shopify's of the world.
Phil Leahy: Yeah. So we, when I say we, the CEO at the time, Dylan and myself, we went and spoke to everyone, we spoke to Shop, we spoke to Magento, we spoke to all the leading agencies who represent or really great at those platforms. There was so many different reasons for our choice at the time. I think Shopify only had its own payment gateway and it snipped a ticket. It's site speed. There's a few things I didn't like about it. Magento was just too enterprise. Great solution, fantastic solution. And the agency you know we talked with was fantastic agency, Great insights, Overdose. But we Settled with Big. And it was. Big was because of. We could strip it out a bit so we make it quicker. We could actually dump some of the stuff we didn't need in it. We could basically connect it to Marketplace. So it wasn't just. It was organic to why we chose big. But in the end, there were some commercial realities that came into play as well.
[Voiceover]: Yep, that makes sense. What's been some of your biggest learning around managing a marketplace? Because a lot of our listeners will either be running D2C brands or omnichannel brands, but not operating a marketplace per se, where you've, you know, the pain points that you raised before is that you're kind of trying to vet other people selling on your platform, making sure they hold the same ethics and standards that you do. But at the end of the day, you are the face and the brand that customers are interacting with. What's been some of your biggest lessons around operating a marketplace?
Phil Leahy: That you have to keep dropping off your worst performing sellers. That's the only way to get to a good spot. The best performing sellers give you 80% of your turnover. The worst performing sellers give you the most pain point. What we're trying to do is take out the pain point, keep it a nice customer experience and keeping that smooth. So that's probably the biggest learning of them all.
[Voiceover]: Do you have to maintain a close relationship with your sellers or do you kind of just set up the parameters and go. As long as you stay within these parameters, go nuts?
Phil Leahy: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it. But our leading partners, we tend to have weekly and two weekly meetings just to talk about product, what's coming up and, you know, the ones we're doing the most with, we will constantly have weekly meetings with them. Others are on autopilot and they're doing great volumes. But. And that's the way some want it too, you know, as long as they're competitive and as long as they don't steal from us as well. That's one of the problems or one of the issues when you talk about challenges is getting partners who won't steal from. We're very, if you look on our marketplace and I did this deliberately, that we don't hide our brands, who, we don't hide our sellers. You know, their brands are up there. So what happens sometimes is a savvy consumer will look at the brand and go to their website or ring them up and go, I know I can cut these guys out of the pie and get a better deal. So we have to be keeping Our best partners close and we also monitor it too. You know, and then we hear great stories of honesty. You know, I had one the other day. A customer's held bent on a $20,000 quote to go direct and the merchant wouldn't let them. So we end up getting the sale, you know. You know, we work too hard to get the customer.
[Voiceover]: Is that the role that you see you playing is being that front facing customer acquisition for all your sellers as a marketplace operator, is that your main role?
Phil Leahy: That's our role and we can do it better. It's really about marketing to get the customer so they don't have to worry about that they can get on the job of fulfillment, product selection. Whatever they do. Our job is to get the customer, give them a seamless transactional experience. So, you know, especially the API in, it all just goes in. It's all simple. It's all simple. So that's what we're trying to do.
Nathan Bush: The new climate has accelerated nearly a decade of e commerce evolution into just 90 days. And just as businesses around the world have pivoted to adapt, Shopify have scrapped their normal plans to help solve the problems merchants face today at Shopify Reunite. Shopify launched a bunch of innovative new solutions to help you keep up and stay informed on the future of commerce. To see them all watch the recording@shopify.com Aureunite.
Phil Leahy: We have to have that point of difference. So we have to stop customers going direct. And you see this with ebay. You know, we brand ourselves on ebay, but they still don't come direct. Like some customers go, I trust this marketplace, I'm staying with it. I know I can do a chargeback, all that sort of stuff.
[Voiceover]: Yes.
Phil Leahy: So our message, there's real people on
[Voiceover]: the other end of the line if I need them. Yeah.
Phil Leahy: Our message to our, to, I guess to our customers is, well, look, we're your judge and jury here too. Like we're on your side. We will go into bat for you and sometimes we take a bit of a hit even personally, you know, as a company, we'll take that hit as the company to make sure that that customer is satisfied. You're always going to get customers who want to screw you and be problems. But as I said to my team, if we don't have those guys, we're not selling enough. Yes.
[Voiceover]: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Is that you're not reaching enough people if you're not reaching that portion of the population.
Phil Leahy: That's right.
[Voiceover]: Now that you've got that perspective because you're in such a unique position here because you've seen evolution of ebay and obviously how big ebay got for that from that point. And we've moved through that phase of marketplace now where we've got a lot of retailers like Maya Barbecues Galore also having their own marketplaces within their e commerce sites. And now it feels like we're in that next evolution where the international marketplaces of Amazon Temu Shein are really taking a toll on Australian e commerce.
Phil Leahy: Huge toll. Yeah.
[Voiceover]: How do you see the role of marketplaces in Australia evolving? Do you feel like they will be beneficial for Australian retailers or do you think they're a real threat?
Phil Leahy: Well, they can. Look, it's weird, the ecosystem. Right. I remember being in Las Vegas in 2010 and I was at Catalyst Channel Advisors conference and Scott Wingo was on stage. And Scott I'd known since like 2003, 2004, you know, channel advisor, very smart guy, seen it all. Like a true analytical animal. He is like just one of those smart people. And he predicted in 2000, said, look, for the next 10 years, I can't see anything else but marketplaces dominating the landscape. And that was part of the reasons too. I focused retail global on marketplaces because of that prediction and that idea of that. And he's dead right now. We're 2024 and we're seeing things evolve now. Would I start a standalone marketplace now? Unless you've got some really good idea. I think it's great for the Bunnings, for the big guys with lots of customers to plug in a marketplace. It makes sense.
[Voiceover]: It's almost like another version of retail media for them.
Phil Leahy: Yeah. And look, is a little guy missing out? Not if he's plugged into that. It's part of the ecosystem. But I think that only the big guys should even venture into the marketplaces. They've got to know what they're doing. They've got to have someone dedicated to it. The CEO has to be dedicated to it. But starting a niche one, unless this, you know, and I'm sure there's plenty of ideas out there, it's a lot harder. You know, these things take forever to get Flywheel. Forever. For a long time. Like we're about. We're getting into Flywheel as we head into year five next year.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. Wow. And your face when I said the word Temu, I thought you were going to vomit on the floor a little bit there.
Phil Leahy: I spoke to. I had a call with Jane K. The other day and others, you know, they tell me about the effect on certain clothing sector. But as you know, when you search on your social devices, that shit just pops up all the time, you know, so they've obviously got their act together in getting the customer.
[Voiceover]: And so for you, I could imagine that that is a very competitive space. When you're talking about medical supplies, it's
Phil Leahy: got to be my advantage because are you really going to buy some medical stuff from Timu? Really? You're going to get advice from. No, that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. So that I'm lucky, look, very lucky to be in that space where we're not in clothing per se. You know, I'd hate to be in that one of those categories.
[Voiceover]: And from a medical perspective, because that's a really interesting point is that obviously we've got Australian standards and regulations that you're in prime position to be able to make sure your suppliers meet, that customers can feel safe with you. On the flip side of that, I can imagine that there are some aspects of E commerce where selling medical supplies is actually a pain in the ass. Have you come across any limitations from a medical perspective as a category?
Phil Leahy: No. Look, there's ndis which has sort of got some friction into it so you've got to go back and forth and things like that. That's annoying. I actually love the category because I love seeing stuff. I don't even know what, what it is. Your pictures of it go through the site.
[Voiceover]: I go, what the hell's that?
Phil Leahy: Oh, okay. Our job of course is product knowledge. You know, we have to know the product. But the stuff, the items or skus we sell the most of, we're right across what we're selling. We really do understand. But the ones and twos, the stuff where you have no idea what we're selling, it's fun. I love seeing it.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome.
[Voiceover]: I love it. So good. And I love that you found a focus even though it wasn't your idea or wasn't intended. But you're right in the middle of it now, loving it and leading the way. It's fantastic. I want to just flip back quickly to the event scene because you've made such a a big impact and have a huge legacy around the e commerce community and event scene and obviously international as well. But we've experienced it from an Australian perspective as people are planning what events and conferences they might be going to in 2025. I'd love your view. Now, how do people make the most of those multi day in person Conferences as an attendee. But then I'll also ask you if you're investing money into these conferences, whether it's 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 as a sponsor, how do you make the most of it as a vendor? So we might start as an intent. Attendee.
Phil Leahy: As an attendee. Okay, so if you want to get this verbatim, go to Jen Gill's website. I think she's got somewhere there, but she actually and all the, you know, I've been doing the conferencing for 18 years, had different MCs. I always love putting a retailer on the stage as the MC because why not? They actually know what they're talking about. And she, Jen would get on stage and say, give you a really good outline to your approach. Of course, before you go to event, you study the form guide, you see what content's on, what speakers, what resonates with you and what vendors are at the event. So you have that planned out. Jen basically says get there, create a space for yourself. And that you know, when you've, at the end of each day get your notes out and basically get your plan of action. And then after the event, take a day out of the office, do the out of office thing and basically consolidate what you've learned over that event and prioritize what you want to go after. And don't have a big list. Be focused on, you know, your top priorities, your goals, your pain points and go into the event with those in mind and don't get distracted by the shiny stuff. But doing one thing, you know, one thing 100% is better than doing lots of little, little things. And just post event, pick on a quick win, an idea to investigate and a person to contact and make sure you do those things. Don't let it slip.
[Voiceover]: That's a great tip. And Jen's amazing. She's fantastic MC and fantastic person in all things E commerce. The other thing that I've seen people, on that same note that I've seen people do really well who get the most out of these conferences is maybe write two or three problems that you are trying to solve in your business right now and bring them to the conference and be open and honest about them. Because whether it is vendors or whether it's people you run into to go, I'm here cause I'm trying to solve this problem.
Phil Leahy: You'll find the answer pretty quickly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly right.
[Voiceover]: And I also think on that is like as you get through your career, I often hear people who kind of get five years into E Comm. And they're like, oh, I've been there a few times and I don't think I've got anything more to get out of it. But it's not always about the content, right. It's like, I think when you're first getting into E commerce, you kind of just absorb all the content. You go to every talk, you go to every panel and you're just absorbing to get the language and understand who's who. But your own journey evolves that probably by the time you. You've been there a few times, you spend more time in the hallways catching up with people and reconnecting and keeping those relationships going than necessarily spending all your time in the conference rooms.
Phil Leahy: That's right. You know, the human connection is. Is everything. In fact, when I was, you know, first started going to conferences, probably some of the best stuff happened at the bar, you know, in terms of, you know, people sharing and then doing Paul
[Voiceover]: Greenberg deals
Phil Leahy: and then implementing straight after, you know. Yes, I love it in terms of vendors, what approach they should take, you know, the biggest thing, and I've walked the floor. I don't think any Australian has done the amount of visiting competitors, shows right across America, going to show after show after show. I can't believe how many vendors don't get their basic messaging right on their booths. You've got to let people know exactly what you do in a short sentence and have it clearly displayed or graphics or whatever on your booth as a starting point. But trick shots, you know, in terms of vendors and engagement, you know, great swag still works the trick. Shop like a coffee machine, you know, that, you know, you go to online retailer or wherever you go for the free coffee, you know, and that's where you get people in and then you can engage them there. But there's plenty of other engagement tools. Like I've seen the basketball thing and all sorts of different tricks. But my biggest tip for any vendor is to look at sponsoring the social networking sessions. I think that they can be great
[Voiceover]: way to get your name out there. People tend to look at you favorably when you're shouting them a beer or wine.
Phil Leahy: They do.
[Voiceover]: I love your point though, around having what you do in a single sentence, because I think it stands for booths but also websites. The amount of vendors that I speak to that go, hey, have a look at our website. Tell us what you think. I'm like, it's a lovely website, but there's a lot of buzzwords there. Just tell me what you do like and how you are different to your competitors. Like just spell it out for me. Because retailers aren't trying to solve the riddle of what you do, they just want to know how you're going to solve their problem.
Phil Leahy: Yeah, sometimes I think the content is for SEO, not for the user.
[Voiceover]: Yes, yes, exactly, Phil. Amazing. We've covered some great ground there and it's been pleasure to sit down with you and hear your story from Woe to Go. I feel we've had a lot of like interactions but never actually had the moment to sit down like this. So it's been great for me. Tell us about the next 12 months, especially with MedCart. What are you prioritizing? How are you shifting in market? What are your priorities going to be?
Phil Leahy: Look, next 12 months is just continue with quality seller onboarding and curating our range as well. Looking to expand. Great thing about medcar, it can fall into a lot of other categories, you know, so we can expand out in that like for, for example pet care. We do really well with some of the merchants we've got already on pet care. So we'd like to expand out those sort of ranges as well. Expand out our dental ranges. For us in the B2B side it's about multi cart choice. It's about having the most amount of SKUs possible. At the moment we've got 35,000. I think we should be closer to 40 by Christmas. I want to get to a hundred thousand but I want to do it in a, in a sustainable, smart fashion where we get the partners who are absolutely trustworthy, who are committed to customer service and are going to be a great fit for medcar. We have so many more opportunities in marketing. In terms of socials, we're not doing what we should be there. We have some complications around health with that but we'll fix that up. And I'm excited about that channel, but I've really just been focused getting our basics right. We've only been on this new platform a year, thank goodness because we were headed for a blue the ocean. If we hadn't changed. I mean we're going to be up 300 on last year and you go, oh, how amazing. Must be rolling in cash. No, we're breaking even.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil Leahy: You know, we're breaking even. But I'm excited by next year about being in black, you know.
[Voiceover]: But to pull yourself back from that moment is pretty incredible. Right.
Phil Leahy: I'm not going to be adding too much to the overhead. Not no shiny stuff. Keep it basic and just concentrate on profit.
[Voiceover]: Leverage the machine that You've built. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful, Phil. For an accidental business, it's not too bad, is it?
Phil Leahy: That's my life, mate. It's been one accident after another, let me tell you.
[Voiceover]: You know that's going to be your headline for this episode now.
Phil Leahy: One accident after another. There's no Gabby Lever, which, mate, there's no Paul Greenberg. There's no planning here. I'm just rolling into one thing after another.
[Voiceover]: Oh, Phil, I love it. I love it. So good. So if people have heard this and want to get in touch, want to check out Medcart. What's the best way for them to do that?
Phil Leahy: Check out medcart medcart.com or email phil medcart.com and happy to answer any questions or help or whatever you need.
[Voiceover]: Brilliant, Phil, Fantastic. Great to chat and thanks for joining on add to card.
Phil Leahy: Thanks a lot, mate.
Nathan Bush: There you go. What a chat with the legend that is Phil lay. Now, for someone who has been in the industry for so long and he knows the best of the best, the true godfathers of Australian e commerce. And I know that most of them would drop anything to help him whenever he needs it. I found Phil an incredibly humble and honest person with what he knows and where his strengths lie. I wasn't expecting from Phil that he is so almost tough on himself, especially when it comes to establishing medcart after everything that he has been through. It's a brilliant attribute in a leader to know exactly where your strengths lie and I think Phil showed that today. Here are my three main takeaways from that chat. Number one, customer service is everything. Phil's dedication to customer service really shines at MedCard. By hiring ex Telstra staff for his support team, he's built a system where every customer gets personalized real time help. That's become his differentiator. Phil's approach is all about creating customer connections and building trust and long term loyalty. Like he said, it's taken him five years to get this machine turning. And whether that's handling an 80 year old customer mailing in for a check on a $20 purchase or someone dropping $30,000 on a single order, it's a reminder that customer support can make or break your business. Number two, quality over quantity. When it comes to marketplace sellers. Phil shared how Medcart had to let go of underperforming sellers to improve the marketplace. He explained that the bottom 20% of sellers often cause 80% of customer service issues. It's a rule that applies in so much of business, that 8020 rule. But by curating sellers who align with Medcart's high standards, Phil is not only improving the shopping experience, but also reducing headaches behind the scenes. The marketplace game isn't necessarily the race to who has the most sellers, it's the race who can deliver the best curation of the best products for the customer that is visiting. Knowing when to cut ties with partners who don't add value is key to long term success. And number three, adaptability is key. No matter the industry, Phil's career is a testament to adaptability. Whether shifting from selling music CDs to launching a retail global conference to building MedCart, Phil always embraces change, even if sometimes it feels like it's been forced upon him. As he discussed with the idea for MedCart, his shift to BigCommerce as MedCart's platform after facing limitations with previous solutions and his recent move into pet care products shows that even after decades in the game, staying open to new categories and opportunities is vital for growth, both for business and personally. Now, if you enjoyed today's episode, please share it. Don't forget to leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. And of course, if you can support our amazing partners Shopify and Deliver in person who make this podcast possible. Before before you go, we'd love to invite you to join our free e commerce learning platform Add to Cart Campus, meet other professionals and learn from e commerce experts to take your business and your e commerce career to the next level. Register to join campus@addtocart.com au canvas. Now if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with a friend or a colleague. Or even better, leave us a review on Spotify or Apple. It really makes a difference.
