Nathan Bush: Hi guys. Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you a little bit more about our new venture E Suite. In the two and a half years I've been a consultant, I often get approached to solve a variety of problems. These could be marketing technology or user experience. Yet nine times out of ten, it's very clear that it's not a new platform, a campaign or a new data set that's required. It's actually structure and skills. If you get your team foundations right, your subsequent investments will return for you. At E Suite, we specialize in connecting E commerce talent with high growth retail businesses. Whether you're looking for a permanent team member or short term contractor, we specialise in finding the right E commerce talent
[Voiceover]: to meet your growth goals.
Nathan Bush: And if you aren't sure exactly what you're looking for or get stuck searching for that unicorn, we can work with you to confirm your team structure and prioritize your skill gaps. Visit esweettalent, that's esuitent.com to find out more. Thanks em. Now let's get into today's episode.
[Voiceover]: From the droughts to the bushfires to Covid, we are in many respects on the front line and we're still a lucky country for so many reasons. But Australians have suddenly become urgently aware of how we all need to be part of the change. And what we're seeing is that the more the brands are building this into the customer journey, the more it's actually increasing engagement and conversions, making that dollar a really powerful investment. We have normalized a world where we don't expect business to contribute to our humanity. We expect business to detract from it, to be focused on profit at any cost and that is simply no longer sustainable.
Nathan Bush: Welcome to Add to Cart, the podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of E commerce. Every month, Nathan Bush from 12 High and an E commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course keep your customers adding to Cartoon Foreign. Hello and welcome to ADD to cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at e Commerce Consultancy 12th High&E Commerce Talent Agency E suite. Welcome to 2021. It's great to be back with you. I hope you had an awesome break, spent some quality time with those around you and of course a bumper Christmas trade. I cashed in all my 2020 chips over the last three weeks and spent some time at home in Brisbane over Christmas. Then down in Byron Bay for New Year's and then up in Bogara, all ready to get into the New Year. But I'm not sure I'm ready to give up the beach lifestyle yet. But here we go. And hey, 2021 is going to be the year that 2020 promised it was going to be, right? Right, We've got a very special episode to kick off 2021. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Sunday Morning Days on my way to the local bakery when the phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but hey, I was up for a bit of a risk. And out popped Jeremy Meltzer from I Equal Change. I hadn't seen Jeremy for most of 2020 due to the travel restrictions, but what he told me in his update made me take notice. I was aware of the great work he and the team were doing. They raised over $2 million to help get women and girls out of poverty, abuse and slavery. But he also shared some of the uplifts his retailers like PE Nation, Pillow Talk and National Tiles were getting by incorporating social giving into their checkout. So I thought we'd get him on the show to share it with you guys as a great way to kick off 2021. In this episode, Jeremy shares the impact that ie change is making, how retailers can start giving and converting almost immediately, and why he thinks the secret to retail will be product as well as purpose. So let's get into it, thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Signet. Here's our episode with Jeremy Meltzer from I Equal Change. Jeremy Meltzer from I Equal Change. How are you, Nathan? I'm.
[Voiceover]: I'm well, thanks. Yeah. Really good to be here and looking forward to the conversation. And we were just discussing how we're all tired after this year and what are your.
Nathan Bush: Well, this. This episode's going to hit everyone in early January, so I'm hoping everyone's refreshed. But we're actually recording it in late December, so forgive us if we run out of puff. We've both got coffees or teas in front of us to keep us going. We're going to get through the end of this year, but I know you've had a massive year. Before we get into your story, if I was sitting next to you on an airplane and I'm meeting you for the first time, how would you introduce yourself and what I equals change does?
[Voiceover]: Well, I would generally ask enough questions of the person sitting next to me so I didn't have to talk about myself, but if I did, I thought
Nathan Bush: you Were about to say, I'll turn a movie on and put my headphones on.
[Voiceover]: That's my second. That'd be my second deflection technique. But no, I would say that we are a tech platform that makes it simple and powerful for retailers to give back. And we focus on funding best practice NGO projects. Our focus is women and girls empowerment, yet we have branched out to support climate change projects and a number of other issues that are affecting Australians and people around the world in this urgent time.
Nathan Bush: So, Jeremy, can you talk me through then around how iEqualChange works from a customer experience perspective?
[Voiceover]: Yes, it's very simple. The ICO change platform is integrated into each retailer's site and that then engages every customer post purchase. So it's a little platform that's fully branded to the retailer that appears on the thank you page, which becomes a last experience the customer has, which effectively surprises and delights the customer, saying, thank you for your purchase. We're giving back. Where would you like it to go? And the customer gets to choose to send. Most brands give a dollar and they get. The customer gets to send it to one of three projects based on the issue that they're passionate about. Then they can add to it if they want, with their own money, if they want to add a couple of dollars. And then there's a live giving page, which I can track the impact as the customer and see how much I've helped raise as a customer from shopping with that brand and the impact that it's having in real time. So it's ultimately a very simple user experience. And what's interesting, we can talk about it later, is how the brands then building that into the customer journey across that whole experience and the impact that it's having is very interesting.
Nathan Bush: So in terms of that customer experience, if they're at the checkout and they're donating that dollar before they choose to contribute more, is that dollar part of the cart that's already paid or is that an additional dollar on top of the cart?
[Voiceover]: It's already paid. It's built into the price. Yeah. So there's no additional cost to the consumer. It's like you bought your pair of shoes. We're getting back a dollar from every sale and you get to choose where it goes.
Nathan Bush: Great. I've heard it compared to the grilled model. Are you. Do you like that comparison or do you not like that comparison about putting the bottle caps in your charity bin?
[Voiceover]: No, I think it's great. I mean, if I had a dollar myself for every time Someone's told me that. I think it'd be wonderful.
Nathan Bush: Like, it's.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, we're kind of a tech version of that. And what's interesting, it's a good example because people remember that a lot more than they do the hamburger, right? You have the hamburger, you enjoy it, you move on in your life. Right. They tend to remember, oh, actually, my hamburger made a difference, and I got to choose. It was this cute experience. I got to choose where it goes. And I thought about it, and there was three local charities. And so it's interesting because it highlights the power of storytelling and how we want our purchase to make a difference. And that's what stays with us.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. And I think there's something, too, in giving customers the power to choose, because there's so much social giving out there where organizations are aligning to charity partners, and it just becomes part of the organization's story, which is often great, but sometimes the customers go, hey, do I get a say in this at all?
[Voiceover]: Well, it's interesting because that is one of the reasons that we built this. We saw that it could be done better. I mean, the foundation was the issues, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But when looking at this space, I saw. I mean, most brands still don't do anything, right? Those are brands that do something fantastic. But it's very often unclear where it's going, the impact it's having, or it's one shirt for one month, or it's 1% of profits, which no one knows what it means, or you got to go to the back end of the site, which no one goes to. And it's like you are losing a fantastic opportunity to actually authentically, transparently engage your customer with every purchase, because actually, that's what they care about. Consumers want to know. They want to be engaged in that journey now more than ever, to know that it's making a difference. And to your point, to be able to choose, kind of choose your own adventure and select where the impact will go. And that is a very powerful way to differentiate as a brand and a powerful story to tell.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. So I'd love to hear more about your journey. So I know this has been years in the making for you, a lot of hard work, but can you take us back to when you had the idea for I Equal Change, and what inspired you to go down this path?
[Voiceover]: Look, if we went back over 20 years now, it was really the foundation of the desire to want to make a difference. I think when I was a kid, we used to Go to Fiji and actually stay in the villages a lot. And I saw a lot of poverty. We would travel through Southeast Asia as a family. And I was always very, I guess, being a very sensitive little boy and still very sensitive, I was just always moved by the poverty that I saw. And then when I lived in Cuba, in Havana when I was 21, I lived there for four months, and I had a Cuban girlfriend, and I lived in the community. And I heard very quickly and very regularly stories of violence from her girlfriends, from the men who were their husbands, partners and boyfriends. And I think I was just as shocked to hear that they thought that's just what men do. They thought that's the most normal thing in the world. They even expected it from men. And I remember thinking, what the hell is going on here? Why do women in this part of the world think it's the most normal thing? And where we come from, of course, it's a huge issue, but it's a crime. And it's something that mostly happens behind closed doors. It's still a huge issue. And so I started, I felt, came back from Cuba. Well, then I lived in Miami for three years, and again, working with the Latin American community, just heard and saw so many stories. And everyone I heard of sort of somewhat heartbroken by it. It's like these women's lives are in some ways, you know, a woman doesn't forget, she carries it with her for her whole life, any form of violence. And I've seen the effects of it and heard the stories hundreds of times. And I just thought I felt powerless. And I thought, what difference could I possibly make, especially as a man? And how could I get out of my own way in terms of my bias? So every opportunity I had to travel from then, I met with NGOs who focused on the empowerment of women and girls. And I have sat with impact leaders now in probably 20 countries, like people who are devoting their lives to specific issues in specific communities. And they're really doing it extraordinarily well. It's very complex work. And I just sat and I listened and I took notes and I asked questions. And of course, they all needed more money to do their work. And a small amount of money, especially in the developing world, can go a long way. I mean, it can build schools, it can lift up communities by getting girls into schools. It can work to end violence, it can build shelters, it can fast track, it can stop girls getting married off, it can stop female genital mutilation, it can feed people. I mean, the Things that we take for granted. A small amount of money can have an incredible impact. And so that was the genesis of the why. And, and then the kind of entrepreneurial spirit kicked in. Thought, well, how do we use the power of business, how do we use the power more specifically of retail to turn that into quote, unquote, force for good, to appeal to consumers? I sort of instinctively felt consumers must want to buy from brands and get back. Like that must be a good thing, right? Like that can't be a bad thing in any way. So how do we. But how do we make it simple for the retailers? Like it hasn't been part of a toolkit of retail. Retail has been about maximizing profit, which has been the modus operandi of business. There's nothing wrong with that. But yet everything's changing now. Everything is changing and it's been driven by consumers and driven by a sense of deep urgency around this pivotal time in history. And so we're really at a very interesting moment for this whole movement of purposeful business and purposeful retail and very proud to be playing our small part.
Nathan Bush: And were you in retail when you had the genesis of the idea or was retail new to you?
[Voiceover]: Well, dad and I started a little olive oil business about 15 years ago and we were selling into the states and so we had a small online store. Never sold much, but it was an opportunity to test this idea. So that was really my only experience in retail, like selling some of the family's olive oil. And I thought, cool, let's give it a go. Let's see how customers respond. So we put up a very clunky, cartoonish looking. I mean, looking back, that minimum viable product was almost slightly embarrassing.
Nathan Bush: You're probably ahead of the curve back then.
[Voiceover]: Ahead of the curve. But it didn't look like it was, let me tell you. We had like six projects and it was messy, but it kind of worked. I mean, we had, I remember even when we put up that first platform, we had about a 15% increase in customers buying and a lot of people commenting about us and just saying, wow, this is so cool. You're giving back. We thought you'd ask us to make a donation, you're giving back, and we simply get to choose where it goes. That's fantastic. Love it. I'm going to buy more of your Olihore. So I thought, oh, that's interesting. That's kind of somewhat a little customer validation. So then the idea was, well, could we build this into a third party solution that any retailer could potentially use Zero tech experience, didn't even know where to begin. But that was the idea and that was kind of the data that we had about eight years ago now. And I guess we've remained very stubborn ever since.
Nathan Bush: Did you know that Lush Cosmetics have committed to being naked 50% of the time? That means free from packaging, you sickos. But when packaging is used, it needs to meet stringent environmental guidelines, including being 100% recyclable. So that's when Lush joined forces with our partner Signet to provide an eco friendly outer packaging solution which helps get their products in the hands of retailers in perfect condition while making a minimal environmental impact. To see the packaging, packaging solutions that lush cosmetics used, plus five and a half thousand other solutions, visit signet.net au and up your E commerce packaging game today. We're going to get onto the tech side of it a little bit. But just going back to what you noticed in Fiji and Cuba and your experiences and some of the stories that you heard. Was it, I don't know what the right word for it is, but was it almost intimidating being the person going in and going, hey, I want to do something. But at the same time, I'm a white male. I know that, you know, a lot of the, the hurt that's been caused is by white males or males in general. Was it hard coming from that perspective in and people getting to trust you straight away?
[Voiceover]: It's a really good question and it speaks to how we choose our charity projects and why. And the NGO partners that we have set up. I was always really cautious about that because who am I? I mean, I'm not Fijian or Indian or Cuban or. And what do I know about the culture? You know, we all see these things through our own lenses, our own bias, our own privilege. And of course that's reflected in how they see us or how they saw me in that case. So. So I would always try to tread very carefully. And that's why we partner with local NGOs who have been working in that community for years. And the methodology around the partners that we fund is we're very careful about that. And it's local NGOs run by locals who are from that community, who are sourcing from the community, employing local staff, buying from the community. So it's not us coming in and saying, oh look, you need a school or you need school books, we're going to buy you school books and ship them somewhere. And it destroys the local stationery market, for example. So best practice development looks at those issues. Very sensitively understands the hits and misses of the whole age sector, quote, unquote, and tries to do it a lot better, sensitively working over the long term with communities. So Most of our NGOs have been with communities for at least a dozen years. I was in Bangladesh this January in a remote area where they're working with the local imams and the local men in the community to say, there is no need, it's not written in the Quran. And there's no cultural or societal benefit for you to marry off your girls because girls are getting married at 13, 14, 15 or younger. And by working with a man. It's an interesting example to show how you can change the outcome in the communities relatively quickly within a few years by showing the men who, especially in these largely patriarchal communities, working with them and definitely not me saying anything. You know, when I went there, I was just a very quiet observer. I tried to blend into the shadows. We took pictures, we gathered stories. Yet we try to move very humbly through their environment and just listen, because what do I know? And the guy who ran the team there with the Hunka Project is extraordinary. I mean, he's obviously Bangladeshi. They've been working in that community for 30 years. They all know him and respect him and gather around when he talks because he knows the local politicians and all the politics and the dramas. And like, no better person than him to quietly see to this idea of societal change to lift up the whole community. And that is a really, I think, good example of what really good development looks like. So we sit back and we're like, cool, we want to help fund you. We want to help you accelerate the outcomes of your work. But who are we and who am I and who asked to go in and tell you what you need? It's us sitting quietly, sitting humbly and saying, if we were able to provide you with more funds, what impact could this have on the community? What would you do with it? You tell us. It's not for us to say you need a school, because we think it's sexy to have a school and to be able to show a school, no, what do you need? And whatever you need, we will support you, because no one knows better than you.
Nathan Bush: That's a really nice, nice approach and obviously been doing it for a long time. And it's one of the things that I've learned recently about speaking to some communities that we're looking to support is that they're genuinely surprised when you say we don't actually need anything from you, or we don't want to change what you're currently doing. We just want to support what you're already doing. You tell us what you need, we don't need anything return, we don't need, we don't need anything out of you or we don't want you to tell you how to use the money. There seems to be a genuine surprise and lack of trust around corporate involvement at those early stages.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, and there's also a, how do I say it? There is a, a double sided coin because people give to NGOs and they have this idea around overhead as if to say, I want all of my money to go to impact. Well, these are organizations that have salaries and electricity bills like any other business and how they're meant to do their work if they can't pay their staff, how they're meant to do their work if they can't report on it, which means improving on their work, even delivering, going out to visit the community and to do their work. They need cars and everything that an organization has. And so we don't make assessments of our organizations based on quote, unquote, overhead. We make it based on impact because the more impact they can have, that's exactly the outcome we want to create. And so it's about the other measures that I just mentioned, not how much do they take out of the dollar to pay for their staff to do their work because they need to be fed just like anyone else. And so I think there's a different rule book that's been applied to the not for profit sector that's held it back, that's prevented this whole sector from quote, unquote, marketing itself from promoting the work that they're doing because it's seen negatively when, if they market and promote and therefore earn more funds and therefore can create more impact, isn't that what we're there for in the first place? You know, So I just think we need to challenge ourselves around this idea of overhead and be having a slightly more sophisticated application of a lens and thought process to look more around impact rather than assessing it in any other way.
Nathan Bush: It's a really good point. It's funny if we look at it from a retail perspective, because often the retailers that we idolize or put up in lights are the ones that have the best TV campaigns or the most outrageous, you know, product launches or the greatest tech enhancements. They're overheads. They're not necessarily driving profit. We don't really celebrate the hugely profitable retailers, but we hold our NGOs to such high standards and Expect them to follow that.
[Voiceover]: It's a completely different rulebook, you know, as if.
Nathan Bush: That's right.
[Voiceover]: You know, no one questions a retailer around their expenditure because it's a private company, you're allowed to do whatever you want, and suddenly they're super sexy and cool because of everything they do. But what about. No one applies that to NGOs, so it's really, you know, again, we're all laboring under these ideas that aren't our own, and it's time to challenge them. And in doing so, we can be far more effective with the money that we create and we give to impact.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. So can we go into that a little bit around the impact that you've already made with I Equal Change? What. What can you tell us around the impact, whether that be monetary or even just some of the stories that you've heard around how you've made a difference?
[Voiceover]: Well, I'm just on the site now, and our whole philosophy is 100% transparency. So as sales occur, a dollar is raised, and that appears in the live feed. So I'm on it now. And hopefully by January, after Christmas, sales especially will be a lot higher. But we had a fantastic. It was wonderful to see over Black Friday, et cetera. It was just spinning this thing a dollar at a time. But we're at $2.712 million, 849 and counting every few seconds now, which is super exciting. And we know that's impacted the lives of over 737,000 people in Australia and 13 other countries. We're working. So those funds are keeping girls in school in Rwanda. We are protecting vulnerable people from COVID in some of the most difficult countries in the world. Now we're clothing vulnerable Australians in this time we thread together. We just partnered with the Australian Numeracy and Literacy Foundation. We're working with indigenous communities to improve literacy rates, which is super high, meaning amount of people who are illiterate in some of these remote communities. We are feeding Aussies in crisis. We are supporting a wonderful women's community shelters up in New South Wales. Women who need emergency shelter, who have often fleeing domestic violence. There's a fantastic project we have, just to name a few. Dr. Barry is up in Papua New Guinea. He's an Aussie who was a carpenter and he went up to PNG and saw super high rates of women dying during childbirth. And he thought, this is incredible. One hour flight from Darwin. It has one of the highest rates of infant and maternal death in the world. He came back to Brisbane, retrained as an obstetrician. Ten years later, flew back to Papua New Guinea. He's been living there ever since. And he flies around on his little seaplane out to remote communities to make sure women survive childbirth. I mean, just bloody extraordinary. Did you say he was a cop
Nathan Bush: carpenter before becoming an obstetrician?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, yeah. Dr. Barry.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: Like, we love, like finding and supporting because this is the money goes so far with these small organizations and increasingly we're gathering stories of change is what we call. And actually next year we're building a whole content engine into the site for the brands to be able to download these stories very simply and build them into their comms. And what we're seeing is that the more the brands are building this into the customer journey, the more it's actually increasing engagement and conversions, making that dollar a really powerful investment. So it's really cool to see how much the brands are getting the benefit from this and building it into their storytelling.
Nathan Bush: So for people who can't see it on the website, there's a fantastic ticker. You can see the retailers and the charities that's been matched and how much has been given. So I'm just going to describe a little bit about what Jeremy's talked there is that you can see that there's 2. $2.7 million that's been donated so far. And as we're talking, this ticker is. Is going over. So we've got retailers like By Charlotte donated to Protect a Woman, chosen by Charlotte. We've got Kaveri donated to Protect a Woman. We've got Camilla, we've got PE Nation donated to Restore the Reef. It. There's pillow talk under that. There's just a who's who of retailers coming through here. So Jeremy, can you tell me, talk me through around some of that uplift or how do you sell this story into retailers? Because I know there's the feel good factor, but what you touched on then is that there is a proven uplift that you've seen in terms of conversion from retailers taking this on.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, it's really interesting because the approach to retailers has moved to one very much of both head and heart. So when we speak to them, we try to in as few words as possible because everyone's super. You know, you got a little email elevator pitch is like, okay, cool, here's an opportunity to give back, to meaningfully differentiate, to build that into the customer experience and we make it simple and here's the impact it can have on your brand and we have some really Exciting. We've been working really hard over a few years now to get that data because instinctively we knew that or we believed at least that if brands can measure, can a b test, let's say their normal product and promotion messages compared to their giving messages, it would be really interesting to see what converts higher now. You would expect that the product and promotion messages would always convert higher. It's actually shown to not be the case anymore. We have data now showing that, I mean, for example, cfolly recently split test their paid advertising to literally test that very result. And what they saw was the ad set that was around product which is their normal messaging versus the ad set around their giving. The giving messages drove 100% increase in conversions. They were blown away by that. It also drove 100% return on ad spend in roas. And overall that one campaign that they ran paid for their donations 2.7 times over. It was 170% ROI. Because we looked at the new revenue that the ad set on their giving drove and it paid for all of the month of giving 2.7 times over. Now that is a, I think in anyone's book a very good return we're seeing and that's been proven a few times over now with both Stralis and Sudarshi are also seeing close to 100% increase in conversions. We've seen National Tiles recently ran a test and they saw that they added giving messages to their Instagram bio and Suddenly it drove 100% increase of customers moving from the Instagram bio onto their site when they put versus when they didn't have the messaging that they give back from every sale. And we checked and we said, you sure? They're like, yeah, we haven't done anything else to the Instagram bio. We've just added that we give back from every sale and we had 100% uplift in people moving from the bio onto the website. So really interesting, really powerful. And just to share one more, we've had brands showing, we've learned a lot from brand. It's been very interesting. Like we've had brands show up to a 35, 40% increase in customers signing up to subscribe. Once they see on that pop up, you know, the pop up that asks consumers to subscribe, that they give back, they add that messaging. It's not just about, you know, 10% off on your first order. And we give back and we're committed to x up to a 40% increase in customers signing up. That alone is obviously really valuable in
Nathan Bush: terms of that messaging. What do you find works best? And let's talk broader than I equals change in terms of what you see, do you see that you have to be specific around the causes that you support, or is it purely that we're giving back and that there's more information elsewhere? What works best?
[Voiceover]: It's interesting. I mean, we don't need to play that. I mean, people often mention I could change. But the real driver of customer engagement is the fact that is the emotional message that they're getting back. What brands are doing is also starting to feature and run campaigns around what were traditionally just charity calendar days, like International Women's Day, International Day of the Girl, Earth Day, PE Nation did a big campaign last year and they're seeing that increase open rates significantly and drive conversions. So what's been really interesting, like by Charlotte, who you mentioned earlier, they ran a campaign for International Day of the Girl. They doubled their donation. So that was a campaign doubling down for change. Instead of getting $1, they gave $2. Now that's a lot less expensive than giving 20% off. So no discount. That EDM drove a 33% increase in conversions versus product and promotion only messages and campaigns, again, they were blown away. They're like, how did this happen that we're not offering a discount yet? It's showing a much higher rate of conversion increase compared to our normal campaigns. It just shows how much customers want to shop their values, they care. They want to know what the brand is doing, they want to feel good about their purchase. You know, there's always a little bit of subconscious or even conscious guilt when we buy from retailers because, you know, most of what we buy outside of the supermarkets, we don't need it to survive, do we? So it's like you want to feel good about it, right? You want to feel. And there's something innate to human nature where we want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. And shopping is an innately selfish experience. There's no judgment around that. But just in terms of the psychology, we're buying something for ourselves, right? Unless we're buying a gift, which is of course a lovely thing, but even
Nathan Bush: then, then
[Voiceover]: we want to buy into something bigger than the story of the purchase and product. And so what we're learning is that the power, this sort of ameliorates any potential guilt. It's like, oh, cool, I can buy something that I want. And I'm also contributing to something bigger than myself. I'm contributing to these urgent issues which now, I mean, after this year, Australia has become thrust, you Know, from the droughts to the bushfires to Covid, I mean, we are in many respects on the front line and we're still a lucky country for so many reasons. But Australians have suddenly become urgently aware of how we all need to be part of the change. And I think retailers have been caught on the back foot, you know, from Black Lives Matter. They were scrambling to say, look, we want to get back to indigenous communities, which is all fantastic, but it's very reactive. And the brands that are really standing out now, coming to us saying, we want to give back, we want to build this into who we are, it's super affordable, it's becoming part of their marketing because they're spending that dollar elsewhere. And if you can spend it and give back and tell a bigger story and see the kind of uplifts that some of our brands already seen, like this really, it really is a win, win and contribute to some of these urgent issues that are affecting all of us now. And so it's a very powerful time for brands to, to engage in this journey.
Nathan Bush: I agree. And I love the way that I call change does it. Because what you said there around guilt like that, shopping guilt, I think is a really real thing. But a lot of the giving programs, you get through the checkout, especially the online ones, and then it says, hey, do you Want to, for $5 make your carbon offset or do you want to round up to the nearest dollar? And it's almost like it adds to the guilt at the end, because I don't know what the numbers are. 90% will say no, and then they'll feel guilty about that at the end of a purchase they might have already felt a guilty about, whereas yours is almost. It's almost like a bonus item at the end of. It's like you're saying, I've got money to donate on behalf of this retailer and I don't actually have to give anything. But I still get that little hit, that little rush that says, you've done a good thing.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, totally. Everyone feels guilty. Now I'm being asked to donate. And I've always thought that was mildly insulting. It's like, hold on, you know, as a customer, the brand's made money from you, surely they should be giving back. So our focus has been, no. The brand builds this into their DNA. They draw a line in the sand and say, we are now committed to being a force for good. We are committed to helping solve some of the most urgent issues of our time. We're going to build that into the brand. We're going to engage our customers with every sale. It's a powerful message to say we give back from every sale and our focus as an organization is to run that program, run the tech, make it as simple as possible for the retailer. They don't have to touch any of the admin. We've got all the plugins for all the different e commerce platforms set up and ready to go and provide that storytelling components. They can build that into their acquisition campaigns, into the funnel, into their post purchase comms. We see a world very soon and when I say soon, I say within the next six months where product and purpose will become the, the new normal. And you can already see it happen and products simply won't be enough anymore. Consumers shopping their values. I mean we have stats that we saw recently from retail bids showing that 8 out of 10 Australians now want to purchase some purposeful brands. Yet I would say 2 out of 10 brands are doing it, are offering that experience. And so there's an enormous opportunity for brands to go on this journey. And it doesn't have to be. I could change. I mean whatever you do, just do it authentically. And my advice would be don't do it as a once off initiative. Build it into the brand and say this is who we are. Because as business owners and all staff care about something, right? It's almost like we have normalized a world where we don't expect business to contribute to our humanity. We expect business to detract from it, to be focused on profit at any cost and that is simply no longer sustainable. I mean, Paul Polman, the CEO or the ex CEO of Unilever, said, you know, sustainability is not about doing the right thing. It's an essential component of growth. You can't expect to have a flourishing business in a community that doesn't, in an environment that doesn't. Unless the environment and the community which is our customers is healthy. When none of us are going to have a business. And so this is not just responsibility for the sake of it, this is actually good business. It's clever business, it's ethical business, it's smart business. And anything else is actually becoming dumb business. It's sort of a race to the bottom and it belongs in the last century. And so our thinking now has to catch up somewhat. But Covid has accelerated this enormously. I mean we've seen a 3x increase in brands reaching out to us, saying look, we, we have to do something. We've seen other brands doing it. Tell us about it. How do we get on board or just let's start a conversation. It's just been really humbling to see that. And of course, you know, retailers often don't know where to start. And I understand, I mean, it's not their skill set. There's no reason why it should be. So whatever a brand does, I just say, look, do it authentically. Let it reflect your values and build into the brand so it's ongoing.
Nathan Bush: If you're coming back from your Christmas holidays and need to give your brain a jump start, Shopify's the Future of E Commerce report will get you going. They've interviewed industry leaders, investors and e commerce experts to give you the five trends that will shape e commerce in 2021 and beyond. And while 2020 was a free kick for many in e commerce, the game is going to get tougher. With increased cost, competition, fulfillment pressures and higher acquisition costs being the upcoming tests. This report goes into detail on what to expect so you can plan for it. Sadly, the future still doesn't hold hoverboards. To read the report, visit shopify.com enterprise the future of Ecommerce, or just Google Shopify Future of E Commerce Report. What's the number one pushback that you get from retailers when you give them the I Equal change solution? What's the most common pushback that you get for a reason for not doing it?
[Voiceover]: Honestly, we almost never hear, no, it's more like, oh, this is great, but we're re platforming. Platforming.
Nathan Bush: I may have used that one once or twice.
[Voiceover]: And of course that never goes to schedule. You know, it's always six months late. So we're like, no worries, we're here. We've been here for a few years now and we're not going anywhere. So get back to us when you've moved on to Shopify plus or whatever it is, or Big Commerce or, you
Nathan Bush: know, tell us about that. You mentioned before that you're integrated with all those platforms. So assume that I'm for. For lack of a better example because they're our brilliant sponsors, Shopify. Assume I'm running a Shopify store and I go, jeremy, this all sounds fantastic, Stick, let's get going. How do I actually install equal change on my website?
[Voiceover]: Well, kudos to Shopify. They're actually our simplest integration, which we can do it for the brand in about six minutes or the brand can do it for themselves in about eight minutes. But once they're ready to go live, the process is very simple. They say, cool, let's do it. We're like, great, Here's a partnership agreement. We've got a once off integration fee of 290 bucks which just we manually, we get all the approvals from the ngo. It's not an automatic process. They actually have to approve that the brand. So we do that to protect the ngo so they can look at the retailer and say, yes, we're happy to receive funds from them. We customize the platform on the live giving page and then in the case of Shopify, they just download the app by installing a link they put in. There's some additional script, one little piece of code which they add to the script section in the Shopify admin portal, press save and they're live.
Nathan Bush: Great. And do you have your own iEqualChange dashboard or is it then all integrated into Shopify or the platform of choice? Yeah.
[Voiceover]: So there is a dashboard where they can go in and filter for any date range and see the impact that they're making. So we work closely with the NGOs around specific dollar handles. So $1 for example, feeds two Australians in need providing those two meals. So they can then go in and filter and see how many people they've helped feed with the funds that they've raised. And we've got a big build coming up on that dashboard. So they'll be able to also download those stories, those beautiful images and powerful stories that are talking about the people that they're impacting and to be able to build that into their comms and also download invoices and just kind of a one stop shop. So we, we're excited to launch that also next year.
Nathan Bush: That's very cool. And we won't go into it now, but you've given our listeners a very special deal where we've got the first 10 brands that reach out and sign waiving that integration fee and being able to get them up and running really quickly and really easily. So sign up to the emails to be able to access that. Now I'm really interested in a little bit more about yourself and your social enterprise journey and I'd love, love us to close out with a little bit more about your experience in running a social enterprise in Australia. What's been the most challenging or frustrating part that you've come across in your years getting I equal change to the volume that it is right now?
[Voiceover]: It's a really good question. There's been lots and lots of frustrations. I think it's a new business model and people have just struggled to get their head around it, which I totally understand. You know, it's not a not for profit, it's not a for profit business. What is it? It's a business that exists for impact and having people say, okay, well I don't really know what that means, you know, almost being suspicious at times and then I'm happy to explain it a thousand times and I still seem to. But it is helping people understand that business can actually unlock an enormous amount of good. It is Larry Fink, who's a CEO of BlackRock, which is the largest fund in the world, many billions of dollars under management. So he writes what's kind of a pivotal letter to shareholders each year. He explained it better than any of us can by saying business now must become for profit. Business must become focused on impact and indeed poses a great risk if we don't. And he was, he was explaining it through the lens of delivering returns to shareholders, which exists equally for retailers who are delivering profits and returns to shareholders for those larger public listed brands. But this is all at risk unless businesses become effectively a hybrid. And it's not a great shift. It's just about okay. And nor is it actually about taking away from profit. If anything, it's about doing better as a result. But we're seeing this change. You know, I mean, I noticed, mate, you're wearing a Patagonia T shirt there, which I was going to say is probably my favorite brand because these guys have been doing it for over 30 years. I actually met the co founder of Patagonia, he was in Melbourne about two years ago and I quietly said to him, can you tell me, like, I'm just curious how all the good that you do as a brand and just top level, really quickly they give back to environmental charities, they'll repair your jacket for free. They'll even replace it. They've got fantastic staffing in terms of the way they take care of their people. And he said, well, let me tell you something. He said, we attribute 38% of our revenue to the good work we do as a business, to our community giving to our repairing of jackets for free, which you'd expect is a cost, but actually generates such good will. They attribute 38% of their revenue now on an $800 million business. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money that still businesses consider a cost and nice to have. This is becoming a must have. And so that is the urgent and powerful inflection point in history. I just want to make one final point. Child labor and slavery used to be considered normal. It used to be built into the supply chain and it was justified economically and it made sense from a purely economic standpoint that since become a thing of the past, our economic model has shifted to make up for the fact that we can no longer exploit children and we can no longer have slaves. Similarly, we're seeing an inflection point now accelerated by Covid that business for profit alone. You look back on this in two, three, five years from now and think what were we thinking? You know, it's like plant based burgers in the industrial slaughter of animals will probably become a thing of the past in the future. And we'll look back and think, well, we'll look back in the future and think what were we thinking? Right? What were we doing? We're also going to look back and think what were we thinking? That profit alone, which is just an idea, just a system that we've created, that we've normalized was enough because it's no longer sustainable. The extraordinary levels of inequality and the impact it's having on the environment that of course sustains all of us. It's no longer. And of course we're seeing the impacts of it now in our lifetime, in our generation. And so we've got to move quickly on this. We don't have a lot of time and that's not sort of hubris anymore. And I think it's really exciting for the retailers. You know, it's a fantastic group of people who are passionate about what they do and we all love getting together and we have great parties and we support each other and it's really been wonderful to be part of the community and it's just so great to see how they're opening up this, you know, like Julie Mathers of Flora and Fauna and just these people who were, you know, were outliers and now their whole business model is becoming more and more accepted as okay, cool. This is what we need to move towards. Right. Because our customers are demanding it. Now I could change fits into that as a way to accelerate and make it simple for the brands. But again it's just do something that is really authentic to who you are, that reflects your. Why? Because that's going to be authentic across your comms and that's going to consumers and your customers will respond to it because it is heartfelt and it is true. And so I think we're set up now as we end this year and as well as 2021 begins. You know, I was in a market in Cambodia And I said 2020 will be the year of purpose. Of course I have no idea what was coming with COVID God, they're wrong. It's been more than a year of purpose, but 2021, I think, is going to galvanize this movement in a really powerful way. And so, you know, we're very humbled and excited to be. To be playing our part.
Nathan Bush: And you talked about purpose there. And one of the things that I really admire about you is that you're on a mission. You've got a mission. You're very clear around the mission and the purpose behind what you've done. You've got a great TED Talk out there, and I've heard you tell this story at least 10 times. I think over the times that I've seen you on stage. No, not at all. But each time it's engaging. How do you stay passionate around telling the same story? Because for you being in the middle of it, you live it every day. Right. But you seem to be able to tell a story. And I think this is good for all business owners who have that mission, whether it's the same mission or a different mission, to stay passionate about the story that they're telling, even though they've told it so many times, and to assume that the person that's hearing it is hearing it for the first time and to stay that fresh. How do you do that?
[Voiceover]: If it's okay, I might answer that in a slightly different way. I've had what I would call the honor to sit with some of the most extraordinary impact leaders of our time. This is like the Mother Teresas who are alive today and who have committed, who are, like, working one inch wide and five miles deep on a particular issue. And forget rock stars and movie stars and celebrity. I mean, I think this is becoming redundant to me. The real heroes of our times are these people. And to answer your question, these people are often the most passionate, joyful, happy people I've met. They are so deeply committed and moved by what they do because their story is about something so much bigger than them that they feel that they have no choice but to do it, that they are doing what they were born to do. And so at a more personal level, I mean, I've been very privileged. You know, I come from a beautiful family and, you know, went to private schools and all those lovely things and grew up, you know, even just being white and male in Australia, I mean, what privilege do we have? I just feel that whatever skills and talents I may have, this is the best use of them, as hard as it is. And we're a tiny team. We're scrambling. We're working almost seven days a week. But I still feel very humbled and honored to be able to do this. And I guess that makes me get excited when I get to tell them a story for the 50th time because it's. It feels important and it's an exciting time for this. And, you know, it's wonderful to see the retailers get so excited as well once they start giving back. You know, they. They unlock so much creativity. You know, they start talking about their impact and the people's lives they're changing and their staff get excited. I mean, we were working with Pandora Jewelry, right, for a few years until their head office said they had to mandate a global giving through unicef, which they couldn't work with us anymore for that reason. But for those few years, they said to us, do you know when people come to work for us, do you know what they say? They say, I want to work for you because I've seen that you get back from every sale. That was the first thing that they said. And we said, well, how many times have you heard that? And they're like, no, like 90% of people coming to us now like to work in our stores are saying, we saw that you give back online from every sale, and that's why we want to work for you. So there's a whole piece there around unlocking the passion of staff, right, who are now working for a business that is bigger than product alone. And there's a lot of studies on this showing that you unlock what they call that the discretionary output, which you can't buy with a salary when your team knows that you exist for something bigger than price and profit. And that, of course, has also a significant value and impact on the bottom line, which again, makes that dollar from every sale a really important part of the brand.
Nathan Bush: Yep, absolutely. Jeremy, you're doing incredible things. You and the team at I Equal Change are doing incredible things and you're bringing so many people along on the journey with you. So huge congratulations. If people, retailers especially, want to get in touch with you or the team to understand how they can get started, what's the best way to contact you?
[Voiceover]: Look the best ways through the site just iacorchange.com click on the join the movement button and there's just a few fields to fill in with some brand details. We'll send you some information. I'm jeremyichange.com if anyone wants to reach out directly. But yeah, it's a pretty simple process and we know how busy everyone is so we've designed it to make it, make it painless.
Nathan Bush: Love your work and as an aside, I must say you are a tireless worker. I still remember getting the phone call from you. It would have been a. About 8:30 in the morning on a Sunday morning. I was on the way to the bakery. That was a number I didn't recognize.
[Voiceover]: I thought if I'm going to catch Nathan unexpectedly, let's catch him on a Sunday morning when you would never expect. Let's be a bit cheeky.
Nathan Bush: It was great. So we. Well done on all the hard work. It's, it's obviously there's a lot going into it to make such a big impact and big things to come. So thank you for joining us today on Add to Cart. I can't wait to see where the next 12 months take you.
[Voiceover]: Thanks, mate. And look, just to share some. Well, there's two things I want to share. One is thank you for having us and it's been fantastic to see your journey. We've sort of bumped into each other at a number of different trade shows and you're obviously going gangbusters with the consulting and a lot of people I speak to, there's an enormous amount of respect for you and your work and people often say I'll speak to Nathan, put that brand in touch with Nathan. And so I hope to be able to do more of that in the future. So it's really great to be here. And also I can share because my understanding is this will be out in January where we expect that by January, if not earlier, there will be on the afterpay website a new category where you can find and shop brands that give back. And we're talking to afterpay about running some really exciting campaigns next year around featuring the afterpay. I could change retailers, how they're giving back and helping them accelerate that change. So with the, with friends like Afterpay, we hope to be really putting a stake in the ground next year and making an exciting and powerful difference.
Nathan Bush: What a partnership. And I think it goes, it just cements your point and I think the central theme of all this is that giving and purpose is just going to be part of how we do retail business moving forward. It's just going to be part and parcel of it all in built and that's another great example of how it's just becoming the new normal. So well done on the partnership.
[Voiceover]: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, no, they're a fantastic team and obviously very much forward thinking and progressive in that respect and realize how important it is and how customers are wanting to shop those brands, and brands are wanting to do it. And so obviously they wanted to play a meaningful part in that, in that journey.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome.
[Voiceover]: Very good.
Nathan Bush: Well, thank you very much Jeremy and we will speak to you soon.
[Voiceover]: Thank you again mate.
Nathan Bush: Jeremy's just a bloody inspirational guy and I really enjoyed my chat with him. And one thing that I do love is bringing you stories of organizations and retailers that are just doing good in the world. Kind of snaps us out of our day to day operational world and makes us think bigger about the impact that we can have as retailers. But what I especially loved about today's chat that it wasn't just inspirational, it was practical too. Some of the stats that Jeremy spoke to around the conversion uplift were incredible and it's well worth an A B test from a commercial perspective alone. And of course, if you can give your marketing dollars to organizations who help empower women or save the environment, I think that's a much better use of marketing funds than topping up the fate Facebook or Google coffers, right? We also have a special offer for our add to cart email subscribers where the first 10 people to implement I Equal Change will get the onboarding for free. Well worth a look and what an amazing way that would be to kick off 2021. If you're looking for more e commerce news, case studies and research, sign up to 12High's High5 newsletter. Every week I read all the e commerce news and send you five things which I've found which will help grow your business. 12 high.com au high 5h I g h 5 to sign up for free. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
