How to Make Giving a Commercial Lever

Sarah Sheridan: Foreign.

Nathan Bush: There's a link in E commerce that mostly goes unsaid and it's a slightly awkward one. It's the connection between giving and commercial benefit. When a brand partners with a charity, they're almost always doing it for the right reason, because they want to do some good. But to get it off the ground and to keep it alive, especially when the budget's tighten, they usually have to rationalize it in commercial terms. And that's the part that often feels a bit icky to say out loud that generosity also carries a commercial upside. It does though. And being honest about this is often the very thing that, that lets the good happen at all. I reckon a lot of charities miss out right here because they don't like playing in this commercial space. It feels a bit grubby to them. The thing worth chasing though is a win, win, win. A win for the retailer, a win for the charity and a win for the community in need. Get all three wins right and it's hugely powerful. Miss one. And these programs often fall over. I've known Rowan McCloskey for a long time, since he was first bringing this idea to life. Rowan founded Go Generosity, which is a pay it forward platform that turns small customer donations at the checkout into full value gift cards for people in need. He's since sold the business. But the thing that always stuck with me about what Rowan built from day one, the front of his mind wasn't just how do I amplify giving or doing good, it was how do I also amplify the return for the retailer while doing good without ever asking the retailer to give something away themselves. That balance is the bit that most people and most charities never crack. I recorded this one with the brilliant Rosa Willis, so you'll hear her in here too. Let's hear it directly from Rohan.

Nick Pierce: So commercially, like the 101, the model of go generosity where just think of the donations that are turned into gift cards, it's a no brainer for business, right? So 100%, let's just say $5,000 comes through in the form of donations in any particular month. 100% of that is turned into a full value gift card which is sent to the charity. Charity redeems at full retail value. So we've just now we don't try and say that hey, we're going to increase your revenue by 50% or 60%. Like we're really clear that we're a business that is focusing on social impact, but what we're not doing, and this is very different to social impact is we're not taking away from your margin. We're not touch, affecting or hurting your bottom line. If anything, we're helping increase it because of just simply, hey, we brought an extra 5. Like everything we do is completely measurable for the merchant. And, and they're seeing the generosity that comes in. The other thing that's like really important and probably even just started with this first, but the consumers being generous. So some questions we have been asked is well, do I have to match the donation dollar for dollar if the consumer is giving? This is. It doesn't look like we're just passing the buck, you know, like what is it that we have to do? I think one thing that's really important is go generosity. Although we're selling a product to the business, we're selling the product to the business because we see the traffic of the consumer orders and because we know people are going to be generous. There is so many statistics out there now to show that consumers are more likely to shop with a brand that has like a four impact purpose, like all of these things around, environmental things like that. But we know the consumers that. We've actually got data that even showed now that consumers will be like 15% of consumers will donate every single time they shop online. And there's no friction, there's no fatigue, there's none of that. But one thing that's really important is go generosity is about giving the consumer the opportunity to be generous first and foremost. And then secondly, we're also enabling the brand, they can partner with the consumer as well. So some brands, it is in their best interest to match dollar for dollar. So some of the larger brands that are on their platform, it's like, hey, it's probably a really positive message if you do match with your customer. And they always got budget for this anyway because they want to do that because it. Cause it might not, you know, it could just be a risk if you don't, you know, in terms you want to have that positive intention. So yeah, so hopefully that answers like there's the consumer element. Consumers want to be generous. But then the commercial side of it is the fact that it gets turned into the gift cards. And then the other commercial side of it is that we did a whole bunch of mystery shopping work with Humie so you'd know Ryla from Humi and it was actually mind blowing because Marila said hey, can I do some mystery shopping? And on, on go generosity and just like checked out want to see what consumers say about it. And you know how, like, it's always nerve wracking. Like, even back in.

Nathan Bush: I wouldn't trust her.

Nick Pierce: And back in, back when I had restaurants, you know, it's like sometimes you're afraid to ask people, how was your meal? Because I'm like, what if they didn't really like it? I don't want to know the answer. And so when she was like, oh, feedback.

Nathan Bush: Just the good feedback.

Nick Pierce: That's right. So when she said she wants to mistress shop the whole platform and she wants to like go all of our customers and get her mystery shoppers to do it. Yeah, I was a little bit nervous because I was like, what are people actually going to say? And I read the report, I cried when I read the report because the consumers, the mystery shoppers and what they're saying around how this, you know, going, seeing the donation, seeing that the business actually had a heart, that cared for the community, that they even cared for people in need, seeing how it was so tangible because they could see where the money was going and the difference it was making. Like, statistically they were, what was it like 98% more likely to shop with that brand versus a competitor, competing brand that was selling the same products? One of the, one of the biggest questions we get asked from large brands is, do you create friction in the checkout? And then we saw that 100% of mystery shoppers were like, no friction whatsoever. If anything, it made me want to buy the product more than if they didn't have that. And so commercially there's, there's that side of as well. I think that stacks up for merchants.

Nathan Bush: What Rowan's doing there is giving purpose a commercial backbone. He's not asking the retailer to give away anything. He's showing them the return. And that's the balance that makes the whole thing hold up. So let's go back into the archive and hear how a few brands build purpose into their offering without losing the commercial benefit. But I want to be clear about the order here because it does matter. I don't think you have to lead with the commercial case. For a lot of retailers, purpose is still the actual reason that they want to do the thing. And it's one of the strongest ways to stand out in a crowded market and take a share from your competitors. So purpose can absolutely lead, but you can't survive just on warm and fuzzies underneath it. There has to be a commercial backbone, something that makes it durable so it isn't the first thing cut when budgets get tight. Purpose out front and a commercial engine underneath. Closing the gaps is one of the best examples of that that I know. Laura Thompson and Sarah Sheridan built the whole brand on their values, and it shows up in their numbers.

Sarah Sheridan: It's not just because it's good for like it is good for business. I'd say that when you lead with your values, but you've also got an opportunity as a business to do this. You're not restricted for someone who come from government funding, where the government told me what I had to talk about and when and how. And in business, we don't have any of those constraints. If you keep those values and your purpose and the why really strongly at the core of every single one of your decisions, the outcomes follow from that. Whether those outcomes are, it flows through. So we've got a returning customer rate of almost 47%. So when you've got a community of supporters, we don't call our customers customers. They're our community of supporters. We know that when we keep them as a priority, they will want to spend more time with us. They want to be involved in what we're doing. They're on the journey with us. We're on the journey with them.

Nathan Bush: A 47% return in customer rate is that commercial backbone that I was talking about. Their purpose absolutely leads in everything they talk about and everything they do, but it pays them back in loyalty and repeat purchase. So don't bury your purpose to sound commercial and don't run it on good feelings alone. Lead with the why, but make sure there's a real commercial engine underneath it. See it in the numbers. The second thing is where you place the giving. And the trick is to weave it into the problem that you're already solving for the customer, not to make them feel guilty at the worst possible moment. A donation that puts the ask on on the customer at the checkout, it just adds friction. Most people say no, and then they feel bad about it. At the moment that you're asking them to give you money, the version that works sits inside the value that you're already delivering. So the good they're doing rides along with the thing that they came to buy instead of being a guilt trip bolted on at the end. That's why Rowan's mystery shoppers felt no friction. The widget lives inside the merchant's brand, and the giving belongs to the customer rather than being squeezed or guilted out of them. James Bartle at Outland Denim worked this out very early. His fix was to lead with the product and let the story come through the product itself. They were still solving the customer's problem about delivering great jeans and great fashion, but they just made them feel good while they were at it by telling them exactly the impact they were making and the way that it was made in sustainable and ethical way.

Nick Pierce: We don't want people buying our product because it's a charity. We would have set up charity if we wanted to do that. We want you to buy our product if you love it. And so the product has to speak for itself. So communicating that story has. We've relied really heavily on a PR strategy for that. We've been so, so grateful to the media because they have honestly backed us in such a big way. I hear so many negative things about the media, but my experience for, for our brand is that the media have absolutely supported it. So people are reading about it in the newspaper and then they're coming to our website at another time or maybe after that, and they're now, that's the dopamine it's pumping through their brain and they're looking at these products. It's aspirational.

Nathan Bush: So don't lead with the cause and don't guilt people at the till. Sell them the product, solve their problem and let the good that they've done while doing that for themselves be peppered through and land as a bonus, not the big pitch. Now, once it's running, two things drive how much your customers actually get behind your charity or your giving program. It's whether they can see the impact and whether the cause fits your brand. Rowan found the charity a merchant chooses can move donation rates by a few percent and that a trusted brand like Harris Farm gets generosity month after month because their customers trust their judgment. This is also where the win, win, win gets real. The community in need has to actually benefit and your customers need to see that they have made it happen. Homey's co founder Nick Pierce put the visibility side better than anyone else that we've had on the show.

Nick Pierce: So probably the biggest thing in terms of promoting our message and then the impact is just to be accountable to our stakeholders, which is our customers. So that's probably the way in which we view it, is that this is. You have enabled this to transpire.

Sarah Sheridan: So to make sure that that's felt as much as possible and they have access to that.

Nick Pierce: So that's, that's the, you know, the principle.

Nathan Bush: So pick a cause that actually aligns with your brand and your customer and then show the impact back to them because they're the ones who make it happen. Alignment plus visibility is what turns a giving feature into a real relationship. So here's what I'd leave you with. The link between giving and commercial benefit is real, even if it's a little uncomfortable to say out loud. Doing good isn't why you do it. You don't do good just to achieve great commercial results. But done properly, a great charity or giving partnership strengthens your brand, sets you apart and earns you a share of the market. It only works though, if there is a strong commercial case behind it, one that actually strengthens your brand positioning market, not just warm and fuzzy on its own purpose out front, a commercial backbone underneath, and a real win for the retailer, the charity and the community all at once. It's a beautiful thing when it happens. If you're weighing up whether a giving program actually stacks up for your store or which cause would actually fit brand, that's exactly the kind of thing retailers and brands are working through in the Add to Cart community every day. It's free to join. We'd love to have you in there. Head on over to add to cart.com to join up. That's the playbook for this week. I hope we got you thinking around ways that you can partner with some great charities or giving partners to help amplify that Win, win, win. I'll see you next Friday. Marketplaces in Australia aren't just emerging or a nice side piece to DTC anymore. They're established, they're complex and they are moving fast. Amazon continues to accelerate, TikTok shop is looming and for most brands, managing a marketplace properly has become a full time job forecasting content, ads, logistics, compliance. It's a lot and it requires specialist knowledge. That's where Pattern can help. Patton. Don't just advise on marketplaces. They actually buy your product and then sell it on global marketplaces as your partner. That means they have real skin in the game. They only win if you win. Simple as that. Through their Marketplace accelerator model, Patton handles everything from inventory, forecasting and listing creation through to advertising, fulfillment and international expansion. So if marketplaces feel overwhelming or you know you should be doing more, but you just don't have the time, the team or the energy, contact Pattern to help you make the most of the marketplace opportunity. Learn more@au.pattern.com.