[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cut guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Bushy.
Nathan Bush: Today's checkout features Jason Pallant from RMIT University and Jessica Pallant from Swinburne University of Technology. They are the his and hers of marketing research, a dream team husband and wife package whose academic take on e commerce provides much needed clarity and a fresh perspective. Their recently published paper delves into how brands feel about taking on Black Friday Cyber Monday pre Christmas the lot. They asked a bunch of retailers and industry leaders to spill the beans on their approaches to the sales in an attempt to work out how to change the race to the bottom for everyone's benefit.
Nathan Bush: Doctors Jessica and Jason Paullant, welcome to the Checkout. We've had a brilliant conversation with you around your paper research paper called the Nightmare Before Christmas. And we dived into a conversation around how retailers should prepare and think about the upcoming peak sales season. And some great tips in there and some thoughts as we think about how we do it profitably but also take part in it because we all want to take part in it. So thank you for that. We're here to learn a little bit about you both with five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Jason Pallant: I'm going to start this one because it was early in our relationship and I was trying to earn some brownie points. Jess is a huge Disney fan and it was around, I think we've just had the hundred year anniversary, right? So it must have been 90 or something where there was some kind of anniversary gift box. And and it came in like this treasure chest, right? And so I'm like, this is the best thing I could ever buy a Disney fan is in a Disney treasure box. All of the movies. And so I go online, I find it, I buy it, it arrives. The treasure box looks awesome. We open it. It's a bunch of like burned CDs that some random person has put together. Some of them are in German, some of them are in Dutch, some of them are, you know, the pictures don't match. And I've wrapped this thing up and I feel so good about myself. And I've given this thing just to watch just his eyes like open and be like, what is this? That stuck with us.
Jessica Pallant: That does take the cake. And you know, I'm so glad there's Disney now because I don't have to watch Brother Bear in German anymore.
Nathan Bush: That's great. What site? Come on. Come clean, Jace. What site did you buy it off?
Jason Pallant: I don't remember. I know it was a while ago. I RECKON it was 10 years ago. And it was. This is probably my problem that I didn't at that point in time. I think I was a uni student. You're trying to look for a bargain and you're like, oh, you know, Disney, sell it for whatever. This one's half that. It must be on sale. It's not. It's a ripoff.
Nathan Bush: Oh, found out big time. I love it. All right, who is your favorite retailer? I'm going to start with you, Jess.
Jessica Pallant: I am going to have to go Costco. I am just loving the fact that they've already launched all of their Christmas line at the moment. So every time I take the kids there, there's just something new to look at. And I don't know, there's just something about it all set up in the warehouse with the lights. It's definitely taking the cake at the moment.
Nathan Bush: What's the most ridiculous big purchase? You must have a big jar of something in your pantry.
Jessica Pallant: Oh, we have big jars of everything at the moment. But no, look, our Christmas tree is. Is from Costco as well, so it's probably been the biggest in terms of size and cost.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Good, good, good. I love the membership model there. They get people hooked.
Jessica Pallant: They do.
Nathan Bush: All right, number three, which E commerce practice do you wish was history? Jase?
Jason Pallant: So this is one that has personally hit me a few times, and I've posted about this on LinkedIn, but it's retailers telling you something's in stock or in store and it's not. And I get that it's hard, and I get that there's all sorts of stuff going on, but that is just such a horrible customer experience to be excited about a purchase and then show up and it's not there. And you just. You go from excitement to disappointment. And that shift is just so damaging to customer relationships and your sort of perceptions of the brand.
Nathan Bush: What's worse, not having the product or getting the product delivered and finding out that it's counterfeit DVDs.
Jason Pallant: In that case, the counterfeit DVDs, because that was at least not having the products was just like shoes for myself. I can wear that one. But I put a lot of talk into these counterfeit DVDs.
Nathan Bush: All right, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into? Jess?
Jessica Pallant: Yes, if you have young kids. Anything by Rachel Bright are amazing. They read so well. She's a brilliant author and they have the best messages. So love Rachel Bright if you've got young kids.
Nathan Bush: Great, Jase.
Jason Pallant: So I had an answer to this until I started chatting to some people in the add to CART community where I recommend people this book called Range. And it's just selfish because it's. It's about how generalists actually go on to longer term success than specialists. And I've considered myself a generalist, right. So I recommend this book to people and then I see it come up in the add to cart community. It's in the book club. And then everybody's slamming it. They're like, this is just all fluff. There's no practical tips in here. I don't know what to do with this. And I'm reflecting on that being like, right, they're saying it's too academic. This is why I like it. And other people are like, what do I do with this information?
Nathan Bush: Don't worry, nothing.
Jason Pallant: Just interesting.
Nathan Bush: They're probably just specialists who'll have a
Jason Pallant: short career and that's right. Generalists rule the world.
Nathan Bush: No, to be honest, I got into that based on the recommendation from Nick at Voodoo and then speaking to you as well. I'm halfway through it. I love the concept because I'm also a generalist within E commerce. I love that the strategic side of it. I'm struggling a little bit because it is. There's a lot of long winded stories and research, but it's still more credible than a lot of the self help experts out there. So I can see the merits in it. Once pushing through the community that you mentioned though, Jason, I just want to pause for a second there and invite people in if they haven't heard about it because it is relatively new. So we've got a new Slack community for add to cart listeners. Everyone is welcome to join if you're passionate about E commerce in Australia. So come along, join us. The channel that Jason was talking about is called our book club where we encourage everyone to share their book recommendations and yeah, maybe get torn down on some of the books that they love.
Jason Pallant: Have a thick skin. That's what I'll say.
Nathan Bush: All right, last question I have for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is.
Jason Pallant: I'll jump in there and link it back to what we were talking about in our main interview, which I think is the future of retail is really dependent on. On how retailers navigate needing to account for cost of living pressures and consumers looking for bargains, but at the same time not teaching consumers to only ever buy things on discount. And I think it really comes back to can we take charge again and turn the narrative towards value what you're actually getting rather than just always being about the lowest price?
Nathan Bush: Love it. Sounds like nirvana for a lot of retailers.
Jason Pallant: Easy to say, hard to do.
Nathan Bush: Jason, Jessica, thank you so much for joining us on Add to Cart.
Jessica Pallant: Amazing. Thanks for having us.
Jason Pallant: Bushy thank you so much.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Jason and Jess, jump back into episode 347 where they share the key findings from their research the Nightmare Before Christmas. They share the progress practical solutions they recommend for retailers who want sales success, and we also hear their top tip for standing out during the festive season. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
