Nathan Bush: Before we get into today's chat, I want to share a little resource that we've just released. As you might know, in our Checkout episodes, I ask our e commerce guests, do you have a book or a podcast that you recommend our listeners get into? Well, I've taken all of those book recommendations and there's over a hundred of them, plus the stories that go behind them and put them into their own book called the Book Recommendations of E Commerce Experts. Yeah, I know, it's totally original. You will never ever run out of reading ideas again. You can download that one now for free over on addtocart.com.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to the Checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart 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.
Nathan Bush: Here's your host, Bushy Today's checkout features Jonathan Day, Founder, Managing Director and e Commerce Strategist at Allegiant. Allegiant are an Adelaide based e commerce agency specializing in e commerce development, design and Strategy. Established in 2009, they have over 100 team members and develop e commerce solutions for brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Kathmandu,
Nathan Bush: Cooper's Brewery and Mitsubishi.
Nathan Bush: Jonathan, welcome to the Checkout.
Nathan Bush: We have had a brilliant chat on our main episode all around site performance and some of the great things that Allegiant are doing. We talked in around some of your case studies like Kathmandu and how you help retailers, especially around site performance and speed. We're here to learn a little bit more about you. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Jonathan Day: Well, I think for a lot of agencies there's been a lot of test purchases done over the journey and every so often clients perhaps might have had their production fulfillment systems hooked up to test systems. It shouldn't have happened, but years ago was probably more common than it does these days. So we had some pretty weird and wonderful dummy purchases show up in the office. I think we had a very improbably sized set of bras turn up which no one knows who actually ordered it and it wasn't going to fit anyone so they definitely got tossed out. We've had some weird and wonderful stuff from one of our favorite clients, discount party suppliers. They've got some really cool funky things on their website and one of my most memorables was a barbecue of all things that actually got shipped. It was a test order in a non production system. They shipped a whole barbecue to us. But in terms of personal stuff I guess the weirdest thing that I've intentionally ordered, and don't judge me for this, please, was a set of lederhosen and long socks. So what are you doing with that?
Nathan Bush: Come on.
Jonathan Day: All right. There's a good reason for it. So each year I've been privileged, to be honest, to be part of a event with Variety, which is a charity that supports kids that are coming from disadvantage or living with disability and go on a week forward driving around some of the most beautiful parts of Australia. So amazing. But there's always a dress up. And the. The theme one year was. Was Alpine. So a client of mine, good mate, James Chapman Smith, and I got dressed up in full lederhosen. And that. That outfit is never coming out again, I'll tell you that.
Nathan Bush: Whatever happens in the desert stays in the desert, right?
Jonathan Day: Exactly.
Nathan Bush: It's all for charity.
Jonathan Day: It's all for charity, yeah.
Nathan Bush: All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Jonathan Day: Well, they say you should never have a favorite child. So, you know, clearly one of our clients should be in this list. Absolutely. Have a real soft spot for Kathmandu, who we've worked with for a number of years. And I know this will resonate for you as well, Nathan, with your E Suite connection. Kathmandu, what's called a B Corp, which is an organization that has made a commitment at the highest levels and is independently audited to be a force for good and across all sorts of different parameters about sustainability, responsible sourcing, the way they treat their customers and their suppliers, and just acting for more than just profit. And this is a real movement for change across a lot of organizations. Julie Matheson, Flora Fauna was one of the real pioneers in Australia for that as well. So KMNDU really walked the talk. For instance, fully biodegradable puffer jackets. Every single element of that item of clothing is biodegradable. So that's one that's close to my heart. I'm wearing Kathmandu shirt right now. But even more close to my heart is probably another client of ours, Tommy Hilfiger. Again, they do great stuff around diversity and inclusion, including representation of people coming from disadvantaged background and more than just virtue signaling. A great example of this is that they have a whole range of clothing that they call the adaptive range. And this has been put together by people with disability for people with disability. So for people who live in. Use wheelchairs or have other disabilities. And, you know, personal note here, my son lives with cerebral palsy and has a number of complex medical needs. And can I tell you that the look on his face when he gets to wear Tommy Hilfiger gear is just incredible because suddenly he's gone from only being able to wear trackies and sort of, you know, basic stuff to being one of the cool kids because he can wear Tommy. It is so meaningful.
Nathan Bush: How old's your son?
Jonathan Day: Yeah, he's 13. So he's at that point of high school and all of the, you know, peer pressure of wanting to wear cool stuff. So the sense of identity that comes from knowing that, you know, a mainstream, you know, cool fashion manufacturer not only talks about disability, but have done a whole range. Check it out on their website. It's right at the top level of their menu, and it's a key part of what they do. So that means a lot to me.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's amazing. We had the guys from Jam the Label on as well, doing amazing things. So it's just great that that's just becoming part of fashion and textile design now, too. Number three, which E commerce practice do you wish was history?
Jonathan Day: Oh, so many. I think there's a lot of dinosaurs.
Nathan Bush: What are you sick of dixing? Is the question. I think for you, the one that
Jonathan Day: I would love to see go completely is passwords. You know, it's a real friction point for users to have to remember their password. It's important. Obviously, privacy is so vital, and as an industry, we face a lot of threat if we don't get our privacy settings right. So I'd love to move to that passwordless future, which is starting to happen, which is exciting. A real little pet peeve, if we get a bit more specific to this industry, is when you're on a product detail page for a configurable product and you want to see a different color. Don't navigate me to another page. Keep me on the same page and just update the image and show me the red one. Okay. Like, it's not hard, people.
Nathan Bush: I love it. I love two brilliant examples.
Nathan Bush: All right, number four, can you recommend
Nathan Bush: a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Jonathan Day: Yeah, lots of podcasts, but I'm really a big one for audiobooks at the moment. I'm loving those. One that I've really enjoyed and been evangelizing a little bit to a lot of people is called Never Split the Difference by called Chris Foss. It's a fascinating story about understanding human behavior and the psychology behind decision making and communication styles. So from a personal and professional point of view, it's really insightful about understanding how you can help people together move to a better place. Great recommendation.
Nathan Bush: Did you audiobook that one?
Jonathan Day: Yes, yes.
Nathan Bush: I wish he read it.
Jonathan Day: Oh, totally. Yep. That was the only downside. One that I think really works when it was read by the authors is extreme ownership.
Nathan Bush: Yes.
Jonathan Day: I don't know if you can see it on the bookshelf behind me actually. So the two guys who wrote that have the perfect voices for it and it's very impactful hearing them narrate the stories that inspired the sort of leadership principles behind extreme ownership.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. Great examples. Love it. All right, number five, finish this sentence. The future of retail is fast.
Jonathan Day: Come on, we've just been talking about performance. How could I say anything else? Fast but also personalized. And therein lies the challenge. Because if we use naive approaches to performance optimization, we miss out on the ability to actually tailor that experience to each either segment as a starting point towards personalization or to that true one to one personalization. So the more sophisticated that we can get about designing architectures that allow us to compose together elements that are either relatively static and become super fast or real time tailored, whether it be in terms of merchandising recommendations, loyalty, status, all of those sorts of things. So we have to strike that balance. It's not a compromise. It's a balance. And it's a composition of solutions to make it fast and personal.
Nathan Bush: Fast and personal. The future of retail. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Jonathan Day: Thanks Nathan.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Jonathan, jump back into episode 315 where Jonathan shares why performance isn't just a technical activity but is an exercise in understanding and reacting to customer psychology. He breaks down why Google's core web vitals should be the tool that you use to measure your website performance and even breaks down the metrics that you should be looking at. And he gives us other tools, tools to measure user errors, load testing and more. And most importantly, he shares why getting site performance right is similar to how Disneyland designs their ride experience. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
