Nathan Bush: Before we get into today's checkout, I want to invite you into something brand new. Our free Slack Add to Cart community. After four years of bringing you experts and leaders in E commerce, I thought it was time to connect you our listeners. I have no doubt that you can share experiences, tips and questions that will help you in your e commerce businesses and careers. It makes sense to bring you all together. If that sounds like a community that you want to be a part of, head on over to add to cart.comau ecommerce community to join.
[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. Here's your host Bushy
Nathan Bush: Today's checkout features Lisa Jones, founder of Shecom, a community for connecting and mentoring female founders in E commerce. Lisa was also the co founder of Eco Originals, the world's first truly eco nappy, which was sold to private Equity Investor in 2020.
Nathan Bush: Lisa, welcome to the checkout. We had a fantastic conversation. Our main episode around what you built at Eco Originals, how you're helping female founders with Shecom, and just some of the lessons in life that you were so generous to share along the way. I've got five quick questions to learn a little bit more about you.
Lisa Jones: Amazing dive in.
Nathan Bush: All right, number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Lisa Jones: I could tell you lots of different things, but the one I would say that is the weirdest. I had a girlfriend and she went through a relationship breakup and I thought I'm going to send her a bunch of flowers. So I went onto the lovely website and I sent her a bunch of flowers and a vibrator at the same time. How's that for a get better girlfriend?
Nathan Bush: Yes, it's just, it's only weird when you put the vibrator in the vase and it's on the kitchen counter.
Lisa Jones: It totally is. No, luckily it's sent separately in a box, but it was meant to bring about some smiles in her life.
Nathan Bush: Fantastic. Did it hit the mark? I mean, in terms of the smiles?
Lisa Jones: Well, I can't actually tell you if it did or didn't hit the mark, but I'm hoping that she enjoyed it.
Nathan Bush: Oh, brilliant. Number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Lisa Jones: I am a bit of a shopaholic, I'm going to be honest. One of the things that I've discovered in life more recently is that I adore fashion and I spend a lot of Money online. Every week, many parcels come to my door. But the one that I'm most in love with at the moment is actually bad footwear. I discovered them earlier this year when I googled comfortable high heels to wear to events. And their stilettos get me through a whole night with no footburn, which is phenomenal. And I actually just bought my 10th pair pair since February this year. So not just high heels, but boots, sneakers, you name it. They. And what I love about it, of course, is not just that they have a high quality shoe that's amazing, it's their customer service is exceptional to the point where when your parcel arrives at your front door and they are notified by their tracking system that you've received it, they send you an email asking if it fits and if it doesn't to give them a call on their phone number and they'll walk you through problem solving. And then if it doesn't fit, they post you out more pairs without having to pay any more money on your credit card. So I've got three new pairs coming in the mail at the moment because one of my pairs of sneakers was a bit long in the shoe. So they've just got me to check on their website a few different kinds that are similar to try different footbread size and they just posted them out to me and when I'm done I'll send back the ones I don't keep. It's very next level customer service. Their UX is amazing and they're cx.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, it is. I've got a pair of their boots and I can't. You just can't ruin them.
Lisa Jones: No. So incredibly well made, just on every level. I'm just hats off to Anna at Bed for doing such an incredible job with her brand. She's actually coming to the stage at she come live.
Nathan Bush: That's what I was going to ask. Australian founded.
Lisa Jones: Yes.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Lisa Jones: Yes. And actually I'm. I stalked Anna and I messaged her a little reel I created about how many pairs of bed footwear I have and she kindly agreed to come to the stage at Shecom Live in a couple of weeks and she's going to be interviewed by me on stage around building her brand and I can't wait to walk across the stage in a pair of her shoes and talk to her.
Nathan Bush: Fantastic. Oh, great one. All right, number three, which E commerce practice do you wish was history?
Lisa Jones: Look, to be honest with you, I wish social media and their need as an influencer or as a person of business reputation to have to post to socials like every five minutes was gone. I find it such a burden. And my family, you know, I try and do stories maybe between five and eight times a day just to keep my community involved in what's happening in my personal life. I think it's part of why they like me because they get to vulnerably see who I am and decide. Because we do. We all decide. Do. I can I like, know and trust this person before I spend money with them? But my family roll their eyes, will be in the middle of a touching moment, I'll grab a photo and then I'm like thumbs to two different social accounts. And I just wish we didn't have to do that.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. You don't enjoy it.
Lisa Jones: No, but I feel like it's a necessary component, so I do it willingly because it's part of what we all do as business owners too. We have to be seen. Whether it's your. Your e commerce brand or you as the founder of an E commerce brand or just you as a business expert. It. We have to be seen to show up. But. But I find it a burden sometimes. Yes.
Nathan Bush: Do you actually have meaningful conversations with your community off the back of that or is it more of a. It's just not.
Lisa Jones: I get DMs all the time, so I might post, you know, where I'm traveling or what I'm wearing and. And I get almost 2 to 5 dms to most stories I get. And then it's an opportunity to. I might just send them a love heart back. But I feel like I've been told many times that many people will choose to stay in my community or even invest in programs or events that I'm running because they've been watching me. They might have listened to my podcast, they might have been stalking me on socials and they've made the decision at some point in the interaction, it could be 12 months later that they're like me enough to spend with me. So I feel like it's almost like a duty of care. We have to share with people who we are so they can decide if we are their person or not. But yes, I find that rest heavy sometimes.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, makes total sense. All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should get into immediately?
Lisa Jones: Well, that's really easy. That would be my podcast. In fact, I have two podcasts I could tell you about.
Nathan Bush: Way to one up me.
Lisa Jones: I know. Sorry about that. Last year I had E Commerce Uncomplicated, which has about 33 episodes of all of my genius zone in E commerce. And then I decided that talking to a podcast with all my learnings is actually really tiring to continue to do. So we relaunched a new podcast this year called she Talks E Commerce which is all podcast episodes where we interview or I interview incredible female founders. And so I think either of those podcasts would be incredible value to the audience listening today.
Nathan Bush: I agree. If, if people are going to get into the Shecom is it Shecom Talks.
Lisa Jones: She Talks E Commerce.
Nathan Bush: She Talks E Commerce. Which episode would you recommend that they go? They start off with Good call.
Lisa Jones: Look, I really love one of my first episodes with Elisa from Alive Body. The twins are ex the block. They are the most humble, down to earth, incredible women. And I've met up, had the pleasure of hanging out with Lisa a couple of times and had her on the podcast and it was a pretty frank conversation about building an e comm brand. You know they do 16mil revenue a year and there were f bombs flying and there was I'm exhausted. And it was a really real podcast episode of what it's actually like to be an e commerce expert. And so I think that would be a really good one to start with. And they're coming to the stage at chicom Live as well, which always makes me proud and happy and excited.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. Now if I'm not sure when this is going to air, but in case it goes before we've, we've booked in a conversation with Lisa as well in
Lisa Jones: a couple of weeks.
Nathan Bush: If you can't wait for that, go view both. It'll be a different viewpoint. You'll get your intelligent conversation, Lisa. And my off the cuff questions.
Lisa Jones: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: All right, finish this sentence. The future of retail is continuing to
Lisa Jones: grow for E commerce but changing to include more AI and architecture. So you know, ChatGPT and all of the spinoffs of that for even Ad Creative now is not going anywhere. I don't think it's going to get rid of jobs. I think it's just going to make our lives easier and I think augmented reality for online shopping, I mean it's just a no brainer. AI and AI are here to stay and I think they're going to help us and enhance what we do with E Commerce, not threaten what we do.
Nathan Bush: I'm sure there'll be plenty of conversation around that at the Shecom conference in September. Lisa, thank you so much for joining
Nathan Bush: us on the checkout.
Nathan Bush: Pleasure
Nathan Bush: to hear more from Lisa. Jump back into episode 328 where Lisa shares how she founded Eco originals. She talks about the low point of her founder journey, which included domestic violence, motherhood and small business pressure. She tells us how she found the mentors that pulled her out of this and how shecom became the silver lining of it all. And we'll also hear why her husband calls her Dory. Thanks for listening, and until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
