[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 you through your Friday.
[Voiceover]: Today's checkout features Mikayla Wessels, co founder and CEO of Style Arcade. Style Arcade is an app that pulls everything about your product's performance and together in one place. Sales, stock, future orders, Google Analytics, and all of this is done in a visual way so that you can ditch the spreadsheets. Michaela is passionate about using product data for growth, and Style Arcade is a real culmination of everything she's Learned over her 15 years of working in merchandise
Nathan Bush: for some of the biggest retailers in Australia. Mikaela, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout. We had a great chat, a few episodes about what you're doing at Style Arcade and range planning in detail, but we're here to learn a little bit more about you. So five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Michaela Wessels: Oh, I'd have to say magic eraser. I don't know if anyone has heard of this thing. I'm very late to the party, but I've never had my mind blown by something so cheap and so insignificant in my life. But it's a little eraser, like a little spongy thing that you wet. Have you got one, Nick?
Nathan Bush: I've got one. My wife keeps them all around the house, loves them.
Michaela Wessels: They are amazing. Anyone that doesn't know about their magic eraser has to get one. I bought the entire office Magic Erasers after I first tried it. You know, you never have to paint your house again. It feels like, yeah, it's really good. Yeah. So that's probably the coolest thing I've bought online. That's a good one.
Nathan Bush: That's a life tip in itself.
Michaela Wessels: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: All right, number two, who's your favorite retailer?
Michaela Wessels: I like loads of retailers. I'm a big online shopper, but I think a brand that's wowed me lately has been Wardrobe nyc. I jumped onto their website and if you want to look a million bucks, they just have the whole outfit there for you to buy. You literally click, yes. I need all the things and it just comes. It's amazing. You don't have to think about what to put together. It just looks great. It's very dangerous, but I think you did in moderation. It's an amazing life hack.
Nathan Bush: Look at this. You're going to change people's lives in five Minutes here. All right, number three, which e commerce practice do you wish was history?
Michaela Wessels: Spreadsheets. All day, every day.
Nathan Bush: Any particular type of spreadsheets? I think I know the answer.
Michaela Wessels: Well, I think range planning spreadsheets, post season analysis spreadsheets and product creation spreadsheets.
Nathan Bush: Get rid of them. All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Michaela Wessels: Okay, so if you're like me, I'm a big fanatic on philosophy and self development, so as boring as that sounds, my two favorites would probably be the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. Like, incredible book. And then if you're a founder or a business owner, the Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great tip.
Michaela Wessels: Life changing. Yeah. Have you read either of those?
Nathan Bush: I've read both.
Michaela Wessels: Oh, I see. So you. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Cool. Yeah, yeah. And they're not hard read.
Michaela Wessels: I should follow your books. We should. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Well, I've actually got this idea and God, I should probably shouldn't say it here, but I might edit this out. But I might not is around. We've got over, you know, over 200 guests now sharing their book recommendations, so I need to like put it into a white paper so people can just download our e commerce leaders book recommendations.
Michaela Wessels: Yeah, because these would be like minded people that would just love to read, you know. Yeah, totally.
Nathan Bush: Then I might hit up Booktopia for an affiliate link.
Michaela Wessels: You've got all the ideas.
Nathan Bush: All right, number five, finish this sentence. The future of retail is.
Michaela Wessels: I hope that the future of retail is the collaboration of brands and retailers. I believe that there's a lot of power in brand sharing data and helping each other grow. I hope that that is the future. As idealistic as that sounds.
Nathan Bush: It's amazing. I love it. Yeah. Mikaela, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Michaela Wessels: Nathan, thank you so much.
[Voiceover]: To hear more from Mikayla, jump back into episode 251 where Mikaela shares why creativity and analytics is such a winning combination when it comes to range planning. She also shares her tips on how to know when you need to expand your size range and gives the story of how a simple white T shirt made a six million dollar difference for one of her happy merchants. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cart.
