Anthony Napper: Obviously I'm the problem here. Maybe a 25 year old guy going to a meeting saying I'm going to give you a big opening order isn't the strategy here. We're in the trenches every day, you know, head torch on, pickaxe in hand, trying to get as many brands as possible. If we argue and I tell this thing, go get, you're being a dickhead. Sorry for swearing. If 20 minutes later you want to get a coffee? Yeah, I'll get a coffee.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, the podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of. Every month, Nathan Bush from 12 High and an E commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course, keep your customers Adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart.
Nathan Bush: My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at ecommerce talent agency E Suite. Today's guest, he bought his business off his dad for $12,000 and is now doing over $50 million a year in turnover. Anthony Napper is the founder and the
Nathan Bush: managing director of Oz Hair and Beauty.
Nathan Bush: Along with his brother Guy, Anthony's turned the family salon into one of Australia's
Nathan Bush: leading beauty and skin care retailers.
Nathan Bush: In this conversation with Anthony, you're going
Nathan Bush: to hear a little bit of rustling and fiddling.
Nathan Bush: It's not me, it's the incredible energy of Anthony.
Nathan Bush: This is a founder who's learned E
Nathan Bush: commerce from the ground up and after
Nathan Bush: nine years still has so much enthusiasm
Nathan Bush: and energy for the opportunity ahead. You can actually hear it come through the microphone. But what I also love is his
Nathan Bush: extreme honesty and self awareness. Throughout this chat, he gives shout outs to the people who have helped him. He generously lifts the curtains on some of their most successful strategies and even gives his email address out at the end. What a brave man.
Nathan Bush: If you're building an E commerce brand in beauty or otherwise, this is a must.
Nathan Bush: Listen. So let's get into it.
Nathan Bush: Thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Signet. Here's our conversation with Anthony Napper from
Nathan Bush: Oz Hair and Beauty.
Nathan Bush: Anthony Napper, welcome to Add to Cart.
Anthony Napper: Thank you Nathan. Thanks for having me.
Nathan Bush: So good to have you on. Now, before we get into it, say I met you in a hair salon and I went up to you and I said, anthony, what do you do? How would you respond?
Anthony Napper: I would say I'm definitely not a hairdresser. I wouldn't, you know, I would definitely not trust me cutting your hair. I am Just a guy that sells hair and beauty products online.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. How simple is that?
Anthony Napper: Pretty simple, yeah.
Nathan Bush: All right, we're going to get into your story today, which is a fascinating story, but can I also just before
Anthony Napper: we start, just congratulate you on the best podcast name ever at the car. Beautiful, Simple. You know, everyone tries to do like the experience of this at the car. Straight to the point, you've nailed it.
Nathan Bush: Thank you, mate. I went for the Nathan Bush experience, but my producers told me no one had listened to it.
Anthony Napper: I don't blame him. I don't blame him. Beautiful.
Nathan Bush: Thank you, mate. And I think you've just made some of our highlight reels there, and we'll flog that in advertising. Thank you, mate.
Nathan Bush: Tell us about your dad.
Nathan Bush: What did he teach you and how did he influence where you're at today?
Anthony Napper: My dad, obviously, he's taught me many lessons that you learn later, because when he's teaching you at the time, you're like, shut up, dad. It's just normal father son relationship. But one lesson, and I think the most important lesson he taught me was before I even finished high school, maybe the year I finished high school, we went away on a holiday and it was just me and him at a coffee shop. And I remember this so vividly. He just said, son, you know, you're finishing school now. Just remember, pay now, play later. So everything you do, make sure you just, you pay now, you sacrifice now and you pay later. And that there, that really stuck with me. I really took the ball there and ran with that and, you know, first jobs, as soon as I finished school, started a job, two jobs, and just saved, saved, saved, and just had that mentality of let's just, you know, let's sacrifice now and for the fruit. In the end, you know, that's. And it's to tell, you know, me and my brother, you know, live our life like. I think that was the most important.
Nathan Bush: What made you take that advice, though? Because I could imagine adam as an 18 year old, the inclination is to play. What made you stop and take that piece of advice?
Anthony Napper: Because this is before, you know, the hair and beauty econ was even a thought in my mind. My goal was, all right, I'm gonna go to uni. I'm gonna save as much money as possible. You know, leave my parents. That's obviously an advantage. Save as much money as possible, work two jobs. When I finish my degree, hopefully I'll be able to buy a property. And little did I know, but even if I did that back then with Property prices now probably still being possible, but. But, yeah, that was. That's what the goal was. So having that mentality for like, even a year and a. I think it was a year and a half or, you know, 14 months. When this opportunity did come, I did have the money to invest in this new venture. That. The opportunity that came to me because I had. I had that pay now, play later mentality.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. So tell us about that opportunity. What are you talking about when you say the opportunity?
Anthony Napper: So I was working as a, you know, a laborer, and the labor went away. So, you know, I had the waitering job, but, you know, that wasn't going to be enough if I want to buy property in three years on the weekends. So my dad actually had a. Like an import business out of, like, a little warehouse, and he also tried, you know, dabbling into online. So while I was working at the import business, you know, helping Impact Boxes and looking for the company that was leasing the warehouse off him, he also, you know, I tried to help him with some website that he had no knowledge of it, you know, and I found out for the grapevine that him and his two mates that started it, they. They gave it away and they just. They wanted to close it down. And while I was working there, I was thinking, you know, I'll do a bit of due diligence to say, you know, I've got this money here, let me do a bit of dd, if you can call it dd.
Nathan Bush: And as I understand it, this isn't the only business your dad had at the time, though, is it?
Anthony Napper: Oh, this is on top of his. This was on top of his hair salons as well.
Nathan Bush: Okay.
Anthony Napper: He had hair salons as well? Yeah, yeah, gotcha. And I looked at the business, I thought, you know what, they're gonna close it down. Don't close it down. I'll give you everything I've got. Forget what it was like $12,000 something. I. I can access all these products. They haven't even touched ebay. Let me just talk to my dad. And I convinced my dad to let me give them all the money. And that's how Aussie and Beauty started.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome. What did your dad say to you when you said to him, dad, I've got $12,000 to give you for this business?
Anthony Napper: He said, mate, it cost us more than $12,000, but all right, we'll take it. Because he said, you know what, I was really, like, hungry, and it's probably going to cost them more to probably close it down. And there's something to give and to be honest, like I didn't think it was going to be what it is today. I just wanted something as a hobby through uni to see what I can do with it. You know, I still like was working as a waiter, I was still working for them and working as a waiter and running that business. But then within two, three months when I figured out, you know, with ebay and stuff, like the more I actually work and upload all these products and the more I answer, the more reward I get, that's when I just went tunnel vision and let's go for it and just addicted, addicted to the process.
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Nathan Bush: Tell me about those first few months. You've handed over your life savings that you've worked really hard for through some shitty jobs. I'd assume there's lots of shitty hours in there to give you that 12 grand to put into the business. What did you do first?
Anthony Napper: What I did first was I knew I had access to all these products through the opportunity that I was given, you know, through my parents having hair salons. So it was pretty much as simple as just getting them all on, on ebay. Now if I knew back then the technology that you could use to upload products straight away, I was, you know, I was all night uploading and then answering customer service and then packing boxes and I drive to Westfield loading zones to pick up the boxes because I didn't want to pay for boxes. I was doing everything. Yeah, and then I remember it was, it was the, the first Christmas because back then it wasn't Black Friday, it was Christmas was the, the Black Friday of today. I hired a friend who was at uni with me. He was my first employee. Was so inefficient. Like we'd write, we'd, I'd hire him just to hang out. You know, we'd hang out, we'd drive around, pick up the products and, and that's how I really. Yeah, that's how like it really Started just from. From there. And the peak change was like. So my brother, over the years, he would help me during school holidays. And I remember saying to him, when he first worked for me, it was like he was in year 10 or 11. I gave him the same speech as my dad gave. I said, like, look, when I finished school, I had, you know, $0. You know, if you can pay now, play later, save as much money as you can. You never know what's gonna happen, you know. So when he finished school, he worked for me. We had probably, like, four or five people. He was one of them. He just organically took control of the warehouse that we had. Little. Little back of the warehouse. He'd organize it and make it efficient. And, you know, after a year, he came to me and said, look, I want to be. I want to be, like, partners with you. And, like, look, it wasn't worth heaps, but it was worth a little bit. I just didn't think that, you know, he had the capability. But then he goes, no, no, I've saved, you know, x amount of dollars. You know, he told me three years ago, pay now, play later. And that I'm like, all right, well, you know, he's ready to. To jump in the ring. And from there, we just clicked. And that's how. That's the real beginning of Aussie and beauty. Before, it was just, you know, now. Now we had a operation, man. Because me and him are so different. Like, he's. We complement each other so well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Anthony Napper: And that's when it really started. At that time, the lease that was renting at the back of the warehouse, and we were bulging out of the back, and it was just perfect timing because the company that was in there, my dad parted ways with that company. So the lease ended, and me and my brother took over the lease for the whole warehouse. And that's when we started ramping up and really starting to get serious.
Nathan Bush: Gotcha. And tell me about the differences between you and your brother. How are you guys different?
Anthony Napper: So we call each other. People call. I'm growth and stability. So I make his job hard. My brother is. He walks to go get a coffee. He's got a system that he's got probably written down how he does it. Like, he's so systemized.
Nathan Bush: And what do you do? You change your coffee order every day. Do you?
Anthony Napper: I change my coffee order every day. I'm all over the place. I'm literally all over the place. But he's, you know, he's. He's just very different temperament. And that's why it works so well.
Nathan Bush: You see that a lot with E commerce businesses that they've either invested too much in the growth mindset or the operational mindset and they kind of skew one way or the other. They go too hard, too early, or they just play it too safe. It's nice to have that balance between growth and stability, isn't it?
Anthony Napper: Yeah. Not only is it nice, I think it's fundamental. Like if I, I remember like when I was stuck in my like cocoon office just growing, growing, growing investing, you know, doubling down on the market initiatives that we're working. If it wasn't for him really, like coming to me and saying, you need to stop and we need to get a new AI system, we need to organize the shelves better so we pick things better. Like that just doesn't, it's just not my language. And if I didn't have that. You hear the stories all the time. You know, you just grow yourself broke and your customers would get upset and things wouldn't be efficient.
Nathan Bush: Is it fair to say that you drive revenue and he drives profit?
Anthony Napper: Yeah, it's fitted. Yeah, that's a fair assumption. Look, we do both crossover and I do have some ideas with operations and he has been contributing more to the, to the growth as well. But just naturally, that's how like it's just been. We never actually had that conversation of like operations. It's just how it's formed.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Beautiful. Take us back to those ebay days. What did you learn from ebay? And do you think that you could have the same success with ebay today as what you did back then?
Anthony Napper: The biggest thing I, I think I learned from ebay and it was, you only realize it now, but at the time to differentiate yourself on ebay, you can price down to the bottom. That's just, that's, that's not obviously a long term strategy. So to differentiate ourselves, we have to have the best customer feedback. And that means even if the customer is totally wrong, you just bite the bullet and service them to the absolute best. Because you want that 100% feedback and that mindset of yes, that's okay, no problems. We're sorry. Okay, Shay Post lost it. That's okay. We'll send you another one. That mindset really has carried the way we treat our customers at Oz Hair and Beauty just from doing it, you know, for four or five years, day in, day out, train everyone, you know, like it's a ghd$300. Send them another one, bite the bullet,
Nathan Bush: grit the Teeth and get the five star feedback.
Anthony Napper: Yeah. You know, and like someone believes bad feedback, you know, we send a revision and we say, look, come on, we apologize. Take this on us if you want to, you know, if you want to revise it. Much appreciated. Just that mindset and people, people love that because the best way to actually win a customer, I think is to make a mistake and rectify it quickly. And, and they appreciate that because you know, when someone's made a mistake or when someone's lost something or when they could, they just expect that they're going to be up an uphill battle, you know, a big uphill battle of red tape. And send me this. But we try and just do it quickly and because we're so quick to, you know, spend marketing dollars on top of funnel, mid funnel, bottom funnel. This is. These customers are in the bucket now. This is what we're talking about, funnels. You've got them in there. You might as well, you know, you might as well spend a bit of resources in making sure they're happy even though a mistake has happened.
Nathan Bush: Have you ever done the calculations on the cost to acquire a new customer versus keep some of those customers happy that you've already got like what you've spent in terms of going above and beyond?
Anthony Napper: Look, we are starting to like, you know, tag customers that we've, we've done this with. Tag customers that we make a call with and then measure that. To say back then that wasn't even a thought in my mind to do that. But really that's the way how we've developed as a company now to start tagging these customers on Shopify. And then let's measure. Do they actually come back? But just beautiful. Subconsciously I feel like they would.
Nathan Bush: But ebay ingrained that behavior in you because you can't survive on ebay without a five star rating, right?
Anthony Napper: No, you can't. Because ebay, the algorithm puts you up if you're 100% and when you're selling other people's products, you got to differentiate yourself somehow.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Just a question on those reviews you've got. I think it was about 65,000 reviews on your website, most of them glowing. I struggled to find any bad ones. It's phenomenal. And you really highlighted that, which I think is fantastic, especially for first time visitors. Apart from giving exceptional customer service, how do you encourage your customers to actually leave your feedback, take the time to write the feedback?
Anthony Napper: We use the platform yPro, shout out to yPro, but we don't need the shout out. They're massive there.
Nathan Bush: But no, it's good. The more specifics we can get, the better.
Anthony Napper: Yeah. So ypro, you know, we started with them probably four years ago. From what I believe I'm on a pretty good deal with them. I think they just keep ramping their prices up every year. But why sign up with them and then someone places an order 10 days later, you know, you send like a follow up request. We used to give discounts, now we don't give discounts. Then we tested accounts, we just do different sort of things and you know, people, people are responding well to it.
Nathan Bush: Do you think there's anything specific in those follow up emails that make people more inclined to, to give you a review than. Because I could imagine people that are buying through Oz Hair and Beauty probably buy a fair bit of stuff online and they're not going to leave a review for anyone. Is there anything that you found encourages
Nathan Bush: people to take that time?
Anthony Napper: Yeah, discount discounts talk. They do. We don't want to keep doing a lot of discounts but I'd be lying to say that discounts don't work when getting those reviews on your website. It's just how it is. People are more inclined to do something when they have a vested interest in saving money.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, you call it discounting, but you could almost call it marketing investment. Right. Because once you get those reviews you can almost treat them like business assets then 100%.
Anthony Napper: It's just, it adds to your conversion rate. You know, like end of the day, like we're in a competitive market, we're selling Product A. If we product, if our product A has 2,000 reviews and competitors, product day has, you know, 500 reviews, you know you're more likely gonna go with us, all things being equal.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about growth and let's talk about where Aus, Hair and Beauty. And now we've kind of, we've touched
Nathan Bush: on the ebay side, how you've taken
Nathan Bush: over from your dad, you've gone on ebay, you've launched your own store. And now from what I've read, the last I've read, you're on track for $50 million worth of sales and you doubled your turnover last year. How has growth been for you in the last 12 months?
Anthony Napper: It's been good. It's been, it's been good. Like I'm not gonna dance tiptoe around it. It's been good. But not to say there hasn't been challenges, but that's Guy's problem, his stability. I'M not stability. No. In all honesty, in all honesty, like, the toughest thing really is to, you know, you're growing, especially through Covid and I think, or e. E Commerce. Like, it really tests your. Your resources, your capabilities, like, how do we remain efficient, how, you know, we're getting, you know, organizational chart. All right. We need to move things around here because, you know, we've got to promote people like the. The most rewarding, like, without sounding, you know, like. Like I'm talking, like, the actual most rewarding part of growing is promoting your people that have been with you. I've had, like, my mate started working for me probably two years in when I was still on ebay as a. Just with me, picking orders, packing orders, the back of our warehouse. You know, this year we've promoted him as head buyer. He's gone through the ranks. And that's because we've got so busy and we need more than, you know, we need more than one buyer. We need someone to manage buyers. And having someone that's been with you from the start to really be grown and propelled through the company, that's something that's very rewarding.
Nathan Bush: And when you say from the start, how many years has he been with you?
Anthony Napper: So this is going to be my ninth year in business. He's been there for eight of them.
Nathan Bush: Okay. And do you find that the leadership team that you've got coming up with you are ones that have been there from the start, or do you bring people in who have external expertise? Some.
Anthony Napper: It's a bit. It's a. It's a mixture of both. Like, we have a customer service manager and, you know, she's head of, like, people and culture too. And, you know, she started just in customer service a couple of years ago, just as a customer service, and she's grown with us. We had a, you know, warehouse manager who manages now, you know, 20, 30 people. He started just as a picker in a packer. So. But then there's also people that we've hired, you know, business development managers, senior web designers that we've just hired. So it's. It's a mixture of both.
Nathan Bush: Has there been anything in Covid that has surprised you? Obviously we've seen a huge uptick in beauty online last year across across the globe. Has there been anything that really surprised you after Covid hit?
Anthony Napper: Yeah. So obviously the first week I had no idea that we sold detergent and all these cleaning products. I didn't have no idea that we sold them. I realized the first day what top Selling product detergent. So that's, that was the first surprise. The second surprise was just, I wouldn't say surprise. I did, I did, you know, without patting myself on the back. I did preempt that like candles, candles, rent. Really well, you know we made, you know, luckily we made the, the time and investment to get like brands like Glass House. Shout out to Glass House. Great brand. They went really well. Skin masks, face masks, everything that you sit home and can relax at home and unwind. Things like that went really well. And obviously like every time ScoMo would make an announcement every Tuesday, the next day, you know, it was like Black Friday again. So that was, that was pleasantly surprising.
Nathan Bush: You can't imagine that we'll live through another time like that, right?
Anthony Napper: Nah, like, nah, like I think everyone's just like they're well armored now for it. They're well prepared for it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Anthony Napper: But I do feel there's still more E Commerce growth out there. This just gave it a big push.
Nathan Bush: Yes, absolutely. And speaking of that push, do you have any home brands at all or are you purely a retailer of other brands?
Anthony Napper: We are purely a retailer other brands. Look, it is creating our own brand or acquiring other brands is something that, it's on our roadmap but it's, it's a full time gig really just managing this at the moment and any. And I feel like I've tried to buy other websites, you know, from friends, like a technology website, phone cases and it's not really like you know, buy it, rinse and repeat. It's a whole another business. And anytime I take away or anytime me and my brother take away from running this, we feel like that's a more of a cost than the gain we'd get from another business right now. I'm not saying in the next two, three years but right now we're just trying to get this beast as big as possible or make it a beast.
Nathan Bush: That's a good sign, isn't it? If you think that there is a huge amount more growth and new ideas that you haven't even explored yet, that's a fantastic sign.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, I'm quite confident there's more in the in the tank.
Nathan Bush: Fashion retailer Incoo has been introducing customers to new international brands for nearly 20 years.
Nathan Bush: With 10 retail stores, E Commerce has been a support player.
Nathan Bush: But in the last year it got really serious.
Nathan Bush: They've upgraded from a custom site to Shopify and now Shopify Plus Incoo sales
Nathan Bush: have grown nearly 300% year on year.
Nathan Bush: Shopify plus features such as launchpad for automation flow to manage.
Nathan Bush: Nearly 2000 SKUs scripts for customization and
Nathan Bush: Shopify plus merchant growth model have all had a compounding effect.
Nathan Bush: Not only are sales up 300% year on year, conversion rates are up 80%,
Nathan Bush: average sessioning engagement up 91% and bounce rate down 40%. Incoo more like in whoa.
Nathan Bush: To read more of incoo story and
Nathan Bush: see other case studies, visit the customer sections on shopify.com.
Nathan Bush: As a retailer of other brands and we talked about the growth last year and we've seen a lot of brands up their game in going direct to consumer. Has that impacted your relationship with any of your brands that you retail?
Anthony Napper: It look, it's definitely like a threat on our SWOT analysis, but it hasn't really impacted our relationships because if I was that brand, I'd be doing the same. Like you can't really get angry or frustrated at something that you'd be doing if you were in their shoes. And you know, we have strong data, we do a lot of data, you know, surveys and stuff and the strong data that more people actually come to us to browse and to be recommended a product than to go for specific product. Now there is, you know, there is still a large amount of people going for specific brands, but the data shows us that people want to go and be recommended a product. And then people that do go for a specific brand, the data shows that they also buy another brand. So they're buying multi brands. So we just got to keep proving that we are a destination for hair. And, you know, if you're not with us, you're missing out on the market. That's how we, you know, fight back. I wouldn't say fight back on the dtc, not fighting back, but that's how we can remain relevant in the DTC movement. And like I said, if I'm them, I'd be doing the same course.
Nathan Bush: Yep. I heard you tell a great story on another podcast around your relationship with suppliers and how as a young guy going into some suppliers in the beauty and the hairspace, you may not have got the instant credibility and you had to get some help or some people on board to help build those relationships. Can you tell us more about that?
Anthony Napper: Yeah. So the growth of our company, I think has to be attributed to a lot of factors. But one of the factors is people saying no to us because every time they say no, we opt out, they say no and they give us reasons. So now we're not supplying you your websites not prestigious enough and all right, let's go Rebrand, we'll do a rebrand, go approach more brands. You know, maybe 30% or 40% will say yes, 60% will say, nah, we're not going to give you skin brands because you know, you don't have a skin clinic. All right, let's go get a skin clinic. Let's do that. Get a skin clinic. And then I go in. Nah, we're still not going to supply. I'm like, all right, well obviously I'm the problem here. Maybe you know, a 25 year old guy going to a meeting saying I'm going to give you a big opening order isn't the strategy here. So what I thought was I'm not a good salesman. I don't think I'm a good salesman. Naturally, you know, I'm E commerce guy behind the computer. I feel like I'm great at that and growing E Comm. Knowing about all the paid search, Facebook ads, all that analytic stuff. So I have a good, I have a good relationship with my sales reps that we do business with. And one of them, we're chatting about how I can't get skin brands and it's very hard. And she couldn't believe it because she knows, you know, how good our business was because she serviced us. So we ended up doing a deal where on a contract basis, look, I'll go in, I'll represent you, I'll sell you. Let's get a really polished deck of selling aerial beauty. I'll go in the meetings and whatever, work it out on a contract basis from the five brands. I said no. She literally got all five of them.
Nathan Bush: Wow.
Anthony Napper: And I'm like, it was definitely me. It was, it was definitely me. It just proves that it was me, you know. So once, once I found that out, we hired a full time business development manager because there's a number of, we got heaps of brands to go. Like we're, we're in the trenches every day, you know, head torch on, pickaxe in hand, trying to get as many brands as possible. So yeah, so we hired her full time and that's what part of the role is.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, brilliant. How personally, how did that feel when you saw her go in and convert those brands straight away?
Anthony Napper: You know what, like I joke about it like, oh, damn it, it was me. I was so proud that I realized that it was like, you know, it's like a tactic. You know what, let's get this tactic like a chess piece. Just put it like without. It's not a chess piece. She's great lady Shout out to Katrina. But it just. It was so rewarding knowing that the strategy that we put in place, because we worked hard at it too, me and her, you know, it wasn't like, it was a lot of time and she was really into it. So when it worked out, it was just like, you know, when you win a deal, it's like, high five. Yeah, I was a drink at the time, but, yeah, you took it as
Nathan Bush: a victory, not a. Not a slur on yourself and a slur.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: It takes great, great awareness to be able to step back. Like, for you being in the trenches, but also managing the business takes great awareness to be able to step back and, you know, identify that problem.
Anthony Napper: 100. That's. You say that. And it's good because I feel like a lot of business owners, business partners, like, maybe could get a bit maybe envious of each other. Like, he's doing this and I'm not doing that. And like, that. Me, my brother, it's complete opposite. Like, I love when he does something that I can't do and he proves himself that I can't do that. It just. It gives like a. Not a tmi, but, like, it's so fulfilling to know that our partnership is so. Well, where I can't do that, but he comes in and looks after it and then vice versa. He can't do that. And I go in and look after it. It's a secret to, I think, a healthy business partnership to just remove all ego and really, when someone wins, everyone wins.
Nathan Bush: Yep.
Nathan Bush: Did you always get along as brothers, like.
Nathan Bush: Or is it the business that kind of really brought you together in terms of having one goal?
Anthony Napper: I think. Yeah, I think we're clearly not get along.
Nathan Bush: Like, we probably brothers are brothers kind of thing.
Anthony Napper: Brothers are brothers. But this is definitely, you know, even this. Even the other brother, he works in the business, too. He's starting, like, the men's side above the collar. And it definitely does propel the relationship. I think the best thing about having a brother as a business partner, if we argue and I told this thing, go get. You're being a dickhead. Sorry for swearing. You know, like, if 20 minutes later, you know, you want to get a coffee? Yeah, yeah, I'll get a coffee. You know.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Anthony Napper: If you said that to other business partners, you know, there's. There's lawyers involved, there's. Yeah, that's. That's the beauty of a family business.
Nathan Bush: You're going to have to see him at Christmas anyway.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. And, like, even dinner tables, even with our parents too. Some arguments that happen. You think this is it, the business tomorrow. But then the next day it's sweet. Yeah. Because everyone knows.
Nathan Bush: Oh, we've had a fair few brother, sister combination from the guys who run Hagen's Organics to Mr. Pullman. And we had Jess and Steph Dadden from Tubes last week. And it's a very common theme is that when it works, it works so well. And especially when the siblings have totally different personalities and focus areas.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, 100%.
Nathan Bush: Now I'm going to focus in on
Nathan Bush: something that I know you're very good at.
Nathan Bush: I had lunch with my wife today
Nathan Bush: and I said, hey, I'm interviewing Anthony from Oz Hair and Beauty. What do you know? And she's like, all I know is that whenever I do a search for what I'm looking for, they are always on top of the search results. Always. That's how I know them. Tell us about your search strategy or at least what you can tell us about your search strategy.
Anthony Napper: Look, yeah, I'm happy to. There's no secret with, you know, search Strategy. It's Google AdWords is definitely a big part in it or people go on Bing. But how much people really on Bing? Look, when I realized, so we'll bring it back to ebay. When I was on ebay and I was, you know, I have an e commerce mentor, one of my best friends, Father Carl Pappas, shout out to Kosh Co. Owns a, like a flower, fake flower business.
Nathan Bush: Cool.
Anthony Napper: And homeware and stuff. We had a meeting and I told him about, you know, how successful, you know, ebay is. And he said to me, he's like, you know, it's great, but you're at the mercy of ebay. You know, 90% of your sales at ebay, people don't know you for Aussie and beauty. They know you for the products you sell. So he put me in touch with my first digital agency, Quasi studios, Shout out to them. And we had a meeting. And this is, I had no clue about SEO, Google AdWords, no clue at all. I was doing Google AdWords but myself and I wasn't really tracking it properly. And we had a meeting. We went on Shopify, put our old custom website on Shopify and we had a Strategy with Google AdWords Shopping. They'd come back first month and say, you got a return on AdWord of 16. Well, that's pretty good. Let's chip up. So from two grand to four grand to eight grand. Now today we're spending 300,000 plus a month on AdWords for me to tell you I know the secret to it, not I don't, I can't be lying. But what I can tell you is whatever works, double down on that because it's not always going to work. Like our return on that spend isn't that much now. I wish it was. But when you get a good return, put all the eggs in that basket. And that's what we did and we continue to do. And you know our new agency, Sparrow, who are great, run by two brothers, Cameron and Morris, shout out to them, we're just continuing, we're measuring and whatever works, we put more in. Whatever doesn't work, we pull out. And that's how we do it.
Nathan Bush: Anything that you found recently that really works in search or things that you've ditched in search that previously worked that aren't returning for you?
Anthony Napper: Yeah. So things obviously retargeting is works. You know the magic one, retargeting. When that, when that works, you know, we go double down on that.
Nathan Bush: You're talking there for people who may not have been retargeting before. That's people who have been to your website previously and are putting in search terms into Google that are very close or around your area.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. People, you know, the, I think it's called the intent to buy, you know, Google. If you put more money on that, Google will show those results to those people. What doesn't work? Some brands don't work, unfortunately. I mentioned the brands. But if some brands giving you a terrible return, you just cut that brand out. You know, if it's, if someone's got a. For someone with their own brand, if some category or some line's not working, just cut that out and just put the money on the stuff that works
Nathan Bush: and converts and are you measuring based on last click attribution or do you have a fancy attribution model in play?
Anthony Napper: Yeah. So we look at Google Analytics and we look at Google Ads and we look at what Sparrow have their own custom one. We look at both. What we definitely don't look at is Facebook attribution. Because you've gone off Facebook, you know, Facebook. If you took Facebook's word of truth, you should be putting your whole house on Facebook ads. The way they attribute, you know, they. Sometimes I look at Facebook and I've had meetings with Sparrow. Like it's saying we've got like a 30 return on ad spend. Like let's be putting more money on that and they'll explain to me that it's like 28 day. You know, if you saw the ad within 28, like, so that's a whole nother probably topic of conversation attribution. But, you know, we try and use the most conservative ones as possible just to be safe.
Nathan Bush: And it's probably more important that you have a consistent baseline than getting it perfect. Right?
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Cool. What about social? And I know you're big on insta and you spend or at least you've got a great presence there. Have you experimented with anything new in social recently?
Anthony Napper: So what we've done is we've influencers. That's like, oh, yeah, wow. Everyone does that. But when I first did Influencer, I remember it was two years ago and I watched some like Gary V. Video. He's like, you should be doing influencers. So I did this myself. So I did an influencer. I was so excited.
Nathan Bush: You're so pumped up after watching Gary V. Yeah.
Anthony Napper: So Gary v, like work 2am Just for the sake of the story. It was 2am yeah.
Nathan Bush: Crushing it.
Anthony Napper: Crushing it. And I organized Influencer just out of thin air. And we did it. Paid her the. The money and it went terribly wrong. It was like an influencer that won was. It was like she was a Times Square billboard. Just all the ads she was doing the day the story had like 20 stories. And I was like in the middle of one of the stories and I realized that she might be a lot of followers, but they're probably guys looking at her, looking at her for other reasons than what she cares about, beauty product. The money I spent on that, I may as well got that money and just threw it off my balcony.
Nathan Bush: Are you talking a lot of money?
Anthony Napper: Yeah. For $8,000.
Nathan Bush: Okay. Yeah, a lot. Yep.
Anthony Napper: At least about $3,000 off my balcony. Maybe some would, you know, fly back in. I would have got some money back. That was, that was, that was my first experience of influencers. Now we, you know, now I've got someone like a PR social media manager who just knows how to do it good, you know, now we test influencers, the ones that work, we lock them in as ambassadors. We do joint competitions with them, you know, so you can get more followers. If they both share out a competition, making sure we get content out of them so we can use that content. You're not just throwing money at them to post something because how, you know, it's not going to work.
Nathan Bush: So it's people who actually have a personality and stand for something because they'll attract more than just the superficial kind of folk.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. When I did it it was all superficial and it didn't work.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, nice. That's really good tips.
Nathan Bush: Tell me about your technology.
Nathan Bush: Are there any e commerce tools or technology that have been critical in your success and growth that you would never start a business without?
Anthony Napper: Again, this is probably an obvious one. Shopify plus, if you call that a technology like that really changed our business massively.
Nathan Bush: What are you finding about plus that you're not getting with regular Shopify?
Anthony Napper: I think the checkout. Plenty for checkout.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Anthony Napper: That's one thing that you can't do and customize with normal Shopify and you can't really go too custom with normal Shopify. And if you have the turnover to justify plus you've got to go on plus because it does work out cheaper. Really if you can break that level of turnover. I think a great CRM system where with Amasses. Amasses probably is a bit. It's not for small websites. Klaviyo is still fantastic but a masters gives us that personalization that we can put on our website too and on our CRM. I wouldn't start with our CRM system and then Yacht Pro for reviews.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, nice.
Anthony Napper: You need reviews, you need user generated content.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great.
Anthony Napper: Or else your conversion rates is not going to be there.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. They're three really great tips for people to check out. One thing that I noticed is that you've got Prezi in there as an exit tool. I met the founders of Prezi late last year and they're great guys and I think it's really interesting what they've done and for anyone who hasn't seen it basically they allow you to do basically go through a bit of a journey. Customers can click on different items. So if you're buying a TV for example, use TV for example. Are you looking for small, medium, large click, whatever. Are you looking for this brand? This brand, this brand click and then eventually it'll narrow down to a list of products. How are you using? Crazy.
Anthony Napper: So yeah, so I remember I mentioned earlier that the data shows that people want to go to our website to browse, not just to go for the brand they want. So yes we do if I have to say so myself, we do have a good guiding shopping experience even without Prezi. But Prezi is one really is. It's for guided shopping. Like it is the thing to guided shopping. And after seeing that data, after having a couple of conversations with the guys, Michael and Kwok I think they are shout out to them. Great, great guys. You know it just made Sense. And the exit tool is something that without knowing exactly how it's converting it's. It's going well. Like our conversion rate has improved slightly, which is, you know, every, every bit counts and people use it and people are liking it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Nice.
Anthony Napper: And you can recommend the products that you want to recommend too. So that's the good thing too.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I think the thing that hit home for me when they're explaining it to me and they were like, we come as close as you can to having a physical salesperson there to guide people to the right product.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, 100%.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Nice.
Anthony Napper: But you know what, another thing, we actually had a meeting with my senior web developer today. Our chat converts, I think two and a half percent more than the average conversion rate of our website. So people on our web chat that interactive. Our web chat convert two and a half times more than people that don't use the web chat. So it just shows that the old school way of someone in the shop. How can I help you? Even though it's a digital experience with Prezi or the chat box, people still want that and you need to provide some sort of service that can deliver that, even if it's Prezi or Chatbox.
Nathan Bush: Are you literally talking chatbots or are you talking as a customer service tool with real people on the other side?
Anthony Napper: No. So chat a chat box, actual customer service.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Cool, cool.
Anthony Napper: And we can actually break down which, you know, which customer service representative is converting the most. So.
Nathan Bush: Awesome.
Anthony Napper: I realized that. Yeah. A couple hours ago. So that's really good to dig in and see what we can do with that.
Nathan Bush: That's cool. And how do you approach customer service there? Do you approach it as answer the problem or do you also treat your customer service team as salespeople as well?
Anthony Napper: Look at the moment it's not. It is sales, but indirectly they're the sales people. Like there's no like incentives as of yet, but that is something. Even hearing that data a couple hours ago, seeing that you can track who is converting the most, it does make sense to. Let's looks like a salesperson on the floor in a retail shop that provides something.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, this makes sense. I see it. I think Accent Group did a whole big piece around that and around how they see their customer service team. Not as problem always problem solvers, but as kind of they get on the front foot and help people out as like store assistants would be. And I think it's a really great way of thinking about it as not just the people who speak to customers when they're having a shit time.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's better for them around as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's it. Absolutely. Oh, it could be a horrible job if you're just answering problems all day. Can we talk just a little bit around the beauty industry at the moment? Because it feels like there's a lot of investment going on at the moment from, you know, the boom that we saw with Kylie Cosmetics and her being named. What's the youngest billionaire through to Adore Beauty going public late last year. Do you think the growth is sustainable in online beauty like we've seen over the last 12 months?
Anthony Napper: I sure hope so. I hope so. The valuation figures that some of these companies are getting. Yeah, look, look, I'm not, I don't. I'm not a big, like, share guy or finance guy. I understand the basics of it. Look, as long as there's a demand, as long as more people are using these beauty sites that were coming on Adore Beauty, coming on Mecca, coming to our website, if the online market is growing to match the increase in value it's getting on the share market or the value that people are buying them for, then it's sustainable. Do I know that's going to be the case? I don't know. That's. It seems like the $600 million question or whatever evaluations are getting.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, but I think like you said before, what you said is, you know, you kind of, you can see the growth opportunity internally, you've got ideas, you still, you can see a hell of a lot of runways still. So that just makes it exciting regardless of what's happening outside of you. Right?
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. Like, as long as our sales keep growing, you can be a little bit distracted. What we find is when you hear these evaluations and you hear, you know, it really distracts you from the main thing and why they actually even talking to you in the, in the first place. Because you run your business well, so every conversation you have, that leaves you for thought, which then takes away memory of your brain. Then what? You really, you really got to be thinking on your business and let that come later.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Has your dad tried to buy, buy back his business yet?
Anthony Napper: No, it's. Look, we're, we've got the salons now, so we're all, you know, it's all one business now. Yes, my brother and our parents. Yeah, it's a. All family business.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. And that brings me to my next question. Is, is what is next for Oz Hair and Beauty? What can you reveal that's coming next for you?
Anthony Napper: Guys, our next thing is really sharpen our brand pencil, really get our like we are branding. I do like our branding but really want to sharpen our brand pencil, sharpen our brand voice and really get that awareness up. Not enough people know about us. Our conversion rate without mentioning what it is is very high. So if I can get more people knowing about us and more people on our website, I think that we really can get a good return on investment on a great brand awareness and well executed brand awareness strategy than the average e commerce website due to how good our conversion rate is. So we want to become more famous over the next one to two years.
Nathan Bush: Nice.
Anthony Napper: Yeah. Aussie and Beauty. Not us personally, but Aussie and beauty want to get that brand out there.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it's, it's almost the opposite of what a lot of the direct to consumer brands are at the moment. They come out, burst out of the gates with the big beautiful brands and they look really big and really successful but they actually haven't got the fundamentals right.
Anthony Napper: Yeah, exactly. We want to do it the other way and I think the other way is more effective. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Nice. Anthony, thank you for being so open and some great tips in there. You've been really specific which is really helps people that might be a few stages behind you or even having the same problem. So thank you for that. How can people get in touch with you or your team at Oz Hair and Beauty?
Anthony Napper: You can email me@anthony.com Andy's A&D my LinkedIn Anthony Napper. I get a lot of DMS but I still reply to all of them so you can get me there. You're a good man and yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful.
Nathan Bush: Thank you so much for joining us
Nathan Bush: on Add to Cart.
Anthony Napper: No worries. Thanks Nathan. Thanks for having me.
Nathan Bush: That story of Anthony continually facing barriers when trying to onboard new brands really
Nathan Bush: stood out for me.
Nathan Bush: Not just for the laugh but also for the lesson. As he said, he rebranded, he improved the website and he even opened salons before realizing the easiest path through was actually getting out of the way. That level of self awareness and the celebration when he worked out that he was the problem is an incredible skill and it's well worth thinking about. Is there anything in your business where you are actually the blocker and you need to get out of the way? If you can't think of any, maybe
Nathan Bush: you need to ask some people close to you.
Nathan Bush: There's always areas where we can bring
Nathan Bush: in other people to help
Nathan Bush: to finish up. I have three resources for you. Firstly, if you're a first time listener of Add to Cart and you want to stay up to date with new episodes, head over to addtocart.com and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. We'll let you know every time a new episode drops as well as giving you my three takeaways from each episode and a link to the transcripts so you can know that this is an episode that you want to dive straight into. Secondly, if you want a weekly roundup of the best e commerce case studies, tools and research, sign up to the High Five Friday newsletter which is delivered to inboxes at 8am every Friday morning. I read all the e commerce newsletter and send you the bits that I think you can take action from. Sign up at 12 high 12h I g h.comau forward/5 and the last thing if you are looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, head over to esweettalent.com we are a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands. Check it out. Sign up to the email and get in touch with me if you want
Nathan Bush: to discuss your next move.
Nathan Bush: Until next time, thanks for listening and keep those customers adding to cartoon.
