Jason Eads: There's lots of existing marketplaces around tourism, but none that were specifically dedicated to Aboriginal tourism. So that's where we saw a gap and a way that we could help build and strengthen the industry. We're all about our purpose. That's what leads and drives us. Within a week, we sold 100 copies. It was clear that there was an appetite for Aboriginal content, for Aboriginal books and products, and so the store started to grow from there.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite 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. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at E commerce talent agency E Suite. Today's guest is Jason Eads. Jason is the CEO of Welcome to Country. Welcome to country started as a marketplace to promote and sell Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences and tourism. What a great idea. However, over Covid when we've been locked down and can't really plan travel, they've evolved their business model to also be a marketplace for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander products, including books, art, jewelry and food. Have a look through the site. There's some amazing product in there from all over Australia and it's easy to spend hours discovering products that you never knew existed. It's a really nice substitute so we can get back out there and travel throughout Australia. In this episode, Jason shares how businesses like Kip and co are developing meaningful and win win relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses. He shares how welcome to Country's PayPal partnership came about and why he is hugely optimistic about the recognition and the opportunities for upcoming indigenous entrepreneurs. So, thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Signet, here's our conversation with Jason Eads from welcome to Country.
Nathan Bush: Jason Eades, welcome to Add to Cart.
Jason Eads: Thank you for having me on. It's great to be here.
Speaker E: Oh, can't wait to hear more.
Nathan Bush: We've been reading a fair bit recently about what you're doing at welcome to country through publications like Inside Retail. And it's, you know, you've got some great momentum and some great stories coming out at the moment.
Jason Eads: Yeah, it's exciting to see momentum really building for us and really, you know, it's been leveraged off some activity that we did towards the end of last year and then we've been making these relationships with some great people and gives us a chance to tell our story and share it even further.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. So for anyone who's not familiar with welcome to country, can you give us a little bit of a lowdown on what we're doing there?
Jason Eads: Yeah. So welcome to country has two parts to it, I guess. One part is around a marketplace for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences. Taking a step back, our purpose is around creating employment and economic opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And as a part of that, we saw tourism as one of the very few industries that doesn't matter where you live in Australia. There's ways in which you can access and participate. So from the remotest of communities to the biggest of cities, you know, there is something everywhere. And so what we saw missing was a marketplace for people to come together. So there's lots of existing marketplaces around tourism, but none, you know, that was specifically dedicated to Aboriginal tourism. So that's where we saw a gap and a way that we could help build and strengthen the industry. Along comes Covid. The second part of the business really started to emerge. And look, in some ways it was in our minds because tourism operators usually also sell some kind of products alongside that. And so we were always thinking about what's the additional opportunity. And we started really slow. Marcia Langton's book, which is also called welcome to country, and it was not by design, it just happened that way. And it was awesome for us. We started to sell her book because it's also a travel guide. Of course, within a week we sold 100 copies. And so it was clear that there was an appetite for Aboriginal content, for Aboriginal books and products. And so the store started to grow from there. And so we've also become, you know, this e commerce store for Aboriginal fract from across the country. And it's great. You know, it's been really exciting part because it has weathered Covid quite well in many ways. And in some respects, I think Covid has really drawn out the opportunities around E commerce because people are shopping more and more online. So we certainly see the benefit of that.
Speaker E: And both sides of the business, the tourism and the product side, are they
Nathan Bush: kind of equally weighted or is one more heavily weighted than the other?
Jason Eads: Now, I think it's fair to say when we started out, certainly the experiences was front of mind for us and was where we wanted to be. But we launched in December 2019. What was the first version to test the site in the real world. And it was something that we did exclusively to the Northern Territory. So we listed product from the Northern Territory. We had a bit of a launch in Darwin, and from there the bushfires were starting on the east coast. And at that peak of time, it really started to push at people's confidence around travel. When there's obviously crisis going on, people don't want to travel, they want to leave home. Their minds are distracted by other things. And so not necessarily the best of times to launch a travel business, but nonetheless, it did give us an opportunity to also revisit some fundamentals and kind of think about relationship and how we could work with our operators to support them. During that time, we pivoted slightly and started to introduce some online experiences which went okay, all things considered. How quickly you have to change in those circumstances. But it was really the E Commerce then emerged quite strong. I would say that our intention was for the tourism side to be the strongest component of what we're doing. But in reality, the E Commerce store is where it's at right now. That may change over time. I hope to see them both come through quite strong. There's a great relationship between the two and we use it in a narrative on our socials to really tell the story of the people behind the tours and the people behind making the items. And I think in some cases we have people who deliver tours as well as make things, so we bring those stories together. And I think the travel, or at least experiences, gives people a way to think about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Australia in a slightly different way. And I think the shop product is sometimes the easy entree into doing things, so they work quite well together, I think, as a balance. But yeah, certainly during the current climate, our focus is to try and do both and grow them. But E Commerce is certainly outpacing where we're at with experiences.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker E: And I love the way you explain how both the experiences and the product
Nathan Bush: come together because it's about the people and the community behind them. And I think if you first look at welcome to country, you go, oh, great, it's an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander marketplace. But it's really about people and communities as the differentiator that other marketplaces can't bring those stories out of as well as you guys are doing at the moment.
Jason Eads: Yeah, we. I guess all online shopping experiences are looking for that hook or angle. For us, it was less about the items that we were selling. Like, it's exciting to source them and bring them to the market and give exposure, but it is also the people themselves and their Little stories that are tied up in it. And one of the things I really love, we've got one supplier that we work with, she also runs tours which, you know, during the height of COVID she just shut her doors. She didn't want to have people coming into, you know, what is a semi remote location for them and the risk of having, you know, somebody turn up with COVID and bring that into the Aboriginal community there. And so she's also a jewellery maker and, you know, she pointed us to a partnership that she had with a business actually based out of Sydney that manufactures jewelries with her designs and stuff on the license. And it was great. We were able to, at the peak of it all, we were selling several thousand dollars a week of her jewelry, which was incredible to see. And for her it gave her the flexibility of. She didn't feel the pressure to have to reopen the tourism business because of the other income stream that was created.
Speaker E: Fashion retailer Incoo has been introducing customers to new international brands for nearly 20 years. With 10 retail stores, E Commerce has been a support player. But in the last year it got really serious. They've upgraded from a custom site to Shopify and now Shopify Plus Incoo sales have grown nearly 300% year on year. Shopify plus features such as Launchpad for automation flow to manage nearly 2,000 SKUs, scripts for customization and Shopify Plus's merchant growth model have all had a compounding effect. Not only are sales up 300% year on year, conversion rates are up 80%, average session engagement up 91% and bounce rate down 40%. Incoo more like in.
Nathan Bush: Whoa.
Speaker E: To read more of Incoo's story and see other case studies, visit the customer sections on shopify.com auplus. How do you spread the word and
Nathan Bush: entice more Aboriginal and Torres Strait island retailers, producers, artists into your marketplace?
Jason Eads: So I guess initially it was all about our networks across our staff. And fortunately I'd worked in an Aboriginal cultural centre based out of Melbourne before and we had a shop there. And so I did have some existing relationships that I was able to draw upon as a starting place. But then trawling through social, you're looking for people advertising what they're doing and just building upon that. And then of course people start telling their friends. And so it very soon turns to people start inquiring and pushing out to us. We of course are very active on our socials and we've done a number of call outs to artists in particular to say, hey, if you want to sell Stuff via us, please reach out. And that's been quite successful. And then I think just generally as the, you know, the articles that are appearing in various newspapers and online and people are starting to find out more and more about us, that is bringing more and more people to us as well. So it does start to snowball in a way and it's awesome. You know, like, I love finding new products. That to me is the joy of retail because you're always looking for the new thing to bring. And having, you know, worked in the arts area for quite some time in my past life, it is nice to see what artists are up to and the things that they're producing. And so, yeah, great to see the new things coming through.
Speaker E: And how do you go in terms of the commercial conversations then?
Nathan Bush: Because I'm assuming there's a bit of a clip of the ticket factor in there. How do you go about those conversations?
Jason Eads: Yeah, and look, like most retailers, we seek to operate in a way that we buy wholesale and sell retail. Our particular line is we do like to buy the stock that we sell. It is about making sure that these small businesses have the support and the kind of cash flow that they might need to continue. So I think that is a good thing for us on that front. But it's challenging at first when people haven't had exposure to retail. The idea that some people have when you say, oh, we'll buy wholesale from you and some think, oh yeah, I'll sell it to you a dollar or less per item. Not realizing, of course, the work that goes behind actually getting something onto an e commerce platform, the marketing that goes into it and then the part that everybody forgets about the pack and sentence, you know, the ordinary amount of work that goes into making sure items are delivered to customers in a safe way. So I think it's really helpful though, when we do have quite experienced people at it, to be able to share some of their insights with the community so that people can not just take it from us but actually hear it from others that have more experience in the space. We have had a number of reach outs from other Aboriginal community orgs or slash businesses that work with a number of smaller Aboriginal businesses. And one recent one reached out to me and said, look, we've got a group of people that we want to refer to you. How do you work? So we work through this is the process and stuff for us. But we also had the conversation about how do we have the conversation with everybody about, you know, what to expect in a wholesale kind of arrangement? And I'm more than happy to jump online and have chats with people and run a seminar if need to be. I mean it's not a dissimilar conversation in the tourism space, particularly for new operators that come in because they're not kind of fully aware perhaps of the commission based structures that exist in that world and how commissions work. And so yeah, I just think it's having conversations with people and helping them understand. When I worked in an art gallery in Melbourne, the number of people who didn't really like artists would come in and they'll see their works on the wall at a certain price. And of course galleries take around 40% commission out of that. And people like what I'm not telling you. So it is. Yeah, just having the conversations is the most important part.
Speaker E: And I think we've seen some examples
Nathan Bush: of things like the gap, you know, saying to clothing the gap that we need to change your name and we'll, you know, take a legal case and obviously the use of the Aboriginal flag and the rights around that. Is there a sense of distrust I suppose for commercial terms that is hard to get over because of those incidents?
Jason Eads: Look, I think there's a history of certainly in some sectors of designs just been taken and used and so artists have been ripped off and I don't understand the commerciality or the terms that are associated with that and what is normal practice within an industry and what is changing in that industry as well. And it's been like. I find it fascinating when we look back in history, some of the rip offs that have occurred and some quite high profile Aboriginal people. And I'm sure she won't mind me mentioning her name but Bronwyn Bancroft had a case very early on where a manufacturer of clothes decided to use her designs on the clothing range. And that clothing arrange appeared in a Grace Brothers catalogue which was then distributed to people's homes. And it was at that point that somebody saw the designs and thought well that looks like Bronwyn's work. And they were friends with Bronwyn and they reached out to her and of course Bronwyn was devastated. This is her whole kind of career and to see those kind of designs just appear and we see it all the time now, there is tons of examples on Facebook, art that's just been taken prior to put onto doona covers and all sorts of clothing range and there no Aboriginal artists being remitted for that. So there is that kind of thing that goes on. But fortunately there's also some really good relationships emerging and really, over the last two years, it's been really heartening to see the number of collaborations that have emerged. And I love, for example, the Kip Co partnership with the women from out of Arnhem lands. And you know, they've been really upfront about how that's all been developed and there's a 50% sharing of the profits. I mean that that is a real benchmark for how things could be done in a really positive way. The other thing that I'm particularly interested in is how do we also uplift the Aboriginal artists or designer that is also trying to break into an industry to not just do a collaboration but actually to support them to develop a range. And it might be an exclusive range that is, you know, delivered by your E commerce platform or what have you. But again, it's that empowerment piece around, you know, how do you work with people to help uplift them? And so they get to build themselves in many brands as a result of it as well. And I can see that coming in the future with closing the gap, notwithstanding the court case and the discussion around the name the gap and the like. I mean, I love what they do. They are a social enterprise and at the heart of it is about creating healthy communities. Who can argue with that? And you know, it is about that self empowerment piece that people are taking control of their own destination and it's not waiting for someone else to go, here's the money so you can go off and run a program. They are raising the money by running this E commerce platform and they are changing people's attitudes and really, I think adding to the conversation that is taking place, and we've got some of our suppliers too who openly talk about this is a chance for Aboriginal people to actually make an income for themselves. And as one of our operators puts it, it's like, you know, this is me closing the gap for myself. I think when we look at the level of disadvantage and stuff and look, I don't like to dwell on disadvantage that exists, it's a part of the community. But we sometimes miss the positive stuff as a consequence. And you know, I think that if we are able to uplift people and empower people themselves, then it'll take care of many of the other issues and stuff associated for me personally is as much about individuals getting opportunities as it is around communities getting opportunities. And I don't pretend that we're here to solve and create the full change that's required. But I look at what's been happening over recent, the last decade or so. And there's a real growing momentum around that empowerment and the emergence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses that I just think is awesome to see. And it makes me think about what's the next generation going to look like as a result of this. So it's all positive. I love that.
Nathan Bush: I love the positivity there.
Speaker E: And in terms of if I'm a
Nathan Bush: retailer listening to this and it's been in the back of my mind that I'd love to have a partnership of some sort support Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander producers, artists. Are there any practical steps or tips that you would give retail businesses to develop those relationships in a meaningful way?
Jason Eads: Yeah, 101 for me is being prepared to not just do the normal walk in and buy something, but actually be prepared to be the mentor and help people develop and take advantage of the opportunity that might be presented. Be prepared that you, you may even have to put some funds up front to enable, you know, this thing to happen. And I think the other thing for me is just really thinking about, you know, what is the best possible outcome that you can, can deliver, not just for you as a retailer, but also for the person that you're actually working with. So what's the, the win win scenario? What's the strength that can be drawn from out of it and you know, where possible. Just going back to that original point around, how do you give someone that real lift up and allow them to develop and not be just going in? Yeah, we've got that design, that's the collection for this season and you know, see you later kind of thing. I think sometimes it's also good to think about the long term and how you can create change for that individual and you know, you might be the person helps them break into an industry and I think that's really exciting to see.
Speaker E: And when you say a mentorship, are there any particular skills, especially around the e commerce industry, that you think are really needed or useful in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?
Jason Eads: Well, I don't know if there's any one particular skill I can go, you know, that's what's required because I think, you know, people are different all over. Of course, I often find that people might underestimate the amount of marketing is required to really build a brand and build exposure. You know, people think, oh, I've got this for sale and I can put it on Facebook and that's it. And that's great, you know, like it may reach an audience that you have as a natural following. And I know some People have been really lucky in terms of, you know, something just grabs a hold and takes off and, or they might have a good social following personally and that helps build their momentum. But for most people you really have to focus in on how can you really leverage opportunities to grow the awareness of you and what you're doing. Because ultimately that brand awareness is the thing that's going to keep bringing people back and back to you as opposed to, you know, just a one off ad that that appears somewhere. And so yeah, to me it's just don't underestimate how long that might take to build.
Speaker E: That makes total sense. And you guys have developed some great partnerships yourself. Recently announcing a partnership with PayPal. What do you look for in partners and what's on your radar?
Jason Eads: Yeah, well, you know, being two years kind of into the, since we launched the platform anyway it for us it is about values alignment that has to be at the front. If there's not some level of value alignment then you're not really question why you would get into a relationship at the end of the day. And for us there's the obvious thing that we want to grow our audience and exposure but we want to do it in a way that we're all about our purpose. That's what leads and drives us. The sales are the enabler to us to deliver. But I don't walk into a partnership with, I just want to generate X amount of sales at the end. I want to know how our story is going to get out. I want to know how people are going to connect with that. Because it's about the longevity of relationships. I don't think that you should walk into some kind of partnership with a view that it's just the here and now, then you're going to move on. I hope to build them over the longer term and you do small things to start off. And so PayPal is one of the obvious ones that we've just been entering into. For us it was really interesting. So PayPal globally had turned their minds to Black Lives Matter and obviously the Australian arm of PayPal was also considering what they could be looking at. And you know, they landed on obviously, you know, with the role that they play in some cases around e commerce stores and you know, payment methods and the like. It makes sense for them to align with something that, that is also core to their business. And for us it was an opportunity to think about what does that mean in the context of Australia and how could we, you know, really drive some exposure for our businesses that are listed with us because, you know, again, ultimately, that was the core of what we were trying to do. It's first steps. You know, we've. We've run a campaign to Drive awareness, and PayPal's been awesome. You know, they put up some prizes for the competitions and stuff that have been run. And, yeah, we're happy with how that started off. And I looked forward to the next kind of thing that we do together.
Nathan Bush: Really?
Speaker E: That's awesome. And obviously, like, with things like movements like the Black Lives Matter and even I saw this year, it felt like there were so many brands and tech vendors attaching themselves to NAIDOC Week and movements like that. How do you determine who's genuine and who's doing it? Because the marketing team have dreamed up that. It's a movement we want to be associated with.
Jason Eads: Yeah, I think that's an interesting question on so many levels. But just going back to this year's NAIDOC in particular, the chatter amongst the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community was there seemed to be really heightened level of exposure across mainstream TV and business. And in a way that it had not been seen. I don't recall it being to this height. And for me, seeing on TV where they changed the weather reports to give the Aboriginal names to the cities around
Nathan Bush: the country, that was so awesome.
Jason Eads: Yeah, it was really awesome. And the pride that comes from that. And that to me is, you know, the thing about naidoc. NAIDOC is about celebrating who we are as a community, where we've come from, the struggles that we've been through, but ultimately too, about our strengths. And for me, it's about building that pride in our young people. And there's no better way than to see acceptance of our culture in the broader population. And, yeah, it comes with some people who, you know, see it as a marketing opportunity or angle, but I think overwhelmingly people come at it for the right kind of reasons. And, you know, I look at the rise of these conversations and how they've been rolling out, and I'm personally inspired by this next generation coming through. They are much more informed, understanding the kind of the topics and what's really happening behind and then understanding what difference they can make. And if, for me, some of the commercial things that are occurring or the stuff that's occurring in mainstream, and it's also breaking open opportunities for Aboriginal people to walk in that world. And that is a good thing. And, you know, I don't want to see that stop on the basis that a small number of people might not be doing the Right thing and are only seen as a pure commercial opportunity because I think the overwhelming number of people are actually doing it for the right reason.
Speaker E: Makes total sense that the benefits and the positivity that comes out of it
Nathan Bush: outweigh some of the small cases of the negative.
Jason Eads: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: What was your reaction when you first saw Australia Post starting to open up traditional Aboriginal place names on postal addresses that they announced recently?
Jason Eads: Yeah, so I love it. I mean, it's again, that way in which things creep into what is normal then for everyone. And it also, I think, makes people kind of think, oh, what is the traditional name of the area that I'm living in? And they're just small things that I think help change people's perspectives on the world. And it was, you know, the crusade of one person to get the change to occur and the actual change.
Speaker E: Who was the crusade?
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Jason Eads: The name of the lady escapes me, but she had really pushed at Australia Post to do this, and Australia Post actually agreed to do it earlier in the year. And so the fanfare recently around, you know, this is what we're doing is awesome because it brings the kind of attention that's required for everybody to pick it up. But almost immediately from the time that it started to happen, people embrace it. And I know Closing the Gap implemented changes on their system to allow people to put it in. We've done the same. So people can pop it in on their mail address if they know it. I think the next step really is to get to a high level of integration because I think what people are by default using is what would been the business name in the past, like a company name or something like that. So that line in the. But, you know, it's the thing about how all the different systems then are able to pick up that extra line of code and put that name in. Right. But it's. It's good. You know, people are doing it and we see it all the time going out on the orders going out from us. So, yeah, I love it.
Nathan Bush: So good.
Speaker E: And then if we go back to Black Lives Matter, what we saw in the US is a lot of pledges and a lot of commitment to black founders in terms of stocking a certain amount of product. Some of the beauty companies, I'm not going to name them because I can't remember off the top of my head, but like 15% of our product stocked
Nathan Bush: will be from black founders.
Speaker E: Would you like to see similar commitments from Australian retailers here?
Jason Eads: Absolutely. And I mean, I'll go back to over a decade ago now, an Organization called Supply Nation was set up in Australia and it's endeavour is to create opportunities for Aboriginal businesses to enter the supply chains of businesses in Australia that's big and large, you know, those big and large ones, I should say. But the, you know, we've seen from that an emergence of some products into stores already. I guess off the back of that, the Australian government then set targets within its own supply chains, which has really been driving some great activity. But the private sector was the leader in that initially and I think that there's a lot more opportunities. But again, I'm seeing more and more of it and I think the more people that pick it up, it'll be just great to see. I just hope inside of me that it's not something that, oh, well, we had the Black Lives Matter moment and we created this and that was the flavor and now we've moved on. I hope that there's some way of having it be around for a lot longer. The other thing that I think that most people are not aware of, there's a lot of Aboriginal businesses that are producing products that for all intents and purposes are not derivative out of something that is by its nature Aboriginal. And by that I mean, it's not like the Aboriginal design on a T shirt or on a doona cover. I know of Aboriginal businesses that are in the supply chain making hand sanitizers and face masks and all sorts of stuff that emerged during the pandemic. But they're also. They have the capacity and capability of supplying products that as everyday people require and it doesn't need to be branded. So I think that the perception perhaps is something that people also need to gain an understanding of what on earth's going on. And there's not many industries these days that have not been touched in some way by an Aboriginal business. There's the recent announcement out of Perth of an Aboriginal business winning a $350 million contract in the mining sector. I mean, that's huge. But equally, there's the smaller kind of things going on that people don't necessarily know about. There's Aboriginal businesses doing work for defence, for example, in construction. And again, you know, that's. Yeah, I just don't think people have the full appreciation. There's a gin that's produced out of Adelaide that uses, you know, native ants. You know, I've had that.
Nathan Bush: It's amazing.
Jason Eads: Awesome.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, so good.
Jason Eads: So, you know, again, there's. And you know, there's another business that I know that has substantial Aboriginal ownership in it that is a beer brewer. So, you know, like there's, it's the perception kind of thing. I think that it takes a while for people to get their head around and to understand just how much it's been growing. But I think the part that we will really see is when you can walk into a shop and actually can't tell necessarily, you know, where those products are derived or supplied from. But in the back somewhere, someone's reporting, you know, that there is at least, you know, a decent percentage of Aboriginal businesses in that supply chain.
Speaker E: If I asked you who you thought the Captain Planet was of Australian retail, I'm sure the team over at Flora and Fauna would get most of your votes. They continue to set the benchmark for sustainable retail and sustainable business in general. So we are still so proud to share that they have partnered with our friends at Signet to create plastic free packaging. Using Signet's eco friendly protective packaging range, Flora and Fauna have been able to save 30 tonnes of plastic from landfill while keeping their 8,000 products safe in transit. As Captain Planet would say, with our powers combined. Visit signet.netaublog to find out more. If we go back to welcome to
Nathan Bush: country, what's next on your radar? Like, obviously you've had this huge shift. You've got through Covid and you've transitioned from experiences, well, including experiences still, but also added on product. What's the next big step for you guys?
Jason Eads: There's a couple of things in our kind of thinking at the moment. One of them is obviously about growth to get to a point of being really healthy and sustainable in the longer term. We also are interested in what we see as some of the product gaps and where there might be an opportunity to help enable the creation of those. Some of the obvious ones are around various homewares opportunities, I think Covid, with various lockdowns and people spending more time in their home, I think people have spent a lot more money on dressing their house up. And so the emergence of homewares is a really strong one, equally fashioned. I've seen a lot of that and one of the kind of things is on our mind is around how do we support other businesses. So Aboriginal businesses in particular who want to develop, whether that's helping them develop their e commerce capability, whether that's using some of our knowledge understanding of marketing to help them. So we're kind of working through some of that at the moment. And the last area, particularly around growth for the shop and experiences, is thinking about the B2B opportunities that might exist because most of Our work has been B2C so far. But, you know, I would at least once a week, sometimes more frequently get an email from another retailer looking to have some of the products on our site in their stores. And if we can play a role in helping to facilitate people being able to reach those other markets, I'd be pretty happy about that.
Speaker E: It must be pretty exciting to get up every morning and discover new people and new artists who are creating a living with what you've enabled in the marketplace.
Jason Eads: Yeah, you know, I'm always one about attribution and how much a role we play in that, but, you know, it's exciting, most definitely. And as I said, I love that, you know, when the new box of stock arrives on stuff that we haven't, you know, I remember when we first had the AFL footballs arrived that are, you know, being painted in a community. They were awesome to see. And then getting them onto the site and then selling straight out of them. Right. It was just one of those beautiful kind of moments. And I think that's the kind of stuff that I think everybody gets excited about. But also in this environment, our team is growing in order to be able to meet our growth ambitions and do some of these other things. So having new people come in, new ideas is just as exciting in my mind because that, yeah, the conversations, what other people bring, that is the healthy part of business growth, I think.
Speaker E: Oh, so much opportunity. I love it, love what you guys are doing. Jason, if people want to reach out to learn more or talk to you about welcome to country, how's the best way to get in touch?
Jason Eads: Yeah, so the easiest way is to drop me an email. Jasonelcometocountry.com of course, there's the help desk on our website as well. The team will always pass messages, so if you can't remember the email, just jump on the site and drop us a message.
Speaker E: Beautiful, mate. Well, thank you so much for sharing and can't wait to see welcome to country get bigger and better.
Jason Eads: Thank you and thanks for the opportunity to share more of our story.
Nathan Bush: I loved how positive Jason was around the opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander retailers and community. I actually had a bunch of questions prepared that I scrapped mid interview because they kind of bordered on being too negative and focusing on the barriers faced. Jason showed that there's more opportunities than negatives to talk to, especially with marketplaces like welcome to Country Emerging. That was really refreshing for me. Here are my top three actionable tips to take from the episode. Number one, think about the meaningful business relationships that you can have with indigenous businesses. Partnerships like Kin Co's 50% profit sharing model is a great example of mutual beneficial relationships and ones that go for a long term rather than one off transactional two can you incorporate Indigenous recognition in your Customer Journey Australia post? They made a great step by allowing traditional place names in the address field and obviously playing with address fields isn't easy. Is there any other Indigenous recognition that we can celebrate and make standard in our e commerce process? Number three if you want to make a difference, you most likely have the skills that new Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander retailers could benefit from. Reach out to community groups if this is something you're passionate about. No doubt the lessons will be two
Nathan Bush: Way
Speaker E: 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 news and send you the bits that I think you can take action from. Sign up at 12 high 12h I g h.comau forward/high five and the last thing if you are looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, head over to eSweet talent.com we are a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands.
Nathan Bush: Check it out.
Speaker E: Sign up to the email and get in touch with me if you want to discuss your next move. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep those customers adding to cartoon.
