[Voiceover]: You went to primary school with Ruslyn Kogan.
Nathan Bush: What was he like as a kid?
[Voiceover]: Did you ever have like thoughts that he would end up being the e commerce powerhouse that he is today back in primary school?
Brett Sinclair: Well, as soon as you come in talking like they're a retailer, you know, it's like game over. If you knew nothing and you were starting from scratch, which is a lot of people, what are the steps you need to take in order to get a digital experience up and running? Or if you're at level one, how do you move to level two and move up that digital maturity curve? You think you know everything. You might have been running a couple hundred million dollar business in retail and then you've come into this world and it's totally different requirements.
[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.
Nathan Bush: Here's your host, Bushy. Is anyone else low key or high key freaking out about B2B E commerce? If you've been ignoring it up until now, it might be time to sit up and pay attention because B2B is officially having its moment. And who better to help us make sense of it all than someone who knows every nook and every cranny of the B2B E commerce world?
[Voiceover]: That sounded a lot dirtier than what I wanted it to be.
Nathan Bush: But dare I say it, Australia's top expert and ultimate connector in the B2B space joins me today. Welcome to another episode of Add to Cart. My name is Bushi joining you from the land of the terrible people here in Brisbane, Australia. Today we are diving into the transformation of B2B eCommerce with Brett Sinclair, founder of the B2B e Commerce Association. Brett has worked with major brands like Woolworths, Bunnings and Officeworks, helping them innovate and scale their digital operations. He is a true leader in this space and we're lucky to have him here to break down the challenges and and the opportunities that are reshaping the B2B landscape. In this episode, we will unpack a growing trend of retail businesses who are jumping into B2B and the ripple effects that that is creating across the industry. We will also explore why creating a seamless B2B experience isn't just about the fancy tech. Sorry, sponsors. It is about rethinking everything from pricing models to internal structures to meet the needs of business. Buy Plus, Brett will share his take on what is next for B2B E Commerce and what to expect at the upcoming B2B Commerce World Conferences A quick reminder if you haven't already, sign up for my weekly e commerce newsletter. Every Tuesday morning I send out the top e commerce insights plus five must read stories, research and case studies to
[Voiceover]: keep you ahead of the game.
Nathan Bush: It's free and you can Sign up at add to cart.com au forward slash.
[Voiceover]: Subscribe.
Nathan Bush: A massive thanks to our partners Shopify and Klaviyo for making this episode and this podcast possible. Now let's get into it with Brett sinclair from the B2B E Commerce Association.
[Voiceover]: Brett, welcome to Add to Cart, mate.
Brett Sinclair: Great to be here. It's been a long time coming so I canceled on you before Christmas so I'm excited to finally get on.
[Voiceover]: I believe you're a bit busy. It seems to be B2B. It's got a bit of momentum at the moment, doesn't it?
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, it's kind of been a bit of a crazy ride the past couple of years and particularly the last 12 months. Yeah, we've been doing a lot of interesting things. So yeah, I definitely feel like 2025 is going to be a really big year for the B2B commerce industry and yeah, I'm looking forward to unpacking some of that today with you.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, same. We haven't done a lot in the B2B space, but that was our conversation. I said we need to really be kind of broadening out because it is becoming a part of all businesses. I don't think in retail there is as clear definitions as D2C omnichannel B2B anymore. It seems to all be merging and the opportunities are out there for different models within the same business. So I think it's really important that we explore that. Before we do, I want everyone to get to know Brett. We met when you were at Adobe and I was at Super Retail Group and we were talking about all things technology and platforms. Where did your passion for B2B come from in order to start the B2B E Commerce Association?
Brett Sinclair: I think like a lot of people actually a call I had this morning, this guy mentioned this and it's really true. It's a lot of people in B2B E commerce. I kind of just fell into it and that was definitely the case for me. When I first started in the space I was predominantly I started in the retail space which I think is some of the things we'll cover today around the opportunity for people that are in retail and potentially look moving into B2B roles but working for an online retailer in a Very basic role. And I kind of cut my teeth kind of understanding the end to end kind of world of E commerce in the retail environment.
[Voiceover]: Who was that?
Brett Sinclair: That was with Milan Direct, if you remember that brand. It used to be started by Wilson Cogan and Dean Ramler. Yeah, I think they got acquired. I think they end up getting acquired by Temple and Webster.
[Voiceover]: All your good work, obviously.
Brett Sinclair: It was actually I was just like I knew nothing. And it was funny because I knew Roslyn went to the same primary school as me and he gave me a job there and you know, I really had a really basic understanding of what E commerce was. I mean my dad said I was working in finance and accounting and I just really didn't belong there. I had a job at Deloitte and I was kind of figuring out what I was going to do next. And my dad was always pretty forward thinker and he wasn't in technology really at all, but he was actually in change management which is kind of interesting now because you know, in the B2B commerce space it prominently is what it's all about, right, his change. So we always have a lot of interesting discussions. My dad, but he remember, he said to me, oh, you should look at this E commerce thing. Like if you get involved in that sort of stuff, it's probably going to go somewhere. So I started to dabble in that and then kind of fell into some working with some manufacturers and distributors that were looking to, you know, at the time, more and more. More and more of those brands at that point in time were looking at more like D2C opportunities and, and you know, that's what I thought the world was. I really didn't know much about B2B commerce and what that world looked like, but I was lucky enough when I say I kind of fell into it. I landed at, created a relationship with a brand called Intershop which was not a very well known brand down here of a commerce platform. They're B2B, they're an E commerce platform. We're primarily really focused on B2B and they had a really interesting history. They were one of the first and there's people back in Germany that will claim they were really the first ever true enterprise E commerce platform. They started launching complex enterprise solutions in the early 90s, which is like really early and they were doing massive implementations of B2B commerce for huge companies. So they had a really rich history of complex B2B and I was looking back, fortunate enough to land in there because I got exposed to that world Quite early on. And I learned from a lot of really smart people there about how that world works and the complexity and, and other things. So that was kind of the journey that I went on into that space. And then I ran my own agency for a while where I was operating. I had a model that was geared towards manufacturers and distributors and helping them get enabled with a commerce solution and a marketing play. And so we had a business where we were really in the weeds with the customer and we were kind of operating platforms. So I kind of had a really, I guess, end to end exposure of, you know, what it's like to be operating, what it's like to sort of work in the software sort of vendor world, what it's like to be a systems integrator selling services. And then I, you know, went to Adobe for a while after that where we first met. And it's kind of how I kind of got the exposure in the whole space was across, you know, kind of worked across the different parts of the ecosystem. So it was a bit of a journey to sort of where we are now, I suppose.
[Voiceover]: That's awesome. And I can't let you go without asking. You kind of glossed over it there. You went to primary school with Ruslyn Kogan.
Nathan Bush: What was he like as a kid?
[Voiceover]: Did you ever have like thoughts that he would end up being the e commerce powerhouse that he is today, back in primary school?
Brett Sinclair: Well, no. Well, not really. Like, it's a pretty, it's amazing story. Right. And like I remember because there was, you know, Roslyn always tells us part of his story that his parents were Russian immigrants.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: And you know, there was a commission housing across the road from the school. And little did we know that when we went home and I would go in the backyard and play cricket with my brother, Rosalind was building computers and starting businesses when he was like eight. So it's pretty amazing story. And yeah, super, super smart guy. So yeah, it's been, been pretty cool to watch on where he's got to and achieved. So yeah, I've enjoyed, enjoyed seeing that play out.
[Voiceover]: Now, the B2B E Commerce Association, I want to hear more about this. So firstly, what is an association? Because I'm interested in the model and then how does the B2B E Commerce association work? What's the purpose?
Brett Sinclair: If I take you back to the kind of beginning of it, like what kind of sort of inspired it was, B2B comms have been around a long time. So like I said before, businesses have been doing this since early 90s different forms and variations, but it kind of been in the background.
[Voiceover]: Right.
Brett Sinclair: Just not many people heard about it. Manufacturing, distributors, you're not in the main sort of places that you'd find a retailer. Right. And in terms of where their businesses operate, they're out in business parks. A lot of unsexy things. Right. That you wouldn't even know about and you just don't even think about as a daily consumer of where all these things come from. Right. So when I looked at that world and the way that E commerce kind of moving and the retail community had started to get a lot more mature. Right. Like there was every conference you'd go to was very retail centric or you know, it's been marketed towards retail but. And then there'd been mature ecosystems that had been developed around the people. There's awards, all sorts of things. But as things sort of progress, you know, more and more manufacturers and distributors that were starting to emerge as. And I think the D2C thing sort of really kick triggered this off because like a lot of these guys would have had, you know, procurement portals and they're doing EDI and things for a long time. But you know, a lot of people started to dabble in the D2C world and saw that as an opportunity. So I think more and more of those people started to come to events.
Nathan Bush: Yes.
Brett Sinclair: And as those people got more mature in their thinking about E commerce and they got further down the line with delivering solutions for their customers, I realized that hang on, I'm going to these events and this is not relevant to what's going on in our organization. All the things that people are talking about here. And I think as the retail world got more mature, if you look back, they kind of, a lot of them tried and failed. Like they started out as thought oh this is an IT project. We're not sure that we want to how it's going to impact the stores. We'll kind of dabble in it. And then they made a lot of mistakes and then they real, they, they learned from that again and then they, they read, you know, they re platform did the restrategy fully integrated into store experience and people under, you know, understand that they don't, they don't say the word E commerce in retail now. It's just retail. Right.
[Voiceover]: Unless you're an E commerce podcast and then you have to call it E commerce.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, yeah, maybe we, we know that we've done a good job when we have to drop the word e from the B2B E Commerce Association. But so people were starting to go to the events and those things and more and more and you know, and then I was just saying it sort of firsthand. It's like there's no relevant sort of agenda that you know, is consumable for these people. And as you talk to people over time they're like, oh, you know, I used to go to that start but I don't go there anymore. Like, you know, I just, it's not really that useful for me. I enjoy the networking at the same
[Voiceover]: time as that's happening. So consumer led online retail is maturing and really becoming simpler. So you think about the time if I think that you're referring to is there's a lot of plug and play solutions, it's less it heavy, more consumer focused. Is there also at the same time this underlying pressure on B2B not to use archaic kind of table led systems and actually make it more user friendly because that's what customers are experiencing in their own lives. So they expect it in business as well.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, definitely. So you know, more and more expectation and pressure is coming on the B2B whether you're manufacturer or distributor to have an experience, right? A digital experience that it does involve usually placing orders but if you think about the B2B experience, it can extend a lot further than just than placing an order, right? You're talking about other things like gathering information, they want to be able to view their account, they want to be able to pay invoices, they want to be able to assign certain workflows to other employees that may need to purchase. And depending on, you know, there's a lot of complexity in B2B so like you know, depending on the industry that you're in, whether you could be in health and medical or you could be in agriculture or industrial or chemicals and you know that digital experience can vary dramatically, right. For what the customer needs, the buyer needs on the other side. Whereas in retail, not saying it's not complex, incredibly complex, but you know, if you're selling shoes versus sporting goods or beauty products, a lot of the requirements are very similar.
Nathan Bush: For over 40 years AUS Hair and Beauty has been Australia's go to for great hair days. But as they grew they found their operations needing a little extra shine. So what changed when they switched to Shopify and integrated Shopify point of sale in store? Well let's just say business as usual got a glow up. They've enjoyed 484% year on year revenue growth and they're reaching more customers than ever. Inventory Streamlined checkout, smoother online sales skyrocketing because Shopify gave them the tools to speed up operations and and drive growth while making the complex feel effortless. To read more success stories like Ozhair and beauty, visit shopify.com case studies and get inspired today.
Brett Sinclair: How you market and everything is can be very complicated. There's obviously nuances to all of that. But so, but in the B2B world it's very complex around the rules, pricing,
[Voiceover]: the machine, the machine itself, the levers and the cogs are a bit more complicated.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, exactly. Right. And so then to get back to your other question like so when people in those organizations and manufacturers and distributors are responsible for digital and transformation within these organizations, you're talking about making significant changes to the business and how they operate and the mindset of people. So you're impacting like as the best example is sales, right? Like if you're typically the Salespeople in a B2B organization have been offline sellers, right? They go out, they meet face to face, they communicate on phone, email. And so you're talking about putting a portal in front of their customer to place orders. Right. And that opens a whole can of worms within a B2B organization.
[Voiceover]: I could imagine one of the biggest ones there is threat especially to those sales teams that have had their big black book of clients for so long and all of a sudden they're saying actually now they can go and self service online now.
Brett Sinclair: That's right, exactly. That's their world, right. They go out and they see the customer and they sit face to face and they wheel and deal. And the funny thing is people automatically think that's the threat of you're going to be replaced but it's really not the case. It's more about taking away a lot of those mundane tasks, right? Of just order taking and doing administration. And what most of the people the brands find that implement it correctly is best sellers are like this is amazing. I love B2B E commerce because I don't have to do any of this admin work anymore. I can just be more of a strategic seller focused on the relationship, high impact relationships or more time to chase those new accounts that they want to land. Right. So, so all of those challenges and then we're just talking about sales and you talk about the executive team trying to get them to buy into this when there might be from a baby boomer generation or a 56 year old family business that has always operated a certain way. So you've got people that are in these Organisations responsible for these transformations that they feel very lonely in their roles. And so that was the opportunity with the association was to start a network of people and bring those people together so they could have an active conversation, create connections, start to share insights. And that kind of spanned across the whole ecosystem because you also had all of the technology providers right as well. They're in B2B, which is a massive ecosystem today. We're just still uncovering more and more players that we didn't know about or just hadn't had time to speak to. And they're just, they're coming through now as we sort of getting more mature in what we're doing.
[Voiceover]: But I mean that's a massive role for you, is to connect that whole ecosystem. When you start pulling it apart into tech, into clients, into retailers, there's so much there. What gave you the confidence that you were like, I'll put my hand up, this is the job for me to pull all these people together?
Brett Sinclair: Well, I think it gets back to what I found just as I've gone on with this for a few years now. It's just the experience earlier on of working across the ecosystem in different pockets. So just understanding how people think and what their priorities are and being able to tap into that and have conversations with people, meaningful conversations across the network. So, and so that's been our. And because it's so nuanced, like being able to link it all up and understand where all the pieces fit in is quite hard. And so being out, that's been the bit of the secret sauce in the beginning to kind of being able to connect the dots across everything and create a world where it kind of starts to make more sense. So, you know, that's, that's really kind of what our, you know, goal is like, particularly now as we kind of move forward, kind of really just hyper focused on the education piece. Right. And just. And that's the big gap because we've got more and more people coming into it, working in organizations and they're responsible, like I said, for huge, huge changes. And I think sometimes like the executive don't fully understand like what you're asking that person to do within an organization. And we want to educate more of those leaders and executives to help them understand that like they're not going to be able to do it on their own. They're going to need your full, like unwavering commitment to make this happen.
[Voiceover]: Because they're not signing off little projects, are they? These are big. Exactly what you said. Coming back to what Your dad told you these are change management projects that impact the whole organization usually.
Brett Sinclair: Exactly. I mean, it's significant. Like you're changing the fundamentals of how they work and, you know, how you execute that is the art. And what's really cool is, you know, as the industry is getting more mature now, we've got more and more people joining the association. They've got like great stories to tell and they want to share their story because they know how hard it is. And you've got. People have cathartic experiences when they can have a chat to someone who's experiencing the same pain.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: As them, because they just don't like these B2B guys. Like, they just don't get the opportunity to meet many other people that are going through what they were going through because there wasn't a place to connect on this previously.
[Voiceover]: And you're also in a. In a factory or a warehouse 60km out in the back of Western Sydney.
Brett Sinclair: Exactly right, exactly. So it's just a different. Yeah, it's a different world.
[Voiceover]: So let's unpack the association because I'm keen to kind of pick your brains on B2B because I know a lot of our audience might be in consumer retail, but have B2B in the back of their minds. So I'd love to unpack and get your thoughts on that. But before we do, let's unpack the B2B E Commerce association in how you bring that network and that education together. So you said before you have members. How do members get involved?
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, so we've got an online world where people can connect and we've also got a physical world where we're running events as well, which we, you know, we started two or three years ago now. So basically, you know, anyone can come and join. So, you know, if you find us, you can come to the B2B E Commerce association website. You can get started and sign up a free account. Come into our community. There's things that you can consume, there's resources that are available to you, there's people that you can connect with. Today I'm in there.
[Voiceover]: Some great conversations, few webinars now and again. Events. Good fun.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, we're really doubling down 20, 25 on our sort of online events. So we've got heaps of our tech vendor partners and other practitioners that are wanting to tell their story, who will be doing more and more of that content to be able to sort of tune into a lot of that. And that'll give, you know, give Some great insights. And, you know, I say to anyone that comes in, like, and we send these emails out automated as people sign up. But there's opportunities to, you know, more than I jump on a call with anybody. Right. And love to hear about, like, people's personal journey in this space. Like, what are the challenges that you're facing? How can we help you? Like, that's really what we're here to do. Like, we're here to serve our members. So, and ways that we help, like, sometimes, you know, if you're looking for a certain problem you want to solve, like, we'll give a point of view or connect you with someone that we think might be able to help you solve that problem. Or it could be, you know, usually I like to connect other practitioners. I use the word practitioner. Like, a lot of people on your listen to your podcast would, like, call themselves a merchant.
[Voiceover]: Yep.
Brett Sinclair: So we sort of more, you know, call it a practitioner or a professional inside the association. But, you know, we like to connect people with other professionals within the group that we think they would connect well with that may have some good insight for them. Like, you know, the one the other day, someone was quite junior and similar things, what I described, like, landed in a pretty big role and needs help, you know, and so we connected her with a pretty serious digital leader that had been around for a while to sort of, you know, catch up and have a conversation. And there's a lot of people out there that want to have those conversations as well. Like, they like to help. So we're really, we're really excited about that sort of stuff and helping people. So. But you can come in as a free member. But then once you sort of, you know, get into the association, you'll see that we've got an education offering. So, you know, we launched that at the end of last year, and it was a lot of work. Justin King, who is a business partner of mine in the US he's been one of the early, if not one of the biggest thought leaders in the space for a very long time. He recently poured his heart and soul into creating our first official industry certification. So you can now become a, you know, B2B Commerce Professional Level 1 certified practitioner. So you can come in and take that course. And so if you, if you're looking to do, like a fundamentals, foundational learning experience, this course is really awesome because it takes you on a journey of, you know, talking you through all of the different business models in B2B. Some of the, you know, the key vernacular that People use in the space how that how things operate from end to end. And then we kind of move into like talking about what E commerce means in the context of B2B and manufacturing and distribution and how those business models connect with the world of technology. Because there is a huge gap and variance in an. Interesting to see what you think of this compared to rates where retail's at. But there's a significant gap in variance between people's understanding of the fundamentals in this category. And it comes down to complexity and also the just the maturity of the industry. But you know, not many people still fully grasp like the end to end. And that's always the hardest thing. And I found it the hardest thing when I got into E commerce is just understanding the end to end.
[Voiceover]: I think it's exactly what you said at the start. It's most people stumble their way into E Commerce. Whether that's B2B or consumer led E commerce. Most people stumble their way and there's no university course on it. There's no kind of certification at the moment. You know what I mean? From a, from a tertiary education perspective. And you either come through as a marketer or a tech or a leader or operations perspective. And that's why we started the E commerce accelerator as well for retailers from a consumer perspective. And just to lay those fundamentals down because I find that the first thing you need to do is you've got to have everyone speaking the same language. So that's what you're doing a really good job of. There is you're going actually from a B2B E commerce association. Here's the language, here's the lay of the land. Everyone on the same page.
Brett Sinclair: Great.
[Voiceover]: All right, let's have great conversations on top of that.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah. And that's like you summed it up. That is the main purpose of why we launched it because and that's the like if we wanted one outcome of this first course is we want to get everyone having a common baseline understanding and speaking the same language. And what's really interesting about the process was and this has been awesome with Justin going all in on the association with me and building this globally is that I was always really hyper focused on creating value for the manufacturer and distributor professional. Right. But one thing that I kind of missed was I knew it was there but I just hadn't really thought. Thought it through was like the value and the opportunity and the impact that will have if the vendors in the space are also speaking the same language. Right. Because it's a huge problem in the B2B industry is that because it's exploding as well.
[Voiceover]: Right.
Brett Sinclair: This is really what it is. It's just. And you've got heaps of retail focused players that will have historically been in retail selling solutions and services that are now entering the B2B space.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: And there might be a couple of people within their organizations that know it really well. Right. Super well. But there could be a lot of people that don't know it well.
[Voiceover]: I have a lot of sales teams from tech and agency as well saying, hey, can you run the foundations course? Because we've got a new sales member who may be a great salesperson but never been in E commerce, may have been in an adjacent industry. And they just need to know the terminology so that when they rock up to a client meeting with a retailer, they go, yeah, cool, I know your acronyms, I know we're all on the same page.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: So I'm exactly the same as you. I think it's so important that you don't just kind of laser focus in on one group because the more you set the right foundations with everyone, especially when you're in the business of creating a network and connection, so important to kind of open it up and allow everyone to have access to that.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, definitely. And the manufacturing distributors are really on board with this as well. Like they love it because you know, there's so many stories of them will say, like how many bad conversations they have with vendors or people are trying to pitch to them that don't know B2B or you know, you hear stories of the day where someone's saying they had a disaster because they were sold to really well.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: But then they got on the other side and they had project managers and delivery people and analysts who just like didn't understand their business model. Yeah, right. And it's like, shit, that's like the last thing you want to happen. Right. And then they started losing confidence and yeah, you know, they got thrown out in the end. So there's a really important piece there. And you know, we're doing actually launching a dedicated. So the vendors get a lot out of the fundamentals course. We're actually launching a dedicated course for the vendors in our community that's literally launching in a week from now. And we're going to be like diving deep into how you engage with the manufacturer and distributor if you're there to sell services and solutions. And it's not about like, you know, mastering the art of sales and sort of, you know, the dark arts of sales it's more about, you know, what are the things? Like, how do you, how do you
[Voiceover]: get into their mindset? How do you know what, what are they looking for?
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, how do you build trust? Like, what is the, who are the key stakeholders? Like, what's important to them? You know, how does a CIO think at a manufacturer and distributor? What are the even. We're even gonna cover things like don't say these words.
[Voiceover]: What are the words you wouldn't say?
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, well, as soon as you come in talking like they're a retailer, it's like game over.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, okay.
Brett Sinclair: And so I said to some vendors the other day, like, oh, just some marketing. Cause it's also about the marketing people as well. Cause I feel sorry for some marketing people because they've got a. There might be in retail and now they're doing B2B and having to craft all this messaging and create events and try and target these people. And I said, oh, you just don't, you know, I use the example like don't, don't use retail terminology. And they're like, oh, what, why wouldn't you do that? I said, oh, because they, they don't like retail. Like, that's not what they do. Like, I mean their customers are retailers, but they don't see themselves as that often. What you think they see themselves as is dramatically different. So depending on as well, who you talk to in the manufacturing distribution business. So I've heard heaps of stories where people say, and some people are really big on it. Like there's people that are like really active contributors in our community and they just like, it's the biggest. No, no for me. And even their own employees, like if you're in the B2B company and you come in and some people just don't grasp the manufacturing distribution model and they just keep coming up with strategies and the talk track is always like, they're a retailer.
[Voiceover]: What are some of the biggest mistakes you've seen, especially for people coming in from a retail or a consumer led retail background, going into a B2B business either as an employee or sales or a partner? What are some of those differences? Because I'm keen to understand that a little bit more. What are the no nos that you kind of go, if you're going to B2B, don't behave this way?
Brett Sinclair: Well, I think, I think the biggest one I've seen is just people will come in to the B2B company and just think that they can bring their retail hat and what they know from the retail world and they'll be able to fit that into this complex B2B beast. And they'll sometimes not that open to taking a mindset of I don't know what I don't know.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: And so they're the ones that get into trouble.
Nathan Bush: When it comes to the new year, there are two types of people. Those who are organized and planned, they probably got a diary for Christmas and those who get to October and say where did the year go? Luckily for us, our partners at Klaviyo are the organized ones and they have created a free 12 month e commerce marketing calendar for you to plan your big wins in 2025. Do not miss an opportunity to boost sales and engage your customers with this month by month guide to significant marketing moments. From the unmissable moments like Black Friday and end of financial year to the untapped opportunities of national avocado day and take your dog to work day, There are over 150 ideas to help you connect with your customers. Head to klaviyo.com au to grab your copy. And if I don't see a spike in avocado promotions this year, I will be very disappointed
Brett Sinclair: because they'll come in and go, well, I know how this software works. I did this and that at this, at the retail environment and also as well, it can be quite frustrating because for them, if they're coming in because they don't sometimes fully grasp how like the acumen of those of the employees and their leadership for digital can be very, very low. So you kind of come in and you're talking a different language.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: And so that, that's a big one. Like so people come in and then they, they're constantly talking different language to the rest of the business. And that's when friction starts. Right. You know, you go in and you're starting to talk to the salesperson, giving off that vibe that you're smarter than them when they're sitting on the other side going, well, hang on a second. This business ticks over because of me and my sales team and we're the most important. They think they're the most important people. Right. And so then you've got supply chain who have been doing something a certain way for a very long period of time and maybe a little bit less progressive than like a retail world. So not necessarily, but you know, you know what I mean?
[Voiceover]: Because we're talking in B2B, we're talking big numbers, right. That just churn over a lot of the time. And so incremental changes have Big impacts. Whereas retail, you're kind of fighting for every sale.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's, you know, it's more. You've got longer planning cycles and, you know, you've got inventory that is just selling over and over again. Right. And they're more about, you know, making. They want to make things available to the customer as much as possible. They want to be able to give. They want to give visit, same as retail. I want to give visibility, but it's just different. Right on. You know, they've got back orders and they've got other rules and rebates and things that are going on in the background. So. But, you know, it's usually just that, that, you know, had to summarize that the main thing is the mindset. So there's so many things though, like from a retail world, if you're experienced, that you can bring in.
[Voiceover]: Yep.
Brett Sinclair: And especially the ones that seem to do, like, have done really well, like some of the retail people that were there in the early days, like when they had to go through the major change and like trying to convince everyone that, that this was real.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, yeah.
Brett Sinclair: And so those people have kind of done better. I found some of the people who are a bit older have done better.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. In doing that because of the change management game.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, change. And so. Yeah, exactly so. And they're a bit more mature in the way that they can approach some of the conversations internally. And how do you motivate people? Whereas some of the younger people could be more inclined to be behind the screen.
[Voiceover]: Yes, exactly. Like, I'm going to get in and quickly change stuff and I'm going to be hands on and fix it when actually this is a longer process.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you've got to be sitting with people and like, say, Amber McDougall is one of our rock stars, you know, from Laminex and she's been really active in our community and presenting in recent times has been awesome. But she talks a lot about how much you need to go see the customer and sit down with them and understand their problems. Right. And like the, you know, she's almost like she achieved. They achieved a lot. Their team at say, Laminex, she's actually Fletcher Building Group now, but she was driving CX and digital Laminex and an awesome team and they would talk a lot about how they were almost going out weekly, like doing customer visits, like just to get really in the weeds and understanding their problems and what they wanted from a digital experience and sometimes speak to the people that are struggling the most with customer adoption. And so when I say customer adoption, people listening to this, you know, it's getting those, it's moving your offline orders to online, getting them to use the system right. That you've built. People that are struggling the most often you find that that's one of the things that they just, they're not getting out to the customer enough. Right. And haven't done gone through the right process. So that's a big thing that we're going to focus on though, like moving forward is like how we want to help more with those problems and we want to give people more actionable frameworks to solve to do those problems because it's actually very, very difficult. I can give you the steps which we're doing. Justin ran a customer adoption masterclass class recently. You know, we can do, you know, there's steps that you can take, but we want to go further with that and give people a lot more tactical stuff to help them get through that.
[Voiceover]: You know those processes you mentioned before, that B2B is complex and I think there is that assumption out there that it's complex. But I'm keen to get your take on whether you think that's as real or it's over exaggerated in the general world. But also if it is complex, how do you create courses and education that kind of make it accessible but also relevant for all the different verticals and industries that you go into? Like you said, there's so many changes between the two. So I guess my question, there is complexity around B2B. How do you take people on a journey to upskill?
Brett Sinclair: It means similar to retail, like you've got your steps that you need to take right. In order to uncover what you know, what is it that the customer wants? What does the experience need to look like? It's just a little bit different in the B2B world. And there's sort of things that you need to focus on a little bit more as you. And it depends on where you are in the digital maturity curve. Like, so we're more taking the mindset of like moving forward of we want to have experiences for people that like if you knew nothing and you were starting from scratch, which is a lot of people, what are the steps you need to take in order to get a digital experience up and running? Or if you're at level one, how do you move to level two and move up that digital maturity curve? But it's a good question you ask because it is, it does vary dramatically. Like to use an example, like Someone asked me the other day, what's like the most complex B2B implementation you've seen? I've seen many, but like one really good example is a company called Insitec Pivot. You know, they do fertilizers and explosives. Right. And the experience of that, when you go in there, if you want to buy fertilizer, it's a real time. You're buying different blends of fertilizer for farming and all the pricing and everything is real time. You need to have. Because it's commodities as well and you need to. And it's custom blend. So the farmers are buying and distributors are buying custom blends of fertilizer for their farms based on the predicted conditions of their farm. Right. And so you got to surface this information up in real time. Right. On a product page. Right. And then after that order is placed and we're talking so many variations of pricing. Right. Like it's insane. Right. So you need. So the example is like, you know, people coming from retail into B2B. You can't just pick up what you learned at Shopify and drop that into this company. It won't work. Right. Yeah. So that's what I mean. When you can get caught out, you think you know everything. You might have been running, you know, a couple hundred million dollar business in retail. And then you've come into this world and it's totally different requirements and you're talking about integrating into a super complex SAP ERP system. And then after that you've got to. There's a. Those fertilizers need to be picked up and these fertilizers are being picked up from farm distribution locations and the trucks need to be scheduled by the people who have ordered and they're gonna be picked up at a certain time. And there's all these other notifications and statuses that need to happen.
[Voiceover]: Cause Australia Post won't pick that up, will they?
Nathan Bush: No.
Brett Sinclair: And it's different in the. No. Well, it's different in the B2B world. Like it's a huge thing happening in the supply chains are under major pressure. Right. Because as the B2B companies are getting, they're digitizing the buyer experience. They could get back to your point before about saying, well, people want B2C style experiences. They do. And like a lot of the challenges on the inventory and the order management side because people want to know when and where.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: And because it's made to order a lot of stuff or this, you know, there's lead times and everything and things change. In the supply chain. But the, but the supply chain systems and the vendors that are operating in that space are very niche and they don't have the systems and the tech to provide back the status. Right. Of where things are at. So everyone's playing catch up in that space. So in the future I'd love to say like one day we'll have things that'd be like, if you're in agriculture, this is where you, you know, here's a pathway for you. If you're an industrial, here's a pathway for you. But I'll tell you how we're going to address that. So a lot of our courses and learning will be around the general things. But all these things that like across each of the industries are similar. Like they've all got complex pricing, they've all got a sales team that are doing things a certain way and you're going to have to, it's probably, what you're doing is probably going to impact that.
[Voiceover]: And I think it's important to know those foundations across the different areas of finance and product and customer so that you know what options you've got. So you're not just prescribing. This is the way that you do agriculture, this is the way that you do manufacturing. You need to know what, what's in your toolkit.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, exactly. Right. And so, but what we're going to be launching this year is a peer group model as well. So we're going to be able to connect people, other practitioners that sitting similar in their seat or maybe you're just below some of the people depending on what your ambitions are. And we're going to connect people in a formal setting where they'll meet once a month and they'll be able to talk about a lot of these challenges that they're facing. And B2B is a little bit different from the retail environment as well. Like it's a little bit more sensitive around information, information sharing. So it's. People aren't as open. Whereas retail is more about always, you're always making noise, right. About what you're doing and trying to be famous and more eyeballs the better. Right. More traffic, more everything. So people are starting to see a little bit more as a competitive edge. So we'll have these groups where people can join and there'll be non competing companies that can sit in these forums together. Groups of. It's likely going to be sort of, sort of eight to 10 people that will be in each of these groups. So we'll have facilitators of those, of those groups. So I'm really excited about that. I think it's gonna be really powerful because that's the big thing that people don't get, like, because you have even in the really big companies talking to someone the other day like they, they needed a mentor. Well, there was a mentorship program that was being set up internally. Quite a big company. And his problem was that the HR couldn't find a mentor for him. He was head of E Commerce. There was no one really suitable to mentor him for where he wanted to go and his next step. So he came to me and was like, oh, is there a mentor that you could set me up with? And so there's definitely a big gap for that, particularly in the mid market because again, like, they'd be super lonely in their role. There is, you know, very isolated. They're looking for people to lean on
[Voiceover]: and, you know, share, especially for organizations. I can imagine HR departments would love that as part of a training and development program.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so we all tie it back to the training programs that we're setting up and it's great insight for us around what's important to people. It's interesting after just doing the level one course, what people say they're looking for in level two, you know, just gathering all that sort of stuff and people, it's all the things that you would have experienced in retail. Like people want to understand better how to select technology, how do you select the right systems integrator, you know, how do you run an rfp, all those sort of fundamentals. So that's what I was saying before, like, about retail. There's a lot of things that the people working retail, E commerce would have done in that they can bring that over in their experience. They know how to engage with these vendors. They know how to, you know, they've acquired technology before. They've maybe done a lot of business casing for technology. So there's a lot of skills and stuff that you like. Very transportable, obviously into the B2B world. It's just coming with that mindset of just not assuming that you know everything.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, that makes total sense. I want to get your view on the B2B World at the moment, especially here in Australia.
Nathan Bush: Who do you hold up?
[Voiceover]: You mentioned before instatec, Pivot and Lemon X as two businesses that you hold up.
Nathan Bush: Is there anyone from the retail world
[Voiceover]: that you think have done a really good job at extending into the B2B world as well?
Brett Sinclair: Look, it's emerging more and more like, you know, retailers are now seeing the opportunity in B2B, which is depending on what category you're in. Like, if you're a distributor, you need to be a little bit worried sometimes because now these retailers are going well, we may as well just cut into these categories and we've got the volume, we can build, the digital experience. So there's more and more that are investing in it. To be honest, I haven't really come across exposed to that many at a really intricate level. I've had more people come in. Jb hi Fi, for instance. You know, they. They came to our events recently. You know, it was interesting to, you know, to hear about what they're doing. We know the supermarkets getting into it more and more. Especially, like the liquor space.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: You know, so people are seeing the retails. Like one of the bigger places to play for the retailers is that, you know, what can you sell to their offices, you know, you know, the likes of officeworks, you know, and those sort of players are, you know, got huge. Actually got pretty big B2B businesses you just don't even know about. Right. In these big commercial accounts. So the opportunity is definitely there. And, yeah, we're seeing more and more of those sort of people that are responsible for running B2B. But the funny thing is, when you talk to them, they all tell you that, like, they feel the same. They feel like they're not being listened to because retail is their. That's their business. Right. So it's like, oh, I want to do this, this and this to the B2B experience, but I can't get my stuff prioritized in the roadmap. You know, we just can't get in and we're always waiting. And I know that some people in our network have actually left roles because of that. They just. Because they was just. They felt like they were just spinning their wheels. Yeah, I'm in the business, so I'm actually seeing, like, more. More of the retailers go down a different path for their B2B solution. So they're not trying to necessarily build it all in one platform. They're trying to just use something more custom, like designed for B2B play and separating it out.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. I have to give a massive shout out to a friend of yours. Friend of mine, Susie Young at Metagenics. I've had the pleasure of working with her and the team for the last
Nathan Bush: three or four months.
[Voiceover]: And everything that you were saying there around change management and business structure and technology almost being the last thing to fall, I've seen through Susie and she's taught me a lot around the B2B world because I've traditionally been consumer guy. So it's been fascinating to see how she's approached it. And I think when you're talking about that friction between where do I fall on the roadmap? It's also at a business structure to kind of go, okay, this is the way that we've always done things. This has been the way that we've invoiced, this has been the terms, this has been the, the rules that we've put in place. There's modern tech stacks and modern ways of doing things coming through. Do we want to actually restructure the business model and what our terms are with customers? Because if we're just trying to be so rigid to what our terms currently are, we're going to make it really complicated for ourselves and deliver a pretty shit experience. So I think it goes both ways, right? It's like, what can we do? What should we do?
Brett Sinclair: And it is a good opportunity for businesses to revisit some of that stuff. And pricing is always one of those big ones to go. Is this a chance for us to redo our pricing? But on the flip side, we've seen scenarios where people will go, should we change the way we engage with the customer or the way that this service works to fit the digital platform? But you got to be really careful because that could be your point of difference.
[Voiceover]: Yes, exactly. And the digital platform might change in two years time. And then are you going to change your business every time the platform changes.
Brett Sinclair: But the reality is for a lot of B2B companies, and this is the hard bit, when they kind of, you know, if you're coming in and maybe you're from the retail world and you're seeing how a lot of it is like especially more at the upper end and the enterprise level, you like looking at like 50% might be out of the box capabilities of the commerce platform and then the other 50% is literally custom.
[Voiceover]: Like very different.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, like you're designing a whole experience that is specific to an industry. Like, you know, example would be like operating in the aged care environment, you know, like it's not just an aged care. Like some of the stuff I've seen, like some of these B2B companies do specifically for a customer group. It could be a large customer group, but it's designed a really like unique experience for them. For the buyer that's managing a facility at an aged care facility at an aged care. An aged care facility that when they can purchase all their products, they can understand which rooms are going to need to be filled again at the intricate levels. And all this custom reporting and all this stuff just for that segment. But there's so much volume, like you mentioned earlier, the volume is so big that the investment to do that is worth it. And if you make it. Because the difference with B2B and B2C primarily in the day is like the buyers and the people that are using the system, they're not there because they want to be there. It's not like they're passionate about you and your product. They're just there because they have to
[Voiceover]: be there, get the job done.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah. So price becomes less important sometimes. If you're. You've obviously still want to be competitive, but if you've got a system that you've built that is incredibly sticky and makes their job easier, that is where people will naturally gravitate to more. Can they get in and out super fast with less friction? So it is the same concept as retail. Less friction. You want to get through. You want the pages load fast, you want the checkout to work well, but just the steps and the things that are taking place in there. And Suzy, the great example. Suzy. And I think this is another thing to remember, a good message. I'd like to leave around some of this having impact in these B2B companies. When you're coming in, it's like the people I've seen succeed the most are the people that are really passionate. Like, you know, Susie's one of those. Like, she loves a space. She believes in what she's doing. She believes in herself and what she can deliver for the organization. So you would have seen firsthand, probably. I'm sure there's different times where you have to push pretty hard.
[Voiceover]: Right. She does it in the nicest possible way, too. But she somehow has this Jedi mind trick. She'll be listening to this and she'll be laughing in a car. I know.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, exactly. So that's the art form that's hard to teach. Right. That's why I think where people connecting with others like Susie in our network, you know, can share insights and, you know, have a particular problem or a particular person that you're trying to overcome. And, you know, what are their.
[Voiceover]: Because that's the kind of skills that it's hard to put down in a course or a piece of paper.
Brett Sinclair: Right.
[Voiceover]: You actually need to experience it from someone and to talk it through with someone to understand scenarios.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah. And that's one of the cool things actually Justin Stump started doing in the course. He's got this thing called straight talk. And so it'll be, you know, we've got modules, Justin's talking, explaining things, but then we'll get a practitioner on, you know, like a Suzie to give their real world insight into what Justin has just spoken about to help it help some of those concepts land a little bit more. But yeah, you've got to, you know, there's got to be times where you've got to really back yourself as well. And you know, there's a lot of. But there's definitely, there's definitely great opportunities to streamline things with the technology. And I think that they're all valid conversations that have to be be had within the organization as to, you know, what makes sense. And again, this is why more people need to be educated on the fundamentals. Because if you're, if Susie's having to have those conversations with these key stakeholders and they just don't even know the baseline of anything that you're talking about. It's so hard for you to get what you want. Like, it's different for Susie because she knows, like, she can go with confidence and talk. She knows how to talk with the executive level. But if you're not at that level yet, like, you're doing this for the first time, you know, it's very easy to go, oh, you know what, I'm getting some pushback here. Like, do I really want to keep going? Maybe I just fold to what this sales guy's saying.
[Voiceover]: Well, after this. On my list for this month will be to complete the foundations course in B2B. I'm looking forward to that. You've got me excited now.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, mate, we need you as a certified professional.
[Voiceover]: I'll be certified. Don't worry about that.
Brett Sinclair: I'm waiting for the big shout out on LinkedIn. So, yeah, it's good.
[Voiceover]: So what is next for the next 12 months, Brett, what's big for B2B? E? Commerce Association?
Brett Sinclair: So we're looking to get, you know, get as many people educated as possible so that, you know, we're looking, we're excited to, like, we're talking a lot about members, about how we can get them to be certified professionals and also people in their teams. And a lot of this as well is about, like getting more recognition for people. So, you know, and you would see that in the retail space still, like, you know, it is a profession. Like you and I were involved in the. I don't even forget the name of it now what is that thing we were doing where we're trying to help. We're trying to get the E Commerce professional listed as a. As an occupation. As an occupation, right.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. With the Bureau of Statistics.
Brett Sinclair: So if people are completing a. Renewing their new passport and they can tick the box. E Commerce professional, that's because of you and I. Yeah.
[Voiceover]: So I don't think we've succeeded, but
Brett Sinclair: I don't think it got through. I know. I think it's crazy.
[Voiceover]: The next census, but I'm hoping for the next census because it is crazy. Like what do you even call yourself? But that's a whole different topic.
Brett Sinclair: Exactly. So. But yeah, we want to get more, more people through that and help elevate the industry. And we've got a podcast launching. We've got other, like I said, we've got all the webinars and then. And the content coming through from a lot of our partners. So we're really, really focused on taking our community experience to the next level in the online world. And then we're really, really super pumped about. We've launched our own conference series this year. So it's called B2B Commerce World. And we're doing it in the UK. We're doing it in Melbourne in August. Nice. And we're doing an America's One in Scottsdale in Arizona in the beginning of November. So to focus in on the Melbourne one, this event is going to be like nothing that has ever been done before in the space. It's going to be hyper focused on delivering value for the digital leader and their executive team. Because to address like all the problems we've spoken about like on this podcast, like there isn't really an experience at the moment where the digital leader in his organizations can bring their executive team along to an in person event and consume really high value, high impact thought leadership that gets these guys thinking, inspires them to take action. Because sometimes you're always beating the drum internally and sometimes people can get tired of your voice and you just need to take them somewhere where they can see what other people are doing. Right? Yeah, yeah. Like hear from, hear from the experts. So and you know, we really, we're building a pretty cool ecosystem of people that are really great speakers and have some like opinions to share and a point of view and like we said, we're bringing all of that to this event. Awesome. And we're jamming, we're designing it in a way that you get value out of it. Like I said, if you're a digital leader Or a team member. There's something there for you. And we're gonna have workshops and stuff like that, which I know you've been doing a lot of in the retail space at events, which will be the first time that's been done. And then. And then the day two will be very executive focused and we're gonna wrap up the evening experience with an awards night.
[Voiceover]: I knew you were gonna say that. I knew it. I knew that was coming. Good conferences need a good awards night, don't they?
Brett Sinclair: No, no, there's no sort of junket fun experiences for us yet. So, yeah, so that'll be like the industry celebration night. So, yeah, so we'll get that. Get that pumping. I've marked you as a judge. All right, you're on board.
[Voiceover]: Let's do it.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: August. August in Melbourne. Put calendars in.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'll just start getting it out now. But, yeah, we're in full flight on that. And yeah, it's. It's getting phenomenal feedback on the concept and. Yeah, excited to get. It's really awesome. Get the support from people. So, yeah, we're doubling down on that and just, you know, creating that, you know, that connection both, you know, online and, you know, face in person. And we'll do some other smaller stuff as well throughout the year, but, you know, there's a. There's a fair bit going on, but we're. Yeah, we're really excited about it.
[Voiceover]: Awesome, mate. I love what you're doing. You're an inspiration to me in what we're doing from a consumer perspective. Just to see how you're connecting and upskilling the B2B world. It's something that I look towards in what we're doing from a consumer perspective. So well done. And, you know, you're making B2B exciting and accessible for so many people, which is not an easy thing to do, but you've done a great job of it.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, thanks, mate. It's been. It's been really good. And we've got a. We've got an awesome team that's sort of getting on board and there's more, you know, so many passionate people. And I'm excited as well for. I think there's some cool stuff that you and I and the add to Cart community, I reckon we'll be able to do together in the future as well. I can this collaborations and interesting concepts that be valuable for both the retail and the B2B community. As more of these things start to converge and heaps of career opportunities so it's been awesome. Thanks for having me on.
[Voiceover]: Thanks for coming on, Brett. Good to see you and I'm sure we'll see you in the community soon.
Brett Sinclair: Thanks buddy. See ya.
Nathan Bush: Anyone else joining me to do the foundations course? Drop me a line if you are. We can compare notes. I'm not anti cheating, just so you know. All right, here is a quick recap of some of the key takeaways. Number one, the B2B evolution is here. B2B E commerce has moved way beyond bulk transactions. It's becoming a space where retail brands are thriving and really putting the customer into the conversation. Take Nike as an example. It hasn't been all smooth sailing, but when they embraced B2B, they didn't just scale their digital presence, they completely reimagined how they work with wholesalers. As we know, that story is still playing out and is still a bit lumpy, but it was a total business transformation. If you're in E commerce and you haven't looked at B2B yet or wondered how it might impact on your organization, now is the time. It's a fast growing area with endless potential and dare I say it, huge numbers attached. Number two, seamless B2B isn't just about tech. Sure, technology is critical and with friends like Shopify is continually evolving and developing, but Brett made a great point. It is only part of the puzzle. For a truly seamless B2B experience, you need to align your tech with pricing, processes and team structure. Some of those things are way, way harder to get right than the tech. The payoff is better efficiency, happier customers and a serious competitive edge. If you are only looking at B2B through the lens of a technology transformation, you will be missing the bigger picture. And number three, the future of B2B is collaboration. Look B2B players, they love junkets, networking as well. We're not so dissimilar from our battle to see friends. Brett's vision of B2B E commerce being shaped by events and conferences is already happening. Events like the B2B E Commerce Summit are really interesting where Brett said that they're seeing 40% more leads generated than some of those more generic conferences. It's about attending. It's about engaging, learning, positioning yourself as someone who is either a leader or absorbing from others in this space. If you want to explore B2B, maybe this is the year where you kind of spread your wings and look at a B2B conference such as the E Commerce Summit as something new to upskill
[Voiceover]: and expand your horizons.
Nathan Bush: If you got value from today's episode. Please share it with a friend or a colleague who could use these insights around B2B and if you have a moment leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps more e commerce professionals find the show and we always love hearing your feedback.
[Voiceover]: Feedback.
Nathan Bush: A big thank you as always to our sponsors Shopify and Klaviyo for making this podcast happen.
[Voiceover]: We love your support.
Nathan Bush: Thank you all for tuning in. We'll catch you next week on Add to Cart. Before you go, we'd love to invite you to join our free e commerce learning platform Add to Cart Campus. Meet other professionals and learn from e commerce experts to take your business and your experience ecommerce career to the next level. Register to join campus@addtocart.com now. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with a friend or a colleague.
[Voiceover]: Or even better leave us a review
Nathan Bush: on Spotify or Apple.
[Voiceover]: It really makes a difference.
