Tracey Bailey: You'd call them and ask if you could stock their product and they'd say, where's your store? And I'd say, it's online. And I was like, oh, dark art. Like, no, we don't get into that kind of stuff. I try to spend as little as I can with Google and Facebook. As far as I'm concerned, they're rich enough. What's that next problem with consumerism that needs a better way of doing things. 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 catches up with Australian e commerce leaders to get all the insights, tips and lessons to keep you at the top of the e commerce game and of course, keep your customers adding to Cart. Here's your host, Bushy
[Voiceover]: foreigners. I've known today's guest for many years now and I've been trying to convince her to come on to Add to Cart to share her story for a long time. And I'm very glad that today we are able to bring it to you. Joining me today is Tracy Bailey, founder and CEO of Biome, Australia's original sustainable retailer, driven to launch Australia's first online eco store way back in 2003 after looking into the eyes of an orangutan in the Indonesian jungle. I mean, don't all good stories start there? Tracy's pioneering business now has around 6,000 online SKUs and stores in Brisbane, Gold coast and Melbourne. With her committed team and a devoted following, Tracy manages e commerce success by maintaining her ethical commitment. And she's never strayed from that. She holds really high standards. It's a difficult path, but one well worth the struggle. As you will hear today. In this chat, Tracy delves deep into palm oil problems. She reveals her passion for Last for Life products, tells us about her recent Shopify replatforming, and shares the uneasy but necessary relationship she shares with her nemesis, Google. So, thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Paclio, here's our conversation with Tracy Bailey, founder and CEO of Biome. Tracey, welcome to ADD to cart.
Tracey Bailey: Thank you Nathan.
[Voiceover]: So good to have you here. I feel like we've been talking about this episode for a long time.
Tracey Bailey: Well, I have listened to a lot of Add to Cart podcasts in my time. I love them and I get so much out of them. So I felt it's about time I try to give something back.
[Voiceover]: Amazing. I can't wait for this episode. I've known you for a couple of years now. Maybe Two or three years. And every time I speak to you, I get so much out of your story and how you approach E commerce and retail. So I can't wait to share it with our listeners today. I'd love you to give us an overview of Biome. What you've created started in 2003, long before specialist sustainable retail was mainstream. What inspired you to lead the charge for environmental friendly shopping?
Tracey Bailey: Well, I first had the idea for biome around 25 years ago when I was working in Indonesia. My former career was in public relations and the Internet had barely just begun. The PR agency I was at in Jakarta, we had one computer in a little room with one of those old dial up modems that make noises. And I had this idea because I was feeling disillusioned with greenwashing corporate performance rather than affecting meaningful change. And I believe that if you educated people about the issues and the choices that they would choose the more ethical and environmentally responsible product. So I jumped on this computer, that one on a Saturday I think I snuck in to use. It probably was AltaVista, the search engine. And I absolutely searched what was my world at that time to look for something like this idea that I had and I couldn't find anything else like it in the world. So I harbored that idea and then jumped to five years later I was back in Australia, I'd had two children and I was on parental leave with my six month old and a two year old. And I thought, yeah, right, I've got plenty of time on my hands, let's start that business.
[Voiceover]: Perfect time.
Tracey Bailey: That really was the genesis of the idea.
[Voiceover]: And what were you doing living in Indonesia?
Tracey Bailey: I was working in public relations in Brisbane and through a connection in Brisbane, they had started an agency in Indonesia and they wanted somebody to go up there and help to run it and train the local people.
[Voiceover]: Cool.
Tracey Bailey: So yeah, I went.
[Voiceover]: Amazing.
Tracey Bailey: It's incredible.
[Voiceover]: So when you said that you jumped online, had a research of products that you might be able to retail, I'm assuming that is nothing like today where you can order through marketplaces, wholesale marketplaces, have it arrive on your doorstep all ready to go, or even drop ship. What was the process like back then for setting up a sustainable retail outlet?
Tracey Bailey: Well, it certainly was difficult to find products. People in the industry will have heard of perhaps the gift and trade fairs that take place each year. I remember going to my first one of those in Sydney at the convention center there at Darling Harbor. I walked the entire thing and I found one product. It was beeswax candles it was really, I felt nothing else there that met my standards that I was looking for. So it was pretty tough as well approaching people for products back then because you'd, you'd call them and ask if you could stock their product and they'd say, you know, where's your store? And I'd say it's online. And I was like, oh, dark art. Like no, we don't, well we don't get into that kind of stuff. So many brands in fact that I approached back then, we now stock them, but originally they didn't want a bar of online. So yes, it was much tougher to source things back then.
[Voiceover]: And fast forward to today. How many SKUs are you at multiple stores? Incredible growth since then.
Tracey Bailey: We have about 6,000 SKUs of course, all online, but in our stores we only carry around 2,000. But I can guarantee you every day somebody still walks in and asks for something that's online, that's not in store, but they're the first person that's asked for it in about two years. So that's quite an art trying to work out what to have in store and whatnot.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, and you mentioned your standards for sustainable when you were going around those trade shows. What is your standard for sustainable?
Tracey Bailey: We really look into the whole story as we call it, what the product was made from and really delve into those ingredients, where it was made, who made it and how it was made, how it's packaged and then also what is its end of life? You know, is this product going to be around forever or when it does reach the end of its useful life, how is it going to be disposed of? And you know, obviously within that there's a lot of little considerations as well. And there is no perfect 100% sustainability score. Of course, it's always trade offs and people value different things differently.
[Voiceover]: And how do you sort out what is greenwashing versus what is real information when you're making those buying decisions?
Tracey Bailey: So yes, I am a passionate anti green washer. That being the core of where Biome started really. I just hate the thought of big business thinking that we consumers are all gullible little pawns that they can play with with their marketing strategies, you know, and that they can try and scam us into thinking that something is what it's not. I just find that obviously very annoying and disappointing. So for me it's all about transparency, you know, speaking the whole truth. And sure, something about a product may not be as green as you'd like it to be, but people are Intelligent, you know, they're happy to be given the full information and then to make their own decision. And palm oil is probably my number one greenwashing issue. And because of an experience that I had during that time in Indonesia, I did go and visit the orangutans or an orangutan rehabilitation center in the jungles of Kalimantan, you know, which was completely remote back then. You know, I had to tee up through landline, phone, some little guy had to, you know, in the corner store, answer my phone call at a certain time and so on to tee it all up and went on this tiny little boat up into the jungle. And I did have one of those incredible life changing experiences where I looked into the eyes of an orangutan. You know, having just seen on the way flying in in this tiny little twin prop plane the absolute devastation or decimation beyond this tiny little triangle of national park where the orangutans were protected, beyond that as far as the eye could see was just brown, clear, filled. Yeah, it's so clear when you look at this orangutan, how human like they are, but they have no voice. And I just thought to myself I will do something to try and save you. And what is going on here? There has to be a better way. And so that's always been parked in my head. So when it came to selling products in biome, it became obvious to me that the whole natural products industry and in fact commercial skincare, cosmetics, cleaning products, they're all underpinned by palm oil. Unfortunately for palm oil and the orangutans, it's a very cheap and highly effective product that is used to make detergents and emulsifiers. But it's grown in these super remote locations away from scrutiny.
[Voiceover]: So is it palm oil that is the problem or the way that palm oil is manufactured that's the problem?
Tracey Bailey: It's the way that it's grown.
[Voiceover]: Ever scrolled through an E Commerce packaging website for fun? Nah, me neither. Until today. Paclio is putting the joy into the packaging game. So let's play a game. I'll tell you the name of the Paclio product and you have to try and guess what kind of product they are. Fairy floss Compostable Mailer, Queen bee Honeycomb Padded mailer. Here we go. Gummy shark water activated tape. Now if my jaded self thinks that this packaging is fun, imagine what your customers will think. Paclio is also eco friendly Australian owned and operated with same day dispatch and 14 day returns. Now that's pure joy for everyone. Check out the Paclio range of E commerce packaging options@paclio.com that's Paclio P A C K L E O paclio.com.
Tracey Bailey: So in order to produce palm oil you have to have palm oil plantations. And because of this voracious demand for palm oil in the world, through the jungles of Indonesia and some other areas in the world, they're just clear felling pristine virgin rainforests that are really important carbon sinks for the world. So they clear fell it and you might have heard about all the burning off at various times. Then they burn it all, which produces immense pollution and global warming. Then they plant these monocultures. It's also very corrupt. They're abusing the indigenous land rights and all of the workers. So yes, it's the whole way the industry works. But the unfortunate thing is all the big companies of the world, the confectionery manufacturers, skincare manufacturers, you know, they're using chemicals that have been made from palm oil in their products. It's so ingrained that it's very difficult to get away from. You find that, you know, most natural brands will declare on their packaging plant based, vegan, cruelty free. But nobody says oh and by the way, most of our ingredients are derived from palm oil.
[Voiceover]: Right.
Tracey Bailey: Because they're all hidden behind a chemical name, a really complex name like polyglycerol or capriclyceride and so on. And when something gets hidden, it never gets discussed and there's no pressure for change. That's when I really had to decide once and for all we're being hypocritical to support products that have palm oil knowing how destructive it is. So we, we made that choice to remove palm oil or products containing palm oil derivatives from our store, which was a massive financial hit for us because it was most of our products.
[Voiceover]: At what stage did you do that in the business? Was it early on?
Tracey Bailey: Was about seven years ago.
[Voiceover]: Okay. So well established by then.
Tracey Bailey: Yeah. And it's always been a little niggle for me, or more than a niggle. And I was up till that point, you know, buying into the spiel that oh, it's sustainable palm oil. But there was no proper regulation of that. So in the end it was too fuzzy. It was like had to go one or the other.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. So the palm oil industry is broken, but the product, if, if produced ethically could be okay.
Tracey Bailey: The issue is, yes, if you were just using perhaps a small amount of palm oil and you were looking for other sources. So for ex, olive oil is a substitute in Many ways for palm oil, say for soap making. Now we can grow olives in Australia to extract oil to make soap. So why, you know, Clearfield Rainforest in Borneo, put orangutans lives at risk and so on to create an oil to ship to Australia to make soap. And what we need is the manufacturers to find some better ways of making these chemicals without having to rely on palm oil. Now palm oil is going to be a biofuel for airlines.
[Voiceover]: Oh, wow.
Tracey Bailey: It's never ending. That's hugely significant. Obviously, you know what, that's what pressure that's going to put on the last remaining jungles.
[Voiceover]: Wow. So you said palm oil is one that you've taken a stance on, a hard, hard line stance of no palm oil products. Are there any other sustainable standards that you uphold and that you say, we absolutely won't go near products or brands that do this.
Tracey Bailey: Okay. We do have a long list of chemicals and so on that we avoid our dirty 30 plus plus plus one also that we always stand by is that there needs to be full disclosure of the ingredients on the packaging. You know, a lot of products, they perhaps say we can't put them on there because intellectual property or we don't want to give away our secrets, but that's just not acceptable. You have to put the full ingredients on your product. So. And then there are ones like, for example, bamboo fabrics. And this is a case where, again, it's greenwashing. Right. Because they're not telling the whole truth. They're selling this product that's supposedly bamboo fabric, but it's not. For example, Nathan, have you ever heard of eucalyptus undies?
[Voiceover]: No.
Tracey Bailey: You know, wood pulp socks?
[Voiceover]: I haven't, I haven't.
Tracey Bailey: No.
[Voiceover]: It doesn't sound, they sound uncomfortable.
Tracey Bailey: Exactly. But they are made from the exact same thing as bamboo fabric. It's a, it's a cellulose that's extracted from a plant such as bamboo, eucalyptus. But, you know, calling it bamboo sounds so much more appealing to the consumer. Hence why, you know, there are a lot of products on the market made of eucalyptus cellulose, but. Or wood pulp, but they don't use those words. And in fact, in America, it's actually illegal to label products as bamboo fabric.
[Voiceover]: Okay.
Tracey Bailey: Many of the big retailers over there have paid large fines for that. They have to call it what it actually is, which is rayon. So rayon is the fabric that is made from the cellulose fibers.
[Voiceover]: Okay.
Tracey Bailey: And by the time it's been turned into bamboo. Oh, sorry. By the time it's been turned into fabric it no longer has any of the properties of the original source material. So you'll also see, for example, people saying, you know, these bamboo sheets are beautiful, they're naturally antibacterial. That is a load of rubbish because it's not bamboo anymore, it's rayon that doesn't have any of the same properties that it originally had. But in Australia, the ACCC hasn't caught up with that as yet.
[Voiceover]: So we've had guests on here before who have bamboo products as well. Is there a scale where bamboo is better than traditional methods such as cotton or polyester? Or do you kind of lump them all into the same basket?
Tracey Bailey: Yeah, so that's. Yeah, that is a good question because. Yes, I'm not meaning that there's anything wrong with fabric that has been made from bamboo. And. Absolutely, you know, a plant input like bamboo is imminently better for the planet than a petrochemical input.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Tracey Bailey: So that's fantastic. I mean, it does take then a lot of chemicals, as you can imagine, to turn a really hard thing of bamboo, you know, it has the greatest tensile strength in the world into a like pair of really soft undies. There's a huge amount of chemicals involved in that process and a lot of those chemicals in China are just washed out into the waterways. So you're also looking for bamboo that's got a closed loop production. Really the greenwashing comes into it is when the company selling the bamboo fabric says that it's bamboo fabric, what they are meant to say. And that's just not according to me, you know, that's according to the, the equivalent of the ACCC in the usa. You're misleading consumers. What you need to tell the consumer is that this is a rayon fabric, you know, for which the input at some point was a bamboo cellulose.
[Voiceover]: What I'm getting from our conversations here, whether it's bamboo or palm oil or otherwise, is that at the core of it, the product or the ingredient itself isn't the main perpetrator here, but it's the processes and the practices behind the way that these things are commonly manufactured that needs to be changed. Would that be correct?
Tracey Bailey: Yes, yeah, that is true. But also the way in which the brand communicates about that product, you know, the ingredients and the processes.
[Voiceover]: What would you like to see if you could change any law? We talked a little bit about the ACCC there. What would you like to see changed? Like what would you like brands be made to disclose about every product that's put on the shelf? You talked about ingredients. Is There anything else?
Tracey Bailey: I guess we already have the country of origin. That's pretty. There was quite a bit of work done around that, which is great. Gee, that's a tricky one because I personally want them to disclose palm oil, of course that. Not hide that behind to label it as palm oil. For example, in the supermarket there are lots of products labeled vegetable oil as an ingredient. I can guarantee you if it's vegetable oil, it's palm oil. Because if it was sunflower, they'd put sunflower. But they feel they have to hide it if it's palm oil. But certainly full ingredients, you know. Another one, for example is parfum. Just this one word, parfum. Behind that is often hundreds of chemicals that went into making that perfume that's used to fragrance products and they're allowed to get away with that for intellectual property reasons.
[Voiceover]: Okay, that makes sense. Now, I was surprised in my research to find out that you were the first retailer to achieve B Corp certification. Obviously a huge thing now and we've got big multinationals such as Unilever who are now B Corp certified. Do you feel that it holds the same gravitas as what it did when you first qualified?
Tracey Bailey: I don't think so. Personally. It is quite controversial amongst the V Corp community. When Nespresso, I think South Africa got B Corp status and they sell aluminum coffee pods. That was a stab in the heart for me, that one. I'm not in the camp of you need to encourage progress. I mean certainly you do need to encourage progress. Sorry, I shouldn't. But giving them a B Corp logo that they can stick on a product, to me, that misleads the consumer. So, you know, awesome. If Nespresso or whomever wants to gain that certification and be moving along, just keep it to yourselves, then, you know, don't. It means that much. You don't need to stick it on a product and mislead the consumer into thinking that it's actually quite responsible to be producing single use aluminium pods.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, you mentioned the B Corp community there. Do you find that the B Corp generally harnesses a really good community amongst other retailers who share sustainable practices? Or is it more I qualified, therefore I can put the symbol on my product and away I go. Or do you find that they generally bring people together?
Tracey Bailey: They certainly put effort into trying to bring people together and there are various individuals within the movement that also make a really big effort. I guess with all of these things everyone's sort of pressured for time and opportunity that it doesn't always quite happen. But we've just recently had B Corp Month, for example, that they put a lot of effort into giving us all materials to help educate about what it's all about.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, great. We're a B Corp at E Suite as well, but I think it's very different. Yeah, thanks. It's something that we set up straight right away to make sure that we set up our processes and our standards to meet that. But I think it's a lot tougher being a B Corp from a retailer perspective than it is being a service provider. There's a lot more hoops to jump through.
Tracey Bailey: Yes, certainly when you have so many suppliers. Yes, it was very challenging, but we as a business got a great deal out of it. It really assisted us to improve a lot of our policies and procedures and to formalize them and think about things we hadn't thought about before.
[Voiceover]: Foreign. We know that customers are going to be more price conscious in 2023, but it doesn't mean that they've lost their soul. Shopify conducted a global survey to understand customer trends and found that Australian customers are actually the most passionate about buying locally to reduce their carbon footprint. And while price pressure won't go away, the research showed that the majority of Australian customers will wait longer for delivery and recommend a product that is sustainable at its core. We're such a good bunch here, aren't we? To view more resources to help with your 2023 planning and see how Shopify can take your E commerce business to the next level, visit shopify.com au today. Now I want to cast your mind back to a few years ago. Brisbane Floods I just can't imagine what it must have been like for you and the team, because I was only in your office probably a few months before it happened, I think, and saw the amazing setup that you've got. You've got the shop, you've got the warehouse, you've got the office and I know you've just done a whole bunch of work around setting up new fulfillment processes, new machinery. And then we had the Brisbane floods come through and wipe it all out and you were smack bang in the middle of it. It was really devastating to see from the outside. I can't imagine what it must have been like for you to be living and leading a team through that. How did that impact you and your business?
Tracey Bailey: That was. That was. It was huge, a huge impact on us and we are still feeling the effects, I think, particularly because it took away our resilience and particularly our financial resilience when not long after that, it was last February. Not long after that, you know, the whole E commerce industry headed into the spending downturn following the interest start of the interest rate rises. So it has taken away some of our resilience. I say to deal with that. And it's not just the loss of the stock, the equipment, the sales for the period of time that we were out of action and getting back on our feet, you know, having basically lost our entire inventory, 40,000 items or so. It's the lost opportunity while you're distracted trying to get the business back on track, you know, so there's those months of time where all your energy and the team's energy is on getting it all back together. So you lose out in that way also. But I think as you know, we were able to stay true to our values and salvage as much as we could due to our incredible community, community of customers, neighbors, suppliers, hundreds of people came to help us wash up and sanitize and salvage as much of that stock as we could. And we literally would have sunk without that.
[Voiceover]: The Great Salvage Sale how long did it take you to get back on your feet? Or would you say that you're back on your feet now?
Tracey Bailey: It did take quite a few months. I don't know. Was it funny, maybe ironic, what we were able to do really quickly as soon as the floods waters had dissipated as we actually set up our online center at our Paddington store, which is where it all started, we used to do our online store out of there. In fact we used to do like physical store by day, 9 to 5, 5 o', clock, shut the door online, used to explode. It was online by night.
[Voiceover]: So the original dark store.
Tracey Bailey: Yeah. So yes, we were able to quickly sort of point the website Paddington Inventory and get ourselves going there in a very rudimentary way. We did that for a little while and then we had a second small premise that hadn't been flooded. So we then moved back into there and sort of gradually started to build up our stock again.
[Voiceover]: You often hear when people have been through such a major and traumatic event, such as what you've been through, that they feel like they build resilience. But I was interested to hear that you felt that you lost some resilience after that. What did you mean by that?
Tracey Bailey: Well, our bank account was a whole lot less healthy than it was.
[Voiceover]: That's a good measure.
Tracey Bailey: Yes. Yeah, so it was mostly that and I think just the energy and the corporate capacity. We probably had a triple whammy last year actually because we had the floods, we had the economic Downturn. And then we had the migration to Shopify, which also impacted our sales.
[Voiceover]: It feels bad actually going from floods to Shopify, but let's go there. How did the migration from Shopify, how did that impact your sales there?
Tracey Bailey: From the loss of SEO.
[Voiceover]: Okay, yeah.
Tracey Bailey: The loss of organic traffic.
[Voiceover]: And was that immediate?
Tracey Bailey: Pretty much expected. I didn't expect it as much and I think, you know, in hindsight, my advice was to somebody would be to to build up your sales prior to that changeover. You know, get an unusual spike and really good momentum going immediately before.
[Voiceover]: What platform were you going from?
Tracey Bailey: We were on Prestashop, which almost nobody here has heard of, but it's very big in Europe.
[Voiceover]: And what inspired the move over to Shopify?
Tracey Bailey: Prestashop is an open source software, which we'd always been. And prior to that we were on one called OS Commerce. Because when I very first started Biome, there was no shop in a box. Back those days you either had to build from scratch or I found this open source Commerce and actually taught myself how to build the website from there. So we moved from OS Commerce to Prestashop, another open source, but it was too clunky and slow moving for us with the rapid change that's going on with all the new technologies and so on. It was taking too long for these apps to build integrations with prestashop. Whereas, you know, Shopify is first off the rank. So we needed to get a lot more agile and ability to adopt those technologies. We needed to improve our website speed and improve our SEO structure.
[Voiceover]: And apart from the SEO, especially in the beginning, did it achieve the other things that you set out for it to achieve?
Tracey Bailey: The speed? No, we're still really struggling with speed, so still trying to work through that at the moment.
[Voiceover]: Any clues on what that could be?
Tracey Bailey: We've certainly tried to be very lean with not putting too many apps in. You've heard that everybody gets excited when they're on Shopify and adds in all these bells and whistles, but every one of them slows you down. So we've been quite strict with that. So there's some other areas that we have to work on. I think our menu, we've used an app plugin for our mega menu. I think we really have to go back to the Shopify native menu and sort of build it using code.
[Voiceover]: Has it unlocked any features that you've had on the wish list for a long time that you've now been able to activate quickly?
Tracey Bailey: Yes, you know, a rewards program. We had A rewards program before, but it was clunky, the prestashop plugin. So rewards program bringing on things like Klarna. Yes.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, cool. I saw that you've got an ambassador program now.
Tracey Bailey: Yes.
[Voiceover]: Which I hadn't seen the last time I visited the site, even though I think it's been there for a little while now. Can you tell us about that, how that works?
Tracey Bailey: Yeah, so we're actually just going through our first round of recruiting people now. It's certainly been something we've been wanting to do for a while because we, you know, we really do have this incredible brand capital. When you speak to somebody about Biome and they say, my God, I love biome, or wherever I go on an airplane, you know, I handed my keep cup that had a biome logo on it to the, the flight attendant for the drink of water and he's like, oh my God, I love biome. And then the people in the seats around me, because then I said, oh, that's my business. They're like your biome.
[Voiceover]: I was about to say, I bet their next question is, do you know, Tracy,
Tracey Bailey: we really want to harness that by trying to reward those people who do give us that incredible word of mouth. I also, I try to spend as little as I can with Google and Facebook. As far as I'm concerned, they're rich enough, you know, they take a lot of money out of Australia. It's a sort of a transfer of wealth and we just can't keep, you know, spending so much money with them. And I'd far prefer to give the money to an individual who's trying to build their community of influence. So this is a way that we can hopefully mutually benefit.
[Voiceover]: Is it hard to hold that line when you see a lot of your competitors and obviously with the emergence of sustainability as being trendy coming through and you've, you know, like we said, you've been in it for a long time now and you would have seen a lot of people get a free ride off the, the back of Google and social ads and you know that. Is it hard to watch that happen when you do take a stand like that?
Tracey Bailey: Yes. And in fact, you know, early days, Google was free right in the beginning. There was many years where it was free and then you had to start to pay for it. And I did take a conscientious objector approach and refused to do pay Google any money. But I used to go to the retail global conferences on the Gold coast every year and I think I'd been going about three Years before it finally, you know, the light bulb went off in my head that you've, you've got to be in it or get out of it. You know, we were, we were never going to survive if we didn't start playing the same game. But it is very hard not to spend excessively. Google and Facebook are the only winners, right. As we all just keep bidding for the same customer.
[Voiceover]: Well, speaking of the the same customer, two of your most recent peers or competitors, I don't know how you look at them. Nourish Life, Flora and Fauna. They've had quite the adventure recently. Yes, if you haven't seen the news. Acquired by bwx, publicly listed company, liquidated. Now back with Julie and some business partners and I saw Irene is out starting her own brand again. As someone who has bootstrapped your own business over 20 years, what do you feel as you see that whole situation play out over the last 24 months?
Tracey Bailey: Yes, well, it certainly has been a tough, I guess, mental well being challenge for my team and I, that's for sure. You know, I'm quite honest and open about that. It has affected me because, you know, I started Biome long before they started. We were the original eco friendly, toxin free vegan choices store. We pioneered most of the concepts that are now mainstream. And it's tough when you see other businesses doing pretty much exactly what you do but seemingly more successful. That does of course depend on how you measure success. And I also know that there are others in our industry who are at the other end of the scale to Nourish Life and Flora and Fauna. I have a colleague in the industry who had some stores and an online store and she went into administration at the end of last year and, you know, pretty much lost everything. And I did call her a couple of weeks ago after the most recent announcement just to check in on how she was coping with it all as well. And yeah, it's really, it's tough.
[Voiceover]: So how does that make you feel when you see the headlines, especially around the BWX stuff? Obviously acquired at a very high valuation. Were pretty quick to discard some of those brands. As someone who aims to build a sustainable business in all senses of the world, how do you react? How do you feel when that happens?
Tracey Bailey: It was when Flora and Fauna was sold, I guess it was at a very different time. It was prior to the interest rate rises and things were still fairly flourishing post Covid. So it was very different to how it is now. What I find the most difficult is that the market is already so crowded, you know, there's a lot of businesses with the same value proposition in our area in the sustainable, non toxic vegan area. And the only way to grow really quickly in my experience and from speaking to other people in the industry, is to spend a lot of money on Google and Facebook and to give away a lot of money, you know, in shipping, discounts, rewards. So on the one hand you've got these businesses who are really like all for rapid growth, let's, I don't know, build this thing up. And I do struggle with that because it's, to me it's conflicting with the purpose of our business. So I don't really have the answer. And of course I am feeling now, I truly am feeling right now, right, here we go again. There's going to be Irene's new business, Flora Fauna and ourselves and some others all bidding for the same customer again, all like tripping over ourselves to give so much away to try and keep our market share. And I believe in E commerce, I guess in life when someone wins, someone loses.
[Voiceover]: So with some of those competitors that have come into the market a little bit later, like the Nourished Lives and the Flora and Fauna, they seem to have hit a mark with mainstream Australia. Is there anything that you look at from their businesses and go, oh, I wish I could take a little bit of that or I admire about that model.
Tracey Bailey: Well, I certainly have a great deal of admiration for the founders of Nourish Life and Flora and Fauna. They obviously did an incredible job of building their businesses and then selling their businesses and we are all up against a much mightier competitor, I guess in terms of, you know, the mainstream retailers who are not so shy about greenwashing or selling products that haven't been properly vetted and considered. So I certainly do admire and am grateful for what they have contributed to the industry.
[Voiceover]: You mentioned before how straining it has been mentally for you the last few years and hearing some of your stories today, from the floods to the economic situation to what's happened with your competitors, you've had a fair mental load over the last few years. How do you look after yourself?
Tracey Bailey: Well, I have a really special team, Nathan. Our team at Biome is wonderful and luckily I'm surrounded by a group of really positive, passionate people who believe in our mission. And they certainly lift me every day, you know, and I walk in, I've actually said to them, all I need from you every day is to give me a big smile and a good morning when you, when I walk in and, and that sets Me for the day that lifts me. It's not a hard ask from, from your boss.
[Voiceover]: KPI met.
Tracey Bailey: Exactly. Yeah. Tick. So, yeah, one wonderful, kind, passionate team at Biome and I do try to focus in on them and, and us and what we're doing. I also do try to really reach out to other people in the industry and over the years I do feel I should have done that more because when times are tough, you really need those people in the industry that you've met who you can just call and ask a bit of advice or commiserate with together. So I really encourage anybody starting out or whatever part you're in, just part of your journey you're in is make those connections and be open and honest. And I'm in a little mentoring group that started through meeting some people at Retail Global and so on. And we've all got stores and an online store and all going through very similar situation. And just to be able to WhatsApp or our challenge and hear that you're not the only one in this situation. It's gold, it's, it's invaluable.
[Voiceover]: Amazing. So what are you excited about next 12 months? What's exciting for yourself and the Biome team?
Tracey Bailey: Well, we definitely have to keep fine tuning our website experience.
[Voiceover]: You know, get that SEO back up.
Tracey Bailey: Yeah, we've got this hot rod now, we need to tune it up, make sure we can get everything out of it that we can.
[Voiceover]: Are you still tempted as someone who, you know, used to run an open source platform and can code like going, oh, can I just get in there and play a little bit?
Tracey Bailey: Yes. We have been struggling with some things that we thought, you know, to be honest, before we moved to Shopify, I didn't even check them out because I thought of course Shopify will do that. But you know, apparently out of millions of Shopify websites in the world, it's not high up on the development list. So that definitely we have to work on. We've also really need to forge some new paths in terms of products. You know, retail is all about product. If you don't have the product, that solves a solution for somebody. You're, you're never going to make sales. And most of, I guess the products that we pioneered or introduced, they've almost become mainstream now and they're available in many places like reusable cups, beeswax wraps, stainless steel pegs, shampoo bars. You probably can get them all in Kohl's and Woolies now. So that's what my passion is, is the new products, the, the finding and developing of new products. So you know, what's that next problem with consumerism that needs a better way of doing things? That's what we need to find.
[Voiceover]: Have you come across any products recently that have blown your mind that you're like, oh, this is great, this is what we've been waiting for.
Tracey Bailey: The ones I get quite excited about at the moment are what I call last for life products. You know, buy it once and never again.
[Voiceover]: What's an example of that?
Tracey Bailey: There's an awesome Australian brand called Solar Techniques that make a solid stainless steel frying pan range that you season yourself. So you know the problem with Teflon, right? It gets scratched and worn out and then aside from the toxins that it off gases, you end up throwing out your Teflon pan and getting a new one. Well, with Solar Techniques, you buy this one fry pan and that's it for life and you'll hand it on to your grandchildren. It'll never disappear. And each time the non stick coating gets a little bit less effective. You re season it yourself with oils, things like that. I think just treat those resources as so precious, the precious things that they are, that once we've gone to the effort of extracting this metal from the ground, smelting it, shipping it around the world, making this pan, don't just toss it out into landfill. It's so stupid, right? That's a dumb cycle. So I mean to last for life
[Voiceover]: products, that's not great for customer lifetime value though, Tracy.
Tracey Bailey: That is so true, Nathan. And you know customers, they keep you real constant, real constantly. I'm always saying to my team, you know, our customers find our Achilles heel every single time. And I swear that when I launched Biome again, the Internet was very young. Within days I had an email from somebody saying, you realize that if your mission comes true, you will do yourself out of existence. And those words have rung in my head since and I guess that has been playing out in some ways.
[Voiceover]: So while you might be struggling with SEO at the moment on the website, your Pinterest is absolutely booming. I can see on the outside that you've got 600,000 views every month. So I'm really interested to know whether these Pinterest views, do they convert as a sales channel, does it actually work in driving sales?
Tracey Bailey: So we have been on Pinterest for a very long time, which I think really helps us. And if you believe Pinterest's stats that they give, yes, we get good sales out of Pinterest. If you believe Google Analytics. No.
[Voiceover]: Okay.
Tracey Bailey: Google Attribution gives literally almost no sales to Pinterest. And I find that so extreme that it says to me that Google's attribution can't be accurate. Right. Because there's just no way that that many people could be looking at our Pinterest and there to be no sales that come out of it.
[Voiceover]: What kind of interactions do you get? Do you get a lot of people landing their from search and then browsing through or flicking through your range? How do you measure engagement then if you can't measure direct attribution?
Tracey Bailey: Well, you can see that in Pinterest Dashboard, according to Pinterest, just not in Google's dashboard. That's the classic attribution dilemma that we all have. Right. And we can also see some of the kinds of products that sell. You know, if there's a particular type of product that's had a lot of engagement on Pinterest and if you're selling it well, you have to assume that it's working. But there's certainly sales according to Pinterest.
[Voiceover]: And who do you believe?
Tracey Bailey: You mean, you mean I might not believe my nemesis, Google?
[Voiceover]: There we go.
Tracey Bailey: Basically, I'm in business to pay Google. They should treat me a lot better given how much money I earn for them.
[Voiceover]: Yes, it is fun. I've always thought that around Google in that even you mentioned retail, global and some of the conferences that we see each other at, they never have a presence and they never have to have a presence because they get all their money anyway.
Tracey Bailey: Yes, let's hope that Microsoft through Bing Chat is going to finally give them a bit of a run for their money.
[Voiceover]: It's a very interesting space right now. Okay, so we have getting this Shopify site up to scratch and having a bit of a play around getting the most out of that. Plus the new products that you keep finding and discovering. What else? Is there anything else for the next 12 months for biome?
Tracey Bailey: Well, part of the move to Shopify was, you know, really getting ourselves set up for the future and on a really stable platform with opportunity. I've got some breaking news for you. You heard it here first. We really are keen on finding some investment to help Biome. You know, I've been as you know and you've, we've covered here running biome for 20 years. I think, you know, it's time we, we need some extra input of not, not just capital, but, you know, an investor that really believes in what we do is already on board with helping to make the world a better place. So yeah, I would very welcome approaches from anybody who might be interested in getting involved with what we do.
[Voiceover]: Apart from having loads and loads of money, what does the ideal investment partner look like to you?
Tracey Bailey: They would definitely need to understand and have a passion for being a change maker that it's not all about profit. You know, there's.
[Voiceover]: Which isn't going so well so far.
Tracey Bailey: I was going to say there's, there's code for maybe we don't make that much profit, but I'm sure we have the potential to. You know, I didn't start buying to necessarily make a huge amount of money. I started it to genuinely help our mission to preserve this incredible environment on our planet for the future. So the right investor would also need to share that vision and we fulfill that vision by being financially viable, you know, by being competitive and making ourselves not loss making. Otherwise our mission would be over pretty soon. So yes, the ideal investor would have that belief and, and be able to inject some fresh creativity and experience.
[Voiceover]: So profitable impact, right?
Tracey Bailey: Yes, that's a great expression.
[Voiceover]: If you cast your mind forward to 10 years from today, assume you've got a great investment partner, what's the kind of impact that you think sustainable retail can have?
Tracey Bailey: There's a lot to be done around education on these topics. Right. And biome has always been very time intensive with the amount of information that we need to share with our customers and education. We have high costs in the sense that you can't just, you know, whack a widget up on the website with some basic dimensions. You have to really spend the time on explaining what it is about that product. And that's the case in our physical stores as well. You know, when somebody walks in wanting to buy a dishwashing detergent and we spend half an hour, you know, explaining the virtues of why this one. So being able to have the freedom to spend more time or to afford to spend more time on the education and supporting more of the project. So say for example with palm oil, you know, at the moment we're, we're players at the end of the chain. To really affect real change, we need to have the time to lobby much further up the chain. But all the while we're sort of caught in the treadmill of trying to keep our business running every day. There's not the time for that. Greater influence.
[Voiceover]: Yep. And I see a big part of what you are leading here around upholding standards. So if you can set the new standards of retail and you can hold others to account because there's going to be a flood of greenwashing, even more so than what it is today. If you are upholding those standards, calling people out, which you bravely have done today, and do it all that profitably, and it'll be what customers want, then I think that can make a massive impact.
Tracey Bailey: I look forward to it.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, yeah. Tracey, I've loved hearing a story. I heard parts of your story that I've never heard before. And I think you're a testament to someone with a really true mission and values that you've upheld all through your career, even at the expense of the dollars that you could have made along the way. But knowing that those ethics and those morals hold out and you keep them forever. So thank you so much for sharing your story today. If people want to get in touch and learn more about Biome or hear more about your story, what's the best way for them to do so?
Tracey Bailey: Well, to be honest, email would be good. I don't go on LinkedIn very often, Nathan. It's part of my compartmentalizing for my mental and emotional well being. Because some reason when I go on LinkedIn, I always end up feeling inadequate.
[Voiceover]: Well, no one posts their losses there, do they?
Tracey Bailey: That's right, yeah. So you're very welcome to email me on tracyiome.com au and I have a little quote I wanted to share, if that's okay.
[Voiceover]: I'd love to hear.
Tracey Bailey: Yeah, it's the Maya Angelo quote that you do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, you do better.
[Voiceover]: Amazing. Why is that so important to you?
Tracey Bailey: That's pretty much how I have evolved with Biome, you know, because there's no perfection in sustainability. We're all on a journey to learn so much and we need everybody to be contributing to solving the environmental problems facing our planet. And sometimes people can be afraid of approaching it because they think they're not perfect or they're not good at it. And you know that doesn't matter. You seek, you go on a journey of learning and you find a way to do it better. And when you can do it better, you do better.
[Voiceover]: And what a journey you've been on, from the orangutan moment in Indonesia through to how you've led the sustainability movement in Australian retail. Fantastic, Tracy. And because you are too humble to do so. The website address is Biome B I O M E dot com. Enter it directly. Don't use search because obvious reasons. Go in and get yourself a new fry pan and check out the amazing range and as you heard today from from Tracy, everything there has been under the most scrutiny to make sure that it is actually sustainable. Tracey, thank you so much for joining us on Add to cart.
Tracey Bailey: Thank you Nathan.
[Voiceover]: I'm so glad that Tracy chose to share her story with us today. As you heard, it can be sometimes really raw, but you can tell that truthfulness and honesty is one of those things that Tracey holds dear. And I think it's really important for us to hear a real story of a retailer who has been in it for so long and seen the ups and downs. Not just over the highs of COVID the lows of COVID and everything else in between, but over the spectrum of, you know, when E Commerce has been popular. Her story is an inspirational one and it's full of risk and leadership, but as you heard, also includes frustration and some devastating moments which would have wiped out other retailers. And I love that Tracy has maintained her sustainable standards all along, despite how hard that can be from a business perspective. Here are the top lessons I took from our chat. Ingredients are important I was fascinated when Tracy lifted the lid on what to look out for in an ingredients list to expose less sustainable practices in order to spot hidden ingredients. For example, palm oil is often hidden behind the chemical name of Polyglos. Can't even say it. Polyglocerol or Capriclyceride. It's a mouthful now as you heard from me, but it is becoming more and more well known for savvy consumers and they care. Being transparent with ingredients can be really powerful to build customer trust and can be a great selling point. Number two the SEO Replatform drop off. Tracy mentioned the SEO drop off that Biome experienced when they switched from prestashop to the Shopify platform. Now this is a very common phenomenon. I can't even say phenomenon, and a risk that needs to be considered when changing platforms. Tracey advised to wait for a traffic spike to do the cutoff again not with its own risk, but making sure the pages are properly redirected, Minimizing duplicate content and watching out for 404 areas are some of the practices that you can put in place to minimize that SEO Drop off. Number three the KPI of a team Smile. I absolutely loved it when Tracy said that all she needs from her team in the morning is a big smile and a good morning when she walks in. I mean, how lovely is that? And it says so much about a culture that embraces care, empathy and recognition. Such a simple act that can lift the spirits of everyone around you. And you don't even have to be a manager to action that tip. To get the highlights of today's episode, head on over to addtocart.com and sign up for our free free newsletter. Each Tuesday, we will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, come and visit us at E Suite. We're a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com au where you can download the the free Ecommerce Salary Guide and sign up to our weekly Ecommerce job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to cartoon.
