Hannah Spilver: I'll never forget the first meeting with them and I thought they'd kind of laugh us out of the room because on the table in front of us was this glass jar filled with freshly arranged Posey and an iPhone box. Certainly we found none of the solutions to our problems by looking at what the competition were doing.
[Voiceover]: We definitely don't take ourselves too seriously and we've noticed that our following is the same.
Hannah Spilver: We were lucky that we were so naive. If we did really know the challenges that we were going to come up against in the business, we probably would never have done it. Welcome to Add to Cart, the podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of e commerce. Every month, Nathan Bush from 12 High and an E commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course, keep your customers adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: My name is Nathan Bush, host of add to cart, an e commerce consultant at 12 high. Now, if you think you have a pretty good job. Joining me today are two founders whose job it is to regularly put the smiles on the dials of thousands of Aussies every day. Hannah Spilver and Verity Tuck are the co founders of gifting business Lovely lvly. Now, you've probably sent, received or at least seen a lovely gift. Their trademark is amazing flowers in beautiful jars with personalized, heartwarming or slightly swearing messages on them. They can't be missed. From backgrounds in advertising, Hannah and Verity are now turning over in excess of $3 million per year with Lovely. But I have a feeling it's just the start. As someone who regularly buys flowers for his wife, they are a breath of fresh air for this gifting industry. In this chat you'll hear why they never intended to be a flower company. How being naive actually helped Verity and Hannah crack the biggest flower delivery problem and how Hannah's Christmas was once ruined by providing some exceptionally good customer service. Now, thanks to our partner, Shopify plus and Klarna, here's our conversation with Hannah and Verity, co founders of Lovely. Hannah and Verity from Lovely, welcome to Add to Cart.
Hannah Spilver: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
[Voiceover]: Thank you.
Nathan Bush: Now guys, you're joining us from the lovely lockdown city of Melbourne, is that right?
[Voiceover]: That's. We sure are.
Hannah Spilver: We're both at the moment, I think, look, I think pretty. Well, all things considered. I think both of us and the team have remained in pretty high spirits, but we're all looking forward to the end of lockdown for sure.
[Voiceover]: Bit more sunshine and social time, I think is needed for everyone.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. Now guys, you are the brains and the operations behind the gifting business, lovely. LVLY.com au if anyone wants to check them out. Before we get into the conversation, can you give me the idea of how you guys got together around Lovely and the idea behind Lovely?
Hannah Spilver: Sure. So for those that don't know or haven't heard about Lovely, we are a direct consumer flower and gift delivery business. So we started the business in Melbourne around 2015. And really, I'd say Lovely didn't come from sort of place of one light bulb moment. It came from lots of areas of inspiration. But I think the overarching thing that I always look back on is that Lovely from day one came from a place of purpose. So there were lots of things we had no idea about and still didn't have any idea about when we were launching this business. But the one thing, the one thing we were really clear on was the purpose behind why we wanted to build this company. And that was to build a company and a brand that would make people's day and spread some happiness in the world. And I think it was definitely, it was more of a brand led idea to begin with than it was a clear articulation of what the market opportunity was or a clear idea around what the product market fit would look like. But it was just this, you know, it started off from a name. We had the name Lovely before we knew what product range was going to sit alongside that name. We had a really strong feeling about brand identity, tone of voice, playfulness. But really everything kind of evolved from there. And I think it was luck more than anything that Bez and I were working together at the time and both had this restlessness in our careers to start our own company. And it just so happened that we were both living away from home. I'm from the uk, VEZ is from Melbourne. We were living in Sydney at the time and we were homesick. We were missing friends and family. We were looking for ways that we could send simple, affordable gifts to them to let them know we were thinking of them. And we just saw this gap in the market. And at the same time, you know, vez, who was also restless in her advertising career, was, was toying with the idea of doing something with flowers. And it was kind of like this jigsaw puzzle that we put together. You know, I was passionate about building a brand. We had this name, Lovely. We both saw the gap in the market. VEZ felt really strongly about the opportunity around flowers and it Just, it just built momentum from there. But it was lots of little sparks of ideas at different moments in time that really built the picture as opposed to this like one big idea.
Nathan Bush: And did you both leap out of your advertising careers at the same point?
Hannah Spilver: No, we didn't. So Vaz jumped? Well, we made the decision together that we would launch the business. We knew that we would make great co founders, having worked together for probably five years at the time and having quite different skill sets. So we knew that we'd make a great team. One of the first challenges we had to overcome as founders was I was on a working visa coming from the uk, so I was kind of locked in to the job I was in at the time, whereas Vaz wasn't. So Vaz took the leap of faith first. She went into the business full time from day one, working from home. We literally started the business out of Vez's kitchen. I was working alongside Vaz around kind of my 9 to 5 role, which then became a part time role for me. So I was able to jump into the business a couple of days a week and it was probably 12 months before we were both in it full time by the time it had built enough momentum to warrant us both being in it. By the time I'd sorted out my visa situation, we were probably 12 months into the journey.
Nathan Bush: Okay, cool. And Verity, from a product perspective, starting out with flowers, was it just obvious to you that that was an industry that needed disrupting?
[Voiceover]: It's really funny because I don't have a background in floristry or flowers. I didn't know much about it other than, you know, you like to go to the market and have some pretty flowers in your house and things like that. That was one of our favorite things we used to do. Hannah and I used to live together in Bondi for a bit as well. We used to go down and just buy fresh flowers. Like, who doesn't love fresh flowers? But as soon as we started talking about like the premise of making someone's day and it being a quick turnaround, same day on demand, flowers to me just seemed really like just obvious. Like it just needed to be part of the product set. And at the time I think neither of us thought how important it was going to play a part in directing our business and the future of it. I certainly didn't think I would, you know, be mistaken for a florist or that people call our business a flower business. I never thought it would end up that way. And it has. And you've just got to go with the flow of what customers want. And, you know, what brightens people's day. And people to this day still love sending fresh flowers as well as gifts.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, but yours aren't just flowers, are they? You've kind of put your own spin on it as well. So if anyone's not sitting in front of a computer at the moment, that can bring up the lovely site. Tell us about your point of difference, I think.
[Voiceover]: Well, we send fresh flowers in jars, but not only jars. We can personalize jar labels. We also have fun with a lot of our branding across the jar labels with quotes, some a bit cheekier than others. So we definitely don't take ourselves too seriously. And we've noticed that our following is the same. Our customers love that about our brand, that it's, you know, it's recognizable. Also, we always thought it was so critical, like when you do send flowers to someone, especially in an office or a hospital, trying to find a vase or anything to put it in was always tricky. So we wanted to solve that problem for people. And then the product side of it, Hans had a massive part in terms of, like, rolling out what other gifts we paired with the flowers, which has actually also become a huge part of our range. And we wanted to ensure that we kept our branding across all of them as well as supported other local businesses and suppliers along the way.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I love the jars. I think they're fantastic. Like, I think. I think you mentioned in one of your articles that I read, but the jar that says, you lovely fucker.
[Voiceover]: I wasn't sure if I was allowed to say it out loud.
Nathan Bush: Where away? We just had Nat and Tom from Mr. Poolman on, and if they. If anyone can spare more than them, I'll give them a certificate. So tell me also, then, while we're on it, about the. The product expansion then from flowers, which you were originally known for externally, even though you didn't set up to be a florist. Where have you gone in terms of products from there?
Hannah Spilver: I think we've been. We've been really experimental since day one. There was always an intention to evolve the business beyond just flowers into a gifting range. But I think also the way that we've innovated with the product has been something that we didn't set out to do, but it's kind of been the making of our business in a way. So one of the challenges we had to solve early on was how can we get our product out to a national audience without developing this sophisticated network of florists. Across Australia, which is exactly what we didn't want to be. We wanted to steer very clear of the order gatherer model. We absolutely wanted to own the experience end to end from day one. And so one of the challenges we set ourselves was, well, how do we make this a scalable national product without outsourcing things? So we kind of set ourselves this challenge, which seemed ridiculous at the time, which was, is there a way we could send flowers through the mainstream postal network? Which sort of presents a trifecta of problems, really, because you've got flowers which are perishable and they're fragile and they break very easily. Then you've got the glass jar, which we're kind of known for, which can break in transit. Then you've got water, which is pretty necessary to keep the flowers alive. So you've got this sort of trifecta of challenges, which really mean our product couldn't be less suited to sending through the mail.
Nathan Bush: When Australian fashion brand Age wanted to set up its international omnichannel presence, they wanted to focus on mobile intuitiveness and flexible payment types. And of course, they turned to Shopify Plus. In just a few weeks after implementation, they saw their E commerce conversion rate soar by 135%. It's the stuff E commerce streams are made of. They also saw a reduction in bounce rate, increased pages per session and a longer session duration. Now they are ready to take on the world. To read more of Age's story and see other case studies, visit the customers section on shopify.com au/. So we've talked about fulfillment there and some of the challenges that you've got around. So how did you overcome those challenges?
Hannah Spilver: So one of the key things we wanted to do was look at if we could evolve not just the product range, but our packaging range to mean that we could get this product out to a national customer base. So we set ourselves a challenge with working alongside specialists on both sides of the world. Actually, we did a lot of research around flower growers over in Holland and worked with them to find a product that meant we could remove the water from the jars but still keep flowers hydrated in transit for up to five days. And kind of finding that product and working with those guys was the sort of critical catalyst, I guess, for us being able to even think about moving forward with this idea of sending flowers through the mail. Then we looked outside our category for inspiration when it came to the unboxing experience. Experience, because obviously when you're dealing with gifts, the unboxing of the gift is critical to the overall experience. And so you can't really look at unboxing experiences without going past what Apple are doing and the way that they package up iPhones and all of their products actually. So we did a bit of research around, well, how to, how to Apple develop their packaging and discovered there was such a thing as a box engineer, which I'd certainly never heard of and we certainly couldn't afford one or didn't know where to find one. But what we did find was the cardboard manufacturer in Melbourne. And I'll never forget the first meeting with them and I thought they'd kind of laugh us out of the room because, you know, on the table in front of us was this glass jar filled with freshly arranged Posey and an iPhone box. And we basically said we want to develop one of these boxes that can, that can hold our product that we can send through the mail. And in fact, instead of laughing at us, they were completely, completely engaged and excited about the problem we were trying to solve. And from there we sort of embarked on this 12 week period of prototyping and testing, sending flowers through the mail. We engaged with I think around 20 customers across Australia and we basically said, we're taking you on this journey. We're trying to evolve our product offering and our packaging. We don't know if this is going to work, we don't know if you're going to get dead flowers through the mail. In fact, we don't even know if they're going to arrive at all.
Nathan Bush: Or your grandma's going to get dead flowers when you send it to her. Or.
Hannah Spilver: Yeah, or your grandma's going to get dead flowers. But will you experiment with us? And they were all very willing and over a period of 12 weeks we iterated and we learned about what was wrong with the solution and we evolved it. And three months later we were able to roll out a national flower delivery service, which means we can now send flowers anywhere in Australia on a next day basis. We've always thought about sort of developing the product range, not just about developing the flower product itself, but what's all the innovation that sits around the flowers that are going to enable us to scale our business.
Nathan Bush: So how big is your team now in terms of that?
Hannah Spilver: A lot bigger than it was then. I mean, we've still got a pretty small core team. There's 10 of us, I think, in the core team, but especially during COVID we've had to scale pretty rapidly to meet customer demands. So in terms of our entire workforce, it would be upwards of 60 to 70. Like, you know, by the time you.
[Voiceover]: I think it's closer to 80.
Hannah Spilver: By the time you count drivers and contractors and florists, it's. But we've still got that core sort of team that are the nucleus of the company, really driving growth in sales and marketing.
Nathan Bush: But for you as a. As a smallish team, especially in those stages, to be innovating packaging like that, especially in an industry that's been around a long time, Right. Especially flower delivery, it's kind of like always been there. That's pretty phenomenal. How come, how, how were you able to crack it? And people are into Flora not being able to crack it at that stage.
Hannah Spilver: First of all, you've just got to. You've got to want to solve the right problems. The first thing is wanting to solve those problems. The second thing is I very and I were really blessed that we came from a creative background because ultimately that creative problem solving skill set can be applied to anything. And the fact that, you know, we'd been stretching that muscle for 10 years of our lives before we launched lovely, vez worked in client services, I worked in strategy, but ultimately we were both in the creative industry and so we'd been solving problems for clients for a decade. And it was because we had that set of skills that we were able to bring that to Lovely and very early on, really understand what are the biggest problems we need to solve at a macro level and then apply that creative problem solving to solve them in just interesting in different ways. And I think the key thing is looking outside of your category because you're often not going to find, certainly we found none of the solutions to our problems by looking at what the competition were doing. If we, if we tried to do what they were doing, then Lovely would have probably lasted 12 months, if that.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And do you think it helped coming from the backgrounds that you did in terms of advertising? Because you're always trying to solve other people's problems in creative ways that they haven't thought about before. Right. Whereas if you came from a traditional flower background or an E commerce background and you knew all the challenges that you were going to come up against with water and glass and flowers and all that sort of stuff, that you may have just balked at the problem and just went, it's too big.
Hannah Spilver: Definitely we were so fortunate. We were lucky that we were so naive. If we did really know the challenges that we were going to come up against in the business, in the flower industry, dealing with perishable products, logistics, we probably would never have done it.
Nathan Bush: Well, lucky, Lucky you went in with no idea. Right. One thing you touched on there that I think is really fascinating is that you said you've got your own fleet of drivers.
Hannah Spilver: Yes.
Nathan Bush: And this is an area that I think a lot of E commerce businesses struggle with. Whether it's 3 PL or whether it's the Australia Post Network or otherwise, is that it's often you want a great end to end customer experience but that last piece is always the hardest piece to nail. I'm assuming there's a huge investment there in having your own drivers. Has it paid off?
[Voiceover]: Actually it's our drivers. We've got quite a our same day drivers. Same day couriers are part of our team. They are contractors but we use a third party tech system to help manage that process and it is critical for that last mile and owning that experience with our customers. Not only the end recipient but our customer who ordered it. So there's kind of two people we need to please in that process. So those drivers are critical. Especially when we're setting out to make someone's day. We feel like we can control lots of the process in house with packing and flowers. But then as soon as it leaves, you know, there's that moment that you, you're, you're a bit worried. Will it get there in the early days anyway, in the early days we did a lot of our deliveries ourselves. So yeah, we knew how important it was to get that moment right. So that's why we made sure that we got a great tech software partner and started hiring our own drivers in the same day location for our larger like national deliveries. So next day deliveries. We do use Star Trek and that, you know, it is a bigger corporation is trickier to manage that end result for someone that doesn't necessarily live in a metro area. So that's been something that we've had to work on constantly and try and work with Star Trek to deliver a better experience for our customers. But at the end of the day they are a big company too and it's harder for them to adapt on the fly like it is for us.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. And what kind of feedback do you get from your customers around that part of the, of the fulfillment journey?
[Voiceover]: I think as long as I personally, I don't ever remember that, you know, the delivery person's face or what they do, but what they're holding and the state it arrives in is critical. So we always do. We've got great inductions with our drivers to make sure they know exactly how things like what's in the box to start with because it's all sealed and how it should be arriving and the box says it all. It says on the front someone thinks you're awesome. So you instantly know it's a gift. So that moment I think is really beautiful. Maybe not so much at the moment because you can't, you know, hand to hand gift give that gift from the, get the gift from the driver. But I think that whenever anyone sees our boxes, you get a smile on your face. So that's, that's what we're aiming for, which is nice.
Nathan Bush: And I'm assuming there's no time that needs more smiles on faces than Covid right now. So what have you guys seen in terms of trends around Covid since this has happened?
Hannah Spilver: I think, you know, the thing we realized very quickly was this probably never been a more relevant time for our business to exist. Now when you're in the business of making people's day and connecting loved ones in moments of support, love, celebration or, you know, or indeed isolation as lots of people find themselves at the moment and lovely has you just kind of, you know, thrived, it's really been a story of survive to thrive for us. Over the last six months we entered Covid with the same levels of anxiety as any business owner, not knowing what it meant for us. But I reckon very quickly, within 24 to 48 hours, we were seeing very positive signs that for us there was going to be a silver lining in terms of a huge spike in, in customer demand. And we've really seen that last, over the last sort of six months, I would say. And what's been really interesting is yes, of course people are still gifting for all of those key occasions that we see day in, day out. So birthdays, anniversaries, christenings, people buying new homes. But there's been a real trend towards people gift giving in support of one another's mental health and well being. So really this idea of mental health as being a gift giving trigger has something that we've seen a very strong trend around. So this idea of people sending gifts just because they want to show their support and just because they know that loved ones are at home feeling isolated. So that's definitely been a key trend for us over the last six months and it's showing no signs of subsiding at the moment.
Nathan Bush: I mean, who couldn't feel love to get to get some flowers that says you lovely fucker on it like it's going to cheer you up straight away, isn't it.
Hannah Spilver: Well, that's the whole point.
[Voiceover]: Right.
Hannah Spilver: And that's why the brand play was so important for us from day one, because it's supposed to make people smile and giggle. It's all about being playful and cheeky.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Hannah Spilver: And that's part of the experience of receiving a gift. Right. It's not just what's in the box, but it's the thoughtfulness behind it and then it's the idea of somebody going to the effort to think of you and send something. So, yeah, you know, all of that messaging and the packaging and like Verity was talking about the unboxing experience and that pivotal moment when it arrives on your doorstep, all of those things are so critical to the overall customer experience. I mean, really, the flat, you know, flowers are just a facilitator. It's not. It's. The flowers are about 10% of what the whole experience is about. And so nailing all of those different parts of the customer experience and touchpoints over the years has been a big focus for us.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. We had recently we had Oliver and Ruby Hagen from Hagan's Organics, who are a Melbourne company butcher who are now online. And their experience with COVID was fantastic from a business perspective. Obviously very tough mentally and with the team and all that sort of stuff. But they found that because they had a younger audience who were buying meat and veggies through them, their audience actually shifted younger because people were replacing their nights out or their dinners or whatever with really great quality home cooking. They're willing to pay for that as well. Is that a similar thing that you're finding with what you're alluding to there is that people are doing more of those just. Just because gifts. Because there's not that catch up in person.
Hannah Spilver: Yeah, absolutely.
[Voiceover]: Absolutely.
Hannah Spilver: I mean, people are missing out on milestones, people are missing out on that physical connection. And I think the beautiful thing about our product is, yes, that we're a digital business. So, you know, our infrastructure is tech, but actually the beauty of our business is that it's a physical product. So it does help bridge that gap between not being able to see loved ones and hugged love and hug loved ones when you get a physical product. And I think that there's a lot of value around that.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: And I think also the personalization of jars has really taken off as well. And I think, you know, having that bespoke labeling option, people have been very creative with what they put on the labels, like fuck you, Covid and things like that, which we've had a good Giggle at with the team.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome. Talk us through the personalization process. What kind of options have you got for customers there?
[Voiceover]: We've tested a few, but the main one that's just stuck around and everyone seems to want is our. Our jar labels. So all you need to do is put a few words in, we print it out and wrap the jar bespoke for you so that the flowers arrive in a jar with a specific message for your loved one or the recipient.
Nathan Bush: It's a nice touch then because that. That jar lives on in the house for a week, two weeks, however long it is as a centerpiece for a house normally, doesn't it? So fantastic.
Hannah Spilver: Yeah, it's a pretty. It's a pretty unique piece of real estate as a brand. And again, that was, I'd say, a sort of lucky side effect of something we were developing rather than an intention that we set out to achieve. But we're really fortunate that we've created this piece of brand real estate that lives on in people's homes.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Hannah Spilver: And the other thing that I would say that we've experimented with a lot of over the years in terms of personalization and customization is we. We realized early on that it didn't matter how much effort we put into bundling products in a certain way, we were always inundated with specific requests to ultimately unbundle them and change them in some way. So quite, quite early on in the piece, we realized the need to deconstruct our range and give customers the option to. To customize the bundles they were buying so customers can actually come to the site, create whatever combination of products they want to send to the recipient, and we will bundle them up for them in that particular way. And that's definitely been something that we've seen an increase in demand for over
Nathan Bush: this time, has that personalization and that customized bundling has. That meant that you've had to do a lot of custom development on your E commerce platform or if you've found ways to do it pretty lean.
[Voiceover]: No, we've definitely done it lean and it's kind of been our approach. It's not to say it hasn't been painful sometimes, but in both circumstances we wanted to test it before you invest cash is you don't have tons to invest in all these things, so you want to know that you're investing in the right things, especially build a bundle week. We hacked that solution from a normal product page and made it work just to make sure that that's still what people and customers want and it still is today. And we're iterating it and hopeful, you know, it's never going to be perfect, but we continue to work on it with our agency.
Nathan Bush: Is there any piece of tech or any plugins or anything that you're using that you just love, that you kind of yell from the rooftops on not.
[Voiceover]: Look, we are in a big. We're in the process of decoupling our operations from our front end of the site because it's been a bit limiting in the way we can use plugins. So there's so many amazing plugins and apps that we could and would love to try, but our current platform is restricting us slightly. So we're on a journey of like using an inventory system and big, you know, long timeline of getting a few other things up and running to then start trialing things that we have been wanting to for a long time. I think right now we're pretty impressed with our third party tech, with the logistics for same day that they're a partner who are software engineers at their core so they know what they're doing and we feel like that's really been incredible change in our business. Being able to know where our gift is at all times, being able to give an accurate eta, all those things are critical for that moment. So I think at the moment that would probably be the standout. What do you think, Han?
Hannah Spilver: Look, I think from my perspective it would be the usual suspects. I mean we are in and out of. In terms of the tools we use to guide decisions we're making every day. We are in and out of Google Analytics and Xero, I reckon upwards of 50 times a day. The amount of times we are refreshing our data to understand where our sales are and increasingly at the moment when you're dealing with scaling rapidly, managing our costs literally day to day, hour to hour and fine tuning our cost controls in line with what's happening at a revenue and demand in line with what's happening with revenue and demand is absolutely critical to surviving. Right. So just, you know, the usual suspects. And every online business would use them I assume. Right. But we, we are relying on these tools hour by hour to help us
[Voiceover]: guide almost forget about them. Because you use them so much, it just feels like.
Hannah Spilver: Right, it's like email. It's so obvious. But at the end of the day this so powerful. You know, we are running our business using these tools as signposts for the decisions we should be making every day.
Nathan Bush: Yep. But even, even for you guys to say that, that the inventory System, your website, analytics and your financial platform are all things that you rely on or Cordy business. That's. They're fantastic foundations to have. Right, because you can always change plugins and you can change front end stuff. Right. But to have that, the back, that's pumping away, that's. That's a nice position to be in. I'm sure it's not all perfect, but it's nice. Nice to actually be able to, in terms of your customer. So I can imagine, and tell me if I'm wrong, that your customer skews a bit younger than the traditional gift buyer.
Hannah Spilver: It does, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's predominantly female customer, ranging in a. I mean, it's a broad audience, right. But sort of from 2025-50, really, but definitely skewing towards that. That younger demographic. A millennial customer, essentially.
Nathan Bush: We get it. You're pumping out a lot of products and a lot of packaging at the moment. Did you know that Mecca saved 30% in their packing time just by changing up how they pack their goods? Our partners at Signet have over five and a half thousand packaging solutions that help other businesses such as T2, Lush Cosmetics and Ikea, make the most out of their packaging and logistics. Visit signet.net au to find out more. Do you find that social plays a big role? When we talked about the personalization and, you know, the design you put into your packaging, does social play a big role in getting the word out?
Hannah Spilver: Oh, yeah. I mean, it's critical. It's been critical from day one. I think the thing with the thing we've observed about our customers are they're social media led, they're mobile and digital natives, they're very driven by word of mouth and referral. And I think really over the years there's sort of, you know, there's obviously lots of research and data on what millennials want and what makes a great customer or brand experience for them. But we kind of boil it down to four key things. And the first thing is that convenience and on demand are now baseline expectation. It's not a nice to have. So the fact that they can order with us by 1pm and we'll deliver by 6pm the same day isn't really USP anymore. It's an expectation. The second thing is we've realized, we realized very early on, and we kind of get the whole business around this is that good customer service isn't good enough. It has to be outstanding for people to come back. And that's so critical in that retention piece. And the bar is so high. And I think for us, because we built our business around this purpose of, of making people's day, what's been great is that customer happiness doesn't depend on the quality of your customer service team. Because actually, every single person in our business is completely incentivized and aligned around the importance of making customers happy, which inevitably leads to a high level of customer service. The third thing that we know about them, that we've touched on is this desire for customization and personalization which has become so much part of our usp. And the fourth thing, which I think is becoming increasingly obvious in the way consumers spend their money and choose brands, is that millennials really want to spend money with brands that have a social and environmental conscience. And that's something that's a big part of our DNA as a business. And we've built our values around being lovely to people, lovely to Australia, lovely to the planet. So we have initiatives such as donating all unsold posies to aged care homes and hospices. So we're really driving towards that zero. The idea of zero waste. And in addition, over the last sort of two years, we've really intentionally pivoted our supply chain towards what we've kind of coined a paddock to posy approach, which is really about staying local and going direct to Australian flower growers wherever we can. Now we're still on that journey. We'll be on that journey forever. We're about 80% of the way there at the moment. But they're kind of like the four key themes that have really emerged as drivers when it comes to the buying behavior of this audience. And certainly things that we've intentionally tried to build out our business around.
Nathan Bush: That's brilliant. And I think those simplifying into those four key pillars for that audience gives a real clear direction for you and your team. Can you tell me any moments where you've had to put odd situations where you've had to put a smile on customers face? I mean, you always go to the Zappos example where people ring up about the shoes and they want a pizza and they connect them to a pizza and end up having a pizza delivered to the door of someone who wanted to buy shoes. Have you had any of those moments? We've gone above and beyond for customers in that customer service role.
Hannah Spilver: I think I. Look, I think there's been lots of times where both VEZ and I have ended up literally jumping in the car and delivering something to a customer to solve a problem less so now, because we have a much more developed network when it comes to logistics. But in the early days, I mean, we were literally hopping in our cars left, right and center to make sure that customers got products. I mean, I think one memory that stands out for me early on was, I think it was probably our second Christmas trading and we were experimenting with selling miniature Christmas trees. And coming from the uk, I have the particular obsession and passion for all things Christmas. And I was really excited about these miniature Christmas trees and I'd kind of set one aside with my name on it and we're not selling that, it's mine. I'm going to take it home and decorate it. And I remember that they, they just sold better than we thought they would. And we have this customer on the phone because she'd seen that they were sold out on the website. She was desperately trying to get hold of one. And I could see in the corner of my eye that there was this lonely Christmas tree sat there with a. Post it with my name on. And I was really sorry, we've sold out. And I remember her saying to me, it's just because my mum is spending Christmas on her own and she's elderly and she's isolated and it would have just been really nice, but I totally understand, if you've sold out, there's nothing you can do. And I just thought, she's gotta have the Christmas tree. And I was like, I'll give me five minutes, I'll see what I can do. I remember putting the phone down and going, you know what? The right thing to do is sell the Christmas tree, take your name off it. And I remember calling her back and going, as luck would have it, we, we've been able to source one more Christmas tree.
Nathan Bush: You didn't, you didn't call her back and say, you've ruined my Christmas, but I hope your mother has a great Christmas.
Hannah Spilver: Yeah, no, she didn't need to know the detail. But I'll never forget that kind of moment of sort of half begrudgingly, but knowing it was the right thing to do. And it was the right thing on a personal level and it was definitely the right thing on a commercial level to sell the tree. But that's definitely something that sticks in my memory.
Nathan Bush: Have Christmas trees come back since we, we have.
Hannah Spilver: They've. I think they've come back for a couple of Christmases. They're just. We've had issues, we've had issues with supply, we've had issues with transporting them. I think in the early days we could, we could afford to do a lot of things that weren't particularly scalable but were just fun. And now we just don't have the luxury of being able to do that as much because we're running a national business. So you've got to sell products that work at a national level. So for all of the upside that scale brings you, clearly at some points there's also going to be some trade offs and compromises and sometimes that your rate and sometimes those compromises are that, you know, your range has to be reduced or streamlined to facilitate the business model you're trying to build.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. What is next for Love other than surviving Covid and just getting through? What? Where's the focus area for you guys for growth?
Hannah Spilver: Well, I think our vision remains completely unchanged from day one. So, you know, we've always been clear that our ambition is to build the most loved and most used gift and flower delivery service in Australia and the world. So for us, that vision hasn't changed. You know, Covid doesn't affect that. It's, it's actually made the timeline to get there a bit shorter. You know, we've accelerated massively over the last six months. We've probably seen about two years of growth. But for us, we, we stay clear and steadfast on that vision. We're evolving the company by, I think, responding to other ways that we can be useful and relevant to customers. So we're developing a lovely weddings range and a lovely corporate range because we realized that they were products and services that were very relevant to our existing customer base. So we'll continue to innovate with our product, we'll continue with our geographical expansion. So, you know, for us, we want to be pretty aggressive over the next 12 months about extending that same day delivery service into other cities and significant urban areas across Australia. And most of all just, you know, not, not taking our eye off the purpose of why we're doing this. So yes, we want to grow and yes, we want to try new things, but ultimately staying absolutely focused on customer service and making people happy.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. Hannah and Verity, thank you very much for joining us on Add to Cart. We love what you're doing with Lovely and if anyone wants to check it out, visit lvly.com thanks guys.
[Voiceover]: Thanks for your chat.
Hannah Spilver: Thanks for your time, Nathan.
Nathan Bush: It was so refreshing to hear from two people that had come from outside of an industry and then been able to disrupt something that had been around for so long. Hannah and Verity had to rewrite what a gifting business means in order to appeal to a new customer base. Their focus on Millennials has paid off hugely, but it means that they've had to do things like differently and I think it's worth just revisiting Hannah's four rules for appealing to a millennial customer 1. Convenience and on demand. They have high expectations and they're not comparing you to traditional retail. Number two Outstanding, not good outstanding customer service you need to exceed not meet their expectations. Number three customization and personalization. Of course it's all about them, but number four they value brands with social and environmental purpose. So while it's all about them, they want you to be all about everyone else, whether your customer is Millennials or otherwise. I love how Hannah and Verity have been able to pinpoint the four things that guide their decisions and make their customers tick. It turns good customers into brand enthusiasts. If you're looking for more ecommerce news, case studies and research, sign up to 12High's High5 newsletter. Every week I read all the e commerce news and send you five things which I've found which will help grow your business. Visit 12high.comauhigh5h I G H5 to sign up for free. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cart.
