Mike Doyle: The whole ecosystem within the airport world has really been turned on its head. We've decided to kind of take something to the market as opposed to wait for the market to come back to us. We're well into the six figures in terms of sales.
[Voiceover]: 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 Add to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello there and welcome to the Add to Cart podcast. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and strategist at e commerce consultancy twelve High. In today's episode, we are going behind the scenes with Brisbane Airport Corporation. And what's that got to do with retail, I hear you ask. Well, they got hit with 96% fall in foot traffic almost overnight due to COVID 19, but they responded by building an online store in 16 days with $400 that's now doing six figures. Joining me today to tell the story of that is Mike Doyle, who is the head of consumer marketing at Brisbane Airport Corporation. Previous to this, Mike was head of marketing at surf and streetwear retailer City Beach. He takes us behind the scenes to share how they came up with the idea, the technology that they are using and the results that they're seeing so far. And it's a fantastic story for those considering spinning up their first shop in response to COVID19 or even for seasoned retailers who are looking to simplify and accelerate. So thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Klarna, let's dive straight into the Brisbane Airport Corporation story with Mike Doyle.
Nathan Bush: Mike Doyle, welcome to Add to Cart.
Mike Doyle: Thank you very much for having me.
Nathan Bush: My pleasure. Now, we knew each other when you were last at Sydney City beach and you're now over at Brisbane Airport Corporation doing some exciting stuff. How's the transition been for you?
Mike Doyle: Well, I have to say I started at an airport and I've seen the evolution to something that probably resembles less what you would expect an airport to be doing. But the transition has been different but exciting nonetheless.
Nathan Bush: And somehow you've ended up firmly back in the retail space.
Mike Doyle: I know I've done everything I can to avoid it, but here I am. So I think there's a certain degree of magnetism that comes with that space. But yeah, it's certainly been a wild ride for the last month. And to put that into perspective for those who are living Under a rock 12 March, we announced a new flight in partnership with Virgin that was going to fly out of Brisbane to Haneda, which is in Japan. And then three days later, Qantas suspended all their flights domestically and a significant portion of their domestic flights. And then Virgin followed suit. And then just in the news yesterday, they've now filed for chapter 11. So they've got the administrators coming in, kind of going through their books and trying to refocus their efforts in hopes to keep them alive and pumping for the future. So, I mean, it's quite amazing to think that the whole ecosystem within the airport world has really been turned on its head because of a lack of passengers and no one's been spared. But here we are trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it's unbelievable, like you've been hammered from all angles, really, on this and that there's no escaping it from an airport perspective. What we're here to talk about today is how you're an initiative that you've led with your team to help your retailers. So it's been remarkable what I've heard about so far in how quickly and how agile you've been in developing this solution. So we're going to dive into that a little bit more today. But before we do, can you give our listeners just a little bit of an overview of the retail footprint at Brisbane Airport Corporation and the impacts that you saw immediately following the onset of COVID 19?
Mike Doyle: For sure. So Brisbane Airport is the third largest airport in Australia, servicing around, I'm going to call it 25 million passengers. And that's across both the international and domestic terminal. So it's quite a large undertaking. And there's a lot of other things that happen in and around the airport that don't have anything to do directly with aviation. But a thing that kind of most people would be aware of and is probably the most topical is the things that have to do with airplanes and passengers. So the retail footprints around 85 tenants, that includes food and beverage and retail. So there's. There's quite a mix of different people in both the domestic and international terminals. There's quite a few more tenants within the domestic terminal. But overall, kind of, they all sit in a very similar. In a similar situation in that, you know, they all derive their revenue from people coming through the airport in order for them to get on an airplane and go to local or international destinations. So what we saw and what we're experiencing is pretty much at this point, about a 96% drop in volume through the airport. So what that looks like is the airport still operates and it's still remarkable just how many people are coming and going. And we do service quite a bit of repatriation flights. We've got quite a few other flights going out to service things like the mining communities, but they've been quite quick to adapt and increase the volume of flights to service the same number of passengers in order to facilitate distancing from each other. So, I mean, the airport is still functioning. And probably if we were to compare what the airport from a retail and a food and beverage perspective looks like as in contrast to something like a Westfield or maybe a typical shopping center, it's still a vibrant place, but it's just nowhere near. It just doesn't look the same as it used to.
Nathan Bush: I suppose you've got a different type of visitor or a different type of shopper in the airport at the moment than what you would normally have. Even if you're still retaining 4% of those people, they're kind of not your key shoppers, are they?
Mike Doyle: No, they're not. And I think that the whole experience is just a very different one for them. So that's part of the consideration for us. But yeah, I think the reality is that what we realized was not through contractual obligation, but more just as part of our conversation with our tenants in hopes of providing them with a certain level of care and compassion. Through these times, we realized quite quickly that our kind of unspoken duty is to provide them with the passengers. And in times when there's no passengers, no one would probably question us just saying, oh, well, we'll wait and we'll do nothing until the passengers come back. There are some airports and some smaller ones within, you know, the Queensland area and kind of even, even beyond that, have decided just to cease operations until things return to more normal times. That's not something that we have ever entertained. So in light of that, and in light of the sort of entrepreneurial spirit of my boss and our CEO, we've decided to kind of take something to the market as opposed to wait for the market to come back to us.
Nathan Bush: And in terms of that relationship with your retailers, is it set up like a typical arrangement with a shopping center in terms of the rental arrangements and all that sort of stuff?
Mike Doyle: Yeah, it's not too dissimilar. Obviously, each one of the rental agreements, in the kind of the process that we go through is. Is unique to each one of the tenants because that's kind of the nature of our business. But yeah, it's not too dissimilar. There are some commercial agreements which kind of outline the operating parameters and because of the security and a few other factors that are are fairly unique to the airport, those arrangements kind of go a little bit deeper than maybe, you know, Westfield. There's a whole bunch of other factors that a Westfield doesn't have to contend with, but it's not too dissimilar. If you were to kind of try and find something analogous to what we do, it was unique to each one of the tenants because that's kind of the nature of our business. But yeah, it's not too dissimilar. There are some commercial agreements which kind of outline the operating parameters and because of the security and a few other factors that are are fairly unique to the airport, those arrangements kind of go a little bit deeper than maybe, you know, Westfield. There's a whole bunch of other factors that Westfield doesn't have to contend with, but it's not too dissimilar. If you were to kind of try and find something analogous to what we do, it would definitely be something like a shopping center like Westfield.
Nathan Bush: Awesome.
Nathan Bush: Okay, so I think that's a really great initiative in that instead of just putting your hands up in the air and going, hey, we've lost 96% of our customers, you're like, how can we help these guys? So tell us about that process of going from realizing there's a problem to coming up with a solution really quickly.
Mike Doyle: Yeah, well, I think it's kind of. It's a story that you probably couldn't have written. So my general manager, Martin Ryan, was scheduled for a long overdue holiday at the beginning of all these troubles. So he decided to quickly just go off for a few days. He got caught as one of the first people that had to self quarantine on. On his return. So he cut his holiday significantly short. So I'm talking he basically got on a plane. Things went from relatively normal to shutdown mode within the airline industry quite quickly. So he basically turned around at the airport and got back on a plane, the result of which was he was stuck at home in quarantine for 14 days while we were still working out of the office. So during that time, he obviously turned to the Internet, as many of us do in probably a more productive way than some, and did a bit of online shopping. And I think that it's a testament to a lot of the online retailers that exist right now, because he had a really pleasant experience with all of those and kind of in talks because we are always in chats with our tenants, raised the idea with our duty free operator that maybe we could help out with producing some sort of online solution for them. Because as you would imagine, the hardest hit in the early days of this was our international terminal. And the duty free operator, as the name would suggest, is probably entirely tied to that terminal in that international flights are the only ones that qualify for duty free purchasing. So he had a chat with the principal actor within the duty free space and they hatched a bit of a plan for us to try something for them. And that was basically the remit that I was given. And my team was tasked with coming up with a solution to help our duty free operator. But yeah, he, he sort of, he stretched the friendship a little bit and suggested that we've got all of these other tenants that are also going to be potentially impacted by this. And again, this is early days. So this is when we were still sitting in an office with a significant portion of our traveling audience still coming through the terminals. He said, listen, you know, a bit of a bit of visionary moments like that. We, we don't know where this is going to stop. So you have to kind of consider what this looks like if we were to continue moving into a space where fewer and fewer passengers were coming through the terminal. So Martin handed me a bit of a brief which was come up with something that kind of matches the experience that I've had. And I basically turned to my team and we're not talking like a large group of highly skilled developers that do this day in, day out. Ashley, who works for me, she has done a couple of small e commerce sites on Shopify for some of her friends, basically some artists that have done really great art and a few other people that she knows. And then we had obviously the team that traditionally manages the marketing for the two terminals and then a couple of other people, one that managed all of the marketing for our parking, which as you can imagine, has been affected significantly by the number of people that are not coming to the airport. So it was a band of merry men and, well, mostly ladies, to be honest, that kind of pulled together and within a few days on Shopify, we were able to come up with a solution in a functioning one at that. So it's a real testament to Shopify and their ability to provide a fairly robust platform onto which an idea can spring forth. We spent a few more days just kind of looking at some of the tools that they offer. In contrast to my experience when we were at City beach with some of the Enterprise solutions that we were dealing with. The Shopify experience was. And it's kind of a little bit hard to wrap your head around, but for those who are kind of uninitiated in this space, basically the benefit of the platform for us was that we could select a customer experience that we wanted to have and then we went shopping through the apps to find one that suited what we were looking for, as opposed to the other way, which is more typical for, for large organization like ours, which is you design a workflow and a series of gates and, you know, integrations and all sorts of complexities in order for you to have some sort of output. And then you look at the. At that output and say, is that good enough or not?
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Mike Doyle: So it's a really, it was a really big shift for those people kind of sitting on the periphery saying, well, we need to have design documents, we have to put this all together and all this kind of stuff. It's like, well, no, we've already just, we've selected the $9 a month app and we've turned that on, have a look and see if it does what we want.
Nathan Bush: Was it a case of you, like, literally getting your credit card out and putting your credit card details in?
Mike Doyle: It was exactly right. So it was as quick and dirty as you could possibly imagine. But the benefit is that the tool itself is so tidy and takes care of all of those little niggly bits that traditionally keep people up at night.
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Mike Doyle: so we pivoted pretty quickly, as I said, from kind of selling items within a terminal and supporting our parking public as they came and went from the airport into an E commerce solution provider. So within a few days we had what I would suggest is an mvp. And then we waited for our partner to put together some of the basics around their product. We had some samples loaded, we did a few test orders. We called our friends at Shipit, who are our local Australian success story in a crew that I had previously worked with before.
Nathan Bush: We get too much into the solution because I'm really Really keen to get into how you put all this together. Were there any other solutions that you put together as a team that you thought. Because I'd love to know a little bit more about why you went from marketplace instead more of a traditional retail model. And we've also seen people like Westfield implement their click and collect options to support their food and beverage retailers. Was there any other solutions that you went around before you landed on this marketplace concept? And why did you go Marketplace other rather than a straightforward retail solution?
Mike Doyle: It's a good question. So to put some things aside so realistically, we could have gone for an e commerce solution. Just a straight up and down, here's the stuff we can sell. The problem is that with a multi tenanted, tenanted Canadian method, with a bunch of people that sell things, the challenge really is that if we were going to try and design what is a typical e commerce solution, so one set of products from one place, we wouldn't be able to cater for the various needs that we have across the network. So the multi vendor marketplace is probably the only solution, at least from my perspective, that suited this. Now, it's not to say that, let's put this, there was some robust conversation about whether that was the right approach. I feel that we have kind of landed on the right solution that's yet to fully prove itself the correct decision. So I may end up falling on my sword when it comes to that. But as far as I'm concerned, what we've got is 85, you know, around 85 tenants, each one of which sells a remarkably different set of things. You know, some are food and beverage operators and other ones are, you know, selling Ugg boots and some are selling iPhones. So I think that the suggestion that, you know, we had some sort of shop that made sense to a customer was a bit far fetched. You know, if you came and you tried to buy a pair of Ugg boots and an iPhone, under normal circumstances, you'd think we'd be a bit schizophrenic. So I think the idea of a marketplace kind of bears out pretty quickly in terms of just when you start to see the range of things that we're going to sell and also the fact that we've got so many vendors that we need to cater for. So I think that kind of feels right. Now, again, whether that's right in the long term, we've yet to see. The other question in terms of looking at the likes of Westfield and their Click and collect solution, I'm immensely impressed with that. I think it's just such a fabulous initiative and it's such a testament to those guys over there that they were able to pivot and get something up really quickly. I don't know how long they were working on that and if it was something they had had in the works before. But, you know, regardless of that, I think it's, it's really slick. If no one. If you haven't tried it, I haven't. But if you haven't gone on and had a play, it's really cool. Like, I think it's awesome and, you know, hats off to them. And, you know, I'll certainly be calling my friends over there to see if there's any learnings that we can have from that. When we start to look at our food and beverage offerings, it's a bit of a different scenario. And I think that the location that most Westfields are in caters more for that than it does at the airport in that, you know, it's usually in a high traffic area and it's the kind of thing that's part of a community. We're kind of on the periphery of a community. We're kind of one. It's more of a destination than it is something that you might pass on your way home from work. But I think like, oh, I like goosebumps on the back of my neck when I think about that as an initiative. I think super cool. And it kind of bears out in terms of the idea that, you know, in times of crisis, like, you know, you have to, you have to push yourself into spaces. Because again, I don't think that anyone would have batted an eye if Westfield had said, listen, guys, really sorry, food and beverage operators, you can do take away, but we have no way of getting people in and out of the shopping center without breaching some rules. We'll come back to you, we'll give you some, some of your rent back and, you know, we'll pause operations until things get better. Like, talk about, you know, having some hard conversations, I'm sure, on that side and saying, listen, we just got to try something to support these guys. And I think it's, it's not, not just not to put aside the fact that Brisbane Airport, much like any Westfield, is part of a community and, and to kind of turn your back on that community, especially, you know, for, for, for food and beverage, like, there are some people that, that may actually be really kind of reliant on the idea of food being picked up or dropped off. For us, you know, we're we're looking into the future and there are some things like that. We've already seen a huge run on earphones. So yeah, we, we obviously have our tech up and live right now and we're almost sold out of every pair of earphones you can imagine because with everybody working from home and potentially jumping on the Add to Cart podcast to try and navigate through millions, millions of
Nathan Bush: people, you're going to be able to run.
Mike Doyle: Yeah. So I think that the reality is that people are working in ways that they hadn't in realizing that some of the technology that they would typically go to a local shop to buy is just not available because of so many people looking for it. So there's a whole range of things that we've noticed we've been able to supply the local community that just weren't available.
Nathan Bush: And are you charging your tenants to participate like as in a percentage cut in the marketplace, or is it kind of a value add to support them through this time as rental part of their rental agreement?
Mike Doyle: So the rental agreements and all of the facilities that we had in arrangement with these tenants and at this point, again, it's only one, but we had to kind of, we had to reevaluate all of that. So basically all of those things are kind of paused. And that's basically so that they could survive and also try and make it through this. So we weren't, you know, we're not, we're not trying to, to benefit from, you know, this situation in any way. So the commercial agreement that we've got right now doesn't cover our costs. And that was, that was basically to just make sure that we could prove that the system will work and that we have something viable. I think that over time we have to look at it and as the market starts to gain some confidence with us as a, as a retailer will probably start to look at that right now. It's not kind of a commercially focused thing and really it's about trying to keep a whole bunch of people in a job. I think Internally we've got 25 people across risk and compliance and legal and a bunch of other parts of the airport working. We've got our latte duty free guys. They've got a whole bunch of people that are helping with product and their buyers are back in the office doing some things and they've got a whole bunch of people boots on the ground, helping, picking and packing. So I mean, from a, from a top level perspective, we've kind of, we've hit the goal in terms of Supporting the community and offering some care and compassion to those who are affected. And then, you know, as things start to pick up, I think we'll probably have to look at that. But you know, we're not trying to be predatory, that's for sure.
Nathan Bush: No, really smart, really smart. And sorry, one more question around the solution and let's get into actually how you put this thing together in terms of duty free. So obviously that's a huge driver when people are taking international holidays. It makes the items cheaper. How does that translate to online when people can't travel? Like in terms of a value proposition, does the duty free part of it just get dropped and you just compete purely on price like you would against it? Say you take those headphones for example, you're just competing against the JB hi Fi.
Mike Doyle: Yeah, so. So unfortunately, and trust me, we had lots of exploratory chats around how we could maintain a duty free offering despite the government wanting their money. But they're quite deliberate in their actions. So yeah, unfortunately we had to add all the duty back in, which is actually the principal delay. So we turned the site around in 16 days from concept into a full blown first order. And I would say that half of those days were take taken up by the back and forth around trying to arrange the product, which is nothing compared to the logistical nightmare that comes after someone's ordered something. But the reality is that yeah, all of the things that we're selling have the duty reapplied. But because latte duty free as an operator is quite a substantial operator, they obviously have pricing that kind of matches JB hi Fi in some cases. In other cases what they've done is they've just had some, some pretty hard conversations internally around what their margin looks like. So we as a group kind of came together to support. But yeah, I don't think anyone's going to come out of this with you know, an extra few million dollars in a huge number of percentages on their profit line at the end of it. That's not a goal at this stage. They've got to put it into perspective, they've got around 17 million, so $70 million worth of stock. So it's a big holding. And it's not to say that some of that stuff doesn't make more sense to hold onto than try and sell off. So it's not a fire sale by any stretch, but I think that they're conscious that part of the sale of an item includes the effort that goes into it. And that's a good Thing to keep people employed and engaged.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. So you've got this team together, you've got your mission from your gm. You really want to support your retailers that are in the airport that have seen 96% of customers fall away.
Nathan Bush: You've got your team that, you know,
Nathan Bush: coming from a city beach background, these guys might not be kind of retailers at heart. You've got a really great marketing team and they know airports inside now, but they're definitely not e commerce experts, let alone in retail day in, day out. Where do you start with the solution? Do you start with the. Obviously you've got duty free on board. Do you start with the product or do you start with the platform in Shopify?
Mike Doyle: Well, we didn't have much choice so we had, we had a pretty clear idea of, of what the first products were going to be because that was kind of the catalyst for the decide to, to happen in the first place. So we knew that we were going to get a selection of product from our duty free operator, the constitution of which we knew was going to be technology. So that was kind of the beginning and the end of the conversation around product. Now traditionally under normal circumstances you would probably have a bit of a think about the kind of audience you'd be selling to and start to walk through the kinds of products you put on the site and the pricing and the approach you take with marketing. So what we ended up having to do just kind of because of the circumstances was we knew that we were going to be selling technology and we knew we needed to do this quickly. So you know, the, the press for Time was probably one of the, one of the key decision makers in this as much as it was a silent one. So you know, you rattle off all of the possible options you've got when it comes to platform selection and you know, there are a few standouts and you know, Shopify was definitely the one that came up also because we had some internal capabilities. But to answer your question, it was platform first, product second in kind of a weird way in that we kind of knew what we were getting. But it's not like we laid out the site in a way that would cater more for technology than anything else.
Nathan Bush: Makes sense. And had you personally used Shopify before?
Mike Doyle: To say that I have would be an overstretch. I have to admit that I'm not kind of like a super hands on guy when it comes to some of these technologies. My, my days of getting into the system and having a player are, are numbered in terms of just. I, it hasn't been something that I've been able to spend about it. I, I do wish I could and I think that it's from what I've understood in, in the little dabbles I've had, it's extremely easy. So I don't think that it would be too hard for me. But I think that maybe my, my time is better spent in other places than kind of diving into the, the actual nuts and bolts of the sandpit.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Mike Doyle: But yeah, the things that guys are surfacing are, you know, I don't think that would take me more than a couple of days to figure out exactly how to do it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, no, I think it's just remarkable to get your perspective on it as a relatively someone who's really experienced in e commerce and has used big e commerce systems before. And now being able to launch something like Marketplace on a platform like Shopify for $9 a month is very different to your city beach days, right?
Mike Doyle: Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean you really probably couldn't get to further example like too further away. Like they're polar opposites in terms of the approach that we took here. So yeah, it's, you know, it's, it is a very, it's a stark contrast. But I also think that the entire world is moving away from the kind of enterprise bloated, you know, put a CD in your CD drive and load up a website style on prem hotness. I think those, those days are numbered in terms of what that looks like. So I think that anyone that's not considering a SaaS platform like Shopify is probably head in the sand at this point.
Nathan Bush: Cool. And so we've got our Shopify platform set up. We're paying our $9 a month. You've got your team onto it. Like you said, you've got some people in your team who have done smaller sites on Shopify before. So you've got the capability within the team to spin up a basic site. I guess the next question then becomes how do we get all this product into the site? How do you manage both getting the product over from duty free but also keeping track of the inventory between the two? Because like you said, there's a hell of a lot of inventory there.
Mike Doyle: Yeah. So we took advantage of some of the apps that are just readily available for clicking on within Shopify and one, the name escapes me, but it's basically just able to ingest an Excel document in kind of a live way. The one benefit we've got, and this will change and it's one of those Kind of things that we need to start planning for is that we're not in competition for the stock. So it's not like we've got two outlets trying to sell one item. And the kind of complexities that start to get thrown when you've got that in the mix. So when our duty free operator starts to come back up online, if there's a contest for the last five iPhones, there are some real things that we need to have a conversation about in terms of what that looks like. So I'm not blind to the fact that we're probably in a bit of a privileged position in that. Remarkably, because they're not trading out of the terminal, we have this clean inventory that's not being sold out from under us. So we're not having these failure to fulfill experiences where someone goes to a pick location and the item is gone because someone else has picked it up and sent it off or bought it off the shelf. So we're kind of in a, in a. Our retailers are kind of a warehouse right now and they're not necessarily selling that stuff out. And also there's an awful lot of it with them. So I don't know that we're super concerned. Although we have run out of iPhones. So if you were thinking about buying one at a good discount on the site, you've missed your opportunity.
Nathan Bush: I totally, yeah. Because I'm working at the moment with a large omnichannel retailer and rolling out a big project and we have now had the scope change that it's E commerce only and just the amount of complexity that goes out of the window once you take omnichannel out of it and then it becomes a pure play E commerce. It's a totally different game, right?
Mike Doyle: Different game. And I remember like going onto panels with Pure play online retailers and like they're talking about these initiatives and they just can't believe that when we were, when I was at City beach, just how, how slowly we were reacting. It's like, well, that city beach with 70 physical stores, which accounted for a large percentage of the overall volume of product being sold, which meant that at any given time, if I was selling across the iconic Amazon ebay, our store and a physical store, you had five different channels competing for potentially one product. And unless that product was sat in a store, they could be in transit, it could be in any other. A myriad of myriad states. So, yeah, congratulations on moving away from a omnichannel. But yeah, I think that those are real, real painful points and you know, not to say that we nailed it. But there are some really. Some really cool. There's some really cool tech and some really just, like, simple solutions to make that pain a little bit more reasonable. I know that rfid, you know, just takes a lot of the pain away, but it's a bit costly and it's a bit of a mind shift for a lot of people. But being able to scan your store at the end of the night and just know exactly how many products you've got in it to, you know, greater or lesser degree, some sort of accuracy, like stocktake is an instant thing. Yeah, that's a game changer. But, you know, only selling from one warehouse is like. It's a dream come true.
Nathan Bush: Exactly.
Nathan Bush: I love Omni Channel and I can't wait for the stores to open back up. And they will, obviously. But in terms of simplicity, easy done. So then if we go away from product and inventory and we've got the Excel spreadsheet, that's coming straight in Shopify, can I assume with payments that you're using Shopify payments to keep it simple?
Nathan Bush: Yep.
Mike Doyle: No, exactly right. So, I mean, you can do the math on that at some point and figure out if there's another solution for you, but for simplicity's sake, and it's a relatively cheap solution given kind of what we're looking at at the moment. So to keep it all simple and straightforward, you kind of tick a box in your way. There are some other complexities around trying to get alternative payment methods integrated. So there's some things from a finance perspective that we're still kind of jumping through. You know, my friends at afterpay will delight in the idea that, you know, having more. More people on their products is. Is kind of, you know, certainly a thing. I'm sure that they're. They're not shy, but, you know, coming to the table and suggesting this thing,
Nathan Bush: just between you and me, Klan is also a great product.
Mike Doyle: Yeah, well, I think we. We need to. Yeah, listen, there's. We've got some options, so we'll talk, but I think. I think there's a lot of really cool things that are floating around that you just tick a box and you've got a solution. Now, whether, over time we need to change some of those solutions, it's probably fairly reasonable to think that some are suited to certain parts of this project. And then much like a startup, you go through cycles and find something that may suit you better or the needs change. To your point, the breeze might shift a little bit and we need to Untick one box and tick another one. But at this point, Shopify is catered for all of our needs and we're just kind of having some chats around the side around. It's more about our processes than it is about building some complex technology to suit what we need.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. And then if we move on to fulfillment. You mentioned earlier that you partnered with ShipIt. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that works?
Mike Doyle: Yeah, well, I mean, it works really, really well at the moment. Ship it is obviously one of our local homegrown success stories. And the benefit of having worked at City beach for a little while was that we were kind of, we were part of that growth, the initial stages of that growth. And happy to say that, you know, aside from a couple of gremlins, which you'd expect from any new offering, it was really quite a, quite a powerful solution for City Beach. So, yeah, another one of those existing integrations that you can kind of take a box and fire up within Shopify. And the guys at Shipit are super engaged and they realize that a lot of people are coming to the table at the moment trying to figure out some sort of online shop to kind of offset the losses that they're facing within the, the physical locations that they may have operated before. So, you know, I don't think that we are anything special in terms of that. I think that they're just genuinely there to help and that was the case for us and they continue to be a really great partner. So, you know, we take a box and we avail a bunch of different shipping options. You know, we are looking down the barrel of offering liquor. We would hope at some point we have to figure out like some of the logistics around. Well, do we need to have our delivery? Our couriers have an rsa. Like, is that a thing? Do you have to check ID when you sell it or when you pick like there's a whole bunch of just like questions that need to be answered, which we're working through now. But you know, the benefit of something like shipit is that you can click a button and there is a solution availed within the platform. That is exactly what we're, what we need in terms of the fulfillment of that. So the guys have been also helping us trying to work through some of this, some of the complexities that are inherent in having our multi vendor situation. So like, how does that work in terms of does, you know, does everyone have an account? Do we have a parent account and their children have that account and that kind of stuff? So they've been really engaged and super active in chatting through it because I think, you know, they're saying this is one of those good news stories as well. It really is one of those moments where you could sit on your hands, but the fact that we're not something that they want to support. So I appreciate all of the effort that they've put in as well.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome. And it's so good to see those relationships carry on across businesses as well because it is really, especially in Australia, such a relationship business.
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Nathan Bush: Is the model around fulfillment, is it a ship from store using store stock that they've got or is all stock sitting in a warehouse in Brisbane?
Mike Doyle: So it's a mix to be honest. So they have our duty free operator as, as an operator has all of these complex warehousing situations in order for them to comply with the rules and regulations that are governments that want their money. So they've got bonded warehouses and a whole bunch of other security measures that need to go into that. So there's some stock that's on the actual shop floor. Other things are in kind of a lower grade secured warehouse and other things are in a highly secure situation. So there's, there's a lot of product moving around and you know, multiple, multiple pick locations and some it's none of it's designed in the way that you would expect if you were a typical e commerce solution provider. So there's not like a, there's not like a big long row of shelves with pick locations and then all of those pick locations are loaded into a pick gun that you go and you know, you build out. It's kind of like Susan gets a printout and walks down to the shop and picks up item A and then walks over to the bonded warehouse, passing through all of the necessary security precautions to pick up item B. So it's quite a complex situation to kind of pivot from what would normally be stock on floor, stock replenished from warehouse at key intervals to. You're going to be wandering around through maybe up to five different locations in order for you to. To pick all of the correct stuff to put it into a tote to send out to a customer. So. And we would expect that to be even, you know, you can imagine that the amplification of complexity as you start to add on, you know, maybe five other retailers who have, you know, stuff in a shop in their respective warehouses or coolers or whatever. So, yeah, we're not. The end game has not been realized, let's put it that way.
Nathan Bush: And it's fascinating to get those insights from you about behind the scenes in terms of how that's set up and Judy and the rest, because if you go onto the site, it's a very neat site, and you can tell it's an MVP site. It's a neat site, it's a functional site, but it doesn't look very complicated. But when you start hearing you talk about some of the challenges that you've had behind the scenes, I can imagine there's been hours and hours spent on that and less so much less so on the front end.
Mike Doyle: Yeah. And I think that's probably for those that don't really know what goes into this. I mean, like, again, we've had a few people kind of on this for, you know, the better part of a month, maybe a little bit, a little bit longer now. And. And it's kind of like, it's a bit of a passion project as well. I don't think that you would get the kind of result that we got if people didn't really care. And I think that that's a testament to kind of the team and. And the people that have probably really stepped outside of their comfort zone to do things that they were never trained to do or they're not really. It's not on their job description, let's put it that way. So I think we're kind of pushing into new areas and the level of collaboration that we've seen across, you know, the departments, but also with our retailers, and then that kind of response that we've gotten from the community is really kind of. It's kind of heartwarming in that, you know, it started with my boss having a really good idea and him, you know, having a really good relationship with the rest of the organization for them to Trust him. For him to trust us, for our retailers to trust us, for my team to trust me, and then for a bunch of suppliers to kind of really come to the table and help us out. Whether, you know, they came to the table because their solution just out of the box worked for us, or if they've helped us navigate some of it just, you know, in terms of our level of maturity with using their product, like, it's kind of. It sounds really cheesy, but it kind of puts the biggest smile on my face. And I said this to the guys, like, you know, we were doing, like, significant numbers in terms of City beach, you know, daily revenue. Like, just, you know, I'm not going to go into specifics, but let's put it that way. It's. It's not inconsequential. And then I was saying to the guys, like, I actually think that I got more of. More of a thrill out of selling one iPad to one internal team member, like, a few weeks ago than I had in the previous few years of kind of going through the. Through the process with City beach. Because it was so normalized for us and there were so many talented people that really knew what they were doing at City beach that it was almost a given that things would work, and it was really by exception that things needed to be addressed.
Nathan Bush: You've changed, man. You've changed, man. You've gone all soft. You've gone all soft.
Mike Doyle: What have I become? Yeah, hopefully no one listens to this and they realize just how soft I've become. But, you know, I think it's really kind of. It's exciting. Like, it's kind of like a startup, right? And I think having worked through a couple of startups, it brought back some of that thrill that we're just trying to do some stuff and it's not going to be perfect. And I admit that, you know, to your point, like, we've gone out there with. With. With a standard template, and even the O Bargain crew weighed in on the fact that they were a bit nervous because it looked like someone kind of put this together pretty quickly. And I, you know, I was the first on there saying, like, yeah, like, we did. So thanks very much, but, like, please buy an iPhone. So we're kind of. We're taking it to the market. We're going to make sure that it works, and then, you know, whether we. We revisit this. Well, we definitely will revisit it at some point, but, like, just where we take it will kind of be dictated by the kind of response we get from the market and what kind of permission we get from that market to continue growing it. And so, you know, time will tell if at some point people just really get tired of the idea of shopping with us. I don't think they will, but, you know, if this is not something that they're interested in, the market will tell us and we'll have to pivot back to physical retail again.
Nathan Bush: So what can you tell us about the initial results? So you've said that you've got up and running the MVP up and running in 16 days. Can you tell us how much it's cost you and the type of results you've seen so far?
Mike Doyle: Yeah, for sure. The MVP itself was really kind of, I think we all in spent just under $400. It was about, I'm going to say it was at $395. And that was mostly just kind of setting up some of the very basics. And to your point, like the fees associated with the platform itself are a monthly thing and it kind of takes some time to see those come in. But it was all internal. We had a couple of little moments where we needed a bit of assistance, but really everything that we needed was catered for within the platform and within that $400 envelope. And so the initial results, so the site's been live in a ballpark, like maybe just over two weeks closer to three. We weren't really selling anything in earnest for the first little while. So if we take that in half, we're well into the six figures in terms of sales. So the response has been great. And there's no doubt the benefit of having some pretty sought after product in a time when all of the people that are at home are looking for it. It's probably no bad thing. And I think that that's probably two things. One, thank you to our tenant, the operator that we are selling their product on behalf of because it's kind of them at the, at the helm in terms of the pricing of that product and kind of what we can make available. But also to a greater degree the confidence that the brand that the Airport has established over the years gives, you know, the confidence that people have that, you know, the airport is the airport like you, you don't expect it a shop. It's. Once you think about it, it probably isn't that foreign an idea that we have an online store, but it's also a brand that you kind of trust and it's probably wrong and I'll probably not make too many friends by Suggesting that we're kind of government adjacent, we're kind of an infrastructure, we're an essential part of the Brisbane community. We're not going anywhere. So it's not like you're buying from Joe's Electronics and all of a sudden Joe takes off to the Caribbean. So I think that people, once they start, start to understand it. Really the kind of the reason that we put it in the site as we have, as opposed to creating a new thing was the fact that we realized that this could be viewed from a bunch of different lenses. And the lack of maturity of the site may be excused by the fact that we're trying something new, but also bolstered by the idea that we've got the Brisbane Airport and the Brisbane Airport Corporation to bolster the confidence within the consumers community.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely.
Nathan Bush: Mike, I think what you've done here
Nathan Bush: in terms of getting an MVP up within 16 days for $400 is a remarkable effort and full credit to yourself, your team and your leadership team as well in getting this live and supporting your retail tenants and retail partners as well. I think it's a fantastic example of supporting each other in getting through this. So well done on that. And I hope that today some of the learnings that you've had and shared help other businesses who might be looking to go online have never kind of played in the space before as businesses, but can now see that it is possible to get up and running in terms of an MVP pretty quickly, fairly easily. Obviously the hard work is now to come in terms of driving those from an MVP into a fully sustainable business model. But getting up and running can be done relatively quick and relatively easily. So thank you very much for your sharing today.
Mike Doyle: No, not at all. And I would encourage, if anybody has any comments or questions, please just. You know, I'm a LinkedIn, I wouldn't say aficionado more a little bit of a bit of a whore. But I'm happy to connect with anybody that might be listening and if they want to chat, I don't know how much expertise I can, I can avail to some of the more sophisticated people or, you know, how much motivation I can provide to the lower ones. But I think, you know, it's. I think if you can figure out a way of trying, you should try, like what, whatever state you're in. You know, sometimes, you know, my boss is pretty good about saying, you know, just, just give it a go, right? So I think that, you know, getting shit done is probably a nice mantra to work by. And you don't know where this is going to go and we don't know how far it's going to stretch. But I think that the reality is that no one knows what the future holds. So if you can focus on the here and now and get something done today, the future kind of starts to change as you form. So you pick the path that you want. It's almost like drive the car. That kind of best suits the position you want. Pick your path and make it happen.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, awesome mate. And the proof is in the action. So well done on that. Before I let you go, I'm going to ask you our final five quick fire questions. Can you give us your quick response to the following questions? We're going to learn a little, we're going to learn a little bit about Mike here. What is the weirdest thing you've ever bought online?
Mike Doyle: The weirdest thing that I've bought online, I have bought a mate tea set. I don't know if you so mate is like this kind of South American tea thing that has this crazy level of caffeine. So I figured that I'd toe into that. Keep me awake.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. Who's your favorite retailer?
Mike Doyle: Well, if I didn't say City Beach, I'd be, I'd be, yeah, honestly, mine. But no, I've got, I've got a wide range of different ones. I actually just bought some under armour gear stuff which like is kind of like pseudo military stuff from my, my, you know, as I run around paramilitary style walking the dogs every morning. So that was kind of fun. But yeah, yeah, get jacked up on
Nathan Bush: coffee and then go for a run.
Mike Doyle: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Watch out.
Nathan Bush: Which retail fad do you wish was history?
Mike Doyle: Man, I like, I don't know, I think the idea of pop ups like still dropped me a little bit nuts. The interrupting of someone's experience in a really awkward way. So some people do them nicely but still struggle with it.
Nathan Bush: Cool book or a podcast that you recommend our listeners should get into?
Mike Doyle: Well again, a little bit. Malcolm Gladwell, like as a fellow Canadian, like can't recommend like enough any of this stuff. Outliers is probably one of my favorite favorite ones. I've listened to probably that a few times and there's some just absolute moments of like oh yeah, that's super cool and just thinking about things differently. So he also has a podcast called Revisionist History. Super into that. So I think like anything that he does, I wish one day I could meet. It's probably one of my, my life goals is to meet Malcolm Gladwell and being Canadian is probably not that unachievable, but you know, one day. So if you get them on, let me know. Happy to co host.
Nathan Bush: I thought that going on add to
Nathan Bush: cart would be the pinnacle, but you know, we'll let that one slide.
Mike Doyle: It was, but now I've done it, so.
Nathan Bush: All right, and finish this sentence. The future of retail is tomorrow, I think.
Mike Doyle: Hey. Well, I actually genuinely think it's a hybrid. Feature of retail is a hybrid model. So it's, you know, endless aisle. It's, you know, it's a small format retail store with an endless selection, you know, catering for your needs. So but it is today, actually. Feature is happening right now. The number of businesses that are transforming in light of COVID 19, you know, what was the driver for your digital revolution? 90% of them are going to be saying COVID 19. So it's probably one that we can use for a little while.
Nathan Bush: You mean it's not going to be
Nathan Bush: that 600 page business case we did before this?
Mike Doyle: Yeah, well, hopefully some of those make sense now, but probably not.
Nathan Bush: Awesome, Mike, really appreciate your time and congratulations again on what you guys have achieved in such a small window of time and how you've been able to support your partners as well. Thank you very much.
Mike Doyle: No, not at all.
Nathan Bush: Good luck.
Nathan Bush: Beyond the mvp.
Mike Doyle: Well, just as a secret tale for your listeners only, we're already starting to work up a couple of other ideas in the background to support our retailers, which include a virtual retail forum and a podcast. So I might be turning to you for some insights and some tips about how to do it. Maybe you can actually be one of my guests if you'd be willing to jump into the house more than happy B2B right, so listeners, if you want to tune in, just listen to add to Cart and we'll do a bit of sharing at some future point.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful, Mike. How come you've already mentioned people can contact you on LinkedIn?
Nathan Bush: Any other way that they can contact you?
Mike Doyle: So they can definitely carry a pigeon or email. So, Michael doylene.com au please do not send me offers of support around Google AdWords or improving my SEO. I've noticed that you could improve your SEO. We do know that and we are working an MVP. But yeah, please, please reach out LinkedIn or email. That's probably the best because calling me will probably find a busy signal.
Nathan Bush: And where can they check out Marketplace?
Mike Doyle: If you go to Brisbane Airport, website is the fastest way bne.com and from there you will find a link to it. So it's you know, keeps everybody nice and safe because there's a whole bunch of weird things if you type in anything other than that. But you can find@bne.com just scroll down a little bit and you can find shop now.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. Thank you very much Mike.
Mike Doyle: Thank you very much. We'll talk to you.
Nathan Bush: From Nothing to a six figure MVP in 16 days the big insight for me was to focus on working through business complexities and for every business they're different. In Mike's case there were duties, fulfillment processes and stakeholder onboarding. These really set the foundations for success. You can always come back and pay more attention to design payment options, expanded ranges, all things that can be improved over time but can be a huge time sucker in the early days. Remember, your e commerce site is the baby that you give birth to but you never stop feeding. You've got to focus attention on those foundational enablers and get the pretty stuff right as you go. We're going to have all the links available for you in the show notes. Make sure you check out the Brisbane Marketplace. If you want to keep up to date with Add to Cart, head over to addtocart.com and sign up to our newsletter. We'll alert you when you ever see are available and give you the summarized versions for when you can't listen straight away. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep adding to cartoon.
