Kelly Jamieson: People's most joyful moments often come from a time of challenge or a difficult moment. We do a test of like literally throwing a bouquet across the room. In every business, something goes wrong and it's about how you fix it that sets you apart.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to ADD to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite and an e commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights. 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: Hey, welcome back to Add to Cart. Thank you for tuning in. It's February. Can you believe it?
Nathan Bush: February.
Nathan Bush: The year is getting serious and today we have a founder of a business that is very serious about giving joy. I mean, what a great thing to be serious about. Kelly Jamieson founded Edible Blooms as a small family business, keen to bring moments of joy in the form of sweet treat bouquets to as many people as possible. There is no doubt that you've seen Edible Blooms around, whether it's in the office, with family, on the streets. They look like beautiful bunches of flowers, but actually made up of chocolates, lollies, donuts, all the good stuff. What a great idea. And now, 17 years later, edible Bloo has grown to include gourmet gift hampers and living plants as gift deliveries. They even took out the 2022 Canstar Most Satisfied Customers award. In this chat, Kelly shares her decision to move away from NPS as a customer feedback tool. She gives her mini guide to a great business plan and how to write one. It's absolutely fantastic. And the best thing about having a sibling as a co founder. Now, before we get into today's episode, I want to give a shout out to a few meetups and a few little webinars that might be of interest to you. So firstly, here at E Suite we are having e commerce socials and that is happening on the week of the 6th of February. So we are going to be in Sydney on the 7th of February at the Beresford Hotel at Surry Hills. I don't know if I even said that right. We'll be in Melbourne on 8 February at Stomping Ground Brewery Collingwood and Brisbane on the 9th at the Osbourne Hotel, Fortitude Valley. You can put a fork in me after those three events, but they all promise to be super fun nights, super casual. If you're interested in meeting other people in E Commerce in a really relaxed low Key environment. Make sure you come along. Most of them start around 4:35 o'.
Nathan Bush: Clock.
Nathan Bush: All the details on the E Suite website or on the E Suite socials, give me a shout if you can't find the details and I'll send them through to you. But love to see you there. Just for a quick catch up, nothing major. It'll be great fun. Also, if you're, you know, keen to devour more e commerce content, our friends over at Shopify are doing a bunch of webinars coming up and they actually have a previous guest of ADD to Cart joining them, Julie Mathers, CEO now of Snuggle Honey, who joins us when she was back at Flora and Fauna, but she's doing great things with Snuggle Honey. They've also got Drew Mansour, co founder of Tile Cloud and one of my favorite people in E commerce, James Johnson, director of Technology services at Shopify. They're doing a webinar February 7th at 2pm details over at shopify.com/forward/webinars APAC CommerceTrends2023. I think it might be easy if you go to the website. Check it out. All right, let's get into today's episode. Thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Paclio. Here's our conversation with Kelly Jamieson, founder and Managing Director of Edible Blooms.
Nathan Bush: Kelly, welcome to ADD to cart.
Kelly Jamieson: Thanks for having me, Nathan. I'm one of your biggest fans, so it's great to be on the podcast.
Nathan Bush: Oh, I'm your biggest fan. I think we were discussing this beforehand and obviously we've known each other for many years and I was kind of blown away when you said that you listened to a lot of the episodes and you've actually taken some things out of this and implemented into your business. I was like, oh, yes, it's working.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, actually, the funny thing is that I probably know this, but I live on a farm an hour from the city, so I commute to our city office, my head office, three days a week. So I have a lot of car time. So I love, like I'm a massive podcast listener. And yeah, yours is one that I like to check into regularly. So that's really awesome.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. Any guests that come to mind that you've listened to that, you've gone, oh, they really helped me implement something at Editable Blooms.
Kelly Jamieson: Actually, there was a really good one and I had a few of my team members. I asked them to listen to the episode. Afterwards you had an interview. It was the Booktopia team and The Impact team. I think you did a co kind of interview of the two organizations and I just really liked hearing about some of the innovative work that Impact had as a platform. Like, so there's. It's sort of got my mind churning on, you know, new solutions. And so we've actually moved to Impact as a result for our affiliate program, which is really cool. So we generated business from the interview, which is great. You know, it's always listening to other people that it just sparks other thoughts. Like it gets your mind moving in other directions and it's not necessarily linear to what you're listening to, but it really, like, I always get a lot of takeaways and particularly because you're interviewing people in the E Comm space. So you have great content and I really appreciate it.
Nathan Bush: Oh, it's awesome. I get so much out of it. And I'm just think I'm constantly blown away. People like yourself, how much you're willing to share because you don't know who's listening, but always willing to share. So I think that's the great thing about our industry.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, definitely.
Nathan Bush: So let's dive into the edible blooms story. So started back in 2005. I'm sure everyone has had an edible blooms delivery or had edible blooms. I'm sure they have. Can you take us back to the start of when you made your first prototype?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, look, that some. Gosh, I'm feeling old saying 2005, but. And a lot has happened in life and business since then. But I guess when I first had that prototype and I guess what I was really doing is smashing together two of my favorite things, like, I'm a massive foodie, I love flowers, I love giving to other people. And so really, edible blooms was really just putting things I love together in a concept. And I'd love to say I was doing formal focus groups, but it wasn't anything that sophisticated. I literally started playing around, making bouquets out of fresh fruit, cutting up pineapple. I was living in Brisbane at the time, so I was going to the James street markets buying produce. That's where I found our Belgian chocolate that we've used since the word go. And I literally would go to a dinner and I'd say, I'll bring dessert. And I would make an edible bloom and take it. And my friends were my focus group saying, would you buy one? What would you pay for it? What do you think? And really, that's as sophisticated as it was. It was super simple. But, you know, simple is always best. And feedback from friends was good enough to get the wheels moving. So, yeah.
Nathan Bush: And was the idea that you wanted something a bit more, I don't know, practical than flowers?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, I love that because I find, like, I love flowers, don't get me wrong. But there's something about the short life and the fact that they're beautiful to look at. But the practicality of an edible bloom is that you get to share it, you get to enjoy it. We like to think we're more than gifting. We're about the experience of sitting around the table, gathering with people that you really care about and enjoying it and eating it and having a great conversation. So. So I think that's the real genius behind edible blooms. It's not always the product, it's what the product actually enables you to do. So really, again, simple, but I think really meaningful.
Nathan Bush: But there was nothing like it at the time, right?
Kelly Jamieson: Absolutely not. And I think that's probably one of the reasons that we're still like, I guess probably something unique about our businesses. We are. My sister and I still own the business 17 years later. We haven't had investors or any other third parties involved in our business. And I think because we started at a time in E commerce, we had a really unique product, A lot of word of mouth support, like huge amounts of word of mouth spreading news about this new product you could buy online. And so that kind of got momentum going on a really small budget. So today things are a lot more sophisticated in e Commerce. Like 17 years later, we're operating in a really different space than we were back then. I still remember when I first discovered Google AdWords and I was buying clicks for 1 or 2 cents. I think I stayed up for like 24 hours straight on my laptop, just like bidding and experimenting. And, you know, it was mad, like totally mad times. And, you know, today it's so much more sophisticated, so much more complex than it was back then.
Nathan Bush: What do you enjoy more? Did you enjoy, like that starting part or where the business is at today?
Kelly Jamieson: I think there's elements of both that I like. I love learning. So, like, if I'm learning something, I'm like, you know, I'm really engaged. So. Yeah. So I think perhaps the complexity makes it interesting and it keeps me engaged. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: Because it's funny when you talk about word of mouth, I could, you know, just trying to cast my mind back to 2005. What word of mouth looked like is so different because obviously Facebook comes around 2007 ish, 2008 ish. So it's pre Facebook time, relying on word of mouth. It's a totally different exercise.
Kelly Jamieson: It really was. And I think the benefit we had at the time is that when we deliver into a workplace, someone would say, oh, what's that? You know, like the word of mouth was very much a viral thing around the office. Yeah. So I think that was quite truly organic in the way that we grew
Nathan Bush: such a visible product. Like you. You would. Would have been made for Instagram, but you were pre Instagram.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, that's right, exactly. So, yeah. And by the time Instagram came around, not everybody, but a lot of people knew who we were. I guess so. Yeah. So it's interesting, isn't it? And perhaps at the time I didn't appreciate that simplicity of things as well. I think, you know, hindsight is the most magical thing. You can see so much in hindsight.
Nathan Bush: 100%. All right, so can we dive into the. The Edible Blooms customer? Because you would have had.
Kelly Jamieson: Oh, ye.
Nathan Bush: A pretty up and down year or not year. Up and down. Probably the wrong word. But you would have had a very turbulent couple of years with COVID Obviously, a lot of people sending gifts, they're disconnected. Who is the Edible Blooms customer? And can you share some of the most common reasons people are sending edible blooms?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, great question. And look, there's two really clear reasons of why people send an edible bloom. And primarily we started. It's interesting, when I started Double Booms, I'd come from a corporate background and professional services, and I actually thought our business was going to be a real beta, like, really about corporate gifting and things like that. But because of that strong word of mouth we were just talking about, our brand grew really rapidly as a B2C brand. So we're really engaging with consumers around just joyful moments. Birthdays, anniversaries, babies being born, all of those kinds of beautiful occasions which are brilliant to be part of. Like, I can't tell you when I started Edible Blooms and the phone would ring and customers were really happy to talk to us because I'd come from. I was working for one of the top tier legal firms and it was a very different phone call that you would get there. So answering the phone, having these people, just really engaging. Oh, it's my nana's 80th birthday and we want to send us something and the whole family's pitching in and, you know, all this kind of conversation, it was really, really nice. So the business sort of really took off in this organic way. Like I said, in very much a B2C customer. Base so that and that got that brand awareness out which is awesome. So I think we're one of the most clicked brands in the gifting space in Australia now, which is awesome. But Covid really changed things. Like you know, we saw a different customer coming in and we saw a lot of corporate customers coming in wanting to engage with their employees. They're wanting to recognize performance. They wanted to connect people who were at home, at work. There was, there were a lot of new challenges thrown at all employers through Covid. So we've really embraced that opportunity and seeing a lot of growth in our business in that B2B space which is awesome. So we're doing things like same day personalization with corporate logos and you know, so we've really responded to the market demand. So I guess yeah we have those two really distinct customer groups and both are exciting in different ways and again both are really positive. So and that's probably the thing that we don't pick up from traditional floristry customers. Like we don't do funerals, we don't do a lot of sympathy gifts. We do if it's the right tone of sympathy gift. But we're very much we're there for the happy days where there for the joyful occasions. I guess that's reflecting our brand values and how our brand sits in the marketplace too.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I hadn't thought about it that way. Flowers are, you know, servicing both those happy and really sad occasions. They're kind of everything but you're the moments of joy.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah we are. We definitely those moments of joy. So yeah. Which is which I love, honestly I absolutely love that about our business.
Nathan Bush: Ever scrolled through an E Commerce packaging website for fun? Nah, me neither. Until today. Paclio is putting the joy into the packaging game. So let's play a game. I'll tell you the name of the Paclio product and you have to try and guess what kind of product they are. Fairy floss compostable mailer. Queen bee honeycomb padded mailer.
Nathan Bush: Here we go.
Nathan Bush: Gummy shark water activated tape. Now if my jaded self thinks that this packaging is fun, imagine what your customers will think. Paclio is also eco friendly. Australian owned and operated with same day dispatch and 14 day returns. Now that's pure joy for everyone. Check out the Paclio range of E Commerce page packaging options@paclio.com that's Paclio P A C K L E O paclio.com.
Nathan Bush: you talked about having direct feedback from customers and being part of those moments. Has there been any conversations or feedback that you've had with customers that you're like, oh, that's a really good idea. We should actually start doing that.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, we've been doing NPS scores for. Gosh. I think we've been. We were really early adopters of NPS, so must have been about 12 years we've been doing NPS. Interestingly enough, we're slowly moving away from it and we're moving our customer feedback. And I'm happy to chat about what we're seeing as important to get the pulse of our customers. But we do listen to customer feedback and I get reports back in and I love reading what our customers are saying. But it was actually customer feedback that expanded our product range. So outside of our signature range, which is our edible bouquets, which are like our chocolate bouquets and our fresh fruit, we've expand donuts. We do a lot of donuts these days. But we've expanded to gift hampers. So that was a request from customers. So we've expanded to gift hampers. We do plant deliveries now as well. We have a really small capsule range of plants and I guess we sort of look at ourselves as the alternative to flowers. So, like, solutions that kind of fit that the occasions that our customers want to celebrate plants are awesome. I love plants. My house is full of them. And so, yeah, so I guess listening to customers is really how we've organically grown our product range at the same time.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, Something really nice in that range. Like, even though there's some disconnect, not disconnected, but different products in there, they're all like that moment when they arrive. They can either live on for a long time or they're shared. Like, I've been in so many offices where the bouquet of chocolates comes in and everyone goes, well, come around and eat it with me. And it becomes this other moment, rather than flowers is kind of. I'll take them from reception and take them back to my desk and put them in the corner.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just the other day I had the most incredible, one of my favorite because when we get really interesting testimonials that come through our CX team, they flick them on. And this one I just absolutely loved. I tried to get in touch with a customer, but we can't work out. She gave her first name and last initial when it went to a company, so I'm desperately keen to reach out and say thank you. But one of our chocolate Christmas trees arrived to their office and she wrote in her feedback message that usually they have a, like a lucky ticket system. So all Christmas gifts go in and you get a, you know, you pull your name out and you get to take something home. And she said, but everyone wanted the chocolate Christmas tree and so they couldn't put it in the. The share. And so they said, well, let's all have it together at our wind up Christmas drinks. And she said, and it was so great. We all stood around and we ate it. And she said, and then because I was hovering over it so much, someone said to me, well, there's a few left, you want to take it home? And she said, I couldn't leave fast enough. I put it under my arm and I ran out the do door. I was like, that is, that was just like those sorts of, you know when you have those customer moments and it just really totally makes your day and you think, wow, that team got together, they connected and then she ran out the office so she could take it. I loved it. So. And it's those quirky ones that just, yeah. Catch the team's attention, which is super fun.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Why did you smoke bomb the Christmas party? I was protecting my chocolate Christmas tree. Yeah.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: You mentioned that you've been using MPS for a long time. One of the early adopters and you're moving away from it. Can you share more around why you're moving away from MPS and what you're replacing it with?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, it's really interesting because I think, and this comes back to the complexity that I was talking about earlier. There's just so many, we're measuring so many different channels and we're looking at so much data in our businesses and our MPS score doesn't really move that much. But we are seeing on emails over time, like we used to have 25% of deliveries engage in the score and you know, we get like hundreds of feedback and we're just seeing customers are getting burnt out from too many emails as well. So there's a, there's a bit of a. It's that volume. And as everyone's lives are more complex these days, so what's really important to us is managing, you know, those feedback channels that are important to our customers. So Google location reviews and product review are two other channels that we obviously get feedback. And honestly, those are the channels where most likely if someone's unhappy and they want to rant, they're going to go to those channels first. So you need to be totally in tune with what's happening. You need to be responding to, making sure you're getting on top of all of that feedback because you Know, in every business, something goes wrong and it's about how you fix it that sets you apart. So we've made a decision as a business this year that those channels and really engaging on the front foot with our customers is the most important channel. So we actually are actually asking for feedback from our customers on an email and we're saying something we can fix, come back to us. But if you love what you saw, give us a review. So we can actually manage those channels. And we're actually monitoring weekly how we're tracking on things like product review and on Google location reviews, because if we can move those positively in the right direction, we know as a business we're doing the right thing by our customers. So an NPS is just another wheel that you've got to measure, administer review. So we're still encouraging the feedback to come back to us. And we want to be the first place our customers come to if something doesn't run smoothly so we can make it right. But we're really wanting to just, I guess, simplify our business so we're not managing so many things at once. So we've done. And our NPS scores, it doesn't move a lot. Like, we're consistently seeing between sort of 75 and 82 as a range, which is really quite exceptional. So because it hasn't moved that much, there's no. We don't have that need to keep managing it quite so much.
Nathan Bush: So the number didn't matter so much as the actual commentary that you were getting from it.
Kelly Jamieson: Exactly, yeah. Yeah. When we want to be there, we want to be the first place people come to if something doesn't go right. You know, the career leaves a box over the fence and the dog eats it. Like, we want to know, so we can send a replacement out. You know, like, that's what we want to be there for for our customers. So. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bush: And do you find that most customers are pretty respectful of that system where you ask for direct feedback if it goes wrong, public if it goes right?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, I think so. I think people are used to that now. I think, like, I try to be a generous customer as well. When I have a great experience with another brand, I like to share it because I think, you know, brands that do a great job and particularly if something goes wrong and it's fixed really seamlessly and quickly, that's the sort of stuff we should be all talking about as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And it's nice if a customer feels they've got a direct route into fixing the problem and there's nothing.
Kelly Jamieson: Oh, yeah, exactly. Look, our policy is it has to be fixed today. Like it can't drag out. Like it has to be fixed quickly. You know, we're about moments in people's lives that they're celebrating. So if it's messed up, you don't have a birthday the next day, you know, it's got to be sorted out really quickly. So I think really being in touch with customers and their needs and how they're engaging with your brands, it's incredibly important.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. It feels like you put so much effort into making sure your customers are genuinely happy because it is those moments of joy and you want to celebrate with.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: How do you structure your RE engagement and retention strategy for existing customers?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, that's a great question because I was listening to your recent podcast you had with Jane K and her retention strategies are exceptional. Like next level, her brand's always just doing. I love Jane. Everything she does in her business is great. And certainly I think for all ecoms, retaining and rewarding existing customers is like, it has to be our number one focus. We're all seeing acquisition costs rising so fast and if we don't focus on existing customers, we're, you know, losing. That's the golden egg in all of our businesses. So I think firstly for us, it was really like always listening to customers. So. And I think that's why NPs scores have been really strong because we always listen and constantly keep changing. Like, it's not like, Mike, I hate it if anyone ever says to me, we do it this way because I've always done it this way. Like, that is my, like fingernails on the chalkboard for me. Like, I just can't, can't handle it. Like, we're in a fast moving business environment. If a customer needs something different, we move with it. Like it's, we change, we evolve. And so we're talking about product range. So I guess we've responded to giving customers more opportunities to use us by not just having our signature range, but also having our hampers and our plant ranges even evolving. We added donuts. Donuts were just this massive spike for us. Like, everybody loves a donut. Who doesn't? But the other thing that we've been doing to really, I guess, reward our customers is we've been doing more partnerships. This comes back to their whole impact piece. It's like really partnering with other brands. So I think we kicked off the new year with some free cinema ticket giveaways. We've engaged with beauty brand wine brands where we do really exclusive, like limited edition ranges where we're engaging our customers in special products, special releases, giveaways. Our customers really engage in giveaways. So when we can partner another brand on a giveaway, they work incredibly well. You know, we get two or three thousand comments on socials like it's, it's a great way of working with other brands to grow your business. So that's certainly key for us. And we also have a rewards program as well. So we really do look at, you know, who are our customers that are coming back most frequently they get the best rewards, you know, so it's really recognizing those customers who are looking after our business and helping us to grow is rewarding them and saying thank you. So that's really important to us too.
Nathan Bush: And you'd obviously have a lot of data there because you've got the details of the sender and the receiver, you're dealing with birthdays, significant events, all that sort of stuff. Do you do any kind of personalized communication to prompt people to think of you around those key dates coming up? And you know, I suppose the question is how far do you push that data into creepy territory?
Kelly Jamieson: I think there's always opportunities to improve the way we're doing that. I would never say we're like perfect, but we do really, really work on things like anniversary of purchase and things like that. Just like really simple stuff there. And also recognizing when there are periods our marketing team are really good at. Like I think a couple of weeks ago, Valentine's Day is coming up. So we sent out an email saying if you don't like Valentine's Day, let us know. You know, you don't have to hear from us because a lot of people hate Valentine's Day. It's a really classic occasion during the year. And the same with Mother's Day. If you've lost your mother, you don't want to be hearing from a gift company about Mother's Day. So I think it's about not just thinking about how you can sell to customers, but just how you can be respectful of your customers as well. And we get really great feedback from that kind of correspondence.
Nathan Bush: Has that been hard to implement in terms of that level of customization for individuals profiles?
Kelly Jamieson: It's not really, no, we use Klaviyo as our email system, but it's very much my marketing team just keep it updated. So that's really important to us. So it's one of those things we make time to make sure we get it right.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. And I was intrigued by the partnership side of it. Because I could imagine for a lot of brands partnering with you is a no brainer. Because if you're partnering with a brand that's celebrating moments of joy, who doesn't want to be wrapped up in those moments?
Kelly Jamieson: Yes.
Nathan Bush: What's your tactic? Do you actually go out and approach other brands or do you have other brands kind of approaching you for partnerships?
Kelly Jamieson: I look both and we're certainly open to partnerships. Like it's something that we really, we love it. Like it's such a great thing to do as a brand and it's a really great way for my team to engage with others in other organizations too. Like the team genuinely really love it. So. Yeah. But we do actively go out and reach out if we see there's an opportunity. I know we're already working on partnerships moment for Mother's Day and you know, we always get a good response and I think it's that thing of people have a love for our brand because it is around that joyful moment. So yeah. So it is like we love engaging with other brands for that reason.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. What I love about your brand is that yes, moments of joy is at the heart of it, but it's not. You kind of go, that's us. We're done. I feel like you've got such a big impact beyond that. And some of the stuff we'll talk about around the impact that you have in the business community with women in business, but also sustainability. I understand that that's a big push for you at the moment is to make your mark, to make sure Edible Blooms is a sustainable company. What does that look like for you?
Kelly Jamieson: Look, there's lots of levels to it. We actually look the floristry industry and we saw a lot of waste and we even saw it in the way we were originally. Like when we were pioneering our own product range, there was stuff in there that we didn't love and we weren't super proud of because a lot of foams are used like Styrofoams Floristry. Use those green florist foams and all sorts of different things. And they're actually the really nasty ones are the green florist foam. So try to avoid. Just buy bunches of flowers. Don't buy things that are arranged because there's quite a movement in the industry around no floral foam because no one
Nathan Bush: even knows what that is. Like what is it?
Kelly Jamieson: It's actually, I won't even go into it. If you were to research it that like some of the, the Dry floral foam's got carcinogenic properties. Like, it's really bad stuff. Like, it's a. It's definitely something you want to avoid having in your home as well. So. So we moved away from that. Oh, gosh, four or five years ago, so we went to no foams in our business and that was actually quite a massive innovation project for us because we worked with industrial designers to come up with a cardboard solution that was designed fully recyclable, that created the structure of making our products because we're actually really constructing like an arrangement like it has to travel well. We have a patent on our chocolate holders that secure our chocolates in place. Like, we do a test of, like, literally throwing a bouquet across the room to make sure it can. If it can sustain that, it's going to travel really well. Because, you know, Australia Post, they're moving a lot of parcels. Like your. Your gift has got to be really durable so that you. It arrives, it gets taken out of the box and it looks great. So there's a lot of testing involved, but. And we've just done another roundabout, replacing some of the papers that didn't have the right sustainability properties. So literally, if you got one of our chocolate bouquets today, you just take the wrapper off the outside, eat the chocolate, you eat the contents first, take the wrap, like the papers that wrap it off that you can reuse and you just put it into domestic recycle bin. Like, it's that simple and it can be fully recycled. So. So we've really worked and we haven't really talked about it a lot. It's what, you know, those things that you're just doing in the background. And we're really proud of what we've done, but we've got more to do too. But we just really see sustainability as incredibly important. I think as a parent, you really want to create a world that's great for your own kids. So there's lots of different things. And we have solar on ahead. Office. Like, we really have lots of different ways we can make a positive impact and. Yeah, so this year we've got some new things that we're working on as well, which we'll be announcing in next few months. But it is first and foremost, when we're more than a gift, we're about being sustainable and really great for the environment.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: And that's a significant change because it's not just putting a sustainability label on it, saying, look, we're kind of doing the right things in the office. You've Literally redesigned your product and your packaging. Did you do it all internally, like find a way internally, or do you have to bring people in from the outside to guide you on how to do it?
Kelly Jamieson: A bit of both. My husband's particularly clever with engineering type projects, so. But we did have a couple of external industrial designers that helped us. And honestly, the number of prototypes you go through to get to an end result, it's massive. And the time and the investment in that is huge, but totally worth it at the same time. Like, it just. And there were certain times when you're going through a project like that. It probably went on for over a year just redesigning how we could construct our products in a sustainable way. And look, there were times it'd be really easy just to walk away and say, look, it's just too hard. Because it really was, it was. It was quite complex. We looked at lots of different materials and then we had to look at, you know, there was some solutions where we could get, you know, like we were even looking at materials that they make egg cartons out of because that's actually a pulp that gets molded. But most of those factories are in Vietnam. So again, you've got then the miles to get it to you. So it's really thinking about the less miles, locally produced, all of those sorts of things. And that does make a big difference.
Nathan Bush: Did your customers notice it?
Kelly Jamieson: I hope they did. I really hope they do. I hope they love it because I think, you know, that ability to put something in a domestic because it's, you know, there's all these things you can recycle, but you have to put it in this special red bin that's only available at Kohl's, like with soft plastics and things like that. So we wanted ours just to be that simple solution. So you have to make it easy for people to recycle so that it is done, not just put in waste. So, yeah, I hope they've noticed. We feel good about it. I think that's probably where you start. When my team feel really proud of it and like, we feel really proud of what we're doing. I think that's where we start and that's what's most important.
Nathan Bush: And I think I've got an appreciation for it because I had the pleasure of visiting when you had the Brisbane office as the main office, I think. Was it the main.
Kelly Jamieson: I remember when you visited. That was a long time ago.
Nathan Bush: It was a long time ago and it was with the Nora crew and Paul Greenberg was there. Yeah, it was a Great day.
Kelly Jamieson: It was a really fun day.
Nathan Bush: Oh, we got to like you. And the team showed us how to actually put the, the bouquets together. Mine looked horrible and it gave me really.
Kelly Jamieson: It's always fun actually. And you would have been there when we were using the old font, like you know, traditional floristry type tools. And also the other thing is back then we had to employ florists because to get the perfect shape it required quite a lot of artistry. So the other sort of wasn't the deliberate outcome of this sustainability project. But what it's meant is that everything is actually like labeled so anyone can come in and make our products so we can train new team members faster and we can get a more consistent product out everywhere. Like there were all these extra benefits, but primarily we made the change because we wanted to make a sustainable impact. But it's really cool when you have a project that creates additional sort of tangible benefits on the side by making a change like that.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it's massive. And in terms of when a customer orders now, is your team still putting the bouquet together manually every time or have you kind of got pre packaged ones ready to go?
Kelly Jamieson: It depends on the product. Obviously all of our free products have to get made to order, so they're all made fresh in the day. We deliver up until 3 o' clock now in every capital city same day, which is pretty amazing. So that's taken a lot of thinking about how we provide that level of service. But our chocolate bouquets like leading into a peak period. We can pre make things that we know are going to be really popular. So that gives us a little bit more scalability in those peak periods. So we can pre make. But we do also allow customers to personalize their gifts so everything gets touched and checked before it goes out. Because people can add like a happy birthday speckle to it or a ribbon that says welcome to the world Oliver or a corporate logo or whatever it might be. So we can do so much before, but there's still every. Every gift is checked and we dispatch from all of our different locations. So we've got six locations now, one in each capital city of Australia and Auckland, New Zealand. And so that means that our products are traveling less miles. So we don't like when we're sending out a gift in Northern Queensland, it's sent from our Brisbane office. So it's sent from that nearest location to reach there. So it reaches the location faster but also less miles. Again, it's that sustainability piece of actually things traveling less distances, which makes A difference.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. And when you're dealing with everything from fruit to chocolate, you're dealing with fresh, you're dealing with cold, you're dealing. I can imagine fulfillment would have been a nightmare to kind of work out.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah. Oh. That's why we ended up with city locations, because being a fresh product, we had, like, it was really driven by the need of our product having lots of locations. And then it kind of meant that we could actually reach customers faster too, so. But customers are definitely the reason, like, that's the real driver for us. It's reaching more customers. So. But we've also developed, like, I guess as we've been developing the range, this. Some of our products can go anywhere in Australia now. So a big part of our range isn't just limited to the metro areas. And that's where great partnerships with Australia Post and Star Trek come in. And they did the most amazing job over Covid. Like, hats off to them. They had a lot of challenges, but I think we've all worked together in the ecom industry to look after our customers.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: And I reckon they'd appreciate you doing the box throw test for them.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, I think so. You're on the postie, getting the customer getting cranky with the postie when it arrives upside down or something like that.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. One thing that stood out to me, and I'm not sure if it's still the same, but the process around it. You alluded to it before about being able to upskill your team in putting together these bouquets. And there was a hell of a lot of process around this to make sure that your customer gets a great outcome for you. Does process come naturally?
Kelly Jamieson: Yes and no. I don't love it. I can do it, if that makes sense.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah. So, like, I don't love. Like, I'm not one of people that loves a routine where I do the same thing every day. Like, it's just not my cup of tea. But if I have to do it, I can totally do it, so. But I think that's where employing people other, you know, like, it's knowing what your weaknesses are and employing other people around you and making sure you've got a team that complements each other. That's really important.
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Nathan Bush: I understand your sister Abby is your co founder with you right from the start. How do you compliment each other?
Kelly Jamieson: Do you know, it's funny, people often ask us, I said I can't believe you work with your sister. And you know, at one stage when we were both living in Melbourne, we lived together, we worked together, so we shared a car like all this sort of thing and we still didn't argue. I think it's quite unique in that way but we just actually really get along well. But we're quite different so we really know how to play to each other's strengths. We can communicate a lot without saying too much, which is helpful in a business partnership as well. And we still like similar things but we certainly have different skill sets. So Abby's really good at those logistics pieces and those sorts of system sort of things and she was actually a teacher by background so she's really great at staff training and quality control and all of those sorts of things. Whereas I'm sort of more gravitate towards the business side and the marketing side of the business and product looking at I guess, trends in products and what we can improve and she can do more of the creative product stuff as well. So I don't know. We work really well together. We love working together. We never take it for granted either. We're really grateful to have a great working relationship that's perfect.
Nathan Bush: And do you have set boundaries on who looks after what or who's responsible for what or has it got to the point now that you've been in business for so long you just kind of know naturally where each other falls?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, it's pretty natural to be honest. We have an org chart and whatever else of different roles but I don't think either of us have a really particularly tight job description or anything like that. We just know what we need to do and also equally if like. I think that's one of the best things about having a business partner or any business partner is it means you can have a holiday but knowing that someone you trust in the business, keeping an eye on it. So I think that's. I think that would Be really hard if you were a sole founder and you didn't have that person that you were sharing the journey with. So. And Pete, some people find that in a friend, some people find it in just a colleague. So I guess I'm just lucky I found it in my sister, which is awesome.
Nathan Bush: Oh, it's been a game changer for me having em there at E Suite. It's like having just someone to bounce things off. And you have your moments, you always have your moments. But if you're aligned on the vision and what you're trying to get out of it, having that support is amazing.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, it's great. And it means you can take that time out, which is really like. You're so grateful for those simple things, aren't you?
Nathan Bush: Yes. Yeah, exactly. Now, one of the bits of business advice that I saw you give, which I absolutely love, was to make sure you create a written business plan. And this is obviously focused more on people looking to start their own business. Do you still have a written business plan?
Kelly Jamieson: That's a really good question because it definitely helped me. And actually there's a really good start. I don't have a top of my head, but a lot of businesses don't have a business plan or they don't actually write down what their plan is. And the statistics on businesses that actually write a plan and are more successful, it's incredibly profound that writing it down, you know, adhering to it, you know, all following it makes such a difference. And look, over times we've been better at it than others. We've been in business for 17 years, so there's times that you sort of just are winging it and you're flying at the bad side of your pants. But actually, we've just finished our latest round of business planning and I think probably some of the learnings I've had over time is you don't have to do like a. Doesn't have to be really War and Peace. It doesn't have to be too fundamental. Like, it doesn't have to be that. Like, with the first business plan I wrote, I did a SWOT analysis and I did a, you know, like benefits and all sorts of different things. You know, it was really, it was a really traditional business plan model. Whereas we started this year with Guided by, I had this great book given to me by one of our business advisors, which was the five most important questions you'll ever ask your organization. And so we did our business planning following those five questions. And it's a Peter Drucker book. And every. I had different teams doing different questions. And then we came together and went through them and then created the plan. So it was really simple. And then from that, literally, our plan is one Excel document, Vision values, mission, all on the front page. Second page is the, you know, our six goals for the year, who's doing what, and then we have our weekly stats, we look at our monthly stats, our quarterly and our annual. And it's a transparent document that everyone has access to. And that's the plan. So it's as simple as that for us. And I think over time you sort of can cut out the things. But actually we did a SWOT analysis for the first time in a long time and that was awesome this year. So, yeah, that was really good. So I think business planning and taking that time out with your team to reflect on the year you've had, what's coming up, it's incredibly important.
Nathan Bush: I love that structure you gave Joan. We'll put a link to the paid Drucker book in the show notes as well. But I love that structure because even though you're the co founder with Abby, it's not all on you guys to create the business plan. It's not like you've got to go away and lock yourselves in a room and write this business plan and come back with the team and go, ta da, here it is. It's like, let's get in and create this.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, yeah, it was really good. And we hit a bit of a roadblock because we needed to review our mission statement because, you know, these things evolve. You might have had one at the start, but over many years it has to evolve with your customer needs changing, with the market changing, all of those sorts of things. And we spent like quite a long time reflecting on that towards the end of last year. And we actually cracked it this year. And we were just so happy when we did that. You know, like, it creates that clarity that everything else folds out from. So. And I think you have to critically analyzed because what you've had in the past isn't always right for the future.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, beautiful. Now, speaking of cracking it, you've cracked many awards. That's the worst segue ever. But I am constantly impressed by the awards that you win personally. So you've won Telstra's National Businesswoman of the Year, but also Edible Blooms has won a bunch of awards. And I know you're up for one at the moment, aren't you, for Inside Retails?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, yeah. Which is really cool. We love that.
Nathan Bush: So good. Canstar Awards, the whole lot. Right. You've done just such an amazing job over such a long time. As someone who's entered and occasionally judged awards, I know they take so much time to prepare for. Like a good entry takes a lot of time. You can immediately see people who have just put their name in the ring and hoped versus people who actually think they are important and care about awards. What's been the purpose of you putting yourself forward for awards? What kind of benefit do you get out of it?
Kelly Jamieson: I think it's really great for our team. Like our team gets such a buzz out of it and just being a finalist in the CX of the Year award is great because that recognizes that we're really putting an effort in for our customers. So awards that are customer related, we probably love the most. Early on, it was really nice to be involved in the Telstra Women's Awards and I guess our first experience was the Telstra Business Awards where we were a national winner and that was our fourth year in business, which is pretty epic. So I did that as a practice run. I actually entered thinking I will just do a practice run because we won't win it because we're really new and we're starting out, so.
Nathan Bush: And you ended up getting Telstra's National Businesswoman of the Year?
Kelly Jamieson: Oh, actually, no, that was Telstra Business of the Year. We won nationally Telstra Women. I was South Australian Woman of the Year, I think and I was the Young Woman of the Year that year as well, so. But you know, it's the personal ones that don't really excite me that much. It's more the. The whole of business was really quite cool and that, you know, I think in those early days it just gave us a lot of confidence because we were. You don't really know how you're tracking and I think this is the hard thing. When you're busy doing your thing, you actually don't know if you're doing a good job. Like you don't know because you can't benchmark necessarily. There's a lot more benchmarking available now. But it's actually for peace of mind to know you are doing the right thing. So I think in the early days, entering awards was really just our way of. Are we benchmarking? Well, like, are we on the right track? And it gives you feedback from peers and judges like yourself. Like, it gives you feedback that you wouldn't otherwise get. The award that I've loved most recently is the Can Star Awards. So we're currently the Can Star online gift company for Australia, number one, most five star reviews, etc, and that's a really good one because you can't enter it. So you can start. I just randomly, anonymously through the year surveying consumers in Australia. So I don't like that's got nothing to do with us entering an award that is purely consumers saying, if I'm going to choose an online gift company the most trusted, the most reliable, you know, all of those credentials. So we won that this year, which is awesome. And like that makes us feel really proud. Like, that's brilliant because it's not us telling anyone how good we are. That's literally pure customer feedback.
Nathan Bush: Congratulations. That just goes back into our conversation that we had right at the start, you know, when we're talking about customer feedback and the changes that you make and how you keep an eye on it all the time and that's the end reward of the outcome of it. So well done to you on the team. That's amazing.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, it's like, it definitely is my favorite. It's all like so proud. Like, I almost cry when I. When I find out those sorts of things. Like, they really do make me feel super proud.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. We talked about moments of joy, but you've actually got your own podcast called this is Joy. How's that going? Are you enjoying it?
Kelly Jamieson: Do you know what? Who wouldn't enjoy talking to people about their most joyful moment? I have to get you on there, Nathan. I have to say, towards the end of last year, we lost our mojo with momentum. I take my hat off to you. You are so good that you do this weekly. Like it's a commitment that you make with the podcast and. But we've already got some more interviews lined up for this year and we're super excited and we really want to be again that podcast people go to if they want to feel good about their day or have a learning. But the interesting thing that we've really discovered from doing our podcast is people's most joyful mom often come from a time of challenge or a difficult moment. So because, and this is the thing about reflecting on what joy really is is that it's really about you have to have the black and the white. You have to have the hard to get the good. So our interviewees might talk about they went through a really tough divorce and it was that moment when they turned up at the airport with their best girlfriends that took them on a trip to Bali with champagne that that was like their most joyful moment. Like putting all of that behind Them like people talk about a challenge they've had often to talk about joy. So it's pretty good, actually. Like, I think we always feel great when we've interviewed someone and learned that deeper story about what makes what makes joy possible.
Nathan Bush: So good. And I've loved how you've turned it also into a YouTube series as well. So I think that's really important. I'd love to do it with this, but we're just not at that stage yet. But I think that's. You just get across the channels and they're great stories.
Kelly Jamieson: We're trying. You know, Nathan, everyone's biggest challenge is time, isn't it? Like, it's that thing of we'd love to do more of it. So hopefully 2023, we'll be able to do more of both, which will be awesome.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. So speaking of 2023, we've talked about the joyful content, we've talked about sustainability. What's next for yourself and the Edible Blooms team? What's on the radar?
Kelly Jamieson: So we're not finished with our sustainability journey, so we've got more of that coming this year, so we're really excited about that. So I think a lot of our changes are going to be around sustainability and also engaging with our corporate clients to help them to reward and recognise their team members. So they're probably our two most exciting things for the year ahead. And again, they're all centered around that joyful part of being in that, helping people to celebrate moments in their life. So the more we can do that in a positive and sustainable way, then it brings us joy. That joy that we get to help share comes back to us in that way.
Nathan Bush: Do you think because everything's about joy, that helps you stay motivated and as a founder, like a 17 year old business, that doesn't happen too often.
Kelly Jamieson: It's a long time, honestly, Nathan, there's days that I have groundhog days and I'm like, wow, I've been doing this for a long time. But look, on the whole, and it is like that customer moment I shared earlier. You know, get those great stories and you just go like, how lucky am I? Like, you really have to reflect that. There's. We're all pretty lucky in this industry to do what we do and we all have great connections with customers and I think the more we can engage in that, we're all going to feel great about what it is we do every day.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: Kelly, if people have heard this and they want to get in touch, whether it's looking for partnerships corporate orders or just a little bit of feedback or questions, what's the best way for them to get in touch?
Kelly Jamieson: LinkedIn is always great, so people find me on LinkedIn. Also have a company profile there and also our Facebook channel. You can always reach us through that too. So we're pretty responsive. Actually. Our team are really quick to get back, so even if you went through our general contact, your email would find your way to me anyway. So yeah. So I'd love people to reach out.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. Kelly, thank you so much for joining us on Add to Cart. It's been my moment of joy today. It's been awesome to chat with you.
Kelly Jamieson: Thanks. And look, I'm so happy to be here. So like I said, I'm one of your probably most frequent listeners, so it's really great to be on the show. So thanks. Thanks so much. Nathan.
Nathan Bush: Isn't Kelly amazing? I always love catching up with her and no matter how big Edible Blooms has got or how busy she's become, she always has this amazing ability to share her knowledge and to be totally open and transparent around what the they're doing at Edible Blooms. And I've always appreciated and admired that around Kelly. So it was great to have her on at the cart. Now, if that has got you hungry or maybe even a little bit generous of the people that are around you and you want to send a little bit of a sneaky Edible Blooms parcel, Kelly and the team have given us a little discount code. So you can enter the code add to cart all one word over at edible blooms.com to get $10 off your next order. That's add to cart code@edwallblooms.com go on and spread the joy. Okay, so there was so much in that chat I had to narrow it down to three takeaways and they are incredibly practical takeaways this week. So he goes one praise publicly criticize in private, that old chestnut. But that's how Kelly is training her customers and I think that's really smart. So customer reviews and feedback. They've been a running thing already for 2023. I feel like we've talked so much about them but had so much great insight around the different ways we're approaching them. Now Kelly is ditching the MPS and putting in place an email flow where good feedback is directed to a public Google review so more customers, especially new customers, can see the good, good experiences and negative review is fast tracked to a customer service team for quick resolution to turn them back into happy customers.
Nathan Bush: It's such a smart tactic.
Nathan Bush: Number two simplify strategy. I recently read that 100 page strategy document is actually called Research. It's so much harder to write simplified strategy and I loved Kelly's approach to strategy by involving the team rather than trying to kind of cut through it solo and using the five key questions to narrow in on really what it is you're focusing on strategy. The book Kelly was referring to was the five most important questions you will ever ask about your business and that book is by Peter Drucker. It might just be worth the $30 investment before you kill yourself over another one of those dreaded strategy sessions. And the third one I have for you. You the third insight was the parcel toss and it's not an Olympic sport, but you could turn it into a Olympic team event. And I love this more for my mental image more than anything. But when was the last time you boxed up your products and just chucked them across the room? Just like being in the back of a delivery van. I love Kelly's vision for this and if you need a team building activity, I reckon this is it. But Kelly's right. You need to test that delivery journey in the most extreme conditions yourself before you can go and put blame on any carriers. So I don't say this lightly, but go get tossing to get the highlights of today's episode, head on over to add to cart.com and sign up for our free newsletter each Tuesday. We will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to to explore your next e commerce opportunity, come and visit us at E Suite. We're a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free E Commerce Salary guide and sign up to our weekly e Commerce job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to cart.
