Paul Waddy: Some of the best advice that I've given is don't do it. It's a terrible idea. You wake up the next day and you're like, the bar's been reset. Where to from here? We can triple your roas. Like you can't. You absolutely can't.
[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 insight 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: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at e commerce talent agency eSweet. You know me, I'm pretty humble. I don't like to brag, it's a terrible trait. But I must draw your attention that the fact that today's guest has confirmed my superiority over another accomplished host in the business and I'd be lying if I wasn't flattered. So sorry, Kochi, you're no longer the cash cow. New king's in town and it makes
Nathan Bush: my guest today one of my favorites.
Nathan Bush: I am talking to Paul Waddy, e commerce expert extraordinaire and all around nice guy. Paul is the principal of Paul Watti, Advisory and Director at ECOM Nation where he advises some of Australia's leading online retailers including Maison Desabre, Gdubco and Kind Is Cool. He's been the head of operations at Showpo, the CEO of the Horse and is now the author of Shopify for Dummies and Selling Online for Dummies. On top of this, he was recently awarded the Industry award at online retailer.
Nathan Bush: He's a bit of an underachiever.
Nathan Bush: Wherever you are on your e commerce journey, trust me, you are going to learn something valuable from Paul. In this chat, Paul shares the pursuits that get him most excited, his top Shopify app recommendations and what he believes is the key driver in e commerce success. So thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Paclio. Here's our conversation with Paul Waddy, e commerce advisor, author of Shopify for Dummies and compliment giver extraordinaire. Paul, thank you for joining us on Add to Cart.
Paul Waddy: My pleasure. Thank you for having me on, Nathan. I've been waiting for this moment for a long time now. So here we are.
Nathan Bush: It has been a long time coming and I know I've had so many people actually come up to me and say when's Paul going to be on the show? And they don't even need to say your last name now. You're like Madonna in the e commerce industry.
Paul Waddy: Most of those people have been me
Nathan Bush: every bloody week in my LinkedIn inbox. Like, hopefully those messages stop.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, sorry, I'll cut back.
Nathan Bush: First of all, I just want to say a massive congratulations. I feel there's so much to congratulate you on. You're on just a massive awesome streak at the moment of doing really great things in E commerce. But the one thing that really stood out for me was the industry recognition award that you picked up at online retailer at the awards night. It was a really great moment and it was an awesome speech that you did too. What did that award mean to you?
Paul Waddy: Thanks. Firstly, mate, I appreciate that. And back at you. I admire everything that you've been doing as well. That was nice. I mean, I genuinely wasn't really expecting it. But don't get me wrong, I'm a competitive person so I want to enter, I want to win at marbles if I'm playing in marbles, but I keep a lid on that and make sure that I try and if I'm up for stuff like that, I try and make sure that it's deserving, that I've worked my ass off. So it meant a lot and as I said on the night in my speech, it meant a lot because of where my background, which is I came from a raised by a single mum on a disability pension, as Albo said when he was elected. And you know, it wasn't always easy to be honest with you. I wasn't particularly very, very good at school and so. But what I have done is made the most of every opportunity and so I don't work for these things but I definitely appreciate them when they come along because it's a bit of an acknowledgment for my mum really and sort of say, oh, mom, I came good and my grandparents who raised me. And so we say, well, I wasn't always great but I'm doing okay now. So it's really sort of for me it's about one, honoring them and then two also it's nice for my kids, I've got three little girls and it's just stuff that they'll as a award here that they'll probably get a texture out, start drawing on it. But it's just little things and I like to work in blocks, you know, and so and work towards a sort of crescendo of something and little Moments like that is a bit of a time where you can sit down and say, ah, that was good. But to be honest, they stress me out a bit too, because then you wake up the next day and you're like, oh, the bar's been reset. Where to from here? So it's. That's the anxiety in me that kicks in, which is both a positive and a negative.
Nathan Bush: And you mentioned in there that you acknowledged your mum and your background in your speech. It was a really beautiful speech on the night. Did the speech get back to your mum?
Nathan Bush: Did she hear about it?
Paul Waddy: I'll tell you who it did get back to is my wife, because I forgot to thank her. And I will thank her now and send her this afterwards. Thank you, sweetheart.
Nathan Bush: I promise I won't edit that bit out for you.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty. No fuss. To be honest, I didn't even really tell her it. Didn't really tell her about it.
Nathan Bush: I don't.
Paul Waddy: Don't get me wrong, I want to win, as I said, and my goal is to be the best in the world at what I do. I'm absolutely fine saying that, but I don't bang on about it. So I don't think I even told her, to be honest. I think somebody else did. But my style is just pick up and keep going the next day. I don't do it for that sort of stuff. I just said it because that's how I felt. Thanks, Mom. Good on you. Love you. And on we go.
Nathan Bush: So good. All right, so moving on from that very eventful night. You're now an author. It's something that came out of the blue for me, obviously not for you, because you've been writing the thing for so long, but was great to see you. Can you tell us about the book that you've written and just released?
Paul Waddy: Yeah, well, it did come out of the blue for me as well, so it's. I've just released. Here's one I prepared earlier, Shopify for Dummies, which is part of the Dummies. I have to get you one, actually, Nathan. Part of the. The Dummies.
Nathan Bush: The title. Don't worry about that.
Paul Waddy: No, I always feel bad gifting it and I write in the COVID You. You don't need this. But someone you might will. So the dummy series, which is an enormous sort of franchise or series or whatever, worldwide. And I mentioned earlier I wasn't great at school, but I was pretty good at writing. And I think the reason for that is you didn't have to prepare it. Was particularly creative writing. It came from your head, so there's no wrong answer. Shopify for Dummies was a little bit different because it's obviously a technical book, so it's aimed at people who are beginners. So a lot of people would come up to me and probably come up to you and say, oh, I've got a little online store or I want to start one or whatever. And I'm like, I'm not really comfortable charging for that because it's not right. So I built this book for them. They can pick it up, open their laptop, read it, source a product, price a product, create a product manager, inventory, and then bang, go live at the last chapter. And it was a fortuitous conversation that I was having with a guy called Mick Spencer, who. He was on Shark Tank and he's been knocking around E Comm for a while. He wrote a book and he introduced me to the publisher. And for me, I just take those opportunities and I work the rest out later. So she said, yeah, what do you want to talk about? And I was like, e commerce. What do you got? You know? She was like, what have you got? And I said, well, what I struggle with is that there's so many gurus out there who are just absolute bell ends who charge a large sum of money and deliver peanuts and promise profits. And it doesn't work like that. And I just wanted a cheap, accessible book that people would pick up and read. And I said, this just needs to be a guide a lot like your course, which is more advanced than what I'm working on. This doesn't exist. There's no, like, you can't do E commerce in uni or TAFE or whatever. So there needs to be more of this out there, more from trusted sources. And I said to her, kind of like a dummy's guide to E commerce. And she said, oh, you know, we. We own that franchise globally. And I was like, oh, no. When she said, would you like to write one? And I said, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. And then I had to submit writing, and it was not that easy, you know, I had to submit it. And then they said, great, great. Would you like to do a. Initially, it was selling online for Dummies, which I'm still working on. And then a junior book, like a mini book, which was a pocketbook, Shopify for Dummies. But then they said, oh, could you do two big books? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, two, absolutely. Could you do them at the same time? Yeah, yeah, no problem, no problem. And they're going to be released globally. She said, that's great news. Like we were thinking Australia, but globally they haven't been done. I was like, yeah, yeah, no worries, let's do it, let's do it. And had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was hard work. You know, it was like late nights after the kids went to bed. It was seriously tough. One of the toughest things I've ever done and you know, at the same time doing a bunch of other things, starting new businesses and helping clients and. But again, it's, it's that sense of achievement again. I work in milestones, so finishing was a finishing. Each chapter was a milestone. And to give you an idea of the process, you know, it is a big book. There's 20 chapters plus the intros and stuff. And each one's about 30 pages. And each chapter has to be written in a very specific dummy style. And you get five or six revisions sent to you. So you send one off and you move on to the next chapter. And they're saying, great, when's the next next chapter coming? Yeah, I'll have it for you this way. And then all your revisions start coming in or your edits. And I was like, oh, that's hard. So it was hard because Shopify moves fast as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that would be hard.
Paul Waddy: And it's so you. And I'm following along. And as I said, it's literally supposed to be click here, add your inventory, click here, add your tags. It's very, you know, it's, it's got to be specific. But for me, the challenge was to make it specific but not get in the weeds. And I did that a few times. I had to pull back and I was like, just delete that. Like how to register your Google Merchant account. I'll just Google it, work that out. But, you know, and then at the other end of the spectrum it was don't keep it too general and too, you know, top level strategic, which in a sense is a lot of what I do with my clients. So it was finding that balance. And luckily I had a great editor and a great team at Wiley, the publishers, and, and she was basically doing the steps as I was, as she was reading. So she was sort of really putting me to the test. And, and I think having that sort of scrutiny made it a better book. And it is good. Like for me, you don't do it for money. Like, don't get me wrong, if you're listening, go and buy the book,
Nathan Bush: ideally through your referral. Link, Right?
Paul Waddy: Yeah, we can organize that. I think I gave you that. But, you know, for me, what would thrill me is people who reach out and say, read your book. Started my store, made some sales going well or changed. I've got a store now, it's profitable because I read your book. So that's why I'm doing it. And the other part of why I'm doing it is whatever money you do make, you know, as books sell, you get royalties. Your kids and their kids and their kids and their kids get it. So even if they're getting 100 bucks a week from their great, great grandfather Paul, cool. No problem. That, for me, was a really good feeling because it's sort of just everything that I work for is for them. Like, I don't drive flashy cars. I don't do anything like that. I just build something for them. So that was a real attraction for me.
Nathan Bush: If you're listening to this at your desk, take a moment to assess, am I really comfortable? This was the problem that the team over at Desky was solving with the launch of their ergonomic standing desks and office equipment. But here's the twist. It was actually Desky that weren't comfortable with launching their business on anything else but Shopify Plus. That is with the huge work from home spike in 2020. Desky gave themselves six months to launch with Shopify plus, and they did it in three. They achieved an increase of revenue up to 1000% and an increased conversion rate of 187%. No word on whether they did all of this standing up the whole time.
Nathan Bush: Very impressive.
Nathan Bush: If that's the case, to read more of Desky's story and see other case studies, visit the customer section on shopify.com au plus
Nathan Bush: what I really liked about where you started the story was that you had a specific customer or person in mind when you're writing the book. You had those people who would come up to you saying, I want to start a store. And you knew exactly the mindset and the stage of business that they were at, which must have made it a lot easier.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, it did. And I could picture friends that were like, you've got to read this book. And I would sense, check it off, friends as I was writing it. And honestly, they were my motivate or they were the sort of my muse, if you will, like, as to how I would write it. And I just pictured them. I was like, oh, I've seen people price their products wrong all the time. So I'm going to talk about Pricing. Now, even though that's not specifically a Shopify thing, I do mention it because one of my bugbears is, again, like, make money. E commerce is all about Facebook marketing or Instagram marketing. Well, that's one of a thousand things that go into E commerce, including what you do, people and training and all those sorts of things, building up the basics. So I thought it was important to tell those people, hey, before you even get into Shopify, if your margin isn't this, go back to the drawing board. If you haven't done you. If you can't tell me what problem your product solves in a sentence, back to the drawing board. So I was writing it to protect these people because I've just seen so many friends, including myself, when I start. Absolutely do their cash starting out of business. And I just. I was writing it and the book is harsh at times. It sort of challenges people at times to say, that's a bad idea. And a lot of what I do, Nathan, with new businesses who come to me, I don't really work with new businesses, but if friends and stuff come to me, some of the best advice that I give them is don't do it. Yeah, it's a terrible idea.
Nathan Bush: You're like the Scott Pape of E commerce.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, well, I'll take that. But that's how it's gotta be. It's a real business and sometimes it's ugly, and that's cool.
Nathan Bush: And why did you focus specifically on Shopify rather than, say, other platforms or a broader e commerce theme?
Paul Waddy: Well, good question. So initially I started writing Selling Online for Dummies first, and then Shopify for Dummies was supposed to come after that as a natural progression. So in Selling Online for Dummies, which comes out in April next year, I definitely take an agnostic approach to platforms. And I do. Anyway, my first site was built on Magento. I've used Magento a lot, and it's great. It just so happens that in my ecosystem, most of my clients that I advise are on Shopify. And also I just personally felt that the purpose of what I'm trying to do here is help people change their lives or change their path. As I say, like, yeah, you were in this industry or that industry, but you want to give e commerce a go. And I just simply thought that Shopify was the best vehicle where somebody could pick up a book, have very little capital, but get it going. And obviously, Shopify had. Has been gaining market share incredibly rapidly. And I just. I didn't see anybody. I saw A ton of crappy YouTube videos. But I didn't see anybody just nailing and say, this is how you do Shopify. So I thought, I'll give it a go. It makes sense.
Nathan Bush: And it's the kind of platform that you can sign up, whether it's with that free trial to start with while you're reading the book and do both at the same time, which you can't do with all platforms.
Paul Waddy: Exactly. You can actually read the book and follow along on the laptop. And my first chapter is, hey, here's how to sign up for your free trial. Like, you could actually read the book in the 14 days that the free trial runs for and have your store launch. So then you only pay if you feel that you've got something going. So it was definitely designed to be like, close the book press go and away you go. And I thought Shopify was the best platform for that.
Nathan Bush: And did you do it with Shopify's
Nathan Bush: involvement at all or totally independent?
Paul Waddy: No, not really. Yeah, just. Just independent. I did stay in touch with Shopify and, and I sort of gave it their blessing and so on and, you know, and I, yeah, I kept them involved, but at the end of the day I also wanted it to be. Be an independent book and not just a marketing tool for Shopify.
Nathan Bush: But is it true that they've agreed to put a total code freeze on all of Shopify for the next 10 years so your book stays relevant?
Paul Waddy: Yeah, that was part of. That was part of the deal. I would have liked some, some of that sort of support. Look, I've got some good contacts and friends at Shopify and they gave it their blessing and I certainly will. Yeah, I'll probably send them a couple of copies and I might send a few of the other platforms a few copies as well, if they can.
Nathan Bush: Now you've hinted at it already. I'm keen to dive in and test some of this Shopify knowledge and bring it out for our listeners. You hinted at it before, but what if I was to set up a store today and I was using Shopify, obviously. What would be the three basics that you think is essential for me to get right from the get go?
Paul Waddy: That's a really good question because most people don't care about it and they need to. Honestly, I think it's, and I do talk about this in the book, it's sort of, it's not just putting any crappy product on the site. So I think product is the key to the key driver in E commerce success. I'll definitely always Say that. And for anyone listening who might be starting a business or maybe they've got an E commerce business that's just taken a turn, it's not doing so well. I really encourage people to go back to when you started initially thinking about your business and you went to bed dreaming about how your product was going to change the world. Now too many people now are hung up on my Facebook roas or, you know, the next paid media channel. And I always say, is that what you went to bed dreaming about when you started my Facebook roas? So it's going back to basics. So the product sourcing, a product that's trending.
Nathan Bush: And just on that topic, do you feel like it's almost people kind of hide how important product is because there is an emphasis on customer and you've always got to look after customer and it always sounds bad to say that product is really important.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, I don't know why. I mean, commerce from the dawn of time, it's like supply and demand. Here's a product you need, here's a fair price, let's go. And people lose sight of that. You cannot force a crappy product down a consumer's Right. And if you want to play that game, you will not make money because you're just paying a fortune to acquire customers who don't really want you.
Nathan Bush: And you won't do it twice. Right. Even if you get it once and another.
Paul Waddy: You know, there are these products who are like, oh, I didn't know I needed you. Well, let's get them a product they do need. So I think that product drives everything in E commerce and including roas. Like, if you've got an interesting product and you've got an interesting brand and you're doing interesting things, the roas will follow. There's no silver bullet in digital marketing, all of that. A great roas is the sum of many parts. And those many parts are product and people and brand and creative and all those cool things that people tend to neglect after a certain period of time. So those three things really are sell me in a sentence. What problems is your product solves? And don't give me that it's better than everyone. It's a bit better than my competitor and a bit cheaper than that. It doesn't fly. I made that mistake in my first business. It's got to be a genuine I've got it, you know, eureka, I've got it. And too many people rush to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just sell stuff online. Commodities. Commodities are a hard game. So you know, I think it's the product and that includes the pricing and making sure that your margins are strong and things like that. And a strong margin for me is 70% on a product. That's not achievable for everybody. But for a private label importing, that's absolutely what you need to be aiming for is 70% above. I think that's gross margin. Obviously that's actually just product margin. So that's landed cost, sales price, XGST gross margin when you add your freight, your outbound freight in. So I do include landed costs in that. But if you add your outbound freight in, look realistically in your merchant fees, which are usually the things that I put in cost of sales. Some people put marketing, I don't. So they put your merchant fees, your outbound freight, your packaging over 50%. You're going well, you're set up under 50%. I'm sweating bullets and it's hard, but business is hard. And that's what I'm talking about. Get that right before you worry about, you know, your email flows. So I think setting the product up for success, I think learning the lingo, which is something I talk about in the book, you know, and that touches on what you do with your courses and what I'll be doing with mine is it's a trade. Like it's not fluff, it's not funny money. As my friend Mark Bartz will say. It's real money that you're paying to buy stock and to pay for ads like it's coming off your credit card. You've got to pay that credit card back. So it's. And I always use this example, Nathan, like I know where the timing belt in my car is. Does that mean I should pop the hood and have a go at changing it might get me down the driveway in neutral, but it's going to break. E commerce is the same. If you can't tell me what you know, aov, CVR and bounce rate is, forget about it. Do the, the industry, the respective of learning that sort of stuff and applying yourself and then launching the business. And the third finally got to the third. The third one is get your cash ready, you know, get your money ready. So how many people out there starting an E commerce business, or some of them even running a good e commerce business could tell you how much you should spend on marketing? Not many. And I include $50 million a year businesses in that category. The mistakes we make at startup are sometimes the same mistakes we make at scale. And I can Tell you where they're more costly and, you know, so it's get your budget right, your good old financial modeling. And that's something I've spent a lot of time on, a lot of time understanding the numbers. And I think you need to be strong in the numbers. Many e commerce people, strong on brand, weak on business. I always say to my clients, we're aiming to be as good a business as we are a brand. And I just think that's not on the priority list for people. And so I would say, get your cash. Are you going to lose money in the start? That's fine if you are. But for how long? How much cash does that mean I actually need? Am I going to be selling granddad's car to fund this in six months or going for a loan at a 30% interest rate? Or just have that cash ready, understand what a cash burn is, understand how much I need to buy of stock and when I need to rebuy it. That's another trap is like, oh, well, I need new stock now, but I haven't sold the last one. So Understand Is it 2 months cover, 3 months cover? You must understand those metrics. So what I find myself doing is quizzing people on those. And when I do my due diligence, my due diligence is primarily done in the discussion with the founder. And if they're a bit at sea with some of those metrics, there's stormy seas ahead. So I really am very passionate about upskilling people in the metrics and the business side of things, the finance side of things, and pulling people's heads out of their Facebook ad accounts for a while.
Nathan Bush: Sounds great. Now, if we dive a little bit deeper into Shopify itself, are there any underused features or functionality that you wrote about in the book that you were like, why isn't everyone using this?
Paul Waddy: Yeah, there's heaps. The reporting is underused. Generally the amount of retailers that I see who don't enter their cost prices in their inventory, put them in. You've got beautiful inventory reporting for free as part of your plan. Put your cost prices in and your tags. Use your tags because we can generate all sorts of reports on your product tags. But the ABC inventory analysis is my favorite. Why I like that, Nathan is. And that's often where I'll start when I audit a business that can often uncover your quickest way to grow your revenue because it'll tell you which of your best sellers are out of stock and or at danger of becoming out of stock and how much it's costing you every single day. It'll also tell you what percent of your so you know, for those listening, ABC analysis. Grade A product, your best product, the criteria is it drives 80% of your revenue. It should be roughly 20% of your inventory. Holding grade B product, it's driving 15% of your revenue. So that's pretty good. And grade C product is garbage. You could torch it and you'll lose 5% of your revenue. Now if you're listening, jump on. Have a look at your Shopify store. I'll probably bet you that most of you are loaded up on grade C inventory and then a lot of you will sort of say sale period. Coming up, let's put my best sellers on. Start with your grade C inventory. If you put a torch to it all today or you sold it all at cost price or whatever, you lost it in a container, fell off the boat, you'd only lose 5% of your revenue. So turn it into cash. Fix your balance sheet. Less inventory, more cash.
Nathan Bush: You've refreshed your website. The new range is about to drop. You've never had more customers. Customer service options. Hey, but take a look over there at that boring pile of packaging boxes.
Nathan Bush: Ugh, ugly.
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Nathan Bush: that's a really great tip. Thanks Paul. And I haven't dived into that myself, so that is really great to hear. In terms of flipping it now, in terms of the ecosystem around Shopify, do you have a favorite Shopify app that you kind of go, every store's got to be using this?
Paul Waddy: You know, it's a good question. I wrote a chapter on it because there's so many. Part of the appeal of Shopify is these plug and play apps which are, you know, probably have development agencies pulling their hair out because you don't need them. So straight from my book, I give my 10 top apps.
Nathan Bush: Oh, there we go. You do put it all on the line here. You don't, you know, sit on the, do you?
Paul Waddy: No, no. This is my little black book of apps. And I'll only put ones in here that I've used and that I love. And in apps I include integrations. Anything that plugs in and goes. So I couldn't pick a favorite. That's the first thing I'll say. So I'm going to give you, I'm just going to give it three. Okay. I was going to pick three at random from each other. Gorgeous. For customer service. So I love that. And as I wrote right here, the customer always comes first. But it gives you the reason I like it. And again, framing this around people who might be new to e commerce is that it just gives you everything you need for the customer. The reporting's good, you can set it up in an hour. The team's friendly, the customer service is good. You can do lots of actions like refund customers inside of Shopify. I'm going to throw one in there for the marketers I like push out for push notifications. And again, the reason that I like it is I've seen a positive ROI with most clients. It's super easy. It gets good cut through, you know. So we're talking about web push notifications and you can get started on a free, a free plan. I'll give you two more. 460 for shoppable Instagram and user generated content. That's a big space at the moment. Everyone wants to work out how to monetize influencers and use user generated content. There's plenty of platforms floating around. 460 in my experience is, is a really good one, particularly if you're in the apparel space. And I've got to say the Back in Stock app for customer alert. So if you're a brand that just keeps selling out of stock or you got bestsellers, the Back in stock app, you know, you can collect let's say 100 people waiting for this blue jumper to drop back in. Once that email triggers, you generally see pretty good revenue spike, particularly on bestsellers. So but there's, there's plenty more. Klaviyo Akendo Glue for data. There's so many great apps. I browsing the App Store, it's, it's a delight.
Nathan Bush: But it's also dangerous, right. Because you can start browsing, you go, oh that looks good. Even if it's not on your roadmap and start adding a whole bunch of apps that potentially confuse.
Paul Waddy: Yeah. And that'll slow your site down. So, and even you know when you're going to update your site, the question always is how many of these apps are you actually using. So, yeah, if you add them, just remember to delete them. You don't need all of the apps. Just pick the ones that are, you know, are right for your business and they're actually going to add value. Like, you don't need to just add them because I reckon they're good. But if they feel a weakness in your business, I think that's important. So I'm always trying to strengthen the weaknesses.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. And you obviously, when you're writing the book, you had to have in the back of your mind the Shopify roadmap, or at least what you can see of it coming up to make sure it's as future proof as possible. What are you most excited about in the future of Shopify?
Paul Waddy: That's such a hard question to answer because it's sort of like, what are they working on and what do I want them to work on? The fulfillment network. The Shopify fulfillment network is available in US and Canada. I'd love to see that be put forward. And the reason is across the board, freight costs are going up, logistics costs are going up. So I think that needs to be tackled. I think it'll help people export by tapping into. If you want to sell as an Aussie in the us, tapping into the Shopify fulfillment network in Australia particularly, we're a little bit behind with three PL models and so on. In the States, you can plug into a 3 PL, get a flat rate of 5 bucks to distribute all over the country, but that includes your storage, your picking, your packing and your freight. And it plugs straight into your store. So freight and logistics needs to be done better. And, you know, Amazon prime is pretty good. I'm a. I'm a member and I use it because it's just easy. I reckon Shopify needs to build that fulfillment network out and really get behind it. The other thing that I has at times been on the roadmap and I don't know where it's at now, but is inventory management. So they purchased an app called Stocky, which I love, and. But they flipped it onto the pause only. And for me, inventory management is not done well across the board. So what I want is good inventory management. I'm talking about outside of Shopify, but maybe it's owned by Shopify in the way that Stocky is. But it gives you demand forecasting. It gives you. Demand forecasting is something that, you know, 95% of businesses get wrong and it can sink a business. Inventory can kill a business. So I would love to see them reboot stocky breathe life back into it. And if you're listening from Shopify, my phone's here. Give me a call, I'll help you build it for a very small piece of equity.
Nathan Bush: There we go. What an offer.
Paul Waddy: Let's.
Nathan Bush: Let's see that one play out. Can we actually record the conversation, post this to see if it comes to life?
Paul Waddy: If it comes to life, we can do whatever you want.
Nathan Bush: Love it. All right, and last question I've got on this. Are you ever going to write another book apart from the ones you've already committed to? Yeah.
Paul Waddy: So I'm still writing this, selling online for Dummies. I'm really enjoying that one, though, to be honest, because it's. It's my take on E Commerce, so it's more, you know, prove me wrong. It's my opinion. It's like, combined my 15 years of experience, mostly based on the mistakes I've made and all that sort of stuff. So that's coming out in April. I love writing. I've always wanted to. So I would definitely like to write another book. And it's. It's easy to get a publisher to listen when you've got two in the bank already. But, you know, for me, if I got into writing again, I would like to write a book that probably is the story of me and my mom and all of that sort of stuff. And that's what I'm passionate about, Nathan. So E Commerce is great. I love it. I live and breathe and it pays my bills, but it's not what fulfills me. And we're all looking for fulfillment. So I'm passionate about mental health awareness. I'm passionate about motivating people to get off their ass and do what I did, which is honestly, like, if you're listening to this, if I can do it, absolutely anybody else can do it. If you're just prepared to become, as I say, you've got to become a different beast to everybody else. You've got to be prepared to do what other people will not do. And that's my passion, is just writing about that and how I. I found that mentality and learning from my mum. She's got a heck of a story. Growing up with two young kids and suffering from mental health issues and doing a degree and battling on. So that would be my passion project. I wouldn't care how much money I made from it. I would again, love to do it, to sort of honor her legacy so that. Absolutely, I'd do it again. It's a fun thing, it's a Challenging thing, but nothing good really should come easy.
Nathan Bush: I love that perspective. And you know, sometimes we get caught up in our own world of E commerce and E commerce being our world, but it serves a purpose. We love it, but it's not the be all and end all.
Paul Waddy: Right, it's my vehicle for improving the lives of my family. But certainly there's more to life than all those things and money and books and everything. And perspective, you nailed it. That's what it's about now.
Nathan Bush: Speaking of perspective, Shopify for Dummies is one small part of everything that you're doing at the moment. You recently launched your post Covid offering ecomnation. What made you move from solo consulting into an agency model?
Paul Waddy: Thanks for bringing that up because. And shout out to Mal Chia and Andrew Sabatino, one of my co founders there. Basically, E Com Nation is a digital marketing agency, so my consulting and Mal's consulting is separate from that. However, we do certainly have clients that we work with together and also clients that then find their way into the agency. So it's a year old. And EcomNation builds Shopify sites. We have great Facebook marketers, we have outstanding team, email marketers, SEO specialists. We look at ourselves as a growth engine for e commerce businesses. And then myself and Mal and Andrew lean in with our expertise and try and add that extra value to say, yeah, well, you know, Facebook's great, but have you thought about your pricing? And so we try and lean in with a bit of strategic advice. So we started that because. Mainly because I was always getting asked, do you know any good agencies? And I was like, yeah, I know some, but I just wanted one started by retailers, to be honest with you. I wanted an agency started by retailers. There's no slight on any of the agencies out there. There are some good ones and that we wanted to do things differently and we wanted to use our experience to change this mentality that's like we can triple your roas. Like you can't, you absolutely can't because you don't know the margins, you don't know the product, you don't know the roadmap. You know nothing about it.
Nathan Bush: I thought you were swearing at them then for a second.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, yeah, well, I, I probably have under my, under my breath. But essentially like we just started to connect, connect that missing piece between retailers and, and agencies and it's going good. We've got great, great team. We treat them very, very well and we try and get the very best people. And when you start doing agency stuff, Nathan, then You, you know, you, you can still know. I'll just keep at you.
Nathan Bush: I'll be down that path.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, I feel you. It's not easy but agency is good and that's who my friends Mal and Andrew. I've known Andrew is my best man at my wedding 10 years ago and I've known him since I was 18. And Mal's just a great guy and right up there with the top e commerce mind. So we just thought, you know what, what we could do is bring the best people in E commerce together and start an agency. And Andrew owns Donor Republic which is the country's largest not for profit marketing agency. So he knows how to run an agency as well. So profitable from day one. Cash positive from day one. 12 months later and it's, it's going good. We're having a lot of fun and acquiring some cool clients. Most of the sabre and presenting to Jeet Upco which is my client who I'm wearing today. Kind is cool I think signed this week and that's, that's a buzz for me. They're a great brand and yeah Kasha, heaps of cool brands joining and we're trying to align with good people, good brands and Drummer Boy which is the non alcoholic company, that experience company that I invested in and having a lot of fun. It's, it's a cool space.
Nathan Bush: What's your lens now? Because I can imagine that you don't have to go out and beg for work. What's your lens on the type of people or businesses that you want to work with?
Paul Waddy: I'm pretty full at the moment in terms of, you know, I typically work in the sort of 10 million to 150 million advisory space with a sweet spot being, you know, we've reached 10 million, we want to get to 20 kind of thing or we've reached 15 want to get to 30. That seems to be where most of my clients land. So I'm pretty right there, you know, I'm pretty full there. There's some great brands that I've worked with but my lens for the other business I'm Starting which is learnecommerce.com is a learning digital learning platform much like yours but for newbies. So it's not an accelerator as much as it is an introduction. And that lens is what I'm excited about to say. Anybody who's got an inkling that they want to know if E commerce can change their lives. So that is your mum, your dad, your aunt, your uncle, your son, your nephew, your dog, whoever Wants to learn about E commerce that and that's scalable for me. Yeah, let's be honest, you know, that's scalable. Whereas yeah, I've only got so much time so but you know in that advisory space it's you know, around the 10 to 100 million. We want to grow, we want to become more profitable. I like working on profit. On profit. Revenue. Revenue for vanity, profit for sanity.
Nathan Bush: A bit of cash in the bank.
Paul Waddy: Cash in the bank. Because my belief is, I say this to all the founders I work with is your E commerce business has to change your life in a positive way. I don't understand how that can happen. If you lose money
Nathan Bush: waiting for the big payout one day somewhere that is
Paul Waddy: exactly what they're doing. And that sucks because the big payout too many people reading about adore beauty and not about all the ones that have not gone so well. Yeah, I sort of try to. My passion now is learn E commerce and the dummies books to try and get grow the industry, get more people in, get more people changing their lives using E commerce. Beautiful.
Nathan Bush: I love that we're very similar there. But one thing that I was interested in and I didn't realize after knowing you for so long and didn't realize that you were investor in was Green Friday.
Paul Waddy: Yeah. Can you tell us about that?
Nathan Bush: Yep.
Paul Waddy: So firstly I've made a decision to I'm an advisor to businesses. I've just told you I hate people that I shouldn't say hey, but I dislike attitudes where I'm a guru and I can 10 times your ROAS and I hate those screenshots of look at this store that grew their revenue. I'm like yeah, well show us the margin or you know show us the little bit behind the graph. So I decided to say, well put your money where your mouth is. Like put the money you make back into the businesses. So I decided to do two businesses a year. This was last year that I decided and I did two last year and I've done one this year already. The three are Green Friday release it Innovation Beverage Group which does Drummer boy and it does like some vodkas and some things like that. It does beautiful gins and things like that and it's actually going great. A client and then refunded which is the other one that I recently that's this year's one so far. So I've got one more to go this year. So yep, tap me on Instagram or LinkedIn and show me what you got. But Green Friday Peter Kraideris love him. Great track record. The founder there did started click frenzy. So excellent, excellent. Lives about 3ks from where I live. So great track record. My investment criteria is that one, it should do some sort of good something in the world and Green Friday does that and release it does that through its sustainable approach. And two, I should be able to add some sort of value because I don't invest in what I don't understand and I understand this space. I thought, oh, it makes sense that I can invest in this space. So. And a great team around, really nice people around release it and got intro to that one through Paul Greenberg and you know, generally anything Paul touches turns to gold. So I just piggyback off that and it's good, it's good decision.
Nathan Bush: Can you just give me the heads up next tip that you get because then I'll just follow you. Follow Paul.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, no worries. Just don't blame me when they go south.
Nathan Bush: Look, I'm just thoroughly loved catching up Paul. And we've caught up ad hoc over the years, but this is the first time I think we've really got to, you know, go into detail on what you're doing and it's just fascinating and I love it. And you your credit to obviously family as you spoke about, but also the industry and everyone around you. So well done and obviously just the start. So I've just got one very important question before we leave. I saw that you were recently interviewed by Kochi. Yeah. So you don't have to explain your answer. Okay, but just one word. Who's the better interviewer? Me or Koshi?
Paul Waddy: Koshi or Bushy?
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Paul Waddy: Look, different styles, mate, different approaches. Both are excellent and certainly Kochi's, you know what is one Take Kochi. He was great. You've got a more relaxed style which coaxes more out of the interviewer. So. Yeah, absolutely you, Nathan. Yeah. Thank you.
Nathan Bush: That's all you had to say. All you had to say was, yeah,
Paul Waddy: hands down, I should have said it straight away.
Nathan Bush: Paul, that's fantastic. We've heard a couple of things about what's on your radar coming up. What are you most excited about?
Paul Waddy: Honestly, I'm passionate about. You can hear me. You know, my energy goes up when I'm talking about teaching people about E commerce. And of course I love my clients and want to see. There's a couple there that I think can be, you know, a billion dollars in valuation. There's some rockets, you know, GW Co and Mason Sabre and Mr. Mara and there's so many good ones out there, baby. Boo. And God, just so many. But I honestly think for me, what gets me going at the moment is the idea that someone could read my book or do my course and just be like, oh yeah, I was, you know, like my wife, she had three kids and she's been in mental health as a profession and now she wants a change. I love the idea that maybe I could help influence that change. But actually, you know, someone could succeed and be like, yeah, you know what, I am actually working a balanced life and making some money and paying my bills and bettering my life. That absolutely gets me going. So I just, I'm excited about teaching people, particularly newbies about E commerce. That's my passion right now.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Can you imagine some of the emails that you're going to get in a few years time?
Paul Waddy: That's what exactly what I am picturing. Like that'll be it. It'll be like oh, you know, you help me. And I've done X, Y and Z. And even for my clients I always write down their goals. I say what are your goals? I write them down and I know before them often when they've hit them. And that's a good feeling for me because it's we like I feel a part of what they're doing. So that's pretty much why I'm doing it to get those emails in a couple of years. How good.
Nathan Bush: So Paul, we are going to put a link to Shopify for Dummies into the show notes and onto the blog. So everyone go out and grab it, grab your copy. How can people get in touch with you? What's the best channel to do that?
Paul Waddy: Yeah, and give me your feedback. Absolutely. Welcome that, you know, if there's something you want me to clarify in the book or whatever, please reach out. Just you know, hit me up on LinkedIn or now on Instagram. Nathan. So just give me a follow.
Nathan Bush: Okay.
Paul Waddy: I dodged it for 10 years and now I've decided like if I'm teaching to beginners I should get on the, you know, get on one of the platforms where they are. But yeah, just paulwaddyecommerce on LinkedIn or Instagram or just head to paulwaddy.com or learn ecommerce.com Paul Fantastic.
Nathan Bush: So great to catch up with you. Maybe we'll do it again in a couple of years time. We can read some of those emails.
Paul Waddy: Yeah, love to mate. I've really enjoyed it mate. You are definitely better than Kochi and it's been a good catch up.
Nathan Bush: You've given me my little blurb to get started, this and all my promotional material. So thank you very much mate.
Paul Waddy: Very good.
Nathan Bush: Now this is the part of the episode where I normally stop and give you some tips from the episode, but this bloke has actually written a whole book on them so it wasn't easy narrowing them down to three.
Nathan Bush: But here goes.
Nathan Bush: Number one ABC Inventory Analysis I knew this wasn't going to be your stock standard tip when I asked Paul about the most underused feature of Shopify and I wasn't disappointed. I didn't want like customer tagging or dynamic discounting. I wanted something meaty and we got it with Paul's tip. Have a look at the ABC inventory analysis in Shopify in the reporting if you haven't already. It will help identify your best sellers and the products at risk of selling out and like Paul said, help you cull the stock that's no longer profitable for you. Add it into your arsenal of analytics tools. Number two Top Apps There was absolutely no sitting on the fence when I asked Paul for his top Shopify apps. While he didn't give us all 10 that are in his book, what a big tease. He gave us three customer service tool Gorgeous 460 for shoppable, social and user generated content Content and Back in Stock for well back in stock notifications. Check them all out on the Shopify App Store. Number three Perspective and Purpose. While to many of us Paul might be Mr. Retail or Mr. Ecom or Mr. Shopify, now Paul knows it's just a part of who he is and his story. I love that he credits his mum for his passion to help others and help everyone get the most most out of their journey. And I'm a big believer that when you have a big lofty mission like Paul has, it helps keep everything in perspective day to day and make the long term goals that little bit bigger. To get the highlights of today's episode, head on over to addtocart.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 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 the card.
