The Five Levers of Growth: Harnessing Customer Data for eCommerce Success | Oliver Spark

Matt Edmundson: Welcome to the e commerce podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. Now the e commerce podcast is a show all about helping you to deliver e commerce. Wow. And to help us do just that today, I am chatting with Oliver Spark from Sweet Analytics about the five levers of growth, harnessing customer data for e commerce success.

Now, before Oliver and I dive into our conversation, which I. Just a little heads up. I know it's going to be good just based on the preamble that we've just had. Uh, let me share some of our podcast picks, uh, previous episodes that I think you're going to enjoy. The first one, Discover the Human Elements Behind the Numbers with Monica Sharma Panetka.

Definitely check out that episode for a reason which will become obvious in just a few seconds. And also check out Why Web Analytics are Key to Growth with Michael Lobe. And that was another great episode. Actually, uh, you can access our podcast picks and our entire podcast to archive for free on our website at e commerce podcast.net plus if you're there, sign up to our newsletter because we send you the links to our podcast picks along with the notes. Uh, from today's conversation with Oliver, they all get delivered straight to your inbox totally for free at no cost to you, which is pretty amazing. So do sign up for that. Now, are you struggling to grow your e commerce business?

Do you feel like you're constantly spinning your wheels trying to figure out what to focus on next? Well, let me tell you, I have. Been there and I know how frustrating that can be, which is why we love the fact that e commerce cohort sponsors. The show e commerce cohort helps companies like yours deliver an exceptional customer experience online that drives results.

And to help you get started, we're excited to talk about the free resource put together called e commerce cycles. It's a mini course, which walks you through a proven framework for building a successful e commerce business. I'm going to show you the specific steps we take in our own e commerce companies so you can see exactly how to put those concepts into practice in your own business.

And the good news, it's completely free. You don't even need an email address and you can check it out at Ecommerce cycles. Com. So do check out, check out that training, free training at Ecommerce Cycles. Uh, and you know, it's going to help you deliver e commerce well. So do check it out, uh, and uh, it's great.

It's great actually that you can do that. We love it. We took, I was in the States recently, took some people through Ecommerce Cycles. Business for turning over about 10 million a year. Brilliant. We had a great time doing it. So it does work. Now, let me just go back and give a huge shout out to Monica, uh, who has connected Oliver and myself today.

So check out more information about Monica. If you've not listened to her episode, do check it out as I mentioned, uh, but you can see more about her at businesswithmonica. com and Monica. is actually also going to be in the cohort mastermind sharing her wisdom and insight, which I can't wait to hear. So Monica, absolute legend.

Now let's talk about Oliver, the retail whiz who turned tech wonder kid. His entrepreneurial journey started in the world of linens and lamps. Where he spearheaded the white company's meteoric rise from a modest 6 million venture to a whopping 50 million turnover. But Oliver didn't stop there, swapping cashmere throws for code.

He harnessed his retail savvy to create sweet analytics. I just love the way that these bios are written. Now he's on a mission to empower. SMEs demystifying the world of data and turning it into a powerful tool for success as the architect behind the platform he wished he'd had as a retailer. Oliver is your go to guru for converting numbers into victories.

So get ready to dive into his world where data reigns supreme and every figure tells a story. Oliver, great to have you on the show, man, how are you doing? I'm very

Oliver Spark: well, Matt, and if I could have the same script writer as you, I'd be really happy because they do one hell of a job of, um, of converting, um, someone's career into, into some great lines.

Yeah. I'll have to work on that now. Well,

Matt Edmundson: just use that one. Uh, Oliver, that's totally fine. Uh, the team at Aurion Media who produce the show, uh, do a great job with these bios. And I just, every time we have a guest on the show, it's the one, I just look forward to reading the guest's bio. I don't actually read it before we do the recording because I like the surprise of it.

Uh, and I just, they do such a great job with that. So, you know, well done, well done. So Oliver, before we hit the record button, uh, you told me that you were, you were dialing in from the sunny climates of, of Spain.

Oliver Spark: I am. I'm sitting in Valencia. My CTO for Sweet Analytics lives here in Valencia and myself and my COO have come over here.

So, um, I hope you're sitting somewhere rainy, but having left England this morning, you know, I know, I know it's not for once that that's the case. So the contrast isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but it's certainly nice to be, you know, like always, it's nice to get to go with the team. We work in a very virtual way.

I've developed a team in Krakow. I have a team in England. Miguel lives here in Spain, so it's always good to get together anyhow.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, Valencia's not a bad place to get together with people, is it really? It's uh, it seems like, you know, it's not a hard job.

Oliver Spark: Problem, as we all know, anybody who goes away, once you say you're going abroad, people assume that you're playing golf and doing nothing else.

And not like that. And you go, what am I doing? First thing I'm doing, I'm just. I'm doing a podcast with you, Matt. I mean, I'm out of the restaurant, I'm not on the beach, so maybe, maybe some work gets done sometimes.

[00:06:33] Matt Edmundson: Maybe. I've just come back, I was saying to you, I've just come back from a three week trip, um, in the States where I was at Sub Summit.

Um, and if you're a regular to the show, you know, we've had, uh, Chris George on the show talking about subsummit. We had a great time over there. We recorded some podcasts. We've got some great guests coming. All of that's coming. Anyway, the reason I'm telling you all of this, uh, Oliver, is um, my, when someone asked my daughter, why am I going to the States?

She was like because of Uh, and if you're not watching the video, I'm doing that sort of funny, uh, inverted commas with my fingers. Uh, and that's just what she kept doing. It's work, dad. You're going for work, aren't you? And actually it was really, you know, you're with people 24 seven. It is a bit of work.

Um, to be fair, I did, I did manage to head to the beach for a, for a day or two. So it wasn't, it wasn't all bad. I'll ring you up in a couple of days and we'll see who's got a better tan.

Matt Edmundson: Absolutely. I tell you what, it's not going to be me. I have one of those skin types that just goes pink as soon as the sun comes out. I just don't tan. Uh, but you know, it is what it is. Uh, we all have our burdens to bear in life, don't we? So Oliver, let's talk about, um, your career a little bit here. So you said, uh, we read in the bio that you were involved in the white company, which is for those of the folks outside of the UK, um, that might not know what the white company is.

Just explain.

Oliver Spark: Yeah. So the white company, I think, you know, it's, uh, it's now in the U S so hopefully if you've got people living in the U S, uh, listening to this, um, it's, I think a really good story, um, in terms of it, you know, the journey that we went on is the classic multi channel journey. Uh, I took over the white company when it was a mail order business, you know, we were way back in the time when Google ads didn't exist.

[00:08:17] So we did a really early website. We were really early into, into, uh, putting it online and then. We moved on and we, um, uh, started stores as well. So, you know, I always think of, you know, how do you grow a business? You know, what I learned when I was at the White Company was, you know, there are various levers that you can pull, and it's really important to have a grasp of them.

And for you, you know, for your American, um, uh, listeners, all my learning actually came from William Sonoma. Um, and you know, as I explained there, we, I got to this problem where I didn't know how to grow and then fortunately some guy from from Williams Sonoma came over to the UK and told us all about multi channel and that unlocked a whole world of possibility for, for me and the white company.

We were really early adopters of that, of that whole model. Um, but you know, it's, it's moved forward, we're in a digital age of multichannel now. So, you know, there's, there's variants from what it was, but the same principle, we've all got targets. You all want to grow and you, you, you've got to work out what's the best way of doing that.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I mean, you've, you've touched on the, um, five levers of growth and, uh, this in the show title. So let's start there and see where the conversation goes. Just tell us what those five levers are. Okay.

Oliver Spark: Yeah, I love a conversation with you. I've got five points and then we'll get halfway around the thing.

I won't remember what they are, Matt. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll cheer you up. I have got five. So first of all, it's all about customer data and absolutely the fundamental. If you don't understand your customer data, in my view, we haven't got a start. Then we talk about product, you know, changing product and how you define your product strategy.

[00:09:57] You've then got channel, which is really important than that. You know, I mentioned the multi channel model, the old fashioned multi channel model, but the new multi channel model is digital first. It's different marketing channels, but it's market, it's marketplaces as well. So, you know, the world is very complex and very broad and all fits under channel.

Uh, in, in my, in my model, and then you've got international, you know, there are lots of brands. We, at Sweet, we work with over a hundred brands. Um, you know, we're seeing some enormous successes, uh, across internationally. And, you know, as I perhaps sort of bring this back to a framework in a moment, you know, you've got to have different things that you can do to change the shape of the, of what, where you're going and you know, particularly as things become, you know, globally, you've got lots of other ways now of, of, of, of, of addressing, um, international markets.

So international is the fourth lever of growth. And then the fifth for me is always about brand and in brand, I sort of, I cheat a bit because I put site metrics into it as well, because ultimately, you know, you, for me, the brand, and for most people, that's a manifestation of website, but, you know, there's all the soft bits around what it looks and feels like, but, you know, I'm really all around.

You know, numbers and what numbers you have to move. So, you know, whole site, site funnel is a crucial part of it. And that whole brand experience that can be measured in that way is what I put in that fifth lever.

Matt Edmundson: So you got these, uh, five levers from the chap that came over from the States whilst you were heading up the white company.

Now I got

Oliver Spark: what I got from this chap in the States. So my, my, my experience was I took over the white company. I was MD for, uh, and I had a very simple incentive target, which was really good discipline, which was, I had to grow it at 40% a year for five years. Yeah. And my remuneration was I got rewarded for, for inequity, for, for growth.

I got rewarded in, in, in pound notes for, for, for delivering profit. And that, you know, those two, understanding how those two work together are really, really important. And so even I could do a spreadsheet that went 1. 4 times, 5 times. And, you know, I knew that, you know, that meant I had to get to 30 odd million in 5 years time.

And it was only really when I began to understand Customer metrics. Did I understand, did I have a clue of how I was going to do it? And where the William Sonoma guy came and helped me was at that point, I'd hit, you know, you talked about spinning wheels. I'd hit the spinning wheels point. I didn't know. I couldn't recruit any more customers at my required cost per acquisition.

I didn't, you know, didn't know what to quite do. And we were pulling the product lever, and the product lever, unfortunately, isn't instantaneous, like most levers, not instantaneous. Um, but he effectively came and taught us that, actually, if you offered a customer more channels, they spent more. So his example was they spend 180 dollars if they've got one channel, they spend 240 if they've got two channels, and they spend 360 if they've got three channels.

And for me, that was a hallelujah moment, because, well, okay, now I can get more money out of our customers. If I'm struggling to recruit the number of customers I need, let's get more money out of them. And so that was the real, that was the real takeout from that. Um, and then the other bit that really supported my sort of whole understanding of loan to growth, was that there's a, you know, a top consultant in the, in the, in the states called Jim Fulton.

Um, and Jim was the person who, you know, explained to me the model of how you put people in the top of a DTC business and they flow down through over years in order to, to understand where you get to in five years time. So. And it's the same principles. If you want to, you know, if you're going from half a million to a million or whether you're going from five million to 10 million or any other number, the really fundamental first thing for me is you have to understand how those customer metrics work.

Matt Edmundson: So let's dig into that then. So the first point, your first lever is customer data. Why is, I think you made the comment that if you don't have that, if you don't understand that, you don't really have a business. Why are you so, so strong on that? It's not that I disagree, by the way, I'm just, I'm just, uh, I'm really curious to know your thought pattern here.

Oliver Spark: Yeah, look, the really key thing is, so I ask, you know, I speak to lots of people like you do, Matt, in your, in your various hats, you know, and my principal thing is I ask people where they want to go. So, you know, do you want to achieve a million next year or wherever it is? And then the next question I ask them is, do you know how many new customers you need in order to achieve that goal?

And I reckon in about 80% of my answers, I get a no to that. And if you don't, because the dynamics of acquisition are so different from retention and they differ for every business, yeah, unless you know how many new customers you need to grow and you know what it costs to acquire a new customer. You haven't got Scooby's chance of achieving what you need to in success if you don't know those, those two numbers.

So, and if you don't know those two numbers, you know, for me that's a, you know, a red flag that a business is less likely to achieve what it wants to achieve. And then from my own experience, you know, it's only by really understanding that, that I was then able to understand how, you know, if I could require a customer in year one, well, that customer, you know, the probability of that customer then still delivering me value in year three.

Is, is, you know, it's perfectly understandable from history or even just modeling it and, and it's, you know, you can't leave, you know, you can't go from, you know, I went from six to 50 million. You can't just get 10 million extra sales in the last year by going, Oh, I'm on day one. I need to do something.

You've got to build that model. So you've got that base of customers, um, that effectively allows you to achieve what, what you're wanting to do. So just for me, it's, it's, you know, you, for anybody running an e commerce business. If you do not know how to translate that statement of I want to grow at 50% or I want to grow from 1 million to 5 million into demonstrable customer metrics, your chances of success are very slim.

Matt Edmundson: It's a really powerful statement, Oliver, because I'm just thinking throughout all the years I've been doing this, um, I've sat under a lot of people who have asked, where are you? Where do you want to be? Um. Um, but I don't recall anyone ever then following up that question with, and how many new customers is it going to take to get there and what's your cost of acquisition?

I've, I, we talk a lot about cost of acquisition, um, both in cohort and on the podcast. So, um, the, the, the CPA is quite an interesting thing, but understanding, um, how many new customers it's going to take to reach your turnover figure. I don't know of many people that have asked that question, um, which I find quite insightful.

Um, how did you, how, where did that revelation come from?

Oliver Spark: So that came from me from my own experience. So I, I, you know, as I said, I had this simple spreadsheet that 1. 4 times version. And then I, you know, I learned that, you know, in all of my second year, I needed 75, 000 new customers to, to, to get to it. And then I knew that the next year I needed 125, 000 new customers.

And I did in the old world, I did a massive extrapolation of what I'd done on cold lists of direct mail, and I lost 250 grand in a, in a season. And, you know, that's painful when your bonus is attached to profitability. But what I learned out of that is that actually I could afford to lose money because As the lifetime value of those customers unwound.

Hallelujah. In year two, that came good. And I then understood how I could start achieving that next bit of target because I had a bigger base. And it's that whole circular interplay of when do you bring customers in? How long do they last? And, and it's different, you know, it's different metrics for every business.

You know, if you're, if you're a jewelry business, for instance, you're probably, you know, 90% reliant on new customers. You know, a jewelry business recruits a customer, you know, in year one, probably only 10% of them come back in year two. If you're a fashion business, you know, and it's good fashion business, they've probably got 40% of people.

And, and unless you understand, you know, you understand. What the retention rate is, what the average order value is, then, you know, and how many orders per customer you may get in that time period, you know, those are what you, you know, I'm sorry, get a bit granular into, into metrics, but you really need to understand those, but the simple, simple question is, Matt, as you say, is, do you know how many new customers do you need to acquire?

Matt Edmundson: That's really good stuff. And then do you break that down further, Oliver? Do you say, do you look at where your new customers come from? So I'm just very simply thinking. Well, currently my 30% of my customers come from Facebook. 20% of Facebook ads, 20% come from Instagram ads, 50% come from Google shopping. So I know it's a very crude breakdown.

I don't actually know what the data is, but, um, would you break it down then by channel? So if I needed a thousand new customers, that means on these current percentages, I need to go and get another 300 from Facebook, another 200 from Instagram, and another 500 from Google.

Oliver Spark: Yeah, yes, is the answer. But I think there's a step before that, which for most businesses and particularly for early, earlier stage businesses, Matt, is what you need to know is you need to understand what you can afford to pay for a customer.

Yeah. And that's what you can afford to pay, not based on average order value, but on on whatever view on lifetime value that you need to have. Because going back to that, that insight I was sort of talking about from my own white company experience, I learned that I could lose money on the first order.

Yeah. But it created profit down the line and what's really important for any business. We have a thing called a margin calculator in suite. Yeah, you need to set the metrics up before you get into channel. Yeah, but just effectively, can you afford 27 pounds or 50 or what is it? Can you afford that? You know, after delivery costs, after all those things, after returns, what can you afford to spend?

Because. You know, ultimately as a retailer, there are, you know, there are so many numbers in marketing that we all have to deal with. So many platforms that tell you what the heart of the numbers. The only thing you really know is, you know, how many sales you've got, you know, how much money you've spent.

Yeah, they're the hard numbers. Yeah. And so before I get into, you know, really get into the nitty gritty of which channel and some of the conversation about attribution. You really just have to know your target, your target, roas as we call it, yeah, which is the hard cash number of, you know, what sales to come from first customers, first time customers, and how much have you spent every day.

And that's every day, you know, we're, you know, retailers, we're traders, you, in my opinion, you have to know that number every single day of your training. And then if you're massively above, you've got great opportunity to go and maybe spend some more money and go faster. Or, you know, if you're below, then you really need to be looking at how your channels are performing.

So, it's, you know, so, though absolutely I believe in attribution and what, trying to understand that, in most cases, just make sure you understand the fundamental first.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. No, that's a very good point. That is a very good point. And it's, it's an, it's an interesting statement you bring up on attribution, but I want to talk about lifetime value a little bit.

You, you mentioned that, um, one of the things that I've been hearing, in fact, at subsummit, um, where I was at a few weeks ago, one of the things that they were talking about a lot there, given the state of, um, Interest rates. Um, so just, I, I don't know when this show is going to get aired, but we're now in June, 2023 and interest rates are not great either in the UK or the U S they're quite high.

So the cost of money is quite X is now expensive. You know, it's, um, so that doesn't seem to be as much capital floating around the system. So what they've noticed is, um, and this is, uh, the chat from Google was talking about this was. Actually, there seems to be a pulling back on the, what they call the CAC to lifetime value ratio, isn't it?

Or the lifetime value to CAC ratio, which was The magical number I think was three to one. So, um, for every pound you spent to get a customer, the customer should give you three pounds or, you know, a dollar, uh, 3 back. Um, they're saying actually what, one of the things that

Oliver Spark: there was no magic number that, that, that people can generically work of what you have to understand is the metrics for your business, because if you're an 80%, if you're an 80% margin business.

You might be able to exist on a two percent, two times roas. Yeah. And if you're, if you're not, you may need a five times roas.. So just sorry to interrupt you there, but I'm always, you know, I don't really like single, single metrics sometimes. So I apologize. They may, they may have given a broader, but I just don't like sort of getting.

Everyone boxed down into we should leave here with a three to one, you know, target roas over here.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, no, not at all. And in fact, one of the things that they were talking about is these ratios are now moving and they're starting to become much more target specific. Um, but one of the, one of the interesting things that they were talking about is because the cost of acquisition of new customers is going up quite considerably.

Um, there has been a massive shift now into retention marketing and engaging. Um, you're returning customers and also the customers who used to buy from you, but no longer buy from you, um, seem to be the two popular things that people are going after. And I don't know if you've spotted this or if you, if this is a trend that you've seen as well.

Oliver Spark: Yeah, it is. It is a trend and it's something that I'm sort of, I'm slightly against to be honest, because if you do, if you have a customer forecasting model, yeah, I can absolutely guarantee you that it's very rare that you can achieve your goal through retention metrics. Now, obviously that's not if you're, if you're a vitamin company, there's monthly, you know, but in most sectors of the industry.

Yeah. If I gave you a four year model out of our growth model. Yeah. And you start cutting down on acquisition. I can tell you, you're not going to end up where you want to in four years time. And so I'm not being, of course, everyone, you know, it's harder times. And of course, everyone needs to focus on their retention.

But in my experience, it's very difficult to fundamentally change the shape of your business by just focusing on retention. Or it's fine, as long as you understand what the impact of cutting down on acquisition is, then Then fine, you, you know, absolutely cut once across to the right size of time, but, you know, you can't get back to this, you know, are you going to be successful?

This is a perfectly, this is a perfectly modelable situation. So if you recruit 70, 000 customers last year and you, you know, you're going to cut back and recruit 50, 000, that means that next year, yeah, your pot's going to be smaller. You know, your overall pot has gone up, but your, your, your current pot has probably gone down.

And, and I very, very rarely see a business that actually truly, you know, hits onto the growth curve if it doesn't focus on acquisition as well as retention. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not trying to, you know, clearly I'm not dishing retention. Retention is sort of bread and butter day job. Yeah. But the fundamentals to move most businesses is about acquisition.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I, I like that because when they were as as these concepts and ideas are coming out about retention marketing, um, it felt like short term game at the expense of long term growth because you like you say you're, you're, you're reducing the number of customers today, you're increasing profits today, possibly, um, but you're, you've got a smaller pool to convert to returning customers next time.

[And, uh, and, and that doesn't, um, Doesn't make sense to me.

Oliver Spark: Can I just quickly touch on that? Because, you know, let's say you've got, you know, you manage to get 30% of your customers come back every year. In my experience, you might manage to increase that to 33%? And that ought to be your day job. I mean, you, you know, of course, you know, email, you should be doing email properly.

You should be doing, you know, your basics of retention properly. But, you know, I've so often sat and people, people said, okay, we're going to really go into retention. And I can tell you from evidence that probably they might move their, their retention numbers by 10%. Yeah. You model that through, and I can assure you growth just goes off cliff if they stop acquisition.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. No, I, I, I totally agree. Well, Oliver, excuse me.

Oliver Spark: I'm disappointed in that. I'm sure that's not going to make very interesting listening.

Matt Edmundson: No, no, sorry. It's, um, I'm just looking down at my notes and we've covered point one, um, of your five levers for growth. So what I want to do is jump forward a little bit, because you keep using the word channel.

So let's go to lever number three, which is channels. Um, yeah. And this was your

Oliver Spark: product quickly just so because product for me is really important or can I just that I'm now overstepping my mark. No,

Matt Edmundson: you you you're the guest. You can do what you like. We've only got so much time. So let's let's go through it.

Let's go

Oliver Spark: through it. So, because again, it all relates back to, to, to understanding your metrics. So if I get back to my white company experience, uh, bed linen produces a really great AOV, but a really bad, really poor return rate. Yeah. So, so effectively what I learned was that if I kept on recruiting the same number of people, yeah, they didn't come back fast enough for me to be able to achieve my growth target, because if I only stayed with that, I needed far too many people to come into the top of the.

Funnel all the time, I couldn't do those at the right cost per acquisition. So that was the learn that I took from my model. And then the easiest way to change your model, and when I say easier it's in inverted commas, but is to introduce new product in order to change either the average order value Or the number of orders per customer you've got.

So in my company, we went gift, we did a baby, we, we, we do all those, and then ultimately we did clothes. So, effectively those changed my, my metrics around what I could get, what value I could get out of each customer. So, in terms of, you know, going back to the same thing, customer forecast model. You know, if you can't, you know, if you, you've got a certain set of numbers, you've got to have a theory about how you're going to move them.

And we thought we could move our number by, by having different products get people seem to like us. Yeah. If you've got permission from the brand to sell, you work out what you can sell more of. You know, what else can you sell to them? We tried garden furniture. They didn't, that was an absolute disaster.

Um, but, but you know, that we didn't have brand permission. Yeah. But, but, but for the things that we did, people understood why we were trying to do it, and that was driven by us under, I, I understood that I couldn't recruit more customers, so I needed to get more value outta them. And that's product strategy in order to drive that.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense to me because I was always told, uh, Oliver, that there's only three things that you can do to grow your business, increase the number of customers, increase the average order value and increase the frequency with which those customers purchase from you. And, um, it's always made sense to me that you work on those three levers.

What are my new customers? How do I get to increase the basket size on the e commerce website? And how do I get them to increase the amount of times they buy from me every year, right? What's the frequency, which is why whenever I've done e commerce, I've always been really interested in, in. Products or websites that have the ability to have an increased customer frequency order.

Um, and so you sort of, you work on those three things and growing new customers is not the only thing you can do. Um, you can work on average order value and so things like product mix become really important then, don't they? So, uh, how much they're ordering now and whether they come back sooner all depends on the products that you have.

Oliver Spark: Exactly. Everything comes about, you know, everything really actually relates to customer and product. You know, we've got customers who try and sell them stuff and, and, you know, change, change what you said, you know, if they believe you, you know, sell them. If you know, if you make it really simple, if you sell sausages, yeah.

Don't just sell one type of sausage, just try them with two types of sausages and that make you sell more. Yeah. And it's the same principle, but we, you know, slightly more broader. And it's got risk, you know, moving into different product categories have different risk profiles and things like that. But, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a key, you to your AAV number, you've got to move that number and you have to think of something to do, to, to, to do

Matt Edmundson: it.

Yeah, totally, totally. Okay. Can we move on to channels?

I'm just too keen and eager to get to channels. So explain what you mean by channels, and I'm really curious especially with your Your hallelujah moment that you had here. Yeah,

Oliver Spark: so this is really important for me in terms of So, you know, early, as you probably know, everyone's seeing this, but I'm, you know, I'm old.

So, you know, I've, I've, I've sort of been a retailer for a long time. So, you know, I existed in a world where, you know, there weren't Google ads, there weren't all these things. So, you know, it really was, was early stage, you know, what, what really, really matters is that, you know, you have to have a fundamental belief that the customer wants choice.

And if that choice at the moment is they want to buy from your e commerce site or they want to buy from Amazon. Yeah. If you're going to offer both, yeah, you're going to get more sales. Yeah, because different customers want different to be served in a different way. Yeah, that's a more modern example of in the old, what we did, which was web mail order web shops.

Some people, you know, taking that example, some people like to buy offline, you know, they want to go into a physical shop. Some people want to, to the convenience of buying, buying online. And so that's the, the, the theory you just have to believe in that the more channels you. offer that are appropriate for your customer, the more sales you're going to get.

And so if you're only in, you know, if you're an e com site, you know, and again, all of these need to be evaluated, but you know, maybe you do need to, you know, your product may or may not be appropriate for Amazon, or maybe there may be a more appropriate marketplace for your, for your sector, you know, but, but you do really need to, you know, if, if your aim is to grow, um, You've always got to answer the question, well, how the hell am I going to do that?

And one of the things you need to think about as well, are there more channels that my customers would like to buy from me?

Matt Edmundson: And so what are some of the channels that we should definitely be thinking about?

Oliver Spark: Yeah. Well, I think, so, so I still think, you know, in a, in an old fashioned world, I've seen lots of brands do pop ups.

So, you know, if you, if you're giving people the experience in hand, you know, I'm assuming this is mainly between retail brands. Pop ups I think are proving to be really popular. The other point about channel is that channel and marketing would get ever, ever closer. So in a way you, you know, in the States in particular, now you can, you can shop on your Instagram feed directly.

TikTok has TikTok shop. So all of these channels, so I may be marketing, but I'm also selling in the, in the same space. So there's a bit of a mishmash of, of what really is it. is a channel at the moment of what's a sales channel, what's a marketing channel. And, you know, assuming that most people are, are doing Google, they're doing Meta as their, as their advertising channels, a bit like sort of, you know, should I add Amazon or something else?

You should probably ask yourself, should I be doing TikTok? Should I be doing Pinterest? And those are probably the, you know, once you've done assuming Google and Meta are one and two, those are, those are probably the next ones to go to. But you shouldn't, you shouldn't just keep, you know, you can keep adding, you know, marketing channels down the, down the, um, uh, the e com route, but you should also ask yourself the question of how do your economics work if I'm going to do, um, uh, Amazon or, or one of these other ones as well.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, it's a super, super obvious, I say super obvious, but it's, it's a really interesting point, isn't it? It, um, when you look at things like Instagram and Facebook, part of me has wondered why they haven't done it already yet. They've got all of these people who are, who are ready to buy stuff and they, all they have to do is sell.

Well, we're just going to become Amazon. We're just going to sell that. So if you promote stuff on Instagram, well, you can sell it on Instagram. We're just going to take whatever. three, 5% commission off the top. Um, you're going to fulfill it. They don't have to carry any stock. It would be a, I would love to talk to someone from Instagram about why this has taken so long to roll out, because it just intrigues me that it's taken so long to roll out.

Oliver Spark: Um, but you're right. It's just going to be just on that and why they have a lot, you know, why Amazon have built such a strong position because they own the logistic there and they've now they're now hiding the marketing there. So, you know, Amazon is, you know, and for some areas, Well, you know, they're now effectively going to start offering logistics without you being a seller on Amazon, you know, that that's the model.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? I mean, it's I mean, it fascinates me how Amazon have done what they've done, to be fair, and there's a lot we can learn from them. And you think there's some very clever people working behind the doors of Amazon. Um. But yeah, I, I, I, so I get what you're saying about channels.

And so one of the things I guess that people will struggle with that whole concept is, um, if I sell on my website, for example, selling on Amazon feels like, especially if I'm just starting out or if I'm, if I'm a new. Then trying to sell on Amazon is going to feel like a really big jump. Like, it's enough work trying to keep up with what I'm doing here.

So then add Amazon into the mix is going to, is going to throw some extra baggage in that maybe is a little bit too much for them.

Oliver Spark: Yeah, I think to an age old thing of keeping things simple, you know, what I, what I think is really important is that you don't, is that, you know, life is complicated. Yeah. What, what really matters is understand what you're doing and understand how far you can, you can push it.

So for me, the, you know, my penny drop moment was I couldn't recruit any more customers with the business model we had as we were at the white company selling bed linen towels and no, no other channels. I couldn't, you know, I just lost too much money. Okay. And it's not easy to unlock what the next winner is, but yeah, I'd really work each channel to its absolute max before you start adding complexity.

So, you know, I really, if people are in an early stage businesses, don't go and do Tik TOK and Google and Meta and ad interest you, you won't have a clue what's going on to be absolutely honest, or what's working, which will then become if everything's working, hallelujah. But if you get to the point where it's not working, then you have to start unpicking.

You've got no idea, you have no idea about how you unpick it. Um, and in the same way, don't do Amazon and e commerce until you really understand what you're doing in the, in one or other. Make sure you understand what you're doing before you start moving through the channel gears.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, fantastic.

Listen, Oliver, I'm aware of time and I'm, I'd love it. Um, if you could just explain, uh, maybe let's go to a slightly different tech. What is Sweet Analytics? You obviously moved from the white company to Sweet Analytics. Um, what, what is it and what drew you into that? Yeah. So, so,

Oliver Spark: I mean, I hope I've sort of communicated with sort of my passion for, for growing businesses and, you know, doing, you know, I've done various other things other than the white company and, and I always know, you know, something I've been good at, successful at, some things have been a disaster, but I've always known if I didn't know what these kind of numbers that I'm talking about and these principles, then I just didn't know what I was doing.

And so what we're doing at Sweet Analytics is trying to make sure that for SMEs, It's really easy and we're self serve. If you're on Shopify, Wood, BigCommerce, normal kind of platforms, you can just plug in all our things and we can deliver these metrics to you out the box that I think really helps you understand what it is that you need to do in order to make your business grow.

So that's what I wanted to do. There's all, you know, history of how analytics have moved, you know, since I began my career. But, you know, what I really wanted and what I'm passionate about is, is, you know, being able to deliver to people really simply, um, how you can get to, you know, what we're talking about here.

Because otherwise it's just hard work. If it's too hard work, people don't do it.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's the problem, isn't it? And you're, you're right. You've got to keep it. I mean, with everything, you know, we say this to clients, don't we all the time, you've got to keep your website simple if you want people to buy off it. Um, and it's got to be the same with everything else. I mean, the theory stands up everywhere, right?

It just, uh, it just does. Oliver, listen, if people want to reach out to you, if they want to connect with you, if they want to find out more about suite analytics. What's the best way to do that?

Oliver Spark: Yeah, thanks matt. Um, it's oliver. spark at sweetanalytics. com So as for my name plus sweetanalytics. com

Matt Edmundson: and so the website is sweetanalytics.com I'm guessing if people want to head to the

Oliver Spark: website Thank you, Matt. It is exactly all LinkedIn again, all of a spark on LinkedIn. So either of those would be great to hear from people because I mean, I'm genuinely, I'm really happy to have a chat with anybody about how you grow your business.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. I'm just making a note here to make sure that I'm actually connected with you on LinkedIn. Uh, so we'll make sure that we are doing that. Uh, Oliver, listen, we will, of course, make sure that all the info and all the links to you are in the show notes. So if you are listening to the show, if you're driving in your car and you've not been able to jot it all down, don't panic, because they will be in...

The show notes, which you can get for free along with a transcript at e commerce podcast. net. Or if you're signed up to the newsletter, they'll just be coming direct to your inbox with all kinds of good stuff. So, uh, that will be coming through to you. Uh, but Oliver, thank you so much for joining me from Valencia, Spain.

Thanks for, you know, giving us a few minutes where you're not on the beach, um, sharing your awesome insights. It's been a thoroughly enjoyable conversation. And, um, I wish we had a little bit more time because I've got a lot more. questions, uh, but, uh, we'll have to carry it on, on a separate occasion. So thank you, uh, genuinely.

Thank you for coming on.

Oliver Spark: Thank you very much, Matt. I enjoyed it. And the great thing was we only did three out of the five. So it was perfect. I mean, we did everything I imagined we would get to, but wouldn't get to.

Matt Edmundson: But this is why I say what the start what are they just so everybody knows because if you only ever gets three of them by the end of the show, people feel cheated, don't they? So, um, but no, it's great. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. What a great Conversation that was with Oliver and also a big shout out to today's show sponsor, the e commerce cohort.

Remember to check out their free training at ecommercecycles. com where it's me doing the training. So as long as you've not had enough of my voice, you'll enjoy it and hopefully it will be helpful. Now be sure to follow the e commerce podcast wherever you get your podcast from because we have got yet more great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss.

Any of them. No, I don't. So make sure you are subscribed wherever you get your podcast from. Now, in case no one has told you yet today, you are awesome. Yes, you are. Created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Oliver has to bear it. I have to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now, the e commerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media.

You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app. The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Estella Robin, and Tanya Hutzalak. Our theme song was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, head over to the website - ecommercepodcast. net. So that's it from me. That's it from Oliver. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, have a great, fantastic week, wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.