Show Transcript
Matt Edmundson
Well hello and welcome to the eCommerce podcast with ME, your host Matt Edmundson. do forgive my voice, I am slightly recovering from man flu, it's okay. I didn't have to call the paramedics, you'll be pleased to know that we are here. We are in a in a husky voice today, which I think is ideal for podcasting. Not gonna lie. So welcome to the show, whether you're starting out, or whether like me, you have been around the world of eCommerce for a while. My goal is simple. It's just to help you grow your own online business, whether you're an eCommerce, whether you're selling digital assets, whatever it is, that's what we're here to talk about. And every week, I get to talk to amazing people from the world of eCommerce. And I get to ask them all kinds of questions about what they know, and how it's gonna help us develop our own online businesses. I try and have the conversations that you would get to have, if you managed to sit down like I do. And just get an hour with some really amazing people over a cup of coffee. You know, you get to ask them questions, you get to dig into their story, learn the principles, and all of that good stuff, right? So in this episode, of course, it is no exception. We get to talk to Kristi Soomer. Now Kristi is just a wonderful person. She actually as you're going to hear at the start, she runs her own podcast. And we're going to I'm going to ask her about that you're going to learn more about that. And I've actually been on her podcast I've been on her show, and that's how we met. And I feel like she's like one of my twins because our background is very, very similar in terms of running eCommerce businesses doing the coaching, doing the consulting, and running a podcast. And so when Kristi and I get together, it's always an interesting conversation. Let me tell you, and today we thought we'd just talk about the real side of running an eCommerce business under the pandemic under lockdown under COVID. What does it actually mean? And for me, the reason why this is good to talk about is one Kristi will just be brutally honest. To quote Rocky, you know that well known eCommerce sage, the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. And it's true with eCommerce, actually, that at the moment, it's not sunshine and rainbows. And actually there are some real big issues around this industry that we need to talk about. And that we need to think about from supply chain issues, delivery issues in the UK, we've got Brexit, we've got advertising changes with Facebook, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on that's making it well as I say a little bit tricky to run a successful online business at the moment. And so I was really keen to have this conversation with Kristi because Kristi runs her business. She runs an eCommerce business, a fashion brand, which has got some real great principles, great values an ethical fashion brand. And so I thought it would be great to talk to a fellow eCommerce business owner who actually is in the trenches on a day to day running a business about what she has discovered, running, you know, an online business during these, let's just call them unprecedented times. So here's my conversation with Kristi. Kristi, welcome to the show. Great to have you on.
Kristi Soomer
Thank you for having ME. Matt.
Matt Edmundson
is brilliant. Now we we've known each other a little while, because you also have a podcast yourself, right?
Kristi Soomer
Yes, I have a podcast called The Brace + Boss that you were on, I think in the summer of this year. So that was a really great episode and got a lot of downloads. So thank you for doing that.
Matt Edmundson
Oh, The Brace + Boss, what is the Brave + Boss podcast?
Kristi Soomer
Well, so it's primarily it's a bit more of a female targeted audience, just not intentionally, I think maybe accidentally, just for people who follow me online and stuff like that. But I have a whole another business, in addition to encircled my fashion line, I have a coaching business, as well, where I have the podcast, I have some online courses and stuff like that. So Brave + Boss is really talking about not only just the nuts and bolts of running an eCommerce business, but also the other side of it, which is really important, like the emotional and the mindset stuff that comes into running a business as well.
Matt Edmundson
Yeah, no, that's great. And I remember when we talked, it was like, it was like, You were like my twin sister on the other side of the Atlantic. Because everything you've felt like everything you were doing, I was doing do you know what I mean. We did coaching, we ran eCommerce businesses. So there's like that was that I didn't come across too many people like us in my journey. And so I was like, ah this is amazing. So do check out Kristi's podcast, we will of course, put links to it in the show notes, but it's called Brave + Boss, and you'll enjoy that. Now Kristi, let's talk about, I want to get straight into it, because we are in the midst of a pandemic, hopefully, we are actually coming out of the pandemic. But you know, COVID has been a fascinating one for businesses, eCommerce businesses, especially, and what I thought would be great to do with you, because I know we're gonna have a great conversation about this is just the reality of running a business an eCommerce business in COVID. Because everybody has set up, maybe I shouldn't say everybody, a lot of people have said, you know, what? COVID the pandemic has been great for online and digital businesses, right. And I've heard a lot of people say this, but I think the reality of that statement is very different. And I think it might have been great at the start of COVID. I don't think is necessarily true for a lot of businesses right now. So let's get into that. How have you found running your eCommerce business and so called in the pandemic?
Kristi Soomer
Mm hmm. Yeah. So the first things I'll say about my business, just for the listeners is that Encircled is a fashion brand. So we use all sustainable fabrics, and we produce everything locally. And we produce primarily women's wear, that has like a really high comfort factor. So a lot of like athleisure type wear. And we were the original designers of the dress, the sweat pant, which is a piece we designed ironically, in 2015. So way before the pandemic way before it was cool to wear sweatpants to work kind of thing. So we were a little bit ahead of the trend when it comes to work from home wear. So ironically, when the pandemic hit, we were pretty well positioned from a product standpoint, it wasn't like we were selling like Formal Dresses or something like that. And so our business immediately, you know, saw that impact, I think after things settle a little bit, you know, our sales really took off, because I think a lot of brands, you know, just everybody was starting to shop online, they were looking for specifically our product, like loungewear and comfortable items. And that was really great. Like we rode that wave for a little bit. And then we realised because we're we're located in Canada. At the time it early on in the pandemic, we were, there was a complete shutdown here for a very long time. And we started to run out of inventory. And all of our factories were closed. And we actually got down to two weeks of inventory at one point, which is crazy. So anybody who runs an eCommerce business knows the two weeks of inventory when it takes you know, four to six to eight now 12 to turn it is a very scary place to be guessing, can we make digital products to sell because we were like, what else can we sell. So luckily, we were able to get out of that and kind of have our supply chain supply chain reopened slowly. But it's been a roller coaster, I would say I think 2020 was a really great year for us, in a sense, because we grew a lot, but it was really tough growth because of supply chain challenges. And what's happening I think in 2021 that I've heard from a lot of entrepreneurs is that the supply chain challenges are actually getting worse and we've felt that as well. A lot of HR challenges as well. And Cost of Goods increases and a lot more competition. So it's out Kind of swung, I would say in the plus Facebook ads, iOS 14, iOS 15, updates with email, all these things coming together, it's actually a very challenging environment right now to operate an eCommerce business. So it's almost like we've come, you know, to the high and now we're back down into the low. And we're trying to figure out how to get out of this and continue to build our business.
Matt Edmundson
Yeah, I think. I mean, yeah, you've nailed in a nutshell there, the word roller coaster, and I think I think I've heard a lot of people say COVID has been great for their business, but in reality, it there has been ups, but there has, I think there have been some massive downs. And you've nailed a few right there. So supply chain issues, I think is one, getting your goods delivered, I think has been an increasing problem. You mentioned that. And staff, getting people to actually do the work has been an issue. In in the UK, we've had Brexit to deal with. On top of that, there's all the Facebook ads. So yeah, these are really challenging times for eCommerce businesses. And so it's great to actually have a real conversation about this, because I think too many people to sort of always wax lyrical. It's great. That's great. So how have you How have you dealt with, say supply chain issues? What what is what have been some of the things that you've learned there?
Kristi Soomer
Mm hmm. Yeah, so definitely. So for context, producing locally, one of the biggest advantages aside from like, the fair labour and ethical practices and lower carbon footprint, and all those great things is that when you make clothing locally, you can make it faster. That's just the reality. So we could easily make production of a product that we want to sell, let's say in November, right now, previous to the pandemic. Now, what's happened is, it's gone from probably about four to six weeks average turn time, sometimes as low as two, we could turn products around to more like 12 to 14 weeks. So I was like way longer cycling times. So for us, like our business was just not set up like that, like we don't plan that far in advance. Because we've always been super agile with our design process, and how we buy fabric and materials and all that kind of stuff. So we've really had to start to look at our assortment, which I think is a really great exercise for any business to do kind of that old, like, you know, 80/20 rule, like, what are the products that are really driving most of your revenue? And then looking like, do you actually need these other things in your assortment, like, do these products serve a role, maybe they're a basket builder, maybe they are a lead magnet, they're a product that, you know, works really well in paid ads or something like that. But really focusing on less is more when it comes to products is something that we're doing. So we're starting to reevaluate that. And then, like what products we really need to carry, because we've started to get into a lot of things in the pandemic, because people were asking for them, we're like, Yeah, let's do basics, let's do a basic t shirt, let's do this, that the other thing and we start to get very distracted by that. So really, that refocusing effort, I think, is important. Because when you have a supply chain that slow, you really want to focus on those products, getting those through production as much as possible, that are really those revenue drivers for you. Because if you're out of stock in your CORE products, you're you're out of luck, for sure. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson
Yeah. I mean, I want to come I want to circle back to this whole refocusing. And the 80/20 rule, I think that's, that's really important. But did you under lock down? Am I understanding this, right, that actually, when the pandemic hit and COVID hit, you saw some different opportunities arise? You know, like, everybody started wearing, you know, like, just tracky bottoms, as I would call it do you know what I mean, just like sports, clothing type stuff. And so did you, did you find that you were kind of creating more and more of that type of product to take advantage of those opportunities?
Kristi Soomer
Mm hmm. Yeah. So like, originally, we actually pivoted our whole supply chain to making non medical masks. So when the pandemic first hit, we actually saw a huge sales drop, our sales dropped triple digits initially. So we were like, Oh, my gosh, we got to do something. And we have this supply chain here, it was only allowed to be open if it was making essential goods. So we had quite a few factories where we just pivoted completely to making non medical masks from organic cotton and like providing them not only for purchase, but also for donation as well. So that carried our business through a few months specifically. And that is a product that I never thought I would make, to be honest. But it did. It did well for us, I think in terms of volume and attracting new customers. And we were able to get really high up in Google for that product, but it's also very low margin. It's a very high touch product, like they're very small and fiddly, and they needed people to ship them and we were even having problems finding somebody to ship orders for us because we self warehouse at our warehouse in Toronto. So we were having trouble finding people to work. So we had managers Shipping products, which is not ideal. And so I think it's your question. Yes, because we started to see you know, demand for you know, more like sweat pants and stuff like that where we had like dressy sweatpants. But we would never have like just a pure joggers set. Like that was just nothing we would go into our products always have like a really transformative element to them. And we kind of got pulled down that avenue because it started people were asking for them, we saw the market, it was high trending items. So we started making more and more of those garments. And it's fine, we were making them out of sustainable materials. And in some ways it fit with our ethos, but it's not really the best representation of why I started this brand. And it's easy to kind of start to slide down that path. And then what happened in 2021, probably early in the in the year, you start to see everybody trying to get rid of their sweat pants. So you know, people going back to work and people were thinking it was going to open up. And a lot of brands like I think at one point, somebody told ME the stat and I'd have to fact check it at like 20% of h&m inventory was in, you know, sweatpants and hoodies. And I was like wow, like we're people are really overstocked. So when I heard that, we started to shift our assortment back to what we make, you know, more normally products. But again, like designing products remotely is its own challenge that we can get into and talk about because Toronto where I'm from has also been one of the cities that's been locked down for the most amount of time probably in Canada, I think it was almost 500 days of pure lockdown. So Oh, well, we've been working remotely and designing products remotely, which is just this whole whole thing that you know, and it slows down the process, but also changes the product development process quite dramatically from the way we used to do it. So. So yeah, so I think there's a couple of factors there. And we definitely got down a path where we're making products where, honestly, I would never have said we would have made them five years ago for sure.
Matt Edmundson
Yeah, that's really interesting. I am I find it interesting how you, you sort of pivoted your business at the time to go right, let's make these masks, let's make these joggers and stuff because this is what people want. But and now you're talking about actually, we're coming out of the pandemic, we've we've got chance to sort of realign and breathe again. And sort of sort of head back to, to where we were. So you use the phrase to sort of focus back in on, you know, the 80/20 rule stripping stuff out. And I think there's, I think that's that's an interesting idea, because it's, you know, sometimes as entrepreneurs, we just have to do what makes money to keep the doors open, don't we? As long as it aligns with our culture and our values. It's like, this is what we're going to do. Yeah. But that usually tends to be for a season and so trying to get that get the ship back on track. Is that where you find yourself now?
Kristi Soomer
Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we kind of did what we needed to do at the time, because when when our sales dropped so dramatically, like the pivotal point was when the NBA in America closed down, because that like was like the trigger point for a lot of things to shut down in North America at least. And literally seeing sales dropped triple digits when we were growing up into that point, you know, high high double digits. I was like, super freaked out. To be honest. I was like, Oh my gosh, where's this going? You know, and much like many entrepreneurs, I'm sure we did, you know, worst case and best case forecasts like you know, worst case being zero sales best case being like maybe almost last year sales are half of that, and how much cash do we have in the bank to last like, that's how uncertain things were. So yes, we had to make decisions to that we're within our values, but we're in areas where we would never kind of go there just because it just is not our business model. But I mean, there's a brand I know in Canada, he makes outerwear that's vegan and he's literally switched his whole business to making surgical gowns for the medical community. And that's like his main business still actually because he saw the demand and he had the factory infrastructure to do it so he did it. You kind of got to do what you got to do to like get through that and then ideally, you know, you come back to what you really want to do with the business and if you want to continue to run a business of loungewear and sweat suits and you think that's the opportunity great but for us I can definitely see that market kind of evaporating and I think there's a lot of competition we have a coffee chain here called Tim Hortons and it's like, I don't know how to describe it in UK terms, but it's like a very like it's like a Dunkin Donuts maybe I don't know if you know what that is like. It's a very like, anyways, low key coffee place. They literally just launched a loungewear line and I was Tim Hortons has hoodies and sweat pants. Like now it's time to get out of it. So So yeah, for us, it just it doesn't speak to the highly differentiated parts of our brand and and again Like these types of things like the masks, the loungewear, the basics, those are very low margin products for us to create like they are very expensive to make. Ironically, even though they're very simple, and you can't really charge that high of a price for them because they are not that differentiated. So the more we go down that path, the more it takes us off of our CORE, CORE value drivers, I think, and then also the things that really reaffirm our brand so so yeah, we're definitely trying to like reorient back to that a little bit. And we recently launched a collection called performance workwear, which is basically workwear silhouettes made out of activewear fabrics. So it's like a performance, scuba microtensile fabric, and it's super stretchy. And we've basically put a bunch of like work where kind of silhouettes, perhaps a little bit of in advance of the curve here, people are going back to work, but they're not really full time here yet. But that's what we're anticipating is that people are returning to work at some point in later this year or early 2022.
Matt Edmundson
That's really interesting. So they say you're at this stage now they were you sort of getting back to what differentiates you as a brand? And I think that's a really interesting phrase. I mean, you know, your, what, what makes you stand out? What makes you unique? What do you stand for? What's your, you know, your whole your whole mo kind of thing? And so do you feel like you're kind of rediscovering yourself a little bit. Now we're coming out of the pandemic.
Kristi Soomer
Mm hmm. Yeah, we're actually redoing some customer research right now to really touch base with our customers too, because like, the one thing I realised is that, like, our business is not the same. But also people are not the same, like people are not the same as they were in 2019. And I think the more we pretend like people are like that, it's it's the worst for the business. So we really need to tap back into our customer base, which I think is a really big competitive advantage of having a digital business is that we have a really close community, we have a Facebook group with over 1000 of our customers in it, and really talk to them and start to understand what their lifestyles are like now, because it's totally different than it was before. And that puts totally different demands on people's closets. You know, people have gained weight over the pandemic, myself included, people don't wear jeans anymore, you know, people aren't going out as much anymore. So like, what is their structure look like in their wardrobe? And how can we best serve them at this point in moment in time? So that's opening up some discussions around, you know, new new sales channels for us, potentially, but also just like, what are the right pieces to bring into the assortment? And how can we do that almost in collaboration with our customers to to be where they need to be today. And I think we lost some of that connection over the pandemic, interestingly, because like, we just we're so busy, and so you know, busy trying to like launch products and just run the business and we lost that connection. So I really want to get back to that as well.
Matt Edmundson
That's, I love that I love how how you've in this you've you've stay connected to your customer, and you've gone back to them. It's like, how can we how can we help you guys now I'm trying to understand their life and where they're at. And I think there's a big piece of learning there for is this is actually your customers are not the same. You know, life has changed for a lot of people, a lot of whom are your customers. And so understanding who your customers are now is critical, because it might be different to who they were a few years ago. Right. So what are some of the what are some of the things maybe then that surprised you in that?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, I would say, Well, I mean, just generally, we know about our customers that like they are working from home. Most of the time, we do have a large portion of customers who are doctors and in the health professional communities. So those, those individuals never work from home. So it's we have to be very careful with our messaging, I think around that. Because I think there's an assumption that everybody's working from home. And that's that's not correct, there's a lot of essential workers out there are going to work every single day. So we've tried to be a little bit more cognizant of that. I definitely recognise that people don't want to give up comfort. I think once you've lived in loungewear for a long time, you know, you don't want to lose that comfort. But there is definitely I think, a pull towards looking more polished and put together. Because that routine of people is really out of whack right now. Like I was walking my dog yesterday and I ran into my friend's friend and she was just saying like, she really wants to go back to the office at least two days a week just to have an occasion to get dressed up for and like Who would have ever said that before? Like it's such a bizarre thing. it resonated with ME too. I was like Yeah, I definitely want to like do my hair and like nice pants. You know, but like, I also don't want to feel uncomfortable in those pants. So we're trying to like really understand where that intersection is with our customer and like how can we how can we best serve them and then also like, the other thing is that there's been so much so much more focused on shopping locally, at least in Canada I don't know about globally as well does globally. Yeah. And so like, how do you harness that a little bit more? Because that's also brought in a tonne of new entrants into the eCommerce space. Like we've seen how much Shopify is growing year over year in terms of merchants, merchants and stuff like that, which is really great. But then how do you continue to build out your brand in that really fragmented environment? So so that comes down to just like, again, refining your CORE value proposition and doing that work? So we're kind of in the middle of it right now. So I don't have all the answers to be honest, because we're just kind of starting that journey. We do run EOS at our business. So part of it is entrepreneurs, organisational systems. So part of it is reevaluating that vision, traction organiser is what they call the VTO, and really looking at the overarching business vision of the business. And where do we really want this to go and being very focused in our execution towards that.
Matt Edmundson
So if I bring this I mean, this whole segment started off by talking about supply chain issues. And and I guess this whole realignment with CORE values, this distilling of products down to what it is that we need, and want, are you doing that with one eye on your CORE values another eye on what the customers are saying, and Facebook and another eye on what's actually possible to be delivered right now? Do you feel like you're balancing all these different balls to try and create a product?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, it's, it's like building a plane when it's flying in the air, because we're trying not to, like take parts out. We're trying not to take parts out that are gonna make the plane fall out of the air, but we also need to keep moving forward. And yeah, you know, the lights on and keep generating revenue. So it's like this kind of lockstep thing where we're making changes on the fly. And I'd love to shut the business down and just have a big visioning session, but not allow my luxury of my life does not allow for that. So it's kind of like making these small changes and continuing to operate and making these these adjustments as we go. And the plan is really to like come to a point at some point, probably this year, post Black Friday, I would guess, where we really start to, you know, bring that forward more overtly, to the, to the consumer. So like, almost like a mini kind of rebranding exercise, if you will, where we just really start to refresh and rebrand ourselves. They're just we were actually ironically, rebranding just as we're heading into the pandemic. And we've done all this work with copywriters and agencies, and then the pandemic hit, we were like, okay, nobody's gonna listen. You know, we were so excited to launch and it was like, Okay, well, nevermind. But um, so we never really fully rolled it out. And that actually was not a bad thing, because I think we were going down the wrong track anyways. So I think this has provided an opportunity to just reevaluate and refocus, like I said, and really focus on the losses more in the business, it's easy to get really distracted when you're growing. And all of a sudden, you go from like, you know, I don't know, like 100 skus and then you have 500 skus and you're like, how did that happen? Like you know, we've gone from two weeks on hand of inventory now we have like four months on hand. Like it's a totally like wackadoo world right now over here. So we're trying to like really focus on slimming down our inventory now. So now we're having the opposite problem with too much inventory. So that's, that's just part of the roller coaster it is right. Like, you know, there's no inventory. Now you have too much, you know, you have too many new customers. Now, you don't have enough like, it's just part of the challenge of eCommerce. And I think the tactics for digital marketing and customer acquisition are changing, as well. So we're definitely trying to diversify in that that respect as well.
Matt Edmundson
So yeah, I mean, you you you mentioned sort of, sort of the rebrand and refresh and rethinking and all that sort of stuff in the new year after Black Friday. Is, is your is your thinking now, you know what, we've got black friday around the corner, we let's get through that. You know, we can the planes flying, we can change a few things on the way let's get through Black Friday. And then come, you know, December 1, or whatever it is, we've then got Christmas for a few weeks, but at some point, probably mid December, we're just going to start to think, right? Breathe. This is now where we can go out the strategy for you.
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, holiday is really busy for us. I mean, even up until the end of December is quite busy. January was really the time when like, I think it's the perfect inflection point for us to kind of do that because I think our that where we're going to go with the brand I think would really suit the conversations that happen in January about like reevaluation and goal setting and, you know, streamlining and simplification and fresh starts and stuff like that. So, so for us Yeah, it's definitely getting through the holiday season. I mean, Black Friday, you know, and a lot of ways is really about acquiring customers for the last six months, and now really converting those customers. So for us, it's not as much of a brand play. At the end of the day, Black Friday typically is just a promotional execution. So if we do that really well, I think we'll, we'll be fine. But we're really thinking more about how can we set ourselves up for long term success, you know, not just 2022, but to 2028, you know, and beyond. And that's kind of the critical work that we're taking our time I would say, doing right now, just to make sure we get it, right. Because again, like, there's so much competition out there right now, which is great, but most people are still shopping, at least in the fashion industry, you know, from fast fashion brands, that's the reality. So a lot of us who are in this, like 2% of brands that are involved in slow or sustainable fashion, you know, we're all feeding the same customer base. And what we really need to do is bring people in, who are shopping at fast fashion and show them a different way of consuming fashion. And that's a really difficult exercise to do. But otherwise, we're just going to all start like cannibalising the same people, you know, and we really need to grow that customer pie. And the only way you can kind of do that is through really specific education and, and tapping into what matters to the customer. And we've kind of started to just get a bit of a red thread around that and like what it is that really matters at the end of the day, because it's different for every customer segment. And this is what I think is important for your audience to do too, is just do that research and start to see what the CORE motivations are for people buying, you know, is it the sustainability? Is it the ethics? Is it the product functionality, like what is it so understanding that is really key to differentiating and then if you can understand that, then you can start to pull other people in who may be kind of on the fringe and potentially purchasing from you. But I think that that is really key for if you're in a niche market to keep expanding, it's that like bringing people in who are never shopped before in that category, which is a huge behavioural challenge. But we're up for it for sure.
Matt Edmundson
So the let ME just touch on fast fashion for a little minute if I if I can, because it this whole industry intrigues ME and and you know, the real drive. In the UK, for example, there's been some commercials been run on TV about avoiding fast fashion, and you've got like famous football or soccer stars in the adverts telling you to avoid it, which is just wonderful to see if I'm honest with you. Do you? Have you found that you know, the general message of sustainability and caring for the environment and making good choices around food around clothing? And understanding the impact and all that sort of stuff? has that kind of thing has? Have you found that over the pandemic? Did people sort of veer away from that? Or do you feel like people have kind of gathered towards it a little bit more?
Kristi Soomer
I definitely think people are gathering towards it a little bit more just in general because there's a lot more environmental. There's unfortunately a lot of environmental disasters that have happened in the last like two years and people are home people are paying attention. They're watching the news, you know, anything else to do? And they're, they're aware, they're more aware than ever. And there's definitely a generational component where a younger generation is it's definitely very environmentally conscious. However, I will say there's still an gap between people's you know what they would say and what they actually do. And you see that in men. Like as an example, like I would say, Gen Z is like the CORE shopper of this fast fashion brand that has just exploded over the last like two years called Shein. And that brand launches 1000 pieces a day. I don't even know how they do that. But they do that's a lot of consumption and fashion is very cheap. It's all made in like far reaches of China poorly made lots of products and lots of problems with that brand doing cultural appropriation, all kinds of bad things. But yeah, they're a $10 billion brands so somebody's shopping at them and there's a very popular trend on Tik Tok of people doing these halls of Shein. So on one hand, you have people outraged that they're creating all this consumption, but then they're still purchasing from them. So there's like this gap and I think the gap can often be explained by a lot of things that are a lot more megatrends. So there's a lot of pressure for people to dress a certain way and always be on trend and all that kind of stuff. You know, when we talk about sustainability, there's a huge privilege component to because sustainable fashion is more expensive. So I'm not generally talking to that segment of people because to ME, there's definitely like if people are shopping at H&M because they can't afford to shop anywhere else, I get it. But if you're shopping at H&M because you want to buy 40 t shirts, not just like two t shirts, that's like a consumption issue that's been created through the media. And perpetuated you know, so. So I think there's like two different kinds of things there at play food as an example, I think is a lot farther along than fashion. And same with beauty, I would argue, people are more aware of what goes into products and the more direct impact on their skin and their health in their body. Whereas with fashion, it's still really nebulous as to how it's made and like, people don't understand, like, different fabrics and what goes on to some of those fabrics, and how that can impact your body because it's just too far out there. You know what I mean? We're not there yet. But it's moving in that direction. So I think the more awareness, we get into supply chains and stuff like that, and they can see what's actually going on behind the scenes because like, the end of the day, this product is all handmade still. Like there's not robots sewing these somewhere like people's lives. Like if we're optimising on one thing. We're optimising on labour. And that's, like a really challenging thing to optimise on, because somebody is probably not getting paid down the line properly for fast fashion to occur. So the more awareness and transparency that happens there, I think the better but there's definitely still it's not I will tell you, it's not the CORE motivator, why people shop from us still. So that says a lot, because it's a pretty big value of ours as well.
Matt Edmundson
Yeah, I think I think it's really powerful. And, and what you're doing is great, I've been involved in the fair trade industry for a while, and, and you one of the things you learn being involved in that industry is you understand supply chain, you know, from beginning to end from you know, and not just supply chain as in, you've made a piece of clothing, and I buy it from you. But where did that material come from? Who made that clothing? Where's, you know, where's that factory located? What's that doing to the environment? What's that doing to the local community, and just this transparency that comes with it. And I think transparency is a good buzzword, and people love it. But it, I think you still need something in this day that differentiates you more than just transparency, don't you if you're going down that road of sustainability, and, and so on and so forth, and they're great, but they're not the primary reason why people will buy from you. And I think that that just that fascinates ME great, you know, good on you for doing what you're doing. I guess, if you could, as we're coming out of it, you know, Kristi, if you could have a phone call with yourself, you know, 18 months ago, what what, what would be some of the key pieces of advice you would give yourself?
Kristi Soomer
I'll probably tell myself to take a vacation. That would be like a key thing. You know, I think another thing I would probably have done differently would be, I think from from the HR management perspective, like being more cognizant of, like, not just checking in on people like having one on one coaching discussions, but being a little bit more mindful of employees and what they're, they're going through Personally, I think it's easy to assume that if somebody is not feeling well, it's their job, you know, but the pandemic has showed us that a lot of people are really struggling mentally. And it has never been more prevalent from an HR perspective for ME than in the last two years. And those situations are really challenging to manage as a CEO or leader in a business. But I wish I was a little bit more cognizant of that and had more tools, like now we have things we can offer people, but I wish we had more forward thinking tools for that, because I think it was a way larger issue than we ever anticipated. And I would probably have said, like, you know, turn up those ads in April 2020. Because these are the best cpms you'll ever get in your life.
Matt Edmundson
Very good. So what did that what is that, uh, you take him forward, I guess, you know, let's get let's fast forward through Black Friday. Let's you know, let's get out of survival mode. 2022. What's the learning that you're going to take for the you're really going to make sure you know what, you've already talked about refocusing? You know, re-establishing who you are as a business, but what what is what are some of the other things you're taking forward?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, definitely. I think hiring for the business tomorrow. Not today is important. Because when you grow really quickly, which most of us when we're running ecommerce brands, we're always trying to grow. If you can really outgrow team members and competencies pretty quickly if you're hiring for what you need at this moment. So and that's a tricky balance, right? Because you want to always hire more senior more experienced people. But sometimes you don't have the resources to do it. So you have to kind of pick and choose in the areas of the business. But I think that's been a really key learning, you know, not and maybe you can't hire somebody full time, maybe you hire a consultant or something like that, or a fractional version of whatever you need. But hiring those experts and hiring them before you think you need them, is I think key, because it's very, you can really get a lot of things that kind of start to stack up against you, if you're not paying attention to all of the business. And having those experts, they can kind of proactively tell you where those issues or pain points might be. So that's definitely one of them. I would say definitely, culturally, I want to work on the culture of the business. And I'm very cognizant of how like, you know, how the leader behaves is really important, I work a lot. And so I'm trying to work less actually, to show people that is okay. Because I realised that's something that people look to in a business, you know, even if I'm not telling them to work on the weekends, people will do that, because they feel committed to the business. And that's the kind of people we attract to the business. But that's also how people burnout. So that's something we're being really mindful of how can we bring the team back together in safe ways and collaborate, but also work smarter, not harder, in 2022, and then I think the the third thing would be like processes. Like I know that sounds really boring. But processes are really key to do that work smarter, not harder piece. I think we've really learned over the last, you know, few years that we had loose processes, it's not like we had no processes, but they were not properly documented. They're not detailed. And when you have a process that lives with one person, or you know somebody, the train the trainer for everybody, and then that person leaves or gets sick or something like that, then your whole business can like collapse on one side, depending on what that process is. So really focusing on documenting those processes and put again, like higher planning these processes for the business you want to be not the business necessarily you are today. Because again, then once you're scaling, you're gonna start to run into roadblocks and stuff like that. So we want to be like a $10 million business next year, you have to start to build in the infrastructure and processes now that can support that growth versus like backpedalling and like I said, trying to build that plane while it's in the air, because it's a lot more difficult than endeavour to go down.
Matt Edmundson
Yeah, no, that's pretty that's pretty What are you um, here's my final question. For you, Kristi. What do you think is gonna happen this black Friday what do you what are you anticipating now?
Kristi Soomer
Mm hmm. Yeah, so I definitely what we've seen with sales over the pandemic, anytime we go on sale, our sales are way over subscribed versus previous years. So we've seen massive growth in promotional activities. So as an example we only we really only go sitewide discounting twice a year once in July for around Canada Day. And then in Black Friday, and Black Friday, it's usually around a collection so it's not even sitewide in July, we did more sales in 24 hours than we did in I think all the Black Friday weekend last year oh yeah so and we saw the same trend in July 2020 you know, we did significant amount of sales and we actually at the time obviously didn't have that much inventory so actually blew ourselves out of inventory at that point. This year we were more prepared, but you know, the lift on promotional activations is way up way way up. So we're definitely anticipating the this will be a big event for a lot of brands because again, like you know, people have been financially impacted by the pandemic for sure. So they are you know, when you're seeing lower conversion rates on your website or your ads or whatever. A lot of these people are still following you. They're reading your emails, they're following you on social and maybe they're just waiting for that moment to purchase or they have that little extra incentive to like push them over the edge like I'm just waiting for the peloton trike to go on sale for like $10 you know, so like people are waiting in the wings so there's been I expect that it's going to be big, big for us so we're trying to make plans for that logistically but also to set up the right promotions that are not margin diluted I guess if you will make them really value added that's important as well but also make them super exciting for our customers that have been like following us and supporting us for the last few years. So I think it'll be a really big event for eCommerce I still don't think you know, brick and mortar is going to be back a little bit but I still think there's going to be huge portion of people shopping online and lots of growth factor.
Matt Edmundson
Yeah, I think you're right. I think I'm intrigued to see what happens is Black Friday. It'll be really fascinating to see what what results come out of it. And Kristi listen, I really appreciate you being With us don't want to be mindful of your time. How do people connect with you? How do they reach out to you if they want to get in touch?
Kristi Soomer
Sure, yeah. So if you want to check out my brand Encircled, you can check out our website it's encircled or on Instagram at encircled underscore. My coaching and podcast website is Kristisoomer.com. And then I'm @KristiSoomer on Instagram, going to flip ME a DM if you listen to this episode, I'd love to connect with you there.
Matt Edmundson
Fantastic. And we will of course put all of those links that were mentioned in the show notes. And you can grab those on the website as well. So Kristi, listen, I really, really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your insight. And, um, yeah, here's looking for a brighter 2022 right? It's just it's Yeah, looking forward very much.
Kristi Soomer
Thank you, Matt.
Matt Edmundson
Wasn't Kristi, absolutely fantastic. I really, really enjoyed my I've had a few conversations with Kristi and that was great because just the reality of it, the rawness of it, the truth of it, the authenticity of it. She was great, wasn't she and I hope if you're running an eCommerce business at the moment, and you're finding it a little bit tricky navigating the old COVID pandemic, Brexit, Facebook ads thing, you just take a little bit of hope from that because you know that there is some hope and there is some strategy. So hopefully you got something out of it I I've got a few things stick out in my head actually from the conversation with Kristi one is she mentioned it a couple of times the need to take some time off. And one of the things that I found fascinating over COVID for a lot of people for a lot of online entrepreneurs. Because it was so crazy a time everybody was working crazy hours. I often say I to people when I think about the pandemic I don't think I've worked as hard my whole life as I did the last 18 months and and you know, I plan to take August off I wanted to just take a whole month I've never done it before I just want to take a whole month off and just enjoy some time out. It didn't happen unfortunately. As we sold one of our companies which we're going to talk more about in a future episode actually, as we saw one of our eCommerce businesses and I was like, You know what, I need to take some time and that was the thing for ME but I don't know about you did you find that under COVID you worked harder than you ever have done? Or actually was it easier for you? I'm curious to know let ME know because I know for a bunch of people they worked harder for some actually they really enjoyed it worked at home just felt a lot more chilled out. Where do you sit on that spectrum? I genuinely love to know. That is one thing that from the criticism just reminded ME I actually need some book to book some time off which I'm going to do tomorrow and I think the other thing for ME was this whole idea Kristi was talking about Black Friday Did you hear what she said the customers are still there but they're just not buying at the moment and I thought that was a really interesting comment I don't know what you were found with your own online sales Do you feel like they're a little bit lower than you thought they were going to be? And I just I was encouraged by the nice to the customers are still there. They're still reading the emails are still watching Facebook. They're just is getting to that phase, isn't it? And in this sort of time of year so what is it It's October at the time of recording October 2021. And so Black Friday in effect is around the corner. This is the time that people start to pause purchases in anticipation of what is going to happen on Black Friday. I think there are things that we can do as eCommerce businesses which mitigate that I'm definitely not a fan of pouring all your hope into Black Friday. I'm not going to lie. I mean they're you know, just like there's ethical questions around clothing there's almost ethical questions around Black Friday which maybe we should get into in another episode but I'm definitely not pinning all my hopes on Black Friday. So we're you know, we're doing things now so people don't do that. I'm just gonna pause until Black Friday thing. But if you've noticed a dip, be encouraged actually customers are still there, check out your email open rates up. Is it the same are people still engaged in social media like they did? If that's the case, maybe they're just not buying maybe they're just waiting and hopefully, you know, sales will start to increase in the coming weeks I mean naturally they're going to start to increase in November time. Especially with Black Friday. I found with black friday You don't even have to discount you will sell more because people are just in a buying mood right so be encouraged with that. And I thought that you know the the problems that Kristi had, we all experienced having we're low, you know, supply chain issues and she she adapted and pivoted to try and make that work for her. So she's realigning what she's selling with her CORE values with who she is with what a customer wants with what she can get hold of. And I think there's actually some some wise, wise lessons for us there. I know we've had with one of the companies I'm involved with Vegetology we've had some supply chain issues on some of our raw ingredients, and some of the costs of just going a bit crazy. So we have to think that through don't we and, and getting stuff delivered around the globe seems to be much more complicated than it used to be for whatever reason, I have theories. But you know, it is what it is we have to face it, we have to be aware of it and we have to pivot and we have to adapt and we have to change and we have to make it work for us. That's what we do. That's what being an entrepreneur is all about. So thank you again, Kristi for your wisdom and your insight if you do want to reach out to Kristi you can do so with pleasure, I'm sure she would love to hear from you. Do check out her podcast. All the links to Kristi the notes from today's show the transcript are on our website, eCommerce podcast.net/75 head to that URL, and you will be able to download those and connect with Kristi to your heart's content. I'm sure she would love to hear from you. She is just a wonderful person. So go ahead and do that follow on Instagram and all that good stuff. All that's left for ME then to say is thank you so much for listening to the show. Thanks for staying with us. If you're a subscriber, big shout out to you really, really appreciate you taking the time to subscribe to the podcast and keep coming back on a weekly basis listening to the content that we put out. Thank you for your reviews, thank you for your suggestions, thank you for your feedback, much appreciated. If you have yet to take the plunge on the whole subscribe thing. I'm just gonna encourage you to do it. You know, it's the same print. It's the same pattern as in any podcast you listen to make sure you subscribe, make sure if you're watching on YouTube, hit that like button, make sure you subscribe and all that sort of stuff. It genuinely does help us which is why we say it all the time. So I appreciate you doing that. Have a fantastic week, wherever you are, and I hope that your online business is going successful during the pandemic. If there's any questions that you have from today's show you want to reach out to us. We would love to hear from you just head on over to eCommercepodcast.net/75 and we'll be we'll be there waiting to connect with you love to hear from you. That's all from ME for this week. Bless you guys. Have a great week. Bye for now.