TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
shoes, customers, warehouse, emails, brand, women, manufacturer, work, leather, thinking, talking, bit, wear, foot, started, find, founders, friends, partners, reviews
SPEAKERS
Lisa Oberst, Mariah Parsons
Mariah Parsons 00:05
Greetings and welcome to retention Chronicles, the podcast with learnings from expert e commerce brands and partners. I'm your host, Ryan Parsons. If you're here, you're either on a quest for ecommerce enlightenment, or you accidentally clicked the wrong link. Either way, I am thrilled you stumbled into our corner of the internet. And I hope you'll stick around. We've got pearls of wisdom for everyone, whether you're running a multimillion dollar business, or simply just starting out on your entrepreneurial journey. Before we unleash the brilliance of today's guest, let's give a shout out to our podcast sponsor Malomo. Malomo is so much more than just another Shopify app, their post purchase wizards making beautiful and branded order tracking smoother than a jazz solo. So our amazing founders, like our guests can keep their customers happy and up to date while they track their orders. So hit that subscribe button, like it'll increase your LTV overnight, and go listen to her other episodes. Echo malomo.com That's gomalomo.com. Get ready for insights chuckles and perhaps a profound realization or two with this newest episode of retention. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to retention Chronicles. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me here today. Very exciting time. So for our listeners, you might if you've been with us since the very beginning of retention Chronicles, which was about three years ago. You might notice Lisa, and remember her because she was on I believe we were talking about this before I think it was episode four, I'd have to go in fact check myself, but the very early days of the podcast, and you're back again today for some I think it's 118. I don't know, by the time we actually publish this, it'll probably be more around like 120. So it's been fun to get to know you for these past three years and have you on podcast now twice, I don't think I think you're the first returner that we've had, we'd like such a great breadth of knowledge and breadth of time. So very excited to chat with you. All
Lisa Oberst 02:13
it's so good. I love everything. Malomo I love being on your podcast and participating in anything you guys have going on. It's really a pleasure, always. So I'm really happy to be here. Thank you for having me again.
Mariah Parsons 02:24
Thank you, we very much appreciate you and love all all of the things you do to help us because they are. I mean it is. It is incredible how much how good of a partner you are and just how good of a person you are. So I know our listeners are going to are really going to hear that today. So let's start with a brief introduction of yourself. Tom, tell us about what you've been up to you. I've been an avid follower of you, obviously, for the past couple years. So I'm excited for our listeners to hear it today. Sweet.
Lisa Oberst 02:54
Well, my name is Lisa and I am the founder of a brand called Womads which stands for nomads, but with a W for women. And I launched Womads about a year and a half ago. And we focus on accessories for women that are active and that just want to be out there doing a lot of things but that want to be both comfortable and stylish. So I launched with have it here, I launched with a
Mariah Parsons 03:26
lot of colors. But I love the hot pink. Oh my god. It's so cute.
Lisa Oberst 03:32
So we launched with a shoe a year and a half ago. This is a shoe that's just meant to be super comfortable, very flexible. It's just I wear them for biking, dancing, work, traveling just for everything. And that's that's the goal. My idea was to just bring something very versatile to make women's lives easier. Yes,
Mariah Parsons 03:55
we all need that. We all need that. We were also talking about how I just went to Rice in Chicago retail innovation conference and expo. And it's a bit more in the retail space. But obviously there's a lot of overlap between retail and E commerce. And so, you know, I was walking through our questions beforehand, I was like, oh my god don't I could use pair of frickin nomads, because my home are hurting in these like, more rigid, you know, this more rigid pair of shoes and I was like it is a full day. It's a full 12 to 13 hours, three days back to back and I was like I I'm in the era of my life where I'm like, I don't want to sacrifice you know the style and the look and feel of like having a fun Jew because I love, love, love my colors. But usually it's like the more comfortable pairs of shoes on the shelves are traditionally less less cute, I guess. So I was thinking myself I was like, Oh my God, I need to frickin buy a pair so I'm excited to talk Do you all and for the listeners when you were folding the shoe it literally like folded right in half. So like toe to heel.
Lisa Oberst 05:05
Yeah, exactly. You're probably not gonna be doing that while wearing them. But I might like not. Yeah, it was up a lot. You know, when dancing and all that and you want to be able to move your feet when you're on the floor of a conference all day is just yeah, those rigid shoes just don't don't do the trick. And then probably you have events in the evening. And if you can wear the same thing to go straight there, it just makes your life easier. So
Mariah Parsons 05:27
yeah, exactly. Or even to like, it's been, I mean, it feels like it's always wedding season, but especially in the spring, and in the summer. And so like, I'm sometimes bringing, you know, like, flip flops or comfier sandals, because I want to wear the cute heels because I don't ever really get an excuse to wear feel. But then I'm like, Oh my God, I don't want to be trapped into you know, wearing wearing the heel for the whole day and the dance and all of that. So it's like it is such a mind. I don't know mind maze, or like it really occupies. I think a lot of women's minds like just having to play and if like, Okay, do I know that these shoes are comfy enough to wear for X amount of time that I know I'm going to be committed to them for Yeah,
Lisa Oberst 06:10
and you can really ruin your day. If it's not. Like I just I don't think that's fair to us women to have that be a big concern. Yes. It wasn't things to worry about.
Mariah Parsons 06:20
I agree. We have too many entrepreneur entrepreneurs, too many founders to have to deal with that, you know. So yeah, big fan, obviously, of you and your brand. So tell us about kind of like the ideation I know, we've been talking about just like, obviously, the want to have a shoe that can really fit into different areas of your life and like the flexibility of each day or the the nuances of each day. But tell us about like how you're actually I'm always fascinated with like product development of like, how are you making the shoe? Look, how are you designing it, like you have the elastics on the side so that they are flexible? And then it's like, also open toe a bit but more coverage? So can you walk us through? Like, I guess where you're saying yes to this specific part of the design and no to other parts would be very curious. Okay. Yeah, absolutely.
Lisa Oberst 07:11
Let me give you a little bit more context also first, dive into into all the details. But so I grew up in Belgium, I'm French American, and I lived two years in Brazil, before moving to Miami. And so these experiences like I I knew when I moved back to the US, okay, I cannot find what I want in terms of footwear, but I know it exists. I know in Europe, I can find high quality leather shoes that are affordable, and I can wear all day. Why can't I find that here and in in Brazil, I found some really cute leather accessories, same same thing, you know, and that were just I couldn't find anything like it here. So when I moved back to the US, that's why I just how I came up with the idea for for Walmart, and I was like, I can't find it. I'm just going to make it. And so in terms of the design and the product development, so first of all, I am not a I'm not trained in designing shoes, I have not crazy anything developer or designer. But I base this off of some shoes that I found along during my life that I really loved. And I wanted to have the coverage here so that it's it holds your foot really well. But it is breathable. So I went for very soft, flexible leathers, I love going to the to the leather tanneries and picking out the color, the leathers that we're going to pick, I'm about to go a week. So I'm really excited in. And these are made in Colombia. I don't know if I've mentioned that. So they're made admitted Jean Colombia. And so the leather is a big part of it, because I don't want a lot of shoes that you find us they're, they're fake leather, which is plastic, and then the soles are straight up plastic. This is natural rubber. So that's very important part of the story also is its national rubber that comes from a plantation farm where they're replanting trees. And also it used to be a location used for growing drugs. So they're giving a new life to the last. Yeah, so it's really it's these farmers are sustaining themselves by giving new life to this land and rubber trees are actually pretty eco friendly, because you don't need to raise everything you can have the trees and have other plants around them. You don't kill the trees to get the rubber out. So it's a really cool part of the story as well that I really appreciate a lot.
Mariah Parsons 09:36
That's awesome. Yeah, I would never know that. You know, the rubber the natural rubber that you don't have to kill the tree. Like I think my assumption is just like right you have to have like mass. Yeah, deforestation or mass tree cutting to get products. That's awesome all the way.
Lisa Oberst 09:51
There are some cool videos out there. They make a slit and then the white liquid comes out and that's the rubber that's what they use to make the rubber so it's Pretty cool. So
Mariah Parsons 10:00
it's almost like SAP ah, like, like not actually but like, visually. Yeah.
Lisa Oberst 10:05
Yeah. So it's kind of like, you know, maple syrup except instead of maple syrup. Yeah. I got some shoes. Yeah, exactly. So so that was a big part of the decision process also for designing the shoe. And then the back I, you mentioned the elastic. So that is the most important part of the shoes is that elastic design, because that's what's keeping it on your foot. I have I guess I have thin heels. I can't wear a lot of shoes out there because they just don't hold. Like, for example, a competitor would be refused to have beautiful shoes, right? Choosing a similar idea, but I can't wear their shoes. They just don't stay on. And so that was something also I explored. I was like, Oh, well, let's make something for us women who, I don't know if my foot is very flexible, or my heel is too thin that both of those things probably, but this will stay on your foot regardless of the shape of your foot. So that elastic is really important part of it. Gotcha.
Mariah Parsons 11:03
Okay, yeah. So it kind of like, it forms more, am I am I picking this up? Correct that it forms more to your foot than like, perhaps something that's more structured in a shoe? Right?
Lisa Oberst 11:14
So I actually didn't even get into that. But yeah, you're absolutely right, like those shoes are not reinforced. So the leather will form literally to your feet. And so what I tell customers is wear them a little bit inside the house, maybe with socks or something. And you'll notice pretty quickly the leather is going to start stretching to your foot shape. And so they become they really start feeling like slippers, because it's going to take on your
Mariah Parsons 11:39
foot shape of that, okay. And I imagine like you just squish them down, like from top to bottom. And I know you you detail your travels before and I've just, you know seen you post about them. You're very avid traveler, and I like to think of myself as one as well. So packing is always like top of mind. And they squish down like to nothing, which is so impressive.
Lisa Oberst 12:01
Exactly. I always I always end up adding a few more pairs that I probably need just because why not? They fit like they fit so easily. Yeah, and
Mariah Parsons 12:11
like usually the heel I don't know what you would call it like not cavity but like the heel. Yeah, like it just like usually is pretty structured. So I know like, in sneakers and stuff, right? You have to like play this weird game of the front will squish down and then it's like, you're like stuffing a sock in the heel or something. Right? So are you trying to stuff something in the shoe to make it smarter for traveling. But when he did that, I was like, Oh my God, how perfect that it just like it became as like, thick as a book like it's thin his book, like you could just slide it in.
Lisa Oberst 12:40
Yeah. Sometimes when I'm running out the house, I just slipped at the front of my foot in and that comes down and I just I'm stepping on it. So it's almost like a mule. I prefer to then at some point, once I'm get my life together to put it on property.
Mariah Parsons 12:56
You're going biking or dancing or something. Yeah, you don't want to fly off. Yeah, exactly. But
Lisa Oberst 13:02
yeah, okay.
Mariah Parsons 13:03
Okay, amazing. So that's very helpful for the background of how you're kind of thinking about the materials that you're choosing and what's inspired the actual design of the shoe. So can you walk us through like, Okay, now you have a you have a thought process or you have like a picture in your mind, right of like, how the shoe is going to look? How are you finding, you know, the farms in Colombia? How are you finding the partners that are helping you actually manufacture the shoe because I think that's one of the things that I always love to hear how founders are, are finding those partners are thinking through, because I think that would be maybe one of the scarier parts of find, like founding your own brand, is you have something you believe in it. But then you kind of have to find partners who also believe in it or like trade that out not trade it not like chairs, treat it, but you have to share it with them right of like, okay, this is my vision. Now, I am going to trust you to like bring it to life. And I think that can be that can just be a scary big world when you have all these manufacturers and you have to choose the right ones. And you know, it's sometimes you get partners that aren't a good fit, and you learn that the hard way. Right. So I would love to know more about that. Yeah,
Lisa Oberst 14:19
absolutely. Okay, so again, like I had no background in making shoes. So I was in that position that you're describing it like how the heck am I gonna make this happen? And I started you know, like most of us were like, Okay, well Ali Baba, I guess so you start learning and looking and but for me, it was very important. I wanted it to be made in Latin America. I wanted because I have a special connection with that culture. I love the dancing the food, the people of that. So for me, I wanted that to be a big part of it. And honestly, I also wanted to be able to quickly hop on a plane and go say hi to my partners, which I think is very important to do and all that But so I mean very quickly are like, okay, India, China? No, I started finding platforms of manufacturers in Latin America. But even that, so I actually got in touch with some manufacturers and one of them sent me very comical definitely tried to screw me over. He sent me this sample of the shoe, but it was like, like a piece of plastic that no human being could possibly walk in. And then he acted as if I'd said I promised I would place an order. I was like, no. Yeah, so you can you have to be careful what you say. Obviously, there's a language barrier to I speak some Portuguese, a bit of Spanish but because French my first language, but that communication is not, is not that easy when you're working with partners in other countries. So. So that is not the way I did it. I was really lucky in that I ended up asking a client and I guess I need to make a little side note about feumaidh. So my full time job is, as you know, the director of email marketing at a an agency, a marketing agency that works with Shopify Ecommerce stores. And so I'm lucky in the sense that I have that network, I have the brands I work with, that inspired me to start my own brand, actually, and the partners I work with and all that. And so I was able to ask around. And I would say number one tip is if you want to get in ecommerce, go get get to know other ecommerce store owners, make friends, get to know the tools and all that because the best recommendations I've gotten were directly from friends of friends. So a client put me in touch with a friend of his who makes shoes in Peru. And he was kind enough to put me in touch with his sales agent, which is in airports because I didn't even know that was a thing. Yeah. That you, you can work with a sales agent, her name is Jessica, and she is a godsend. And she's the one who has the network. She knows all the manufacturers in Colombia. She knows. She knows where to find this elastics she knows the best type of leather for what I want. She had the contact for the rubber soles. And so I started telling her what I wanted for my product, and we made it happen together. Thanks to her knowledge and contacts.
Mariah Parsons 17:36
Okay, that's awesome. So it really does show you you know, like, the inclusivity, I guess the EECOM space of people being so willing to share, okay, like, I know this person that they might be able to help you. And even if they're not the final person, they probably know someone or someone, right, who can connect. And this is that's how I feel about this podcast, honestly, where it's it. It is just so powerful, and being able to reach out to founders like yourself and say like, okay, let's come on the podcast to talk about these things a little bit more publicly and see if it helps. And, you know, like the feedback of okay, like, I've never thought about this part of being a founder, or even like how to problem solve this little thing. And it's like, the littlest tiniest pieces of advice can really go a long way. And I know, I believe, Alicia here at Malomo as well, she also reached out to you about her brand that she started mid stoppers, which is like needling baseball pants for kiddos. And I know she was talking to you just like okay, where and she's also in Florida. So, I know you also have that in common, but just like the power of being able to have someone who's like, maybe a year or two ahead of you in their journey of like, okay, I know that you, you know, you're in a different space. But the most of this of the similar most of the same problems that entrepreneurs have to figure out, you can go and talk to another entrepreneur, even if they're maybe even 20 years ahead of you in terms of founding the brain and all that stuff, and will probably be able to give you some piece of advice that they had to learn the hard way. So it's like sharing, sharing it forward or sharing it backwards. I don't even know what it would be. But I love that aspect of working in this industry. And it's made it really fun. Yeah,
Lisa Oberst 19:22
I totally agree. And one one tip that I have shared with a lot of other entrepreneurs who are starting out is in my case, maybe that applies more to fashion, I don't know but like I would not want to work directly with the manufacturer, because I would have been in a really bad position. And I'm sure I would not be where I am right now. If I was working directly with the manufacturer. And it's not anything against manufacturer it's just do not buy don't have your best interests at heart. They have their own which is normal. The sales agent has your interest at heart because they make for example just to get to percent of what I paid a manufacturer. So it is in her interest for me to be very happy. And so she and place many orders and sell as well as possible. You hear a lot of stories of brands that just get kind of screwed over by their manufacturer. Yeah, it almost was because well, the first manufacturer we worked with for the first batch, I placed a batch of 220 shoes to test the concept. It sold out very quickly, like in weeks. So I went to place a second order with the manufacturers, and they jacked up the price. And that was because they've made a lot of mistakes, honestly, in the first batch, and they were just trying to recover those. Thanks to Jessica, we had another manufacturer lined up. And so we're able to beat it. Well, if you're going to treat us like that we're going to go work with this other manufacturer. We've already talked to them. We've already established like, what how this could work, and we're gonna go do that. And now I'm still working with that second manufacturer, we have great relationship working on other products and stuff like that. So you just you just need to cover your
Mariah Parsons 21:07
cover your bases. Okay, so quick question on the, like the the mess ups, I guess that that first manufacturer had was them? Was that them telling you after the fact of like you got the shipments that they like, do you think they were kind of like trying to, I guess, pull a fast one on you of just being like, oh, it's more expensive? Or do you think they actually did mess up?
Lisa Oberst 21:32
I think they just did. These are handmade right. And it was the first time they were making it. So I think they maybe underestimated some, some things like some of the leather that we use is gold foil, and it's more delicate. And so we had a lot of rejections. That's another thing that the sales agent does is they have, she has a team on site that reviews every single shoe. And if there's, you know, glue that shows or the leather has been stained or anything like that, it's a rejection, because quality is very important. And so they had just underestimated some of that process and tried to sneak some shoes that were just not well made. not their fault. I mean, I don't blame them. It's just part of the learning curve. Yeah, and I have very high standard for the product. So that was and that's a difference. Also. I don't want to generalize, but like if you're going to sell something in the US, it has to be top top quality. Every shoe has to be the same as much as possible Givens handmade, but so so yeah, I wasn't going to. Okay. Yes.
Mariah Parsons 22:46
Makes sense. How excited were you when the first I guess? First batch sold out the first 220 shoes?
Lisa Oberst 22:55
Oh my God, it was I have some photos of me in my living room making all those boxes, because I did some pre sales to see okay, can I sell them before I even received the shoes. And I just started selling pretty well. Pretty quickly. And yeah, that was that was just so exciting. It's so much work. Yeah.
Mariah Parsons 23:19
Yeah, I got a front row seat to it with you know, Alicia, and the success of her brand and whatnot. So it's always exciting when she's telling me you know, like, certain certain benchmarks that she's hitting and new colors and presale, you know, selling stuff like that, did you? Because this is also like so intriguing to me for the presale was it? Were you mainly going through like social media? Were you mainly going through, you know, like, email marketing of just or just like, reaching out to people that you know, was it kind of strangers, friends and family? How, what was kind of the breakdown? If you if you have any of that memorized? Or if you know any of that off the bat?
Lisa Oberst 23:59
Well, I can tell you that I was selling to strangers online. Mostly, of course, my mother bought a lot of pairs. But of course, as a mother has to do. Number one model Yes. Yeah. Right as well. But no, I mean, one big concern when you launch a story that is okay, how are you going to get traffic to come to your store and even know about the existence of your brand. And I'm not well versed in that world of paid ads and all that. But again, kind of lucky there. My partner is he used to have a media production agency and he's pretty well versed in the ad buying and all that so together, we put together a pretty fun ad that has been doing really well since then, where I started out in a tree don't like climbing a tree with Walmart and Gotcha. And yeah, and so we put together this ad together and you And that's how I got most of my pre orders. And then orders after that as well. Figuring out something eye catching. For the entertaining, yeah, entertaining and a little bit a little bit different. A lot of shoe brands, I've noticed they make it all about the shoe because that's what they are their shoe brand. I don't consider woman's to be necessarily a shoe brand. I think of it more as it's more about the women. And we're starting out with shoes, but it's really about how okay, how can I make your life easier with different types of accessories? So I want it to be always about the women. I want to show women doing cool things, and then they happen to be wearing beautiful sandals. Yeah. So that was part of the messaging that was out as well. Okay,
Mariah Parsons 25:49
I love that. So carrying through with this line of kind of setting, setting your brand up for success, how then you have the product you have, you know, the media, you have the website all up. So how are you then executing in terms of the the tech that you're adding? to kind of make things a little bit more seamless? A little bit easier for you on the back then?
Lisa Oberst 26:13
Yeah, yeah, that's super important. Because I still have a full time job. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, so for me, the number one concern is okay, how can I make? How can I create systems so that I can scale and make this work without me just going crazy. So in terms of tech, obviously, I am in that world, so I know what tools my my brands my customers are using that are really great tool. So that's why I started obviously, Shopify CLEVEO. So my team is we do retention marketing, using clay VO. So I set up the email, man
Mariah Parsons 26:52
oh, yeah, you know, email marketing, the back of your hand.
Lisa Oberst 26:55
Right. So I set that up. And then I think some some one tip I would say is don't go crazy. Like, I don't need all the bells and whistles, you can just have a few apps working to start with, and then you build up from there. So I set up my Lomo tracking page pretty early on. Because I think it's very important for customers, they're spending about $100 on a pair of shoes that they haven't tried. They want it maybe they're buying it for an event, maybe they're you know, they need it by certain time, it's just important to have that very transparent communication about when they're gonna get it. So that's something I set up pretty early on. And then the way I learned about new new tools that I want to use is by just hearing in the industry, what are people using, like you guys launched recently an integration with a tool called Corso. And so I saw your emails like, oh, wait a second, this tool offers the guide green shipping protection. That's something that I have. I've had a few customers asked me about shipping protection. Yeah, and I do not like dealing with loss packages. So the Okay, this is Mellon was recommending it, I'm gonna look into it. And they also happen to have a returns platform. So I set that up to make my life easier, because returns are complicated. And,
Mariah Parsons 28:25
yeah, and tracking them and all that fun stuff that we get to see on the Malomo side of things of how, yeah, how eager brands are to like, simplify that. The reverse logistics of you know, shipping from the consumer back to back to your warehouse or you know, wherever you're choosing that destination to be.
Lisa Oberst 28:48
Yeah, and actually, you mentioned warehouse that was a big, big part of the growth for Walmart's was going from selling from my living room. I had to basically be at UPS every single day. That was the beginning. And then sometime last year, I decided to start working with a warehouse. And that was very thorough process of learning so much. It's such a big black hole if you don't know anything about that world. And again, I asked around and friends recommended friends who were in that world and who were able to tell me what to ask about what to be aware of. And that was that was huge.
Mariah Parsons 29:35
Yeah, even like if they don't that's such a great point. Because if someone doesn't know, okay, this is a specific warehouse that you should be reaching out to, just to know the right questions to ask because right a lot of the times it's like, like I feel like you don't know exactly yeah, you don't know what you don't know. I it's like hey, sisters, younger friends younger sister was even asking about like apartment rentals and stuff. And I was like, Okay, these are the things that you need to ask or Llandeilo. Like, right, it applies to anything. Almost anything where it's like, you wouldn't even know this unless you've, you know, you've had this experience. So that's a great, great call out of, okay. You might, someone might not know the specific contact with this specific place for, say, a warehouse, but like, make sure you ask XYZ because it's gonna be really important down the line.
Lisa Oberst 30:20
Yeah. And even then I didn't make the right decision. I started working with a partner who was a four PL. Okay, so a four PL, for those who don't know, they're actually like a tech tool that puts you in touch with the three PL which is the warehouse, the fulfillment center. Okay, yeah. And I made that decision for a few reasons. I wanted to have warehouse in the middle of us thinking that since I shipped to California, and to New York, and Florida, a lot being in the middle would save me money. That ended up not being true. So, but I did a lot of the math from the experience I went through and realizing Nope. And if I have any tips about picking a warehouse, I would say, because I just switched to one that I love now. They're called Phase Five, they're in Florida. So they're really they're close to me. So I would say like, stay close. So you will figure it out when you scale and need some another warehouse. But for beginning, just have someone close. And then the reason I ended up wearing with wearing working with the warehouse I'm working with now is their CEO was keeping in touch with me. He was answering all my questions. He checked in with me, he catered the other warehouse, I had no contact with the warehouse. And that was huge. Like just being I grabbed a coffee with the CEO. I'm gonna go visit them as soon as I can. And just like having that connection makes a big, big, big difference. And it's just peace of mind. Yeah, I know that if I send them an email, I will get an answer that day. I know, they care. I know, they they do what they say they will and like, I'll get the information I need from them. Right. Just find a partner you trust and get to know them. Yeah,
Mariah Parsons 32:08
yeah. What's the saying? It's like work with people that you like working with? Or whatever, you know? Something like that of? Yes. Yeah. Something along those lines. Someone will get it. But listeners don't I talked about. But yeah, I love I love that color as well. You know, you can even if you make a mistake, and then it's not too late to, you know, the next year, whatever, if you locked into a contract, right? There's sometimes just expense wise it's, wait a year, whatever. And then switch it. Yeah.
Lisa Oberst 32:36
Because it's easy to think that you're stuck. But what I was telling a friend once I was like, Yeah, I'm freaking out a little bit. And then she remind me you've got options. And just hearing that, like, you know what, I do have options. And I can get out of anything that but but you can't be scared to take the first step. Like I'm glad I went with this first option of the four PL because now I know so much more about that world. So like you never you always have more options. You just have to take the steps to make. make them happen.
Mariah Parsons 33:06
Yes, yes. So I want to pivot a little bit of way from work, like how you're figuring out the tech stack, how you're setting yourself up for success, all that and talk a little bit more about the customer experience side of things, because obviously I know we've that is our our bread and butter here. So can you chat about you know how you're thinking about the customer experience? I know you already mentioned Malomo order tracking, saying you know, someone is spending 100, nearly $100 on these shoes. You want to make sure that it's a good customer experience. So from I guess, like acquisition all the way to customer retention strategies. How are you thinking about? Okay, once this ad that's doing really well of you up in a tree, you're all about, you know, making sure that a woman is supported in her daily activities. How are you making sure that the E commerce customer experience is the best that can possibly be? Yeah,
Lisa Oberst 33:59
so because for me, it's all about the women. I also, I am so happy when I get an email from a customer with a photo I got one from a woman who was in this in France on this cable in the mountains with her woman. She
Mariah Parsons 34:19
likes Oh my God, that's Dumbo.
Lisa Oberst 34:20
Yeah, exactly. It was just like, wow. So that's what I'm doing it for, right for, for those experiences and to see women thriving. And so for me, it's very important that they know me, and I am not like I before launching Walmart. I was not really on social media. i The idea of filming myself talking to an audience like No, but I pushed myself to do that because I want to have that personal connection with every customer as as much as possible. And so there's social media, but then there's obviously emails which email and SMS marketing is what I do all day every day for my customers at the agency. And that really is the best way to create a relationship with your audience. Because you can check in a lot of customers answer my automated emails, and then I go and answer them directly. I have set up systems, I can get into the details, but I've set up a lot of systems to just be super helpful every step of the way. So when they sign up for an offer, I just have obviously a welcome sequence that explain how to pick the shoes, like, what are the benefits of this shoe, and about the brand eco friendly side of things, because that's very important to a lot of customers these days and getting me the fact that we're planning wealth, we're giving a certain percentage to charity to support women in Colombia and all these things I want them to know about the life, the personality of the brand, it's not just a shoe,
Mariah Parsons 35:55
and what they're supporting by buying. Yes, as well. Exactly. And
Lisa Oberst 36:00
then once they buy, um, same thing, like a lot of brands don't have any systems in place for customers once they buy that's, that's not like don't do that. Not the way to go. No, not the way to go. So first of all, in my case, I almost breakeven on the first purchase not Not really but like, because I want to create a long term relationship like I am okay, breaking even on the first pair, because a lot of women come back and buy 234 pairs. Like, if you look at my reviews, which is a big part also of the systems I've set up, like I wanted to build reviews, because you need to have that credibility built out. Most women say, Oh, I bought this pair, I love them. What colors am I going to buy? Next one again, picking my next colors, and they come back and they buy for their friends and, and all that. So so that post purchase experience is so important, because that's where you make money. Yeah, so having like, thank you emails go out, like, thank you so much for your first order, you have no idea what that means to me, like, celebrating here. Thank you for your repeat order of that. And then education, okay, well, you're gonna want to keep them clean. By doing ABC, you're gonna want to wear them in your house for a little bit, like just making sure to have the best experience possible. through emails, you can do that easily. Yeah.
Mariah Parsons 37:25
Okay, so I love that you said the part around that, like nearly breaking even because I think a lot of because you kind of have that. I'm sure you have the data, right to prove it. But you also kind of have that feeling of like, I trust the product so much that when someone shops with us, then they're going to be picking out their next colors, and they know that I can connect with them. And I don't know if you call it maybe like a mitigated risk of okay, I don't need to maybe like hound my customers for a next purchase. Because you trust that they're going to come back because of the data, and the, you know, surveys and feedback and all that that you've seen in the, in the because of the customer experience. And I think it's a very, I guess, understandable thing to not to want to make a profit on that first sale, just because it can be so scary, right? Of Yes, brand new product that you're launching into the world. And it's already hard enough to get it launched. Like what if it fails. So I love that you kind of it was just so it was so little but picked up on it so quick that you have to you can like you can take you can afford to take that gamble. Because you know, you've set up such a great post purchase experience where like on in those emails on that tracking page, you can have that education you can have, you know, this is the other colors, this is the sustainability factor, this is part of our mission, this is you know, your percent of your purchase is going to charity. So I would love to walk through because we we are at the top of this part of the conversation to talk to the tech stack. But for the reviews and like the systems that you're setting up on the Post Pro post purchase side of things I would love if you want to just like give quick shout outs for the systems that you're putting in place the the Tech because I think it's always interesting to know kind of like what's working for you in the background like for those reviews and such. Yeah,
Lisa Oberst 39:26
so for the reviews, I went with one of the cheaper options, but it works great.
Mariah Parsons 39:32
I love that right? Like yeah,
Lisa Oberst 39:33
you don't need to go crazy. It's like a good reminder that I need to remind myself, but I use judge me. That's great. Does the trick systems in place where I ask customers, I offered them a discount if they give us a review. I asked them for photos. I get a surprising number of photos from customers. I saw that actually on your site, which is so fun. It's really nice. Yeah And I've actually gotten some videos from some customers too recently. So that's, that's really great. So, Jeremy has been great for reviews. I mentioned Corso Malomo. Those have been really great for me. And then other tools that I use. So I wanted to have a referral system in place. Specifically, I had it. I set it up pretty early on, because I did have a lot of women were like, hey, like, all my friends are asking me about issues like can I give them a discount or something like? Yes, of course again? Absolutely. And so for that I set up Rice, rice on a guy. Io writes out something one of them, right? Yeah. And it does the trick. Also. It's gift card and referral program and one multiple things at the same time because ops. So just like Corso does the room, the returns and green shipping production? Yeah,
Mariah Parsons 40:59
consolidation. 2024. So it feels like, yeah,
Lisa Oberst 41:02
yeah. And then I also set up in SMS marketing. So a little bit like I'm, again, I don't want to distract myself too much. But I do capture people's phone numbers. So I can send them a text once in a while, I use Klaviyo. For that, I think there are so many benefits to using Klaviyo both for email and SMS together versus Sep splitting them up that it just absolutely no question around that. Um, those are the main ones I can think of.
Mariah Parsons 41:40
That's great. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And so with, I think, also, for our listeners, it'd be really helpful. While we're talking about email and SMS, you just mentioned Klaviyo obviously. So like, the value of transactional emails or shipping notifications versus marketing emails, and how you're thinking about those just even like high level of the main messages, because I think that's something with your expertise. It's, it's like tweaking, right, it's like, just making sure that the customer is getting exactly what they need from a marketing email versus a transactional email that's the post purchase experience. So how are you kind of thinking about it through the lens of Walmart's of making sure you know, your specific customers are informed, but also entertained and retained through the email and SMS marketing?
Lisa Oberst 42:29
Yeah, that's huge. A lot of brands I talked to, when I'm I have my agency head on, they don't, they don't necessarily think of the transactional emails because they come already taken care of in Shopify. And but that's a big, that's a big mistake. Because every single customer is receiving those emails like that is your chance. Those emails have, on average, like a 70%. Open Rate, because they're transactional, the customer is expecting it. It's helpful information. So like, you have to pay attention to what's in there. And so what I've done, because obviously, I don't have a lot of budget to redo some, all my systems as beautifully as I wish I could yet. Yeah,
Mariah Parsons 43:10
that's the key factor.
Lisa Oberst 43:12
But just going in and writing it with your voice with your brand voice and being like, Okay, I have a fun note in one of my emails in one of the shipping emails where I'm okay, check the bushes, check your neighbor. And I have a few customers who have laughed at that. And so that just you know, it's just fun. Yeah. And so I've reviewed all those emails very carefully with some tips, education and things like that. So you take advantage of that email that is most likely going to be opened. And that's, that's a huge opportunity that a lot of stores don't take advantage of. You can't really put that much marketing in there to legally send them as transactional messages. But you can do some, you can just have helpful information, which is a great tool to build a long term relationship with the audience. Yeah.
Mariah Parsons 44:03
And just the intentionality, right, like I buy, you know, the stuff I buy on shop through stores that are hosted by Shopify, like I can tell, and of course, it's because I work in this space, right of like, okay, I know that this is the out of the box experience, right? Like, versus okay, even if the copy is just a little bit different. It's like, okay, I can tell that's at least the founder or the marketer, who's putting a little bit more of a additional, they're putting a little bit more additional energy into that experience, or if they have a Malomo tracking page, then I know that okay, they are then going another step of okay, how are they thinking about the information that I would actually want to know as a customer? So it's definitely it's definitely some level of being in this space. But then I, of course, talk to my family and friends about, you know, what I'm doing or just people I'm meeting at these conferences, right. And it's kind of that aha moment where they're like, oh, my god, yeah. Now that you say it's like, it does stand Get out with like, I can think about the brands that have that extra added experience of, okay, this is what I'm going to, I can go and track and see this tracking page versus, okay, this transactional email that just has, you know, sending you to a carrier or whatever else, right? So I think it's a great, it's just like a little sugar and spice a little something extra, you know,
Lisa Oberst 45:20
right, which makes a big difference. Just adding a little note in the package that you send to customers. It makes it leaves a mark and makes a big bit of a difference. And same with with those messages. Yeah. Something I love doing with those is having an actual headshot of someone is like, hey, you need help just reach out to Lisa, she's available to answer your questions or something. It's no longer a big brand. It's a real person.
Mariah Parsons 45:43
Yeah. Yeah, I know. Also, one of my roommates, she buys I think they're called jova or some something along those lines, I'll fact check it but they're like prepackaged smoothie packets that are it's great nutrient, like, great nutrients, and really high quality stuff. And she always gets she has like their monthly subscription, and always has a note from their founder. And it's different. I think every time or maybe like the first time or then like six months, you're hitting certain, like milestones. And so I'm like Madison, this is so funny, because I'm like, this is the this is the industry I work in, right? Like, this is what I'm talking to founders about just like, oh my god, it makes such a difference. Like, I feel like they know me. It's like something so right, you know, as a consumer, like they don't personally know you, but it's like a pair of social relationship where it's like, okay, you're actually just thinking about me or like, you know, of me, even if you don't know someone directly, or it can mean you know, it's still a significant person who is supporting you and your brand, right. So it's always fun to kind of think through those differences of okay, I feel like a very welcomed customer here and very intentionally thought cared, cared for customer experience. Well, Lisa, this has been absolutely fantastic. I think listeners can tell how much of a fan I am both of you personally, from the fuel made side of things that we've been able to work with on we've been able to work on together. And also since you've founded Well, Mads, I can't wait to rock a pair on my upcoming travels both to Europe and some more some more domestic travels here in the US. Yep. So it's, it's been great. Thank you for making the time. Today. Yeah.
Lisa Oberst 47:25
Thank you, Mariah.
Mariah Parsons 47:26
It's been a pleasure. Yes, yes. And hopefully, you know, everyone goes and shops with romance and you get a big influx, all the all the font colors that you have. Because yeah, that's it's something so, so intriguing that we should be able to have comfort and style, right? It's 2024. We deserve both of those things. Exactly.