E84: Chloe Thomas

Richard Hill:
Hi there, I'm Richard Hill the host of eCom@One. Welcome to our 84th episode. In this episode, I'll speak with, Chloe Thomas, fellow podcast host at the eCommerce MasterPlan and Keep Optimising, multiple eCommerce author and all round eCommerce problem solver. It was well over 18 months ago that Chloe was first on the show in Episode 2. This time around, I get an update on what she's been up to and what's been happening in the eCommerce world.

Richard Hill:
We dive into all things black Friday. It's not all about discounts. We discuss making sure the period is super profitable and using the opportunity to move the right stock and have an enjoyable time. Specific promotions for luxury, luxury retailers, how to promote and the best ways to prioritize your marketing work flow for the maximum profitability.

Richard Hill:
If you enjoy this episode, please make sure you subscribe, so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode.

Richard Hill:
This episode is brought to you by eComOne, eCommerce Marketing Agency. eComOne works purely with eCommerce stores, scaling their Google shopping, SEO, Google search and Facebook ads through a proven performance driven approach. Go to ecomone.com/resources for a host of amazing resources to grow your paid and organic channels.

Richard Hill:
How you doing Chloe?

Chloe Thomas:
I'm good. Thanks. Great to be here again. So thank you for having me back.

Richard Hill:
Seems like not that long ago you were on our second ever episode, which was right at the beginning of this journey.

Chloe Thomas:
It was ages ago. Wasn't it? It feels like yesterday, but I was looking at it earlier and it's like... that was a while back.

Richard Hill:
No, it is actually crazy to think, start out as a bit of a... let's start this podcast journey and here we are. I think it's 19 months later since we last spoke thereabouts. And we're episode 84/5, so 84 podcasts since we last spoke is a long, long time really in the eCommerce world. So I think it'd be great to kick off. And so, what have you been up to in the last 18, 19 months?

Chloe Thomas:
Well, you say it's been a long time in eCommerce. I think it's been the longest 18 months in eCommerce ever. I have so much sympathy for all the retailers out there right now, because I think you were all pretty exhausted at this time last year and it's just been even more crazy. So, whilst I've been up to quite a lot since we last spoke it's nowhere near as much as the average eCommerce marketing manager. So I'll just put that caveat up there. I guess, three big things have happened since last spoke.

Chloe Thomas:
One, is I launched a second podcast called Keep Optimising, which is all about eCommerce marketing, not conversion rate optimization. Chloe shoots, scores and loses on the naming conventions again. But marketing focused podcast all about eCommerce called, Keep Optimising. So that's, just over a year old. We ran a virtual summit earlier this year, which was a lot of fun. And then the third, and I think the most important thing I've done since we last met, since we last did one of these is, I left the office, went to an event and met you face-to-face Richard.

Richard Hill:
I remember it well. I think you jumped out of your skin when I gave your bear hug or tried to give you a bear hug.

Chloe Thomas:
It was amazing to see people in person as everybody's saying at the moment. But it's been a really interesting 18 months.

Richard Hill:
Wow, wow. I mean, obviously I was a guest on the podcast eight months ago and obviously many episodes have passed. And obviously I know that you've had some amazing guests on there, so we'll link that up as well. Obviously, you get some of the best guests in the industry. That's brilliant. And obviously to meet you at an event, to go to an event, obviously to meet you is fantastic. But what a buzz, I think, was a couple of days at the NEC in the UK and just to see partners, to see obviously customers, new people in the industry that are coming through, new faces, obviously some great talks. It's great to get out there, isn't it. I'm looking forward to going to other stuff soon.

Chloe Thomas:
It was a lot of fun. But my event attending batteries and not what they used to be. And it took me, with the full day on a train to get there, the full day on the train to get back. That kind of wiped me out as well. I think it took me three days for my brain to start functioning again. But it was thoroughly worth it, but I won't be doing it every week. Let's put it out way.

Richard Hill:
Going out of the house every week to an event. But I think, guys listen in events are back. And I think when you listen this episode, they'll still be back. And I think definitely, I'm a massive believer in Chloe's too. A lot of magic happens at events, face-to-face, getting out there, meeting. Whether it's a agency focused or the eCommerce focused or your specific industry that you're in. Obviously being out there meeting potential new suppliers, new partners, and just that buzz around your industry, it was brilliant. I think it's three weeks ago now we've been back and still-

Chloe Thomas:
I think it's longer than that. I think it's been a month.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chloe Thomas:
I'm still working through the ideas and the connections I made on the day. It's so powerful.

Richard Hill:
I think just to put it in perspective, we went to the same event two years ago, and this was better, better for us. Better content in the room and conversations in the room, I generally thought. And we've been doing these, as you have, for a long, long time, different events and live events. So events guys, get yourselves back at your industry events, I think is a big takeaway there. So 18 months down the line and we're literally on our doorstep around the corner, Black Friday. So I think we're going to dive into Black Friday, Q&A, see what's been going on. And some of you, obviously, I know you've done your own event around Black Friday, you have many, many episodes around Black Friday recently on your podcasts or podcast. So in your opinion, I think it's a great question... What campaign you're running? What are you doing? What are you doing? What's the discount? What's this, this... Should every store run a Black Friday campaign? The pressure's on should they, shouldn't they, what's your opinion?

Chloe Thomas:
I think you should do it if it's the right decision for your business. But there is no rule book that says you have to do Black Friday. There is no rule book that says how you have to do Black Friday. So it's a brilliant opportunity to turn the consumer appetite for spending this close to Christmas, this key part of the holiday season to meet what your business needs at the moment. And I love the fact that you are hearing this very, very close to Black Friday because what your business needs to get from Black Friday might be different today than it was in October. Because this is a chaotic Q4. So reassess your plans, even this close to the big day itself, reassess those plans and ask yourself, should we be doing it or should we cut back? Should we up it? Should we down it? Go back to going, what do we actually need and want to get from this?

Richard Hill:
Great, great answer. And I think then, so off the back of that, I think some people, I'm answering my own question, but some people, some companies, I think maybe, they give a discount for giving a discount sake potentially, and they don't really need to. Or do they? So what are your thoughts on discounting, maybe discounting heavily? Do you think it can affect a brand? Obviously, it depends on the brand maybe. But what are your thoughts on sort of discounting?

Chloe Thomas:
Well, I think the first thing I'd say, is I know of brands last year who didn't do anything for Black Friday. They had no discounts running on the website. Or brands who regularly do run discounts, but they had nothing going because they were low on stock as so many of us were and so many of us are again. And they did nothing, not even a logo Black Friday, they weren't sending any marketing out that week. Nada. And they have their biggest day of the year on Black Friday. So if you think you have to discount to get sales on Black Friday, you are wrong. And be warned if you're not doing anything, you may well see a sales spike. As to how much you discount? I have, for those of you watching on the video, I have props today.

Chloe Thomas:
And this is the first prop. This is one of my marketing mantras. And it's that, "A promotion exists to get the customer to do what you want them to do as cheaply as possible." A promotion exists, Black Friday exists to help you get the customer to do even what you want them to do as cheaply as possible. Which all starts with, what do you actually want the customer to do, which customer are you targeting? And then the cheaply as possible bit is simply because it's so easy to go, oh, we do 40% off everything. That's probably not the cost you need to pay to get the outcome you want.

Richard Hill:
No.

Chloe Thomas:
Probably not. Almost certainly not.

Richard Hill:
Lose money. Do a million pounds, lose a hundred pounds. Great.

Chloe Thomas:
Yeah, exactly. I was at an event, an online event, a couple of weeks back where one of the mail order companies was saying about how they'd had a bit of a panic when the pandemic drop off happened. And so they went, "On our next catalogue mailing we'll remove the spend barrier from the 12 pound credit." So you get 12 quid off if you spend over 50 quid is what they would normally do. They removed the spend band. They reckon it costs them, I think, it was 1.5 million just for removing the spend band. Because they analysed it. They went, this was a stupid thing to do. We got panicky. We gave away money we shouldn't have given away. So please don't just discount for the sake of a discount when you're using your money, because that's what you do with a discount, to get the customer to do something you want them to do.

Richard Hill:
I think that's so important. I think people just rave on about what turnover they had over that weekend or that week or that month or whatever it may be. Oh yeah, we had a cracking week, we doubled what we did last year. But how much money did you make? How much money did you give away? How much stock did you sell out or lost maybe or when you're factoring everything and that net, net, net bottom line profit. So I think great, discounts.

Chloe Thomas:
And especially this year when the supply chain issues of getting that product in, you may not have much product. So in which case, why are you giving your margin away? And then secondly, some of the price increases that are happening on containers, on shipping. Because of all the glut and people getting stuck at Felixstowe, and all the rest of it there's crazy ass charges going on with empty containers which are adding huge costs onto your product. So your margins are getting squeezed from the bottom up. So please don't over squeeze them from the top down.

Richard Hill:
So I think hold is the word. Hold, stop with that discount. Have a little [inaudible 00:10:49] before you go to your creative team and get your 40% banners set up. It's like, hang on a minute. So, we're not going to discount. So what are we going to do? That's the magic question. What are we-

Chloe Thomas:
I would say, we might discount but we would selectively discount. So identify a few products. There's also that fact that for some brands discounting isn't the right thing to do anyway. So what do you do instead of a discount? I think bundles are a really powerful thing to do on Black Friday, because you are upping the spend level, the average order value, which is always a nice thing to do. And you could do a certain amount of pre-prepping because people are probably only going to want buy one bundle. So admittedly we're a bit close now for pre-prepping, but you could start now putting those bundles together, ready to ship them out. And if you're really savvy, once again, we're possibly a little bit late to do this, but this would count for another promotion, is you can get specific products that are really high margin and add them into your bundles that raise the perceived price and massively increase your margin or your ability to discount without giving away too much margins.

Richard Hill:
You're not discounting your margin because you've got maybe 100% in there or...

Chloe Thomas:
Yeah, exactly. So I'm a massive fan of bundles. Free gifts are another great alternative to discounts. Again, if you're going to do a free gift either have it something that's been lurking around the warehouse for a while, that you can't shift, make it something light, make it something with a massive margin, between perceived value and what it costs you. That can be a great way. And ideally something, which especially this time of year, either someone wants for themselves or they can easily give us a gift. That's the key criteria for a successful free gift because then people really want it. The other side, which I think is quite an interesting one that people are, I'm anticipating we're going to see quite a lot of this year is things like loyalty points and delivery discounts and VIP club incentives. So we're seeing less of a call to action to buy, more of call to action to engage more with the brand, but still wrapped in a purchase format. Does that make sense, Richard?

Richard Hill:
So yeah, absolutely. So as a brand you are winning customers, you're retaining them. You're trying to get them to buy again because they've got their points that they need to redeem. Makes sense. I think that all makes sense. Absolutely. I think bundling and thinking about what's sitting and lurking in the warehouse. Everyone's got that pallet or five that's been sitting there. Some of it's got value and it's probably on your end of your accounts at $20,000. Thinking, Jesus, there's no way it's worth $20 grand. We need to clear it out and be realistic at the end of next year. So let's clear it out, get it through in a different way, rather than it sit on the balance sheet, maybe at 15K next year, when it can clear through. So yeah, I think that's brilliant.

Chloe Thomas:
And the other thing I will add in to that if you're not discounting, if you're not doing Black Friday, a really crucial thing to do is to tell the customers why you're not doing it. I think there's a lot to be said about this at the moment, to be saying we're not doing it because our warehouse staff are really busy. Our customer services team are really busy. We don't want to overload them. Our stock is stuck out there and we want you to still be able to buy up to Christmas. We saw during the pandemic the power of being open and honest with your customers, this is another opportunity to do that. Even if you're doing Black Friday, but much smaller than previously, again, explain to your customers what's going on, tell them the emotional, the real reasons behind it. And you will build something bigger with your customers than just giving them a discount.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. And they're probably going to want to buy off you even more. Is the reality-

Chloe Thomas:
Yeah, that's the unfortunate potentially outcome of it.

Richard Hill:
The honest sell more. Because it's so true isn't it, there is so many challenges out there with stock. Every paper we pick up is, can't get this, can't get that. Well, what was it the other day, I was in... Crisps, couldn't get crisps. Couldn't believe it. I was in Tesco, no crisps anywhere. Not that I buy my crisp online to be fair, but actually that's a bit of a lie. We did have a subscription on Amazon for the Walkers crisp boxes, but we cancelled them.

Chloe Thomas:
And Weetabix is a problem because their workers are on strike.

Richard Hill:
That's not good.

Chloe Thomas:
So if you love Weetabix for your Christmas day or New Year's Day breakfast, buy your Weetabix now. I predict a run on Weetabix.

Richard Hill:
Weetabix and crisps get them down. So, we've made some decisions as a store that we're not going to discount or we're going to [inaudible 00:15:21], we are going to discount, but we're going to be super selective. And really bottom line is we're looking at the margin and that what's going to happen a week, two weeks later when we sit down and count the coffers. What did we make? And what do we clear potentially? And a few other angles there of what customer base we built and so forth.

Richard Hill:
But obviously again, then marketing what you're doing and getting that message out there. Obviously, it's going to be quite noisy, I think, isn't it. Every brand's going to be doing something. Give us some insight into what you would say. You want to get out there, cut through the noise this next couple of weeks. It's not even that far away. What would you say? How are we going to market the Black Friday deals offers, et cetera?

Chloe Thomas:
Well, Rich, I'm going to split this into two sections because it partly depends on who you've decided you're putting your Black Friday promotions in front of. Who you want your limited Black Friday stock to be bought by. Is it new customers or is it existing customers? Maybe you are doing a mix of the two. That's perfectly acceptable as well. But I'll split my marketing into the two.

Chloe Thomas:
So existing customers, if you're looking to reward them for being part of it, turn them into repeat buyers, deepen your relationship with them. It all starts with your own channels, email, SMS, if you're using it, direct mail, if you're in that as well. It starts with getting that right. And making sure you're sending an interesting email probably more frequently than you want, but how much you send is going to be based on how much stock you've got to shift and is also going to be around which segments. So you might not be emailing the whole lot. You might be emailing, maybe the people who are signed up haven't bought in 12 months. You might be emailing your most recent buyers. Segment to manage those stock levels and avoid disappointed customers.

Chloe Thomas:
Then the next thing I'd add into the mix is remarketing. So be that remarketing listing for search advertising over on Google ads, be that RSA if you're Google shopping campaigns, be it general remarketing on Google or similar things on Facebook or any other platforms you're using. That's where I would probably stop with the existing customer activity because it's probably enough. Probably going to sell through on that basis.

Chloe Thomas:
Then on the new customer side of things. And this list is on the basis that I'm assuming margins tight for all the many reasons we've already discussed. And obviously when it comes to a promotion existing to get the customers to do what you want them to do as cheaply as possible, one of your costs is also your marketing cost and the time cost too. So I would start on a new customer front on the partnership side of things. So whether your partners are other brands that you work with, so they can include a mention of your Black Friday and their Black Friday emails and vice versa. Whether it's your customers, maybe you've got a customer referral program and you want to give them an added boost for a Black Friday impact. Whether it, maybe you've got a VIP club maybe who can provide referrals because you're talking new customers. Or be it that you've got maybe some influencers out there that you're working with too. So I'd start with that, which is going to give you the biggest kind of bang for your buck.

Richard Hill:
More profitable, more likely than probably where you're going now.

Chloe Thomas:
Yeah, exactly. Yes. Probably depending on how good you are at the next thing on my list, which is ads. So, your Facebook ads, your Google ads. Which can go from the highly profitable to the highly unprofitable. So segment accordingly people. And then owned channels. So often we've got an inquirer list, which we could use for across our email or SMS, but that's what I do. The other thing I would probably do on the new customer piece is I would pay particular attention to people who've newly joined on the existing and the new customer side of things. I pay particular attention to people who've joined in recent months.

Richard Hill:
I think that's a fantastic list. I think I love the way you've ordered it there. The way I see it is, getting more bang for your buck with your owned. The customers that you own, the data that you own using that it's going to cost you little [inaudible 00:19:30]. And then moving through partnerships, I think, a lot of people forget their partners don't know this time... Let's get the ads running. Let's double the ad spend... Hang on a minute. We've got all these guys that we've been working with, partners, existing customers that are going to be very low cost or right at the top our list instead of the bottom of the list. So I think great, great list.

Chloe Thomas:
Admittedly, I'm coming out of two months of recording influencer marketing and podcast episodes about loyalty marketing. So I'm quite big into partnerships at the moment. But I firmly believe that one of the big marketing pushes we're going to see in 2022 is the use of partnerships in all shapes and sizes because they are an amazing solution to the iOS issues.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So true. Partnerships guys, I think-

Chloe Thomas:
Partnerships, partnerships.

Richard Hill:
Partnerships, I think, it just get overlooked, hugely overlooked with a lot of stores, everyone sort of doing their thing and quite insulated, maybe, and isolated. I think it's really important one. So this year, I think, what do you think we're going to see that we don't normally see another 12 months down the line? Obviously, we know it's going to be, we assume and we know that it's going to be crazy, but anything specific you think this year is going to stand out over the book-

Chloe Thomas:
I am absolutely fascinated to see what happens this year, because last year was weird because we were in this strange position where we had the online only companies who we're running out of stock, broadly speaking. Because sales have been so crazy all year round and supply chain had minor disruptions compared to this year, but we'd called them major disruptions then. And then on the flip side of that, you had the physical retailers, the high street retailers, who just had far too much stock. So, you had people who had running discounts for months, quite frankly, not just over Black Friday week-

Richard Hill:
[inaudible 00:21:31] sale everywhere.

Chloe Thomas:
Yeah. It was with massive margin reductions because they just had this stuff they needed to clear. Well, there was quite a bit of that had cleared by the time we got to the autumn, but it was still having an impact. This year, I think, how it shapes up all depends on which containers make it through Felixstowe, to be honest. And how well companies adapt to yet another set of changing criteria that's outside our control. And we've obviously got prices starting to rise. We've got inflation. I think one of the other interesting things is, feeling this a lot at the moment, is the consumer's interest in sustainability. Which at some point leads to them buying less, at some point. So I'm intrigued what the impact, especially of all the COP26 news in the UK, what the impact of that will be on consumer habits. I don't think it's going to make a lot of difference this year, but I think we'll start to see it from 2022 onwards. So I'm fascinated to see what happens.

Richard Hill:
Stop One's so going to play a massive pie, isn't it? He's so reliant on that supply line and obviously there's a lot of challenges at the moment. Make sure your haulage and your importers and you've got your fat money ready or whatever. All the different elements that could potentially delay you by that day or three or five.

Richard Hill:
I remember a time, I'm going back some time now, and we had a challenge. Before we had the agency, we had our own stores, we were selling digital photo frames. This is 14 years ago and there was... There was peak, container after container. We did it for three years. I was in there in and out, sold the business. But one particular container basically didn't arrive for Christmas. And I had $240 grand sitting on the container that, well, it arrived on the 23rd of December. It was like, absolute nightmare. It was a nightmare. It was absolute flipping nightmare. So January I'm sitting there with all my profit for December and then some sitting in a bloody warehouse, in the warehouse. So it was a problem. It was a big problem at the time.

Chloe Thomas:
I like that story because one thing I will predict about Black Friday is that there's going to be some retailers who have that scenario, but sell the products before they arrive in the warehouse. And we will, which if you're managing it well, it's perfectly possible to do. But I suspect we have some hideous stories probably in the daily mail going, such and such retailer scammed people over Black Friday, which of course you didn't, but that's what they're going to put it out there as.

Richard Hill:
They're going to want their refunds, aren't they, if you're not delivering those products for Christmas. Which are Christmas presents, which are no use in January. Probably 80% of those orders are going to get refunded depending on the product, obviously.

Chloe Thomas:
Which you might see as being, well, at least we tried to sell them if we sell 10%, but all that extra workload and faith and bad news about...

Richard Hill:
We ended up doing a deal with one of the huge onliners, I'm not going to mention them actually, but they're several hundreds and hundreds of millions online. And we sold a job lot, but I sold them at cost. I made nothing.

Chloe Thomas:
But at least they went.

Richard Hill:
No, I was happy with that. Fortunately we had quite a lot, there was a lot of margin back there, it's like 120% or whatever. But I lost what would've been a hundred plus sort thing, well, more than that. But we managed to clear them, which was flat, but if we hadn't I'd have been staring at them for another flipping 12 months. Because it was one of those products.

Chloe Thomas:
It was a gift product, wasn't it?

Richard Hill:
It was in and out. We did it for three years, but it was really like probably a year sweet, a 18 month sweet spot but after that Christmas, they sort of died of death. Everyone man and his dog had a digital photo frame that they never really used anyway in the end.

Chloe Thomas:
No one could work out how to put the photos on it but it looked like a very good gift.

Richard Hill:
I've still got one in my office somewhere in a box. So if you ever see digital photo frames on people's shelves, if you look at the back of them and they say Pictoria on them, that was the brand that we built back in the day.

Chloe Thomas:
I shall keep a look out now. Anyone, if you see me weirdly looking at the back of electronic photo frames, you know why.

Richard Hill:
I remember exhibition two years ago, it was a local exhibition and somebody had a photo frame and they were another agency and so I went over and I think they were, they thought, oh, we're going to have a chat about agency. I was like, no, I just want to have a look at your photo frame. And it was one of my photo frames from like nine years before. It's quite busy. I think maybe any sort of quick fire additional tips for Black Friday. So we've mentioned using your own-owned media and your own data to market. And obviously which is going to give you the best margin. But any other things that you think, oh, actually there's this, this, this, and this. Any sort of quick fire.

Chloe Thomas:
I think this close to it, the key, and to be honest I'd be giving you exactly the same advice if we were doing this in August, is remember the promotional quote I shared with you earlier.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chloe Thomas:
A promotion exists to get the customer to do what they-

Richard Hill:
Let's get a good screenshot.

Chloe Thomas:
There we go. So remember that, "A promotion exists to get the customer to do what you want them to do as cheaply as possible," and keep reviewing it. That's the other key thing. Is how does what you want to happen change as we go through the next few days, the next couple of weeks, right up to Christmas, how do you need to change that? How does that change your marketing mix, which channels you're using? How does that change what discounts you're doing? What stock you've got? Who you're talking to? And just take a step back, probably once a day, and just go hold up. Where are we? Is what I'm spending my time, effort and money on worth it? Or should I be doing something else? Because I know you're all really tired. I know it's been a really long two years and be a bit kind to yourselves. You don't need to create the most crazy chaotic Black Friday ever. You can achieve your objectives without doing that. So reassess.

Richard Hill:
I think that's a brilliant, brilliant 30 second snippet there. I think the end of the day, make it profitable. Don't worry yourself stupid for nothing. And don't worry yourself stupid full stop. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Get the mince pies in. Have nice weekend while you're doing it. And hopefully you have a very profitable weekend. So I think it'll be important to maybe just jump into a couple of things, mistakes that you see. So we're making sure that our listeners are avoiding, I think, obviously we've talked about, not just sort of giving away stock and just giving away that margin. Any other big mistakes that you see that our guys need to avoid?

Chloe Thomas:
I think the other biggest one is not managing customer expectations around delivery. It's the company who are clearly going to get slammed because they've put a crazy discount on their stock. They've not set a limit on how much stock they're willing to sell at that discount. And they've still got next day delivery if you order before 8:00 PM. And you're like, it's not happening.

Richard Hill:
That's not going to happen.

Chloe Thomas:
It's not happening. And the customer services team are probably looking at it going, "Oh God, they've done it again this year." So A, don't set yourself up for failure with delivery speeds. Downgrade them for Black Friday. Period. Please be kind to yourself. Be kind to your customers. Surveys have shown that customers do not expect fast delivery over Black Friday. They're not expecting it. So downgrade it. Take the option off your website. And make it really clear at every stage from your marketing through, so your email marketing through, probably don't put this on your Facebook ads. But from your email marketing through, we are going to get the product to you as soon as possible. Our warehouse team are going to work really hard. Our customer services team will work really hard, but it's not going to be with you tomorrow. So please, Phil, will keep you updated. And then proactively update them post purchase with what's going on. Which enables you to be kind to the rest of your team.

Richard Hill:
I love it. And potentially put a premium on next day, may be a bigger fee than normal. Make an extra X over to pay your warehouse a nice little bonus at Christmas potentially.

Chloe Thomas:
But only do that if you've got a reliable way of grabbing your next day delivery orders out and put in fast tracking at your warehouse.

Richard Hill:
And then know when you've done your X. We can only get whatever it is, 500 [inaudible 00:29:58] out. Right. Turn it down, turn it off, switch it off. Well, Chloe, that's been amazing. I think that's been an absolute fire of an episode, loads of great stuff. So if you're still with us now, there's a lot of stuff there. And the countdown is absolutely on. So implement, get things sorted, get squared up, and have a really good Black Friday now. Thanks so much for being back on eCom@One, it's been an absolute blast. Now, as you know, I like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do we have a fresh book 18 months later?

Chloe Thomas:
We do have a fresh book. And this is so not related to Black Friday. You couldn't believe. So, I have the prop for those watching on the video. So the book is, The New Chameleons: How to Connect with Consumers who Defy Categorization by Michael R. Solomon. And he is a professor in America of, I'm quickly double checking on the back before I get this wrong, he's a marketing and consumer behaviour professor. He's awesome. I interviewed him for one of my podcast recently.

Chloe Thomas:
And basically what the book is about is, it's about how complex we now are as consumers. So, I'm one person at work, one person at home. I'm not one person on the school rung, but people who have children are one person on the school rung. We wear all these different hats. We have all these different needs and we buy differently depending on which sector of our life it's in. So you can't just go, my target market is women who are 25 to 30, who are ABC ones or something. It's more about the whys and the facets of people's personalities. And the book is brilliant to explaining how to embrace that. And that is going to be key for next year.

Richard Hill:
That sounds insane. I am on that. I'm all over that in about 30 seconds time. So thank you once again. And for the guys that want to reach out to you, find out more, what's the best place, the best way to do that?

Chloe Thomas:
Ecommercemasterplan.com, is where you'll find everything I am currently up to and have been up to probably as well. So, ecommercemasterplan.com.

Richard Hill:
Wow. Thank you so much for being on eCom@One. And no doubt I will see you for the third time, 18 months time, I'll see you then.

Chloe Thomas:
Cheers Richard.

Richard Hill:
Bye-bye.

Richard Hill:
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