E154: Lucia Dello

Richard Hill [00:00:04]:

Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One, and welcome to episode 154. In this episode, I speak with Lucia Dello, Director at DelLo Insights. Now it can be very frustrating when looking at the challenges of attribution, reporting on across platforms and the multiple ad platforms. But Lucia at Delio Insights breaks down, the noise around reporting and dashboards, and the numbers that matter. Now, in this episode, Lucia discusses how reliant retails might be on the incoming peak sales due to a very turbulent year, planning on investing and staying this Christmas, Lucia talks on planning for the festive season. Strategies retailers can implement to maximize their results from the busiest period of the year, and using more holistic view when it comes to dashboarding your business. A lot of gold in this one. So of course, so much more in this very specific episode. around dashboarding and tracking. If you enjoy this episode, subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast, you're always the first to know when a new episode is released now. let's head over to this fantastic episode. Hi. Welcome to another episode of eCom@One. Today's guest, Lucia Dello, Director at Dello Insights. How are you doing, Lucia? I'm very well. Thank you, Richard. Great. Great. Great. Well, we've been trying to get Lucia on for a little while. We had a few technical problems, all I did, a few weeks ago. So thanks for bearing with us. Absolutely. great to have you on the show. So we're really looking forward to getting into this one. before we get into the Q and A and get into the nitty gritty, I think it'd be great for you to introduce yourself our listeners this year, if you wouldn't tell us how you got into the world of ecommerce.

Lucia Dello [00:01:39]:

Absolutely. So I started out. I'm new to ecommerce. I only started reading ecommerce back in 20 21. My background, so I'm a data analyst. I worked at the banks. So I've spent 15 years in the big banks, segmenting their customers, building different strategies for their models, reports, really trying to problem solve a news data to do whatever we needed to do, whether it's changing the policy, monitoring something that was going on. So I spent years years doing that, then I had a slight shift and then went to work for lots of SMEs working with them, understand what their problems were, solving them, doing some bookkeeping, but at the same time, I was quite data focused. Then during lockdown, when that hit us, I'm working for a particularly eCom company, but selling online and saw all this information was going to their ecommerce system, There's lots and lots of data going into it, but when they tried to run the reports out to cope with the beaming demand, products being out of stock, I found it very, very limiting. And then I kind of looked at the market and thought, actually, what's there for the SMEs? I thought for the big companies, we've got a big budget, know what they can do with an IT team. They could build something themselves. I looked around and looked around, I thought, actually, there's not that much, which I really like, which I think SME could use to go with their business and really understand it. Yeah. So that kind of gave me the idea that I thought, sure, I'm going to go with it, set up data insights myself, founder develop, who's also a website guy. And then between us, we've then been working towards ID and customized dashboard. Yeah. So we use a third party group data which is our front end, and our real intellectual capital is getting all the information on Shopify and WooCommerce. And then we're building that into a dashboard, cleaning it, sorting it into our warehouse, and then putting it in the front end. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:03:10]:

Well, you know what? as you're saying all that, I think, you know, the everybody who's listening now, you know, we haven't started yet, but you need to pay close attention because this is quite a rare read. I could tell already because not many people look at this stuff enough. You know, I absolutely don't. You know, I think, you know, they're they're taking data out of, you know, various systems and 2+2 normally equals 5 and they're wondering where the gaps are and where the challenges are, but they're not really sure you know, and they're sort of, you know, well, I think that's working. I think that's working. You know, and it can be quite challenging out there with the the different models of the each platform you know, users to attribute revenue and things like that. So I think, we're in for we're in for a good ride. So obviously work for big banks, huge datasets, and huge, you know, numbers you're dealing with, but obviously now dealing with e commerce stores, you know, ranging in size. So, obviously, that's quite a pivotal pivotal career moment there where you flip from banking.

Lucia Dello [00:04:06]:

to eCom. You know, what was the sort of, you know, talk to me about that a little bit? I think I just love the fact when I left the big banking world and suddenly I got which you know, the companies I was working with rather than sitting there remotely crunchy numbers and not seeing, you know, I didn't speak to a customer and all the time I was working in the bank. Certainly, I was actually working out with these business owners, understand their problems, what they're trying to do. I've really excited to try and say, well, I want to get here. I say, well, there's some data there. If we use the data from this way, we can then get close to that point. So I think it's, you know, really about providing that thought leadership, and I thought so many people are so good on the marketing side, the signal on the product. They've got all these skills, but not necessarily on the data side. Yeah. And actually knowing the capability of the data, being able to explain people and get them excited about the data and how they can use it. Because at the end of the day, you know, a lot of its intuition, you kind of use your intuition to make a decision. when you've got some data to back you up, you certainly think actually I'm confident now I can actually make this decision. No. It measures. I'll never be right. Whatever I predict is not going to be right. to at least you've got that framework there. And that's what really excites me about it. I think helping these business owners try and achieve their goals and say, this is actually how we can measure things This is how we can see what's going on. So for me, that motivates me and I love that side. Yeah. No. I can I can only imagine. Yeah. because it's a it's a big challenge for re for retailers and free stores. Absolutely. It's something we spend a lot of time on in our agency.

Richard Hill [00:05:26]:

you know, we've got a couple of people in our business that's a heavy we're just on a massive project, with a big US brand around data very much purely data and the amount of challenges with it that would have been messed and would have just not been even thought of, really, if I'm completely honest. And what would have then happened? You know, there would have been some major challenges. it wasn't a straightforward project as it was, but it would have been, you know, very, very difficult. So, obviously, when the guys are listening to this, episode. It's gonna be, sort of mid August. We're on the run up to we are already. I'm afraid to say it, but it's so true. We're on the run up Christmas. That's, saying that. What what might be a sunny day when you listen to this episode, maybe. It's not right now when I'm recording this, but it's, you know, we're in the middle of August when when this episode's live. and, we've got, what, five and a half months. Get my math right. No, four and a half months. Sorry. before, you know, how reliant, do you think ecommerce retailers are gonna be on peak season this year? You know, it has been quite challenging know, depends, obviously, I don't know, broad statements, but, you know, it's been quite a challenging up and down year for a lot of merchants, a lot of verticals. You know, how reliant do you think retailers are gonna be on,

Lucia Dello [00:06:39]:

the Christmas season this year? Yes. And it's hard not to be all doom and gloom, isn't it? But when you say 2022, you think, oh, Christmas ended in 2022. lot of the retailers. It just peated out completely. You know, the post strikes hit. Suddenly, everybody went back to the physical stores. So a lot of these retailers didn't start in a strong in 2023. They went into it with more stock than they expected. Their margin costs were a lot higher, and their demand just wasn't there. So they're already starting kinda weak position. uncertain look at the ONS or IMRG or any of these statisticians. They're saying, you know, demand is still down. We know the cost of living remains high in the UK. We've got the inflation rates which we've hit. So we've got the mortgage rates expiring, you know, there's a lot of challenges that are going on. Yep. And so for lots and lots of people, you notice really a big concern. obviously, the summer season again, we've had the wettest July, and I don't know how many years they've just come out on the news, hasn't it? It's a lot of wettest summer has been, so people are alive with us summer clothing, outdoor furniture, you know, again, they're really hit by the weather. Yeah. That's so true. I think, you know, more than ever it's going to be, you know, really tough time for them, especially when they 2024 because after COVID hit, you know, they had 2022 weaker sales, 2023 hasn't been good so far. So they're not in a position where suddenly, you know, the vacuoles come along, the supply bills along, we've got too much stock. You know, they're going to be already starting in a very bad position. We know across the UK, the solvences are rising as well. So we know there's a lot of stretch stretch companies out there already. So whether it's going to be a period of consolidations, businesses being sold, bought up, I think. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:08:08]:

gonna be a lot of change, isn't there? There's gonna be a lot of, you know, you gotta you gotta be careful, I think, you know, this next sort of, 4 or 5 months. You know, as you say, you I'm getting flashbacks to when I was, you know, I, oh, I just run run stores, before I built the at start of the agency. And, you know, as you say, that's gonna be so many things there. But, yeah, I mean, there's terrible weather we've had in August today and back of July, you know, that those industries that rely on the on the weather. I mean, yeah, I might have made a few purchases right at the beginning of the summer, but those, you know, those businesses that are, you know, I've got a 1,000,000 barbecues in stock, or or the rat and furniture or the Yeah. It's quite challenging, isn't it? You know, very much so. And then that time of year, that January, as you say, January, February, when those, you know, those 30 60 day invoices are due from the stock that you bought from November, December, you know, the VAT, the tax, the PA way, and they're all obviously normal bills, but they all can compound and build up in that January time along with, you know, some big invoices. No doubt. So, I mean, in terms of stock. I mean, it's a bit of a challenge in, obviously case by case and the industry by industry, but, you know, in terms of forecasting this year, it's gonna be challenging. Well, I mean, anything say in terms of, like, forecasting for for investing in stock for Christmas?

Lucia Dello [00:09:21]:

Well, I'd say basically, the three things I really think about that if you get your stock wrong, you're gonna go really, be wrong this year. If you haven't got enough stock, you're just going to lose out where people can't buy what they want so you can lose out on your sales. But if you're over investing in your stock and you don't sell it, going to end up heavily discounting it. Hi there. I just wanted to take a quick break to introduce our sponsor, pricing. Pricing is a competitor price tracking and monitoring software. can dynamically change your products, prices, and all sales channels. They work with brands such as Samsung, Sony and Suzuki to increase their online revenue. you're on Google Shopping, which I know a lot of you guys do, this software is absolutely key to accelerating profit. One of the reasons I recommend pricing to my clients is because can find out your competitors pricing and stock availability in one simple to understand dashboard, giving you a huge competitive advantage. If you have any questions about this software, are you rare to get started with a free 14 day trial, head to econone.comforward/contact

Lucia Dello [00:10:14]:

and complete the inquiry form, and we will connect our listeners to the pricing team. Right. Let's head straight back to this fantastic episode. Yeah. And it'll then also, tying up what your captain needs stock. And then also your company will actually look over stock its valuations will go down and down. So I'd say more than ever you want to try and get it right, and your goal's got to be top adviser's stock. If you know your best selling products, if you know kinda what categories or watch particular brands are selling well. And if you manage to invest in the right areas, so you never have to stop the things that you really want to get to. No. It's really a forensic examination. What's best selling? What's new? What's the return rates going on? How's it looking by brand? By category? was your stock to your sales. If you manage to get more and more of those stats out there so you kinda know where you want to go to and get your educated guesses, now I think you're going to be in a better position. And also on the supply side, what what believers have you got? How much flexibility and control have you got in place? Mhmm. Now if you're buying from the US or China, you've obviously got your long lead times. minimum order quantities, the more you can do to kind of reserve your stock, get face deliveries, purchase options on it, you know, the better you can be. also the better terms you can negotiate with your suppliers. So to me, it's kind of trying to get this thing right. Really, really understanding where your products are, where your stock going. I'm actually too that, but not overstocking.

Richard Hill [00:11:30]:

Yeah. Trying to get that balance, isn't it? I mean, there's there's things there you mentioned that. I think, know, we've touched on a couple of times like that sort of, you know, in theory, you've got this, you've got these X amount of suppliers but usually we find, you know, there's a core set of suppliers. Obviously, there's maybe many, many, many suppliers, but, you know, 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7, maybe 2 or 3. core core suppliers. So having those really good relate, obviously, there was relationships going back to some fundamentals of just good relationships. When's the last time you went and sat and had a drink or a pint or a, you know, and sat in an office with these key suppliers that might represent, you know, 10, 20% of your supply line. You know, if you're thinking about, you know, maybe the dozens or hundreds of customers they've got, are you are you top a top of mind, center of mind when it comes to trying to get that extra 2% or some marketing rebate or an extra 30 days when it matters in January renegotiating. But in a But I think people can go too far with that as well. Can't they? When they're just like, well, I mean, you know, they get and then they sort of go to the bottom of the park potentially. We've all seen that. You know, we get inquiries come through, and it's all a price and it's like, well, I feel gonna be a nightmare.

Lucia Dello [00:12:42]:

You know? So, you know, it's trying to get a balance, isn't it? Building good relationship. you know, I think is, and trying to help them as well because if you've managed to give them an idea of what you can order every month and what you think it's going to be, If they understand where you think you're going to and where you're trying to get to, they're more likely to be more supportive as well if you do need to change it as the season goes on. Yeah. That's a great question. The more you've given them to start with the better that relationship is and the more accommodating they are as well. That's a great point. Obviously, you're paying a picture of the you know, your your your plan is not just for a 3 month period, what if it may be or free for you talking about the year to 2 years and your plans and you know, if you're listening to your this podcast, your investment into the digital side of the business, the marketing,

Richard Hill [00:13:23]:

you know, the the platforms, the tech, the tech stack, the insights, from from you guys, you know, the the sort of educating your suppliers on your investment into your tech tech stack marketing. show them, you know, different. You're also then differentiating because you're not just a guy that's built a Shopify site site and it's just moving boxes. you know, in theory, if you listen to this podcast, you're doing a lot more than that. You know, you you're investing heavily in the brand to know in the bigger picture. you know, and you're doing, you know, x amount of £1 a year. but, you know, yeah, when we step back this challenging time, you know, I I've read through the previous recession 2008. And, yeah, it wasn't fun, but it will end, you know, and it will things these these you know, obviously from a banking background, you know, these sort of things like banking investment, you know, I do a lot of personal investments, you know, on the stock market and different things. And, yeah, you know, it's like, you have a bad 3 month from what the year, you know, potentially when you step back, print it for the long haul, you know, those those those bad times usually are a blip.

Lucia Dello [00:14:27]:

So it's obviously been able to ride those bad times. That's cool when you can spot grown and what's really gonna take off as well, where you can work out where you want to get to. You're seeing something new comes out, how well it's selling, you know, you can then tell the supplier I'm getting really good feedback on this. see that. You know, if you're on top of it straight away, you can actually start really working towards going to the future, while I'm just saying to us all one for 5 years. Let's buy it again. You know, you can completely change your mindset.

Richard Hill [00:14:52]:

It's trying to find those gems, isn't it, in a in a in a obviously, love it depending on how many products. You know, we've got clients sell one product, clients sell 60,000 SKUs or more. So but amongst those larger merchants, you know, obviously, it's it's, forecasting, you know, maybe that 5% of product the fast moving or the, you know, there's different things at play there. Isn't there? Obviously, there's cash flow side of things, but there's also, Well, there's all sorts of things. but having, yeah, you need certain lines in that might not be that profitable, but then you, you know, you're acquiring customers potentially that are then they're gonna come back and buy, obviously, additional, you know, and there's that sort of Cbo valued lifetime value. So in terms of, like, sort of acquiring new customers and returning customers then, you know, what's your take on that? Obviously, your your your sort of our data led mindset, you know, and that, you know, obviously, a lot of our listeners will be, you know, they're they're investing to a point, I believe. talking about everybody, but most people that are listening, we've, you know, we're a 155 episodes in. If you've been with us a while, you know, it's not just about acquiring customers. Clearly, you wanna retain them, and you've gotta you've gotta wow them so they come back. So in terms of your, you know, your your stance on what rate retailers should be doing, terms of acquiring the, retaining?

Lucia Dello [00:16:13]:

Well, I would say we all know that acquiring customers is a lot more expensive than retaining customer. we know that acquiring customers has got more and more expensive recently as well. So I think that more and more retailers are really trying to focus on their existing customers, get better loyalty programs, get more joiners with them. And, obviously, it's easier to do for certain things and other things. If you're selling garden furniture, that's much harder than if you're a coffee, manufacture, for example, but I think really it's about being able to know the effects and measure each one separately because if you're just seeing the revenue for the month, you don't know how many new customers you've added. you can't tell your customer lifetime values. You don't know the repurchase rates you're existing customers. Yeah. And again, even for your customers, you know, you've got your registered customers and you're opted in customers. So they're not the same people. I think it's really, really trying to get to the granular detail, then you can actually monitor it and track it as well. And even by channel, I see an examples. One company I work for on their Amazon customers who got far higher repurchase rates in their direct to website customers that they solve the same things on bikes. Actually, it's really when you get to that detail. You can actually really, really start seeing where the splits are. that will really guide your strategy because then you can see, actually, I'm trying to check this many new customers. This is where they're coming from. You know, this is the amounts that coming through, and then you can separate them off. So I think it's really trying to get to that detail level. If you haven't got the data to do that, I think you might spending money, but you don't know where you're spending it. You can't measure the impacts a bit. And I think for me, that's the most frustrating. It's about the fact that, you know, you spend your money, but can't see the value.

Richard Hill [00:17:38]:

So somebody's listening now, then they're doing, you know, that's that's paint a picture of, our I shouldn't say typical listener. I'm a I apologize listening obviously, there's a lot of you doing, x and some of you doing ten times x, but let's say you're doing £5,000,000 a year on a Shopify store, I'm selling out of, one country at the moment. let's let's pick the US. And we're doing $5,000,000, should I say? 5,000,000. I apologize. $5,000,000 a year through Shopify store in the US. You know, what data should they be really focused on as business owners of that business or the people that are running the marketing? What is the date? What data should they be focused on? to shape the strategy for the coming year?

Lucia Dello [00:18:24]:

I think they're I think they need to completely separate their new customer strategy to their existing customer strategy to start with. Yeah. And I think for their new customer strategy, they then want to look in all the new customer measures in terms of the acquisitions, how many are they attracting each month, as well as look at revenue. You also need the volume of customers as well because I'll see the price is rising over time. It's really going down to the volume. So yep. think set one target how many new customers am I attracting a month and look at them over time, how their tranches are going, how they're behaving when their repurchase rates are for those existing customers. then you can obviously go down to where they're coming from. Do you want to talk about the attribute type

Richard Hill [00:19:01]:

attribute bit? Yeah. Attribute should. It's tricky, isn't it? You do know we've got a standby now for the episode.

Lucia Dello [00:19:12]:

I'm trying to say attribution and -- That's it. -- that's the way I'm trying to say. I think. But again, I think also I know a lot of the certainly, the web agencies I look at, they work with pro analytics and triple whale as well. Yeah. And they're very interested in those and the way they could break down everything. And they are good. You know, they like I say, they really do work well, but I think they only work if you've got enough of expenditure going on. You know, if you're a smaller company, you just aren't spending the money justify the cost of them. because you were at $10 a year on 8 for Triple Way. I I I think somewhere there. Obviously, the bear is on, yeah, Yep. I think those are good, but I think you just need to have this money to do that. And if you don't have that money, it's then very hard. So for me, I think that I would if I had the answer to that, I'd be very rich. You know, I could actually be everything that no one else could, that'd be fantastically rich. And I'm sure you think the same Richard. But it's all I think really about the purpose, the purpose of each effort, because I'll see if you're advertising on something like TikTok, you might be on the awareness side and building your audience. So you've got to think, how do you measure that? And that would obviously be on terms of people producing maybe your website, people clicking on the links that way. Whereas if you're trying to measure your Google Ads in, you're obviously looking for their direct return on that, but you can never isolate the fact that someone might look at your Google Ads, then buy it on their smartphone on a different day. So I think it's just a very, very hard thing to do. But if you've got a good dashboard set up, and you can actually break down and explain everything. That way, I think that kinda gives you the framework for it without your dashboard where you can really see the effects. I think you can't measure the overall picture. And then you get the complete frustration of this money being spent, but not being able to see what's coming back -- Yeah. -- and getting the results you want, but it's realism as well. the moment, I think it's just hard to get the results that people saw, you know, 3 years ago on their advertising spend. So -- Okay. So, obviously, you mentioned dashboards.

Richard Hill [00:20:56]:

And I think, you know, that's something we're a massive fan of here at the agency. You know, a lot of data as we've as we're as we're sort of everyone will realize in their in their business. You know, if you're running 4 or 5, marketing channels or probably 5 or 10 marketing channels, you know, and you look at each channel's individual reporting, you know, and you add 2+2+2 should equal 6. $600, but when you look at, you add them all together. You might have $800, but you know when you log in the back of Shopify, you've got $600. There's $200 missing or million quid missing, maybe if that's a yearly type thing. And, obviously, that's a real challenge. So in terms of attribution and dashboarding, obviously, it's sort of two things there, really. you know, what sort of things do you guys do, you know, at Delo in terms of building dashboards to help simplify the data?

Lucia Dello [00:21:46]:

Yep. So we're very much we look at the sales status IP Lakers. So we're actually interested to take everything off Shopify and when commerce. so we're interested in messing when a sales made, once a sales made, we think that Sierra, which is least analyzed of everything that goes on. Yeah. If people spend all their for all their time, all their money into getting the sales in. But when the sales in, actually, it's quite hard sometimes. You look at the revenue, you might want to know how many people are buying multiple products per order, You might want to say, you know, what the you want to break down so many people order 50 to £100, 100 to £200, how's that changing over time? what's the revenue coming in by channel. So we're kind of more interested in this kind of longer term view. Yeah. If you look at the customers, you want to know the geographic location of the customer set to buy. Most of their new returning customers. any difference in their behavior if they use particular discount codes. We then get on to the product side. So again, we look at the stock, the return rates, how the spare it over time. So we're really interested in this kind of longer term view to understand how your portfolio is growing over time. And from that, you can actually, it's my customer base increasing or decreasing if it's worth £5,000,000 a year ago, is it still worth £5,000,000? Have I added enough new customers as the average order rate gone up to? keep that stable is actually decreasing. So I think we're trying to provide that kind of perspective where we kind of cut out all the marketing noise in a way, and so actually this is what's happened. might have spent this much money, but this is how many customers you got this month. This is how many new customers you got last month. This is if they're better or worse customers. we're really trying to start right at the end, and then you can then figure out how's my marketing worked because I can see really what's happened to my bottom line. Yeah. And obviously, you've you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, know, if your customers haven't stayed or the products have gone back, they obviously haven't been the right people in the first place. Yeah. A lot of key metrics there, but I think a lot of people Unfortunately,

Richard Hill [00:23:33]:

sorry listeners don't have their eyes on. Not enough. You know, they might have, you know, in a, you know, like that returns number, you know, you know, if you for easy maths, you know, doing 10,000,000 a year, but you've got 200 grand sitting in your returns department. Well, you know, that's 2% of your revenue, is sitting in returns department. If you're working on, you know, let's say you're working on 10% net profit, you know, you're gonna make a 1,000,000 quid or 5th of that sitting in a returns department sitting on your balance sheet at maybe 200 k rare, tears in mind, we're worth 60 k. That's a big number. You know, you you know, it might be 5, 10, 20% of your actual gross profit at the end of the year or net profit. Sorry. is saying in the start that you are sort of just trying to forget about, you know, you need to shift it, but you maybe not try, you know, you know, so it's having a strategy well, to sell it, but if you haven't got the data set and you haven't got that on your dashboard, for example, at front and center, then somebody responsible to clear that a stock, you know, or keep it below an an amount, which is maybe, you know, half a percent of x or less than $20 or depending on the on the on the business. or you have a, you know, way to clear that, you know, obviously an error on your website to clear that as an obvious easy option. But, obviously, you're making sure that dead stock you know, just an element. So for the guys that maybe wanna start with dashboarding, you know, I think, you know, we were, you know, sort of step into the ages, really. We were a massive fan of GA dashboards back in the day, you know, and, very much so. And then day studio. Obviously, it's had a little rebrand over last 6 months for Luka Studio. It'll always be date studio to me, though. Sorry. Luka Studio. are you do you use these sort of tools and and work with those, you know, with your own, or, you know, would you recommend, look a studio to to our listeners?

Lucia Dello [00:25:19]:

I think they're all great if you've got the skills. So if you want to have your own dashboard, it's great if you know where you want to get to, and you can kind of cope with the kind of data model behind it. But in our experience, what comes off woocommerce and Shopify, you get lots and lots of different tables. Yeah. They're structured in quite unfriendly ways. you know, so you've got your parent products. So if you're selling stocks and under your child, you've got, you know, all your different sizes of each stock each each stock each color. So they rapidly get very big and very, very complex. Yeah. So the kind of solution we have is we take that pain away. If you like, we try and simplify all the tables. We put them into 1, which is called good data. is not on these dashboards. So a company could buy good data and do it itself. But we kind of do a lot of the pain about it. We do the calculations. We might have for a product time since it was last sale, we look at the return rates, we look at the return rate when the item was ordered, not the date it got returned. So obviously, if you look at the Black Friday returns, look at items bought on Black Friday and not look at a nice January figure where the returns have gone up. So we kind of try and do a lot of the simplification we can work out if you're an EU. the UK or the rest of the world sale. So we're trying to take away a lot of that complication of a company having to do it themselves. Yeah. You know, because companies are smaller and more, and if they don't have a data speciality to actually design a big product, set it up and code it themselves, takes a lot of time and money. or the lookers, you know, have got their own solution, but again, they're not particularly cost effective if you're not a big player at the moment. So we're very much eCom in with a dashboard, which is you kind of plug it in quite quickly and that's a standardized one. Yeah. And then we can customize it to what you want to see. So you still got a hotel or retail channel, you then take your tags, which represent your wholesale customers, and then we can build you one revenue suite that says wholesale. Yep. And the other one will tell you a direct to consumer. know, people so you can then see how they're behaving. So it's really trying to get behind on what you want to see in building that up whilst taking the pain away. So we directly take the data off the systems every day, put it in, code it, pre kit, and then bring it out to the dashboard so that she can then independently run. You can do all the exporting to CSV. You've got PDF files. you can do your weekly email reports from it. Yeah. So it started in Recommerce. We've had that running for a while. I mean, now, almost there is Shopify. So we've got a Shopify retail and we're working with them. We've almost got it working with a private one. And over the next few months, we'll then get it on the Shopify app store. Brilliant. Brilliant. We do the cleaning as well, and we're checking every day. We do a check every day that the figures match what Shopify says. We match it to our own numbers. We then check for missing data or anything that hasn't worked in the load. So we've kind of got all that service behind it in terms of actually, you know, rather than just getting some numbers, not necessarily knowing what they are. We know the coding behind how we've created every single field. So if you want to know what a new customer is, we can tell you what that is. Yeah. That's great. We'll, well, we'll we'll have a chat on that more, off the call and, look at linking up, you know, when everything's ready, we'll link up in the show notes.

Richard Hill [00:28:01]:

so our Shopify and, WooCommerce listeners can can take a look, and we'll we'll do the same as a team. And, you know, we'll we'll we'll have a chat more on that. But I think, yeah, just as you're talking I'm sure a lot of listeners are sort of thinking about, you know, just when you've said about those return, you know, you you have that book, you know, where, you know, so many people are sort of Black Friday, I think the the uninitiated or it it the ones that, I think the ones that we're doing are a long while. They know that can tell ever a lot of money for a lot of pain potentially, you know, where there's not enough margin and there's a lot of returns, you know, it's like you say 6 weeks later when Christmas rolls around and you realize, actually, that many include we did around Black Friday. We've just got a 150 grand back with my lost money. We've given away free shipping with with with package stuff up. We'll think about it. Hang on a minute. don't wanna be busy full. We never killed the warehouse. we we got 50 bad reviews because we didn't get all the orders out, and we actually lost money. Okay. For for 5 days, we have an extra $300 on the bank or whatever it may be. But the reality is, you know, be thinking and using data dashboards as an example. Obviously, you've got a plan before with effect. but, ultimately, you know, do you wanna have a Black Friday where, okay. we actually made some bloody good money. We sold the right products where the margin is. You know, yeah, we use it as an opportunity to maybe clear some returns know, some old stock mixed in, you know, and and whatnot. we sold the right things, the things that we know the invoices are due on, maybe, the ones we've got you know, the ones we've got 30 days to 90 days, the things that we know, because the dashboards tell us that if somebody buys this, they're more likely to, rebuy and recommend and rebuy again, you know, so we're now we've used Black Friday to acquire the right type of customer that gonna ideally not send the thing back because we solve the right thing. and they're gonna recommend, you know, the CVO element using the data from things like the dashboards and you know, then you can then, you know, fire up your email marketing, your SMS marketing, etcetera. You know, it's an opportunity to sort of you know, and we see a lot of clients doing this. You know, the savvy ones will rather than write. Black Friday, 20% off. That's that's suicide. You know, you can use it to bundle. You can use it to discount, but do it in a clever, web, clever way where, you know, if you spend a typical order might be 80 quid, just as an example, but if they take 3, 4 items, you know, you give a a level of discount based on a bundle or something like that as an example. Obviously, you've got the average order value. to maybe three or four times what the normal is, in in the frenzy of of Black Friday. and, obviously, that's, you know, you've quite ideally acquired a better customer. So, yeah, we could talk about this or their daily share. I think that's some great points. I think a lot of our lessons will be like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe have a little rethink. So dashboards. Yeah. any sort of final points on the dashboard side of things then, So,

Lucia Dello [00:31:03]:

obviously, there's a few options out there. We're gonna link up your ones, but what else would you say to the listeners? Well, I am doing a free Friday promotion at the moment. So I could take your last year's Black Friday if you're using WOO, and I think Shopify will be ready very soon and actually do the analysis for you. So say that's on my website at the moment. Yep. I think I'm all about planning, measuring, executing. I think that's a message which I'd really put across. you know, your Black Friday might be a success. It might be a disaster, but know why you're going to do it, know what you did before, know what sold well this year, and then really plan it execute it. try and refine it for next time, I think, is what I'd say. And it's all about, I think, as well, once you've got your nice dashboard, you then got a good board pack as well. when you've got a strong board pack, then everybody in your team knows what's happening. You've got your strategic direction. You've got your operational plan behind it, and you can measure it and measure but if you haven't got the data there to measure, you never know if you're going to succeed or not. So I think for me, the dashboards, yes, for me, they're exciting, but for a business, it's all about this board pack. this management information, and everybody having the same picture at the same time, not spending their time getting donated together, but spending their time understanding the results and using it. So for me, that's 6 it doesn't actually the dashboard, you know, the dashboard for me is just a channel to actually managing the business better. Yeah. What's better, listener?

Richard Hill [00:32:18]:

than having a one page dashboard potentially. Maybe maybe more than that is, you know, it's really the pulse of your business. you know, and and and from that then, you know, whether, you know, we we have a similar thing in our business. You know, we've got a marketing dashboard or sales dashboard. our accounts, you know, our clients, you guys listing, you know, dashboards, and then there's somebody that's responsible in the business for each of the core. Well, the main numbers for each of those, but it's a one pager for each department in some cases, and then that is culminated in one dashboard for all. and it's just a simple, you know, pulse of the business. but we know that you know, for certain areas, for for for making it easy to explain. There's a 6 out of 10. We know that's a big problem. If it's something that's a 6 out of 10, so if it's the things are, you know, 9 and above, that's great. You know? But, you know, we need to action and do things if the numbers aren't where they should be. So okay. So, you know, so we've talked a lot about Black Friday. We've talked about dashboards. you know, and and sort of prep him for for this, you know, it's in in effect busy season. You know, hopefully, those poor guys that are selling them Ram Furniture And Barbecue's about a bit of sunshine by now. Yeah. Unlike a lot of Europe, which has had sort of, heat waves. So there'll be, whoever's doing the air con in Greece right now. It's gonna be doing very well.

Lucia Dello [00:33:49]:

I will. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:33:50]:

it was 4 I was there last week. It was 45 degrees. it's I'm pretty crazy. so, you know, what would you say is one thing? If there's one thing that a customer listener right now should prioritize over the 12 next 12 months, what would that be?

Lucia Dello [00:34:08]:

I think they kind of want to have their best case and worst case and then what they expect to happen. I think if they can get to the point of action, I think this is what's going to happen. If it looks really good or look like this, if it really looks really bad or look like that, once they manage to set those figures up and then start tracking them, they can kind of work out where they are, but I think with everything going on with all the constrates on the economy and also the financial pressures at the moment and thinking about the stock, if they can really turn what's in their numbers into some targets, and then set, you know, best case, worst case, what might happen against it? I think that's the way to go. I think just monitoring, revisiting, and really trying to work out who you are. on a far more granular on a far more regular basis than maybe they've had to do in the past. I think that's the key to survival for me. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure this year to have you on the show. I'd like to end every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book to recommend to our listeners? I have. I've got one called Islands in the Sea of Red Ink. Islands are profit in the Sea of Red Ink. Well, give us a quick give us a quick look at it. Have you got it there? Or -- I do. Oh,

Richard Hill [00:35:11]:

Islands Islands of Profits in a sea of Redding.

Lucia Dello [00:35:16]:

Is it by Jonathan? buyers. It wasn't very strange screen. Haven't I? But chapter 10, if you go down to chapter 10, he's talking about opportunities and recession. so that was particularly relevant. Wow. And so basically, you know, when things are tough, actually, it's a great opportunity because when times are good, you know, it's hard to change things because your times are times are tough. You can really start cutting out things which aren't working for you, focus on the most profitable areas, really expand those. Yeah. Try and revisit your supplier relations, try and think about how to get your customers working better, how to do more selling, and then making strategic changes as well. So when the economy picks up, you're then in a better place to take off. So he's saying, basically, don't stop spending money in a recession, she makes sure you spend it very carefully. and use it to position yourself. So when everything does improve, you can really fly then. So for the retailers, it might be about their new CRM system. They've been thinking about doing. Yeah. Yeah. It might be around the fact, you know, can their supplier jointly produce some new products with them, something like that? Can they create a catalog for a subset of their services? or products which set, you know, target a particular market. So it's got a nice example. So on selling safety equipment, it never selling very well with low price, but they did this beautiful catalog. put it to the right people and suddenly, you know, got a premium on it. So -- Yeah. That's it. A lot of businesses come out of these tough times, don't they? You know, it's like, well, we're doing a bit of this. And then it became the main business sort of thing, or like you say, they're maybe layering in a b to b side. Or yeah. No. That's brilliant. Well, obviously, so many takeaways in this one. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for inviting me.

Richard Hill [00:36:46]:

No problem at all. for those that to find out more about your your self Lucia and, Dello Insights. What's the best way to do that? Yep. Well, my website's datainsights.com

Lucia Dello [00:36:55]:

where I'm linkedin.

Richard Hill [00:36:57]:

Yeah. Brilliant. We'll link that up in the show notes, and thank you for coming on the show. I'll speak to you again soon. Thank you, Richard. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to the ecom@one ecommerce podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit subscribe and don't forget to sign up to our e commerce newsletter and leave us a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the eCommerce marketing agency.