E201: Shaun Loughin

Richard Hill [00:00:04]:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill the host of ecom at 1 and welcome to episode 201. It's 201. The 200 was a couple of weeks ago now. We've had a little break and we're back with more. Episode 201. In this episode, I speak with Sean Loughlin, head of commerce and technology at Lemure. With 20 years hands on experience in ecommerce and international expansion, we had to get Sean on the show.

Richard Hill [00:00:26]:
We taught the mission behind Lemure and their strong focus on brand and the positive impact that's been having on sales. What data is really important when it comes to scaling an ecommerce store business successfully. And Sean shares Lemuel's focus for the coming year. And, of course, so much more in this one. If you enjoy this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this show so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. Hi, Sean. How are you doing? Morning.

Shaun Loughlin [00:00:57]:
How are you doing, Richard?

Richard Hill [00:00:58]:
I'm really good. How's things at your end? Busy.

Shaun Loughlin [00:01:03]:
Same answer I always give whenever I'm asked that question.

Richard Hill [00:01:07]:
Oh, but we'll step into that because I think that's, a standard, isn't it, in this industry? Alright. Any anything to do with what sort of the type of role you're doing, and obviously, always a lot going on, so we'll step into that business. But, Especially this time. We do. We've been yeah. Yeah. We're literally, crazy quarter is upon us, isn't it? Which is, it's good, but it's, yeah, has its has its challenges. Interesting.

Richard Hill [00:01:31]:
So, before we get into it, I think it'd be great for you to in to introduce yourself and how you also got into the world of ecommerce.

Shaun Loughlin [00:01:39]:
Sure. So, my name is Sean Loughlin. I'm the head of ecommerce and technology at Lemure, which is the leading equestrian brand in the UK, very rapidly expanding internationally and becoming a a global leader in our space. And to be honest, I never had any intention to work in in this field. It's, it's not something I studied for or consciously decided to do. It just kind of naturally happened. I, I started in my early twenties in the warehouse of a tiny motocross distribution and mail order business in the west of Ireland, of all places. People might have picked up my accent, which is kind of watering down to a Terry Wogan esque drawl at this point.

Shaun Loughlin [00:02:22]:
I think I've just approached the point where I've been here, for more of my life than I was actually in Ireland, so I'm officially a plastic paddy now, I think is the term. Uh-huh. But, anyway, 15 years after I I joined that company, was one of the largest action sports retailers in the country, and we had 20 websites, 80 staff, operations all over Europe, and I'd worked my way up from carrying boxes in the warehouse to being the, the MD. And if I'm honest, I'm still not entirely sure how that happened.

Richard Hill [00:02:53]:
So you've seen it all, I guess, you know, from, packing that box, probably probably well, Shane, where's the tape? You tape the boxes to to to obviously everything that comes with being an MD, people, purchasing, process, you know, obviously, the list the list goes on. So quite a journey then. A lot of things we can step through.

Shaun Loughlin [00:03:13]:
I've done a little bit of pretty much everything. I'm a jack of all trades, and I would hesitate to say a master of none.

Richard Hill [00:03:21]:
I'm sure you're very, very modest, but we'll find out in a minute. So tell me more about Le Mule then. So, obviously, that's where you've been now for, I think, just 6 years ish. Yep. So tell me more about sort of the mission behind Le Mule.

Shaun Loughlin [00:03:38]:
The mission is to enable riders to look good, feel good, and perform at their best all year round. That's the, the official company company tagline. And our our ambition is to be the most exciting question brand on the planet. And that that, wording is chosen quite carefully. It's not to be the biggest. It's to be the most exciting. So think Ferrari and not Toyota.

Richard Hill [00:04:01]:
So, obviously, 6 years, you must have seen quite a bit of change. You know, obviously, 6 years in. I guess you didn't come in packing boxes. You still came in, fairly, fairly senior in the business. Obviously, now, 6 years later, how's the business changed, as you say, in that 6 years?

Shaun Loughlin [00:04:16]:
Years, not 6 years. Although it has it has gone quickly, but it has gone quickly, but not that quickly. So I I I joined as as head of ecommerce, and the ecommerce department when I joined was was one very talented, smart, equestrian lady who'd who'd built the the website pretty much on her own with a bunch of external agencies. Yep. And, I I've kind of built that up over the last 3 years to, a a ecommerce a full ecommerce technology setup. So there's, you know, 17 staff, various little teams within the department. And over that time, we've grown the business, 200%.

Richard Hill [00:04:57]:
Oh, wow. Incredible. Incredible. Yeah. So maybe the Teams then. So you've got so would you say, obviously, when you came in, then there was no Teams. It was all external. Obviously, with a very smart owner, sort of at the helm, very much taking control of the of the ecommerce side, but then you came in with no sort of full time ecom staff or, you know, sort of technology and marketing staff.

Richard Hill [00:05:19]:
And now you've got 17. Step me through that sort of, how did you tackle that? Where did you start? How did you sort of decide on the different teams?

Shaun Loughlin [00:05:28]:
So there there was an ecommerce manager who was a completely self taught lady called Jodie Bradshaw, who I was very lucky to inherit because she's actually, very passionate equestrian as herself as well. So she built the website kind of for herself, being a customer, and that's that's why it works so well. So I was very lucky to join the the, the kind of basic infrastructure was there and was good. And it was just about getting more traffic to the site and getting more eyeballs on it. The brand was very well distributed. So there was a bit of brand heat. It had a large social media following. So it it was just about Yeah.

Shaun Loughlin [00:06:03]:
Like, sort of capturing the demand that was already there. So, you know, scaling up the digital marketing efforts and just doing kind of bread and butter ecommerce. And the early stages were fantastic because everything we did worked because nothing had really been done before. Yeah. So, everything we switched on just drove results, and it it was a it was a great time.

Richard Hill [00:06:21]:
Mhmm. That's an interesting one, isn't it? Because I think just literally quite often, just certain channels just not been active, you know, activated. You know, whether that's, you know, different, shopping channels, whether that's invested in SEO, whether that's working on TikTok. I can see you guys. I was on TikTok last night. Believe it or not, it happened. And, the you know, I saw some of your I can't remember exactly about some some obviously, some of your content on there. Obviously, a lot of channels which we'll step into.

Richard Hill [00:06:49]:
But I guess, from going from sort of 1 person to 17 ish in 3 years, that's quite quite a growth, isn't it, in in 3 years? What's been sort of 1 a year, 1 or 2 of your key learnings on the hiring side? Obviously, I think there'll be a lot of people listening, that are sort of, you know, on similar revenue terms, maybe as you guys, or approaching, those revenues. And they maybe got a mix of team and agency, but really maybe 17 is quite quite a big team, isn't it? Now I know you're about a 100 people. Well, according to my LinkedIn stats,

Shaun Loughlin [00:07:23]:
you're about a 100 people total. Is that about right? 170 now.

Richard Hill [00:07:29]:
Oh, do you know my stats are completely wrong at all today? I do apologize. Don't trust LinkedIn. Somebody's getting fired. It was me. So we're about 100 I'll do that bit again, though. We're at about a 170 people, Sean. And, obviously, when you came in 3 years ago, there was just a handful. You know, maybe 1 lady there, represented the marketing side.

Richard Hill [00:07:51]:
Those sort of key hires that you've made, you know, how step me through those.

Shaun Loughlin [00:07:56]:
The first kind of big hire most significant was a a data manager because one of my biggest challenges Yeah. It was just there was no data. There was nothing. You know, we didn't even have the ability to build a Google feed. So I spent my first 4 weeks Yeah. Manually typing into a spreadsheet to get a Google feed built. So, we we we hired a a data manager, brought in a product information management system, and that just completely changed the game because it just gave us access to information, gave all our wholesale customers access to better data, meant that there was one single source of truth, meant that we could do things like scale up a marketplace business, which was just completely incremental revenue, and meant that we could localize and internationalize and translate the website and and scale up in a way that was manageable. So that that was a massive unlock, just getting that kind of digital basic digital infrastructure in, and that kind of allowed us to build on from there.

Richard Hill [00:08:55]:
Yeah. That that data feed, I think, we're we're having a conversation right now with a with a brand. I think they're about 20,000,000 that don't have shopping. You know, they they don't they don't run shopping. They've got they've got about 50,000 SKUs, and it's just like, wow. Is this actually a real conversation? Yeah. So they're in for some really good time soon. You know, we are I'm actually with them this afternoon.

Richard Hill [00:09:15]:
Actually, after this call, I'm heading that way to to have a meeting with their with their team. But

Shaun Loughlin [00:09:21]:
They're gonna have a great

Richard Hill [00:09:22]:
I mean, that takes years. Yeah. I can't I'm I'm actually so excited for them because it is just like, wow. You know? They're they're part of a bigger group, and some of that some of the group have it, but this particular brand that they've acquired doesn't have it. And we look after the other feed, so it's, yeah, that's gonna be, you know, good times for them. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:09:41]:
So, obviously, that you mentioned that, obviously, you spent that sort of 3 or 4 weeks, you know, with, you know, that that person came in. You identified that and worked with them to get the the feed right and get that data right. That a lot of different marketplaces, different languages, the ability to to to obviously open up in different markets. Any sort of tips on that in terms of the data feed? I think, you know, most, obviously, ecommerce stores are are using, should be using, a data feed. But any sort of things you've learned along the way along the way around data feeds that are a bit more than having color and size and and and price breaks and any sort of any specific sort of little little bits that you add into the feed or you're conscious of that are really, really important that's maybe not as known? Product description.

Shaun Loughlin [00:10:27]:
Just good unique product descriptions. I mean, there's so many retailers that use the boilerplate stuff provided by brands, or there's so many brands that, like, have a hire a junior copywriter, which is something that just blows my mind because you you spend so much money on your sales team, your reps, your people who go out there and sell your product, and then you put so little effort into the the the thing that is your kind of virtual salesman online, which is your your product description and information. It's it's just such a big miss for most companies.

Richard Hill [00:10:59]:
Yeah. It still, it still begs belief that people take that feed from, say, the manufacturer, distributor, and just pull it in, dump it in their site, and they're done. We're off of that. And, obviously, as you say, copyright, rewrite, make it unique, make it the best copy, you know, you know, the way that Google is gonna, you know, list that product. If it's searched for based on what you've called it in the feed, you know, getting the right variables into the description, not just into the the other variables, if you like, or the custom labels. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's amazes me still.

Richard Hill [00:11:35]:
Yeah. It amazes me still. So, now when you're looking at different marketplaces and different, maybe, countries to go into, you know, how do you sort of identify which ones obviously, you've tried a few now, no doubt stuck with a lot of new marketplaces or maybe countries as well. You know, step me through that thought process and some some of the learnings from that.

Shaun Loughlin [00:11:58]:
So it's kind of about organic traction for us. There's so much spillover from the UK market in our space because England is, like, kind of the center of the English riding equestrian market. Yeah. So in the US, for example, you've got Western and English. And English is like think of dress size, show jumping, that kind of thing. And Western is think cowboys and and bucket rock guys. And, we're very much in the in the English side. So England is kind of the mecca for that.

Shaun Loughlin [00:12:26]:
So there's a lot of spillover from the UK market into other countries, and we can just see where we're getting organic traction. And very early on, it was identified that the US was the big opportunity, so that we went after that. And now it's about European markets. So it's it's, again, it's based on where we're getting organic traction. So it's Germany. It's France. Soon, it'll be Spain and Scandinavia. And Yeah.

Shaun Loughlin [00:12:50]:
Rather than a kind of scattergun approach, which is what I, you know, I took when I joined, we've now got a more joined up approach. So marketing, you know, sales and wholesale, and digital are all going in aligned with a sort of market entry plan that's more coordinated. So you've got boots on the ground. You've got digital presence. You've got events, and they all kind of feed into each other and create the snowball effect. So our our biggest our fastest growing market at the moment is the US because it's just being hit from all angles. And Yeah. That's been that's been incredibly successful.

Shaun Loughlin [00:13:24]:
And it it's new to me because I've come from mainly online pure play where, you know, you what you do online is everything that you live and die by. So it's just really it's interesting to see the impact of physical availability in markets and events and these other kinda offline things and how significant they are and how much they contribute to this snowballing effect.

Richard Hill [00:13:45]:
So looking more at these literally looking at the organic side, what's happening on the ground in effect, in the different countries. So do you have sort of you have people out there that in these different countries?

Shaun Loughlin [00:13:56]:
Yep. Yeah. So we have a full US team. We have a a very, very good partner in, the Benelux and the DACH region, so Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And, we work very closely with them, and they just basically operate as extensions of the internal team. And we we're putting a fair amount of effort into making sure that that everyone's aligned and kinda singing from the same hymn sheet.

Richard Hill [00:14:19]:
So then do you start with let's say you've, you know, you've identified identified the US, so then you're obviously, you can physically see that. You can see it in on, obviously, on, like, organic search socials, organic, Google, for example. Obviously, on the ground, there's different shows. There's a there's a whole, sort of, what's the word I'm looking for? There's a whole, sort of series of shows, exhibitions, a whole community you can genuinely see building. But then, obviously, then you have to decide, you know, which, maybe, performance strategy you're gonna roll out. Do you sort of start with, like, Google Shopping? Do you start with have you got, like, a go to strategy on the paid media?

Shaun Loughlin [00:15:01]:
So we use a digital first market entry approach because it's just the most efficient financially. It's the most low risk. And, yes, absolutely. Google Shopping search in general is a great one because it's demand driven. Right? So if somebody's going online and searching for your product and saying, I want it, there's you know, that you know there's some level of demand there that can be met. So that's step 1 is definitely Google Shopping because it's just super Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:15:26]:
Easy. Demand that yeah.

Shaun Loughlin [00:15:28]:
And it's typically profitable, and, you know, a certain amount of it is definitely incremental. And then we back that up with with paid social, and then we start to look full funnel. So then we start to look at, you know, offline physical availability in stores with expansion distribution, and all other channels. So we take an omnichannel approach to, physical availability and sales, but also to digital marketing.

Richard Hill [00:15:53]:
Yeah. So, obviously, I, we had a little chat off camera. I know you've been very busy recently getting the 35,000 square feet of warehouse, sort of, off the ground. And now do you ship internationally from there or well, while we're talking about US, I mean, I'm intrigued myself. Are you shipping everything from that one location worldwide then?

Shaun Loughlin [00:16:14]:
We are currently. So we do have physical distribution in the US, which mainly serves our wholesale channel and our marketplace, FBA business. We've got, some physical distribution in, the Benelux, which serves parts of Europe. But the vast majority of what we do ships from our main HQ in the UK, which is kinda spread like a spider all over the, the south of the UK. So we filled up the current building. We took another one. We took another one. So we've got this kind of spiderweb of, of warehousing, which has made things incredibly challenging for the operational team, especially as we've scaled up.

Shaun Loughlin [00:16:52]:
And we're now getting to the point where we can consolidate that into one location. So we've built this enormous new warehouse, the one that you're talking about, which is gonna enable us to operate from one big campus in Hampshire, which is is gonna be game changing for us because we're used to operating from 7 or 8 different locations.

Richard Hill [00:17:12]:
It's an interesting journey, isn't it? You start with, you know, what you believe is, you know, the right warehouse, and then ecommerce is a very, obviously, the potential growth in different industries is is it can be wild. You know? There's such a such a short space of time. You get that second warehouse. You think we'll never we won't need anything bigger than this. You know? And then and then the 3rd, and in your case, the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and then you're like flipping heck. Well, this is getting quite obviously, many years ago probably, it was becoming more and more challenging and, you know, having the right systems in place, you know, the right ARPs, the you know, obviously, there's a lot. We do a whole episode just on that. But It's it's

Shaun Loughlin [00:17:49]:
classic, it's classic growth pains, though. You know? It it these are good problems to have. I I certainly didn't feel sorry for us.

Richard Hill [00:17:57]:
No. No. No. No. No. I was seeing that. I'm getting flashbacks. I'm looking at the the picture of your 35,000 square feet warehouse.

Richard Hill [00:18:04]:
I had 20 I had 20 k when I was doing this, at Square, and I remember buying the racking for it. I can remember how much I paid for the racking. This is, like, 20 years ago. And I was really impressed with my shiny, aluminum feel, racking. It was like the aluminum y look. I Can't remember the actual material. It wasn't the sort of traditional red, sort of power racket. Although it was power racket, it was like different different different style with the with the, yeah.

Richard Hill [00:18:29]:
Yeah. Good memories. But yeah. Like

Shaun Loughlin [00:18:31]:
It doesn't stay looking tidy for very long in my experience. You wanna get your pictures early on.

Richard Hill [00:18:37]:
Yeah. I can remember putting the stickers on, you know, while going around, and the guy at the other warehouse team were putting all the stickers on for the bin numbers and the, you know, and all the the numbers and stuff. And I was really annoyed that all all these stickers were on this brand new bracket. It was like yeah. Good times. Like you say, good problems to have. We are sort of, investing in that. But, obviously, I think that'll resonate with a lot of listeners that going through that journey of, you know, basically, you know, potentially getting a bigger warehouse, investing in the racking, and and so forth.

Richard Hill [00:19:09]:
So you've been part you've been a bit that's been a bit part of your role as well then, the warehouse piece.

Shaun Loughlin [00:19:13]:
Yeah. So I, I inherited the IT department halfway through that project. So it's it's a it's an enormous multimillion pound investment the company's making. And, obviously, the IT infrastructure is very key to that. Our, our ERP system has had to go through quite a lot of cyclical development phases to get it ready for that. We're getting very close to peak, and we're still not 100% ready. So I am getting a little a little bit twitchy and nervous, but, I'm sure we'll pull it off. We normally do.

Richard Hill [00:19:43]:
Yeah. I mean, we sat here on 22nd October. This will be live in a I think on Monday, actually. So not no won't be long. But, yeah, you got you gotta get your wiggle on.

Shaun Loughlin [00:19:54]:
We we should be releasing the piece of development that's needed on Monday into the live environment, and then we will we will deal with the next fire that starts burning after that.

Richard Hill [00:20:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. Now you might be looking for an SEO boost, a down to earth digital PR campaign to share your story, or maybe just some straightforward technical help to amp up your performance. Now that's where Ecom Now comes in, a partner that's all about making things easier for your online store. Our services cover everything from creating professional content for your ecommerce categories to refining your product descriptions. Now whether you're just starting out or been in it for a while, we're here to deliver real impactful results that add to your bottom line without unnecessary commitments.

Richard Hill [00:20:40]:
You can order one off or multiple projects with a quick turnaround. Simply choose what you need. So, obviously, looking at your LinkedIn profile, looking at the history of, you know, the different roles, you very much been sort of responsible for the growth of of different ecommerce businesses, obviously, to Mio right now. But in terms of sort of improving valuations, we talk about this quite a lot on different podcasts. We've done pure podcasts on on on valuations and and building value and selling. And, you know, what has been the sort of your experience, and what would be your recommendation to ecom stores that are sort of trying to build the value in their ecom stores and the, you know, the let's say, if we're gonna go with EBITDA as the sort of common denominator across the industry, you know, what sort of advice would you give to ecom stores that

Shaun Loughlin [00:21:31]:
are looking to keep building that EBITDA value? I'll tell you about the biggest and most important lever that contributes to EBITDA profitability and and success overall. And it took me 15 years before I fully understood this and it's it's brand. You know, the the strength of your brand dictates absolutely everything, your conversion rate, your retention rate, your customer acquisition costs, your resilience to price increases, economic downturns. And the the thing is with brand, it it introduces perceived value on top of intrinsic value. Right? So it's it's why Rolex costs twice as much as an Omega. Yeah. Even even though an Omega is the same product, even a technically superior Omega will still be miles cheaper than any Rolex if you can even find a Rolex that's available to buy. And the only difference there is brand.

Shaun Loughlin [00:22:24]:
And I I know that that may not directly relate to a lot of, multibrand retailers, and I think how does that impact me. But if you think of, like, any of the big retailers like Amazon, like ASOS, they have brand. And that defines, like, how you can respond to everything. If you have to put your prices up, how well is your business gonna absorb that? If you have brand, reasonably well. If you don't, very, very difficult. And that that's the thing that really adds value to a business and get puts a kind of moat and a a layer of protection around a business is is brand. And it took me a long time to understand to just to understand that as a concept because I was always focused on the minutiae, customer acquisition costs, operational costs, and those things are all important. But if you have a brand, you have so much margin for error in getting down to those finer details.

Richard Hill [00:23:16]:
Yeah. Very, very wise word, Sean. I think, I would if you if you're with us now, I would just pause and have a little thing or probably a little rewind because I'm totally, you know, that was very well poor, Sean, because I'd the absolute I'm a 100% a 100% agreed. You know, it's a lot of people do a lot of similar things in the market, differentiating yourself with brand, and obviously, we can we can talk about that more. You know, it's just an absolute game changer. In fact, especially if you've got your own brand products, you know, like, it makes it a lot Yep. I wanna say easier, but obviously that's as you as you alluded to. But so what are maybe some of the things, some of the key things you've done then in with Lemure, that's really sort of built the brand? Obviously, you're saying, you know, you you're doing maybe all more offline events, and where the where the where the actual customers are and building that community and being part of that community.

Richard Hill [00:24:05]:
But maybe, you know, a couple of key things that our listeners can maybe go away and are a bit more realistic around what they they could maybe go and do, implement, think about.

Shaun Loughlin [00:24:18]:
So something that we've done recently that's been incredibly effective, and I, as much as I would love to, I'm not gonna take any credit for this whatsoever because it's down to our, our head of marketing and creative, a very smart guy by the name of Matt Bernas, and it's it's emotional storytelling. So if you kind of unpeel the layers of why somebody's buying our products, they're buying a product for them and their horse, and what's driving that. Is it the price? Is it the functionality of the product? When you get deep down to the core of it, it's because they love their horse. Right? That's the hook. That's the reason. It's because they love their horse. So we've Yeah. Started telling emotional stories that connect the brand to that feeling of love for the horse.

Shaun Loughlin [00:25:03]:
And and the reason that that's so powerful is because, a, it says this is the right brand for me. I'm in the right place. This this company holds my values. And, b, it just it buys mental availability. Because your your biggest marketing opportunity is talking to people who aren't ready to buy right now. And this is another mistake, classic mistake that businesses make, is they put too much effort into sort of bottom of funnel marketing, trying to sell your your your brand and your product to people who are ready to purchase purchase it at this exact moment in time. But that's that's only a few percentage of your addressable audience. Like, if you really wanna grow, you've gotta be talking to people who aren't ready to buy right now.

Shaun Loughlin [00:25:40]:
And the most important people when you're the most important thing when you're talking to them is not saying, you know, the individual USBs of your product or your, you know, shipping rates or any of that kind of stuff. It's it's just buying mental availability so that when they are in market and they are ready to buy Yeah. You're front of mind. And it's it's a long term play, and it's it's difficult for us as ecom guys because we're used to, I run an a campaign and I get results, and I can see them tomorrow.

Richard Hill [00:26:05]:
Yeah.

Shaun Loughlin [00:26:06]:
This is, like, pictured over the months.

Richard Hill [00:26:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's brilliant. Brilliant. So I think, if you're with us now, you know, what can you be doing? What should you be doing? You know, of course, you're running ads. Well, you should be running ads, you know, most of you, investing in. You know, we can list them all off, all the channels.

Richard Hill [00:26:22]:
But what are you doing, you know, on brand for that long term? You know? And I think it's you know, you said about, you know, your colleague is sort of a master storyteller and and, you know, copywriter. I think, again, that's a key. Absolutely. Most people just do not do that piece. You know, or you know, depending on the size of the business. Absolutely key. Absolutely key. Well, thank you for that.

Richard Hill [00:26:44]:
So I think the next question ties in quite well to the brand, you know, what's your sort of, take on discounting? You You know, I think, you know, a lot of people are like, I think we know what it is already, but, obviously, a lot of ecom stores, you know, they they wrongly, you know, it's all about price. You know, what advice would you I mean, you've sort of touched on this already very much so, but, you know, the sort of alternatives to discounting or your in your opinions on discounting or maybe different ways of discounting.

Shaun Loughlin [00:27:16]:
I mean, it's often a necessary evil. Right? And we all do it. We we we do it at times. It's normally just to hit a short term number, but long term, it's it's damaging. You know, it it degrades your brand value, and it it attracts customers on the wrong basis. If a customer can't afford your product at full price or they aren't willing to pay full price, then they're not really the right customer profile for your business. Are are they? Yeah. This is what people need to think about.

Shaun Loughlin [00:27:47]:
The other thing discounting does is it completely messes up the operational gearing of the business. You end up scaling a business that was not built to run on low margins. On low margins. So you you build an infrastructure that needs a certain level of volume to be viable. And then the minute that you stop discounting and the volume, inevitably tails off, you're in big trouble. And and this is what we see over and over again. Brands get stuck in this merry-go-round of discount cycles. Their business gets hooked on it.

Shaun Loughlin [00:28:17]:
And then very, very quickly, they're in this situation that's impossible to fix. You've got an operation that needs the volume to be financially viable, and you've got a database full of customers who won't pay full price for your product. And you're stuck with a low margin business that either treads water or loses money until it collapses. And how often have we seen that? You know? How many fashion brands have have come and gone where they've got stuck into these sales cycles and just completely imploded? You see it all the time, and and that's basically the reason. So it it just needs to be dealt with extremely carefully. And and what I've observed over an extended period of time, 20 years in doing this, is that you can put the you can put the the money into margin loss, or you can put the money into brand building and creating a moat around your business. And if you look over a long enough period, like, it's pretty much the same money. It's just one takes months years and the other takes days weeks.

Shaun Loughlin [00:29:14]:
So people always go for the the days weeks because, you know, this is how we run businesses. We we do weekly trade meetings. We do quarterly QBRs. We do, you know, we do 1 year cycles. But over the longer term, it it's not a good way to run a business. It's not a good way to grow a business.

Richard Hill [00:29:36]:
Creating a moat around your business. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Some absolute sound bites there, Sean. Thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:29:44]:
Yeah. No. It's so true. I mean, I'm sitting here, you know, I think, you know, we talk about price, a lot of car obviously, we've got, you know, 100 of car well, 100 plus clients in our agency and or projects. And price is, you know, you know, we're running shopping for probably about 60% of those clients and, you know, obviously, one of the first things you see in shopping is price. But obviously, there's a lot more you can do with your shopping feed than to make sure it's, you know, you're it's more profitable, you know, just basic things that usually are done, you know, just by having the right layout in in the shopping and the right, you know, variables, etcetera, and spending more money, having that feed managed properly. So you're actually you know, it's not just about the price, but then you can use price technology, you know, pricing software on on some products to just look at the price. And sometimes, and quite often, as I think you alluded to, you know, it's not about being the cheapest sometimes because if you're monitoring the stock levels, your own stock levels and competitor stock levels, you can put the price up, not down.

Richard Hill [00:30:43]:
So Very,

Shaun Loughlin [00:30:44]:
very few people effectively price up. They only ever price down, and there's definitely missed opportunity, especially if you're selling an evergreen product that doesn't go out of stock. Yeah. I think the thing you gotta think about as well is, like, what's actually convincing the person to buy? Like, do you think that every new customer you've ever acquired has gone to Google Shopping, seen you for the first time ever, and decided that they're gonna trust you with their money in that moment? Absolutely not. Like, it's it's word-of-mouth referral. It's it's some out of home marketing that you've done. It's it's some paid social stuff that you've done. It's a YouTube video.

Shaun Loughlin [00:31:19]:
It'll be there'll be something much, much further back in their journey that's convinced them Yep. I'm willing to give this company my money, and it will not be your pay per click ad in 99

Richard Hill [00:31:30]:
times in

Shaun Loughlin [00:31:31]:
the cases. It might be this podcast.

Richard Hill [00:31:36]:
But so true. So true. I think Google's latest numbers I was at a present time. I mean, obviously, pinch of salt, but sort of 10, 11 now seems to be the number that's sort of around, you know, 10, 11 experiences with the brand, 10, 11 touch points with the brand, before a post is made. You know? So you know all the different channels. But yeah. Interesting interesting. So I think while we're sort of similar topic, obviously, we've got a, you know, we're we're investing heavily in brand.

Richard Hill [00:32:03]:
You know, we're very careful with our pricing. You have maybe some discounting when required and, you know, that's obviously fine, but that's not the general definitely not the general tone of the brand. But, you know, we've got sort of more of a luxury brand, you know, and we're aiming for a higher market, you know, a more affluent market, you know, we're positioning our our brand there. You know, when times are a little bit tough, like, maybe, you know, depending on the industry, but the general vibe, it's been a tough sort of definitely 3 or 4 months tough year for a lot of brands.

Shaun Loughlin [00:32:35]:
Yeah. You know,

Richard Hill [00:32:36]:
how you how you sort of manage that economic climate? What sort of other things are you doing? Maybe with sort of, obviously, the economy being, you know, not in the greatest spot at the moment?

Shaun Loughlin [00:32:46]:
This is the point where all of your listeners probably turn this off and and hate me. But, honestly, we we haven't really had to do much differently. You know, we we do have an incredibly strong brand that's that product driven. So our price to quality ratio is is pretty much unmatched in our space. So if you if you want a really high quality saddle pad, for example, that lasts a long time at an affordable price, there's not that many other places for customers to look. So Yeah. We're in a very lucky position that we've got customers coming down to us from really high end expensive brands because they they need something more affordable, but they they don't wanna give up that quality. And then we've got customers from price point brands moving up to us because they wanna buy less often, but they wanna spend a little bit more and have something that lasts.

Shaun Loughlin [00:33:35]:
So by design, we're in a very good position, but we're also quite fortunate. And, again, this is where your listeners hate me. And that our our customer base is very resilient. You know, equestrians do not sacrifice when it comes to their riding. The horse Yeah. Will always come first, and it'll be the last thing that they scrimp on. And, you know, the order of priorities like horse, kids, dog, husband. So the the horse is not gonna suffer.

Richard Hill [00:34:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. Horse gets fed before. Yeah. I'll eat last sort of thing. Yeah. They take your horse gets fed first, obviously. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:34:10]:
And and it gets all the kit. Yeah. Kids get a, orange for Christmas.

Shaun Loughlin [00:34:15]:
So I I'm not in a good position to tell the audience how to deal with the economic downturn because, honestly, so far, it's not massively affected us.

Richard Hill [00:34:26]:
So it sounds very rosy is what you're saying overall. You know? It sounds really good, but I think there must be one challenge right now. Although it's out obviously, getting that warehouse is gonna be a flipping nightmare, to be fair.

Shaun Loughlin [00:34:39]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:34:39]:
What's one challenge? What's a real sort of, you know, real genuine challenge that you're in the midst of at the moment that you're you're sort of in in sort of overcoming and working through at the moment? What's one challenge that you're facing right now?

Shaun Loughlin [00:34:52]:
So again, everyone's gonna hate me. For the first time for the first time in my career, I'm working for a business that doesn't have one really big outsized challenge that's holding us back. You know, there's a there's a laundry list of small and medium sized ones and a lot of growing pains, but Yeah. There's not one big thing that's, like, you could point at and say, that's really holding us back. And if we could fix it, we'd we'd we'd be going great guns. It's, I guess space, as you alluded to, is our biggest challenge, which is a growing pain as opposed to, like, some big grinding business challenge. But it is difficult, and it's not just a warehouse. Like, we're we're max capacity in the office.

Shaun Loughlin [00:35:32]:
So, you know, we've got desks in every area. Meeting rooms have had to be sacrificed to be turned into more desk space. You can't get a meeting room for love nor money. There's negotiations over meeting space, and that's that causes a lot of

Richard Hill [00:35:45]:
save a sense of my fear.

Shaun Loughlin [00:35:47]:
Yeah. But that that in itself causes a lot of business disruption. Right? Because sometimes you just need to go and have a private conversation. And if you can't do that, you know, you can't move things forward. So that that is a that is a a massive challenge on a day to day basis, but it's not something that I would say is is, you know, significantly hindering our our growth or success or anything. It's just

Richard Hill [00:36:07]:
Right.

Shaun Loughlin [00:36:07]:
It's just really unpleasant and inconvenient. I'm very much looking forward to it being

Richard Hill [00:36:11]:
So what we're seeing is

Shaun Loughlin [00:36:12]:
is an

Richard Hill [00:36:13]:
it's inevitable challenges that are gonna come along, but it's, you know, it's what you do with them, how you plow through them and see them and, you know, having having a lack of meeting spaces, you know, is, or, you know, struggling to find somewhere to sit and have a private conversation with, whoever it may be, you know, is is is a sign of of growth. You know, we have exactly the same issue. We've got 6 meeting rooms here, and some days I walk through and it's like, yep. Yeah. Oh, crikey. We're full. We we have a booking system. We're gonna do?

Shaun Loughlin [00:36:43]:
We have a booking system, and even with that, it's a nightmare. But the this is this is scaling. It's cyclical. You know? We're we're at a position now where we're overcapacity relative to our infrastructure. So, you know, that that the business is very profitable at the moment because of that. We'll go through a cycle next where we've got to massively invest, and the business will be less profitable because we're geared up for the next 2, 3 years. And it's just this cycle that you go on, and it's you you I think for companies scaling up, especially small businesses that haven't been through this before, it's very difficult to understand that your most profitable period will be your least pleasant because it will be bursting at the seams, and staff will be screaming at you because there's no space, and they're all overworked. And it'll be really, like, pressure filled, but that's when the business will will make the most money.

Shaun Loughlin [00:37:30]:
And when it's all lovely and you've got loads of space and lots of spare capacity, you're probably gonna be significantly less profitable because you're overcapitalized relative to your turnover. And that it's difficult. It's easy to get lost in that.

Richard Hill [00:37:44]:
So lean into it. Embrace it. Yeah. Yeah. So so every time I ask

Shaun Loughlin [00:37:51]:
you for

Richard Hill [00:37:52]:
a potential challenge, the you you're sort of, yeah. It's just that's just normal. It just washes off me no problem. But if you were sort of to look back in your career maybe, you know, what's maybe one thing, you do differently in the past, you know, and what sort of something you've learned from maybe a decision that you've made? Obviously, you you know, when you start packing boxes back back as a boy, you know, Obviously, you've experienced a lot of things and made a made a lot of decisions or maybe had opportunities that maybe you missed or didn't, you know, didn't not miss. But, you know, if you could do one thing differently from your past, what would that be?

Shaun Loughlin [00:38:30]:
I think the number one thing I would do differently is educate myself more. So I became quite senior at a pretty young age. I was I was on a board in my mid twenties, and I I spent too much time doing and not enough time learning. You know, I I knew absolutely everything about the business I was working in, but I knew absolutely nothing about the world around it. And, and that led to a lot of mistakes that that could have been avoided if I'd have taken more time, to educate myself. So now I'm I'm a voracious reader. I go to a lot of conferences, you know, roundtables. I put a lot of time and effort into understanding what's happening in the industry and, and and what's coming up.

Shaun Loughlin [00:39:14]:
And I think the biggest unlock from that is I I I don't wait until I have a problem to then go and learn about it and become expert in this. I'm I'm putting the time and effort into understanding the whole industry holistically all the time, which means when I need a new piece of tech, I've already been to a conference where I've seen who all the vendors are. I know who's who. I know what a reasonable price is. Yeah. You know? If I'm trying to solve some data challenge, I'm kind of aware of roughly who I need to speak to and where I need to go. So it just it just makes the whole thing move so quickly. And, you know, you you know, you've been in in ecommerce a long time, so you know this as well as anyone.

Shaun Loughlin [00:39:54]:
It changes every 3 or 4 years. The whole industry is completely and utterly different. I mean Yeah. You know, now we're all obsessed with AI and stuff that just wasn't even on the radar 4 years ago. So if you're not kind of educating yourself as you go and staying abreast of things, you can just very quickly get lost at sea.

Richard Hill [00:40:14]:
I think that's brilliant advice. You know, it really resonates with me, you know, as a as a young chap, I didn't really read, you know, if I'm honest with you, I think I read a full book till I was probably, like, 26, you know, which sounds ridiculous if you you know, now because I've had about 4 on the go sort of thing, and it's just, you know, it's just most of that knowledge is free. It's out there, isn't it, to go and and, like I say, going to events, meeting people that are in, you know, obviously closely aligned definitely with ecommerce, but also the niche that you're in, the different events that are very niche specific. Obviously, the ecommerce, You know, if you there ever you know, there's obviously a lot of companies driving a lot of big events now and smaller groups and dinners and lunches and industry specific and, you know, things, as you say, are changing so much, you know, and if you're not you know, we talked right at the beginning about the different platforms you're on, obviously, a lot. But if you haven't had that discussion about TikTok 18 months ago, you wouldn't be on it yet and doing this investing in it, and you'd be like, oh, I'm not sure about that. But, obviously, you you lean into it, learn a little bit, listen to talks, and so forth and yeah.

Shaun Loughlin [00:41:12]:
Yeah. Exactly. I mean, you know, we're talking 5, 6 years ago. TikTok wasn't even a a thing. You know? And now it's like one of the biggest social media platforms. That's how quickly it moves, and you you've gotta stay abreast

Richard Hill [00:41:24]:
of it. Yeah. So we're nearly there, Sean. I got a couple of questions left for you. So I think, I'm interested to know sort of what you could share potentially about the road map and what you want. Maybe more on the marketing side, you know, what you're leaning into, what you're planning on leaning into more, this next 6, 12 months. Obviously, I know you run a lot of channels. Most of them had a good look last night, and you will then follow me around everywhere, which is good, which is what you wanna see.

Richard Hill [00:41:55]:
So, you know, what are you leaning into more? Where where do you feel you'll be leaning into more in terms of sort of doing more than you are now in certain on the marketing side?

Shaun Loughlin [00:42:06]:
The biggest one which is upcoming is community. So we're, again, very lucky that a a a community has organically grown around our brand. So if you go to Facebook and search for La Mira Facebook Groups, about 50 will pop up, and some of them have got, like, 50, 60,000 people in them. Now we we haven't encouraged that. We haven't built that. We haven't invested in that. It's just kind of happened naturally. Yeah.

Shaun Loughlin [00:42:33]:
So now we wanna look at how do we, a, get some ownership of that, and, b, like, nurture, encourage, and, invest in us in in a way that doesn't destroy that community, but gives us some ability to kind of shape it and steer it and contribute to us. And I think that's a massive unlock for us. If you look at some of the biggest household name brands, like Lego, for example, or, Harley Davidson or PlayStation or, you know, Red Bull or you could name any of them. They've got these enormous Yeah. Communities around their brand, and that is what really has massively fueled their growth and their retention and made them household names in in in a sense. So that that's a big one for us. That's something that we're really actively thinking about and trying to figure out. It's massively challenging.

Shaun Loughlin [00:43:23]:
I definitely do not have all the answers now, but by q 1 of next year, we will hopefully have a full strategy and road map around that.

Richard Hill [00:43:33]:
Oh, very interest I'm very, very interested. So I think in 12 months, if you're at fraud, we'll do an episode on community. Maybe 18 months, we'll do an episode now on community. Yeah.

Shaun Loughlin [00:43:42]:
Yeah. Sure. I should 18 months, I should have something to share by then.

Richard Hill [00:43:46]:
Yeah. Let's do it. I'll I'll I'll genuinely will do that because I'll I'll yeah. I'm really intrigued and really, you know, it's a big part of our agency building a community around, you know, the the industry and the agency. Yep. Well, Sean, it's been an absolute pleasure. Well, I like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book to recommend

Shaun Loughlin [00:44:04]:
to our listeners? I have 2. For people starting out in business, the E Myth by Michael Gerber will give you an excellent understanding of how to scale a small business, like the real basic fundamentals of how you build those blocks. I read that when I was very young, and it was a massive unlock for me. It was like a big moment Yeah. That massively helped me. And then the other is for people in more senior positions or people aspiring to more senior positions. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker is an absolutely excellent book.

Richard Hill [00:44:41]:
Thank you. We'll get those linked up. I think, E Myth is quite a quick read as well, isn't it? It so you can soon plow through that. Yeah. But, yeah, I'll get those both linked up in the show notes. Well, Sean, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. For those who wanna find out more about you, more about Lemure, what's the best way to do that?

Shaun Loughlin [00:45:00]:
Just search Lemure.

Richard Hill [00:45:03]:
Yeah. Yep. And, obviously, you can find yourself on LinkedIn as well.

Shaun Loughlin [00:45:07]:
Yep. Yeah. I'm available on LinkedIn. And if you search le m I eux in Google, plenty will pop up about Lemieux.

Richard Hill [00:45:17]:
Fantastic. Well, thanks for coming on the show. I'm looking forward to getting this live, and I'll, speak to you again. Thanks a lot.

Shaun Loughlin [00:45:23]:
Lovely. Thanks, Richard. Take it easy.

Richard Hill [00:45:30]:
If If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Have a fantastic day, and I'll see you on the next one.