00:00:00 -- 00:00:09 Hello and welcome to another episode of the winning Shopify podcast. I've got a very exciting episode for you today. My guest, his name is John. He is the CEO of Battlbox. They were founded in 2015.
00:00:09 -- 00:00:20 John's been on the show before. These guys sell survival and outdoor gear that gets delivered monthly to your door, and they've even got their own Netflix show. John, welcome back. How we doing? Good.
00:00:20 -- 00:00:26 Nick, thanks for having me back, man. Pleasure. Sacha. I should be the one saying thank you. I'm going to jump straight in, John, with a really tough question.
00:00:26 -- 00:00:38 We can talk about this a bit more. How do you build a $4 million sales channel in one year? Um, well, we did it with, with Live. Live Shopping. So we launched Live Shopping on.
00:00:38 -- 00:00:59 We, we chose the Whatnot platform on April of last year and here we are. Um, we're getting close to a year year next month and ah, we did it. It's, it's just wild. Live Shopping is, is here. We heard about it for 10 years, about how big it was in China and that it was going to go everywhere else.
00:00:59 -- 00:01:20 And honestly I was numb towards it because I heard about it for so long like it just wasn't going to happen. And it happened. It's mad though, isn't it? You make such a good point that like everyone was saying it's coming and how many different like apps you could plug into YouTube, plug into your own Shopify store and stuff and then along comes whatnot. If someone's not heard of whatnot.
00:01:20 -- 00:01:59 What is whatnot? It's, it's a, it's a live shopping platform. Think about how you know TikTok and YouTube Reels and, or YouTube Shorts and Instagram reels, how they function with the uh, you know, full screen vertical video content that you can swipe through. It's, it's very, very similar in behaviour except it's, it's a shopping platform, it's not a social media platform. So in theory if someone's in the app swiping their, their intent to purchase is much higher than someone just brain rotting on TikTok and then seeing a Ah, TikTok shop item.
00:01:59 -- 00:02:14 It's just a much different buyer and I love that it's combined like uh, we, I call it retail therapy. Retail has to be as entertaining as it is like factual and function functional. Like this is the product and how it works. But actually it needs to be entertainment. I guess somebody described it to me.
00:02:14 -- 00:02:33 The day is. It's almost like TikTok Shop without the rest of Tick tock, isn't it? It's like people only come in to shop so you're not wasting your marketing dollars like trying to appear in front of people that are just, you know, I was trying to see what my friend and their family were doing at the weekend. Going to the pond and feeding the ducks and oh look, another phone case on Instagram. You weren't looking for a phone case.
00:02:33 -- 00:02:59 Right, exactly, exactly. It knows what you're looking for or what you're interested in. And it's just that, that video advertising is straight there and people like it. Yeah. And, and I think the difference of what you just described where, you know, you're looking for just brain rot content and you see a shopping item on TikTok, comparing that to whatnot, where everything is, is live, live selling it, it creates another behaviour too.
00:03:00 -- 00:03:23 So, you know, we, we had a lot and we have a lot of success on TikTok Shop, but the economics are wildly different on whatnot. Um, economics on TikTok shop, AOV is around $20. AOV is closer to 80 on whatnot. Wow. Um, uh, LTV, repeat buying, it's all a thing on whatnot on TikTok Shop.
00:03:23 -- 00:03:46 It's not right. TikTok Shop, um, we, we take pride in, in really the marketing side of, of managing and, and creating this brand of Battlbox and the buyer on Tick Tock Shop just doesn't really care. They don't care about the brand. There's no, there's no affinity towards it. There's, there's no ltv, um, there's no respectable ltv.
00:03:47 -- 00:04:10 It's, uh, there's no repeat buying. It's. I mean it exists but it's just a fraction of what it does. Every other sales channel and whatnot behaves like other sales channels where there's, there's repeat purchases and there's strong LTV and it's um, it's crazy. Just a slight tweak and you know, purchasing intent changes the behaviour so much.
00:04:10 -- 00:04:27 It's very, it's very interesting what you say about the brand awareness. I mentioned the intro like you guys have your own Netflix series. Tell us more about the Netflix series to add a bit more emphasis to what you've just said as well about the brand equity you've built with customers versus that on whatnot. People don't care. Yeah.
00:04:27 -- 00:04:50 So, you know, part of our, our main focus of this, this, these two, the, these two principles of content and community, they go hand in hand. You know, um, brands trying to accomplish that is it's not easy. It's difficult. It takes a lot of work. Content as, as you and I both know, is to grind.
00:04:51 -- 00:05:12 Um, and it's, it's even wilder than you know, old school SEO where you know you're making these changes. You're waiting six months, nine months to really see the fruits of your reward. Is content's worse, right? You're having to put in sometimes a year before you really see it start to really click. And um, and it's so expensive, isn't it?
00:05:12 -- 00:05:35 Like especially net grade content is so expensive. Um, so we've always focused on content as, as our true top of funnel. Um, don't get me wrong, we spend um, an astronomical amount on ads on meta. Right. It's, it's a necessary evil, but it's um, while there's some type of funnel there, for the most part, it's mostly mid funnel.
00:05:35 -- 00:06:00 We're, we're making the campaigns as prospecting, don't get me wrong, but people have seen our content before. The majority of the demographic that we're targeting have and it's, you know, the Netflix show as an example, right. We're the entire season, every episode is. We're testing gear to determine if it's going to go in a battle box. Um, so it's ah, it's.
00:06:00 -- 00:06:20 Everything is, is focused around that. And our content doesn't sell, right? We're not selling, we're educating, we're having fun. We're showing the human element of the brand and the business and that's what people, people connect with and whatnot. Just seems to be a natural way for us to accomplish both.
00:06:20 -- 00:06:34 We can continue doing what we've done. Um, if you've ever watched one of our shows on there, it's entertaining, right? It's not just item A for sale. Go. Um, you know, as we've ramped up the past year now most of our hosts have obs.
00:06:35 -- 00:06:59 So there's going to be graphics on the screen and flames and uh, we're really entertaining and it's retreating it much, um, like content on the other social channels. This episode of Winning with Shopify is brought to you by TaxCloud. It's the busiest time of year for E commerce. Your stores buzzing, orders flying in and growth is at an all time. But with all that momentum can come new sales tax exposure that you might not even see coming.
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00:07:24 -- 00:07:38 To apply for that and learn more, you can go to taxcloud.com forward/winning. That's taxcloud.com forward slash winning. And I think that that entertainment is the thing that starts to, uh. They what not you sort of say they don't. They haven't seen that brand equity before.
00:07:39 -- 00:08:18 But that entertainment factor, that must create some stickiness within whatnot. Surely it's like the amount of times, um, I mean, even twice today in the office, someone said like, confused, did somebody else reply with dot com, which was a car insurance advert here in the uk, like, you know, but hasn't run since I think I was back in school. So a thousand years ago we had these adverts on TV and we're still quoting them now. Or there's all these little things like the Domino's advert at the moment, which is like Domino, which is the only impression of that today, but just in all these random settings suddenly, like that's become banter amongst people. So, so you must, you must find that although people don't know or even resonate or understand the brand equity, they've not come across you guys before.
00:08:19 -- 00:08:36 Whatnot must be building something in that then. Even if that's their starting point. Yeah, no, absolutely. So what we're seeing is it's just another top of funnel for us. We're running it as a profitable, very profitable channel, but it really serves as top of funnel brand awareness.
00:08:37 -- 00:09:05 Um, we're then looking at the data and these people are coming in, they're making a purchase, but then they're then going to our website later on. They're then joining the membership, which is our core business. Um, they're coming in just as prospecting with traditional content or prospecting on traditional ads. They're coming into the funnel and the exact same way and they're behaving the exact same way. Nice, nice.
00:09:05 -- 00:09:14 Let's rewind the clock then. If someone's like. I imagine half the people listening right now are like, quick, stop the car, I need to Google something. Or like us chatgpt. What is whatnot like?
00:09:14 -- 00:09:29 I need to see this thing. You guys Obviously weren't running it a year ago. You've built this channel in 11 months. Um, I think when we first looked it was like 10x in 8 months or something. You, you're done with in your revenue, how do you go from not running it to running your first set of videos?
00:09:29 -- 00:09:59 And I actually think the revenue you got, I know it may not have been super profitable, but the revenue you got in month one was all right. Like, and it, how did you achieve that from the get go? Yeah, so, so month one, which was, which was April last year, you know, we said, hey, we think that this might actually be the, the beginning of live shopping in, in North America. Like it's going to, it's going to catch on. North America and Europe are, uh, going to finally embrace live shopping.
00:09:59 -- 00:10:18 So we're gonna, we're gonna give it a test. We were actually, um, fairly close to launching it first on TikTok shop because we already had a million followers on there. We thought, hey, this is, we already have the audience. This is just going to be. Now that, just to interrupt quickly that, I mean that sounds like I work with data all day.
00:10:18 -- 00:10:34 If you tell me we've got a million followers on TikTok, where are we going to put our shoppable video content? I know you're about to explain why on earth, uh, did you go to whatnot? Why not stick with TikTok where it's like we've already got all the eggs in that basket. What was the draw? Um, we thought that they were doing something different.
00:10:35 -- 00:10:44 Um, they. Pure timing. They prospected us, right? Hey, we want you on the platform. We took a call and, and it was what, what we were talking about earlier.
00:10:44 -- 00:10:59 It, it's not, you know, brain rotting. Choosing, watching content with an occasional hey, buy this $20 item. It's literally a platform where purchasing is occurring. Right. Same as Amazon, same as ebay.
00:10:59 -- 00:11:29 Um, it's, it's a, the, the intent. You don't, when you open up Amazon, you're, you're looking either you're somewhere in the process of buying something, whether it's discovery or, or end of funnel, like time to purchase. And it's the same, same with whatnot. So we're like, we, we, we appreciated that. Um, and there was also this extreme vibe of community, um, on whatnot with all these like little tiny intricacies.
00:11:29 -- 00:11:43 And, and we're big community guys. We, we see the value in that. And I'll give, I'll just give one random example of a dozen, uh, when you're running a whatnot show and you're done. Instead of. And let's say you have a hundred people watching you when you.
00:11:43 -- 00:11:52 You could end it, and those hundred people just get kicked out of the channel, you're done. But that's not what you do. You do something called a raid. And I'm running a live show. I'm done.
00:11:52 -- 00:12:02 I have 100 people. I'm like, hey, guys, we're going to raid Nick's show. And Nick, you're on there selling whatever it is you sell. I mean, that is so on brand for you. Anyway, like, we're going to do a raid.
00:12:02 -- 00:12:10 I mean, it sounds like a survival game, like Outback or something. Like, it's brilliant. Absolutely. Uh, literally, we literally hit raid. I picked Nick's show, I hit raid.
00:12:11 -- 00:12:28 And I've taken myself and the hundred people watching me, and I've dumped them real time all into your show. Nice. And you're like, I now have 100 more people. And everybody from my show is saying raid. And, uh, you know, you might do a giveaway, but it's, um, it's.
00:12:28 -- 00:12:43 That's pure community, right? Like, I'm literally taking my buyers. I'm just, I've just taken them and dropped them in someone else's show. And then, and then, Nick, you're gonna feel, feel and appreciate that. So your next raid, if Battle Box is on, you're probably going to raid us back.
00:12:44 -- 00:12:52 And it's this community vibe. Everybody can win. No one has to lose. That was really, really attractive. So we said, okay, well, we're gonna do a test.
00:12:53 -- 00:13:13 And, uh, in. In April of last year, we ran, um, I think we ran four shows, five shows, a total of ten hours. Ten hours of selling. And, um, yeah, we did, we did right under 25k, I think 24, 9. And, um, we were like, okay, we're onto something here.
00:13:13 -- 00:13:26 This was, uh, this was, was interesting. It, you know, there, there's some revenue here. Like, at scale, what does this look like? And yeah, you know, in. In May, we did 26 hours.
00:13:26 -- 00:13:46 Right. In June, we did 60 hours. In July 99, August 107, September 135, October 171, November 195. And we're just ramping up hours and, um, scaling, Scaling the channel. Right now we run, you know, almost a year in.
00:13:46 -- 00:13:53 We run between 65 and 70 shows a month. Um, wow. Average. Average show. Huge amount of content.
00:13:53 -- 00:14:21 Yeah, average show is three hours. Nice. And you mentioned before to me as well, like, you've actually built a team around this, haven't you? I like and one thing I love about you and last time we spoke in a couple of conversations we had in between like you, when you guys see something working it's like it's, it's my two favourite worlds. One is the data and the other side is like you guys double down on that and start putting um, you know the data says this thing's working or it's got potential because I think you said you've hired a few people now that like they just run it.
00:14:21 -- 00:14:51 It's like you are the whatnot team, just own this, operate it well. Which is where I think so many brands go wrong is they dip their toes in a bit of that and a bit of that and a bit of that and it's only a spread really thin and then if any customer or potential customer engages with any of that content, it's a bit rubbish. So how do you manage that internally where you've got meta doing a huge amount, you've got Amazon, you've got lots of organic stuff that comes in through brand equity. How do you kind of split those things out internally but also keep them connected? So it's still one big business driving one big bottom line.
00:14:52 -- 00:15:22 Yeah. So it's, it's not, not easy and I don't think we do it, I don't think we do it perfectly if I'm being honest. So, so you know found is um, off the jump. So we had Cameron um, who was one of, he was our marketing coordinator and um, you know doing generalised marketing stuff across all, all platforms, um, all parts of the business. And um, he, he had launched Tick Tock Shop for us and then non live shopping.
00:15:22 -- 00:15:39 Just traditional Tick Tock Shop. Yeah. And we're seeing success with that. We decided to launch whatnot. After we saw what it was and made the decision this can scale we said okay, um Cameron you're in charge of social commerce.
00:15:40 -- 00:16:07 This is a thing now. This wasn't a position prior, this wasn't a role we thought we needed prior. Now we know with certainty this is a full time focus. So he became the, the director of social commerce and we backfilled his marketing coordinator role to them. Um, you know the marketing generalist, touching email and SMS and all the social and all the other sides of the business and uh, told Cameron go, go, go.
00:16:07 -- 00:16:28 This is, this is uh, this, this is something so um, you know from. We had one host who is one of our, we have two full time creators. Um, nice with the company and uh, one of the Initially, one of them was just one of the hosts for those 10 hours and the 26 hours they were the host. We need more hosts. Right.
00:16:28 -- 00:16:50 Um, Brandon, who was hosting, who still hosts his full time creator for us. He also has to focus on content. He can't just, to your point, spread himself too thin and, and not do anything well. So we started grabbing hosts and um, we're up to six hosts now. There's a, there's a role that, that only exists for this called a showrunner.
00:16:51 -- 00:17:07 And we have two full time showrunners, two part time showrunners. They're, um, sitting on a computer and they're the back end, right. So they're loading the products for the show. They're, they're doing everything. Um, they're communicating in the chat with the audience in addition to the host.
00:17:07 -- 00:17:25 They're communicating with the host, they're running the show, they're the showrunner. Um, as a world that didn't, it only exists for this. So it's, it's, it's kind of cool, you know, have those two dedicated showrunners that they only exist to support, support this channel. Yeah. And it's such a catch 22, isn't it?
00:17:25 -- 00:17:42 Like, things like this are going to go better. Uh, whatever channel it is, it's going to go better if you've got someone who you're like, right, this is your desk, this is your chair. Make this channel work like that, that's your remit, you know, like, you cost this, here's your budget for advertising. This is the target. Make it work and you tell us what you need.
00:17:43 -- 00:18:06 And again, I just think so many businesses I meet, like, there's agencies that can help, there's freelancers, you can hire people to do things. Uh, it's scary for, for a business though, isn't it? I think you guys kind of reached the size where it's like the investment you put in. It has kind of been like a bit more and a bit more and a bit more and a bit more and you've got the backing of the big company. But it must have been a time earlier on where it was like, look, if we're going to do Meta or Netflix, we're going to do this thing really well.
00:18:06 -- 00:18:24 It's going to cost money and we have to invest in that. So what advice would you give to a smaller business that's like, there's 10 channels or four channels I could be running, I want to double down on one of these. I can only afford to do one. How do we, how do they decide which one or what advice would you give them of like a sort of just do it, but here's how to do it. Yeah.
00:18:24 -- 00:18:46 So it's, it's. You have a good point. Right? Uh, you know your spread thin, you've got to put, where is the time, where does the resources, where does the effort go? And um, the unfortunate part, when there's multiple people touching an avenue of a business, an aspect of a channel, when there's multiple people and there's multiple people accountable, nobody's accountable.
00:18:46 -- 00:19:10 Um, and it's the sad reality. If multiple people are accountable for something, nobody's accountable. I think you nailed it. Yeah. And we, we, we know that because obvious people talk about it, but we've made that mistake a dozen, a dozen times through the years where there's multiple people accountable for some kind of um, new sales channel or new brand we've launched or some new initiative.
00:19:10 -- 00:19:24 And when every, when everyone's accountable, nobody is. Um, so as soon as we identified um, what it was, we took the risk. Right? As soon as we identified that this was scalable. So we launched in April.
00:19:25 -- 00:19:55 Um, we didn't officially put Cameron in the role of Director of Social Commerce, um, until, until August, September. So we continued to test and scale it for a few months before we said okay, dedicated resource. We're very confident that this is a double down moment. Um, but in order to truly double down we've, we've got to make the risk. We've got to have someone solely focused on it so that the other people, everybody else can focus on on the other.
00:19:55 -- 00:20:26 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the really interesting things you mentioned there, I said, you know, you absolutely nailed it is and because it comes back to like company highest, uh, like hierarchy or structure and things like this, I feel like because of the age of things like tick tock and whatnot and shopify, like everything's sort of sold to a lot of business owners. It's all plug and play, it's all cheap and cheerful. And actually then one of the challenges comes around that's like actually some of the core like old school. I'm becoming more old school the older I get and the more like we just need a simple plan for this.
00:20:26 -- 00:20:41 Like there is no plan. We're just kind of doing stuff like what's the end game? What are we going to do in a year's time, five years time, 10 years time, like what are we actually trying to achieve? And the more I start asking these questions, which you probably Kind of study at like business school. The more you start to take a step back and go, right, we need someone that owns it.
00:20:41 -- 00:20:59 And then the people underneath, they need simple and important like KPIs and metrics to go. If you're doing your bit well, this is happening. And that will help your team leader, who's in charge of the whole channel, that will help them achieve their goal. This is how your team fits into all the teams of the business. And this is the North Star.
00:20:59 -- 00:21:30 And I guess your job as CEO, uh, is to try and, you know, new poor thing, try and hold all of that together and keep everyone motivated on the same page. But I think you nailed, you nailed something when, when building the team that Cameron's building. KPIs are, KPIs are king. Um, and it's not micromanaging, it's just these are the KPIs, these, these are the, the, the metrics that matter. And, and for, for this channel, it's, it's um, average hourly revenue, average hourly profit, average margin, and average new buyers.
00:21:30 -- 00:21:59 Um, the new buyers is key because that is, is validating that this is top of funnel. We're not doing any cannibalization of our existing somewhere else. And you know how expensive that is on Meta and Google and Amazon and all the other kind of big channels. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. You said something to me as well when we were planning today that really, really struck me and I think I glossed over it when we spoke and I really want to talk about it is you said like, this is our, uh, this is now our like number two channel.
00:22:00 -- 00:22:05 Yeah. Above Amazon. So this is your number two channel. What's your number one? Amazon's three.
00:22:05 -- 00:22:54 Like, how do you guys, as a subscription business in the sort of survival outdoor space, what does your channel makeup actually look like on, um, you know, when you actually look at the kind of revenue attribution reports, do you ever find that in your warehouse you have dead stock, you can't sell it, no one wants to buy it, and you can't get a refund on it. Or alternatively, you're missing inventory in your warehouse that you need, you've got sales coming in and, and you're low on stock and you haven't ordered more stock in time, all these things hit profit. And I've been there, I've run my own Shopify store and had exactly that problem. But we've partnered it up with Inventory Planner, who have the most incredible app to help you manage that and forecast exactly what products, what skus, even down to what colour of product you need to order in advance to make sure stock levels remain consistent throughout. They're also running a seven day boot camp and if you want to go and sign up to that, it's seven emails every seven, seven days and it takes the same amount of time as your morning coffee.
00:22:54 -- 00:23:08 And in seven days like me, you can become an inventory management pro. Both links are in the description. Enjoy. Yeah, so yeah, so Amazon had been our um, our number two for, for a couple of years. It's, it's a seven figure channel.
00:23:08 -- 00:23:31 It's, it's a great channel for us. Um, the number one is, is our website. Um, our, our website is um, quick math. I mean it's probably changes day to day, doesn't it man? Yeah but I would say on average websites probably 80, 80%, maybe a couple points higher.
00:23:32 -- 00:23:43 So it's, it's, it's Amazon feeding that then. Yeah. Do you use Amazon and like do you use Amazon? Although it was number two, it's now number three channel. Do you, do you consider Amazon like a, it's still a feeder channel.
00:23:43 -- 00:23:58 People find us, they try the product, see it for the first time but then the website's what it's really driving. Or do you find they're a totally separate audience? Um, there's, there's some overlap but not as much as, as I would hope for. I mean the, the Amazon shopper is. The Amazon shopper.
00:23:58 -- 00:24:12 I, I put myself into that category. I. Yeah, yeah, same. I buy on, I buy on Amazon because I know I'm going to get it quickly and I know if, if there's any sort of issue. You got all that protection. Yeah, yeah.
00:24:12 -- 00:24:48 Amazon's always going to side with me. Prime example. And this is an Amazon product. I bought my dad one of those ring doorbells um, and I got it I think for Christmas or his birthday and um, he's, he's got it connected on the doorbell and I'm seeing via the app his face of like setting it up and I watch it just go, his face go like this because he's dropped it and he dropped it and it broke. And you know what Amazon classic Amazon say hey, it's not working.
00:24:48 -- 00:25:08 They sent us a new one immediately, no questions asked. Um, Amazon always does the right thing. Um, and they do it unfortunately on the backs of uh, the vendors selling on there. Right. I was going to say yeah, it's really great for consumer and it builds Amazon well.
00:25:08 -- 00:25:31 But yeah, you're paralysed in Terms of like, you might not even get the product back. So it's like, right, like Amazon, I don't know if you guys have it as well, but Amazon, the uk, as soon as I drop it at like the post Office or in delivery collection point, as soon as I drop it, I've got a refund especially. And, and they're also like, do you want to have your refund as an Amazon voucher? And it's like another word is like, are you going to spend some money on Amazon? We'll just put it straight in there for you.
00:25:31 -- 00:25:37 Saves your bank transaction. Save Amazon some money. Yeah. And you're like, straight. I don't say yes on any other platform.
00:25:37 -- 00:25:51 No, give me my money. But on Amazon, like, yeah, just give me credit. Um, but that, that's the beauty of having all the retailers in one place on Amazon. So how, uh, see, I mean that it sounds like. So Amazon's obviously one customer, but it sounds like whatnot for you then is counter to that.
00:25:51 -- 00:26:08 Because whatnot is you said a lot of these guys will buy from you, but then they, they do come into site, you see them, uh, on the website, you see them engaging. I'm going to ask you a horrible question because I did an episode on this a few weeks ago, um, myself about attribution. How do you know they've come from whatnot? How do you, like, is it spikes at the same time? Is there an attribution?
00:26:08 -- 00:26:18 Do they click from whatnot or an email into your site? Yeah, everyone's. Everyone's favourite thing. That's way more difficult than it should be in 2026. And that's attribution.
00:26:18 -- 00:26:34 Attribution, yeah. The only way we're able to see is digging into our data. So because it's a marketplace, just like ebay or Amazon, you know you don't own that customer technically. Right. You're not getting their email address, any marketplace.
00:26:34 -- 00:26:55 The email address belongs to the marketplace. Um, but names, addresses, um, marrying data. So it's a separate profile. We have a Shopify integration pushes it as a separate profile. But we can then do deep, deep analysis on our data and we can cross, um, identify same name, same address, probably the same person.
00:26:57 -- 00:27:07 So we're able then to marry. Yeah, um, yeah, I know it's not. It's a lot of work to marry the data. Yeah, yeah. But it's worth.
00:27:07 -- 00:27:17 Thank goodness for AI. Yeah, exactly. I've been building all sorts on there. Uh, I keep saying to my team, like, I've had an idea for a new system and they're like, have you built a web app? I'm like, yeah, I've done some vive coding and built a web app.
00:27:17 -- 00:27:28 And everyone rolls their eyes until they see what I've built. And then they're like, oh, can I get a login? This looks great. Like, this tool saved me hours. And it's like just, I think the way the world's gone now, like, I flag it all the time now.
00:27:28 -- 00:27:39 Is Sidekick in Shopify? Flipping genius. You got a question? And it's like, rather than digging through the reports and analytics, just ask it and say, how many customers in Kansas? Which is a good segue.
00:27:39 -- 00:27:53 We're going to be in Kansas. John and I come say hi at Sub Summit in May, and we're going to be hanging out and having a beer or two. And, um, John doesn't know it yet. He's going to be my backup if I need somebody on my panel on the podcast stage that we're hosting. And um, okay, John doesn't know, but I'll.
00:27:53 -- 00:28:04 I'll buy him a beer and he'll be there, I'm sure. And. But I think that, you know, say like, you want to find out how many people in Kansas have bought a certain product because you've got a theory or someone internal. This is what I love in the office. Someone's just said something and you.
00:28:04 -- 00:28:15 And you kind of as a CEO or owner, you're like, really like that. If, if yes, flipping heck, we need to do loads of stuff with that. Like that's a whole game changer, the business. If not. I just don't want people saying things or thinking things that aren't true.
00:28:16 -- 00:28:26 Let's just ask, ah, Sidekick quickly on Shopify. And Sidekick goes yes or no or. Or like more like than that. It's grey, you know, it's not black or white here. There's a kind of a middle ground, but just getting that answer quickly and.
00:28:26 -- 00:28:42 And then saying like, now overlay this data. And if it can't do it, I think it's one of the best AIs I've used because it will say, I can't do that. But you could download, export and then do that data yourself using this formula in a Google sheet. And it's like, uh, wow, like it really is trying to help you. And.
00:28:42 -- 00:29:06 But I love the fact you've connected that data because a lot of platforms like TikTok, Shop is great and it integrates into Shopify, but the orders still happened on TikTok. It's not happened on Shopify and the same with Amazon is like you're just like we said earlier, you're disconnected from that customer. Right. So I think seeing those customers from whatnot come into the site is like an enormous tick for a brand like yours. Especially when you're looking longer than just you know, the actual live, the three hour live shows that you're doing.
00:29:07 -- 00:29:15 Right. Um, when you're looking long term, you want people to be engaging with the brand and buying more than once, don't you? Yeah. And with TikTok, unfortunately we don't get it. Right.
00:29:15 -- 00:29:40 They don't, um, Amazon, you know, customers will buy multiple things on Amazon and they'll, they'll save your store and they'll if, if it, if it fits what they're looking for. But yeah, unfortunately TikTok does not have that. Yeah, I'm going to come into land on two more questions. Um, the first one is if you were at a bootstrapped Shopify store. So they're quite small budgets.
00:29:40 -- 00:29:56 Like we said earlier, budgets are tight and they can't allocate a whole person to, to whatnot and to shoppable video. What advice would you give to them about starting out? Like what's a good way to get going with it or test it? And it's always that chicken and egg testing it with enough but not too much. What advice would you give to somebody?
00:29:56 -- 00:30:11 Yeah, you know, the way we tested was not anything, anything special. Right. So there's, there's a, there's a Shopify whatnot integration. Mhm. So it's gonna, it's gonna put your products in your whatnot tool.
00:30:11 -- 00:30:44 Um, all you need is your phone. You literally download the app, start show and, and it's go, go, go. And it's, it's um, it's not going to be a lot of resources. Um, you, you literally jumping off, you could pull up your phone, hit live show and go. It's you know, I think um, it's, it's natural, especially a smaller shop to have paralysis by analysis where they want to make sure they're doing it perfectly and it's going to be right.
00:30:44 -- 00:31:10 And you don't, you don't need that. Just go literally connect your store, schedule a show, sell and, and, and, and garner some, some learnings. Um, you know I look at it now and yeah, we have a, we have Cameron who runs the channel and we have six different hosts and we have um, you know, multiple showrunners. So there's three different things right there. But like jumping off, we didn't have that.
00:31:11 -- 00:32:01 Um, we, we had a host and then we had someone that was trying to figure out the back end. But um, there's a lot. If you open up whatnot right Now, I'd say 90% of the sellers, it's the same guy that is running the back end, running the show as the host, um, and shipping, shipping the items out, um, while whatnot's making this awesome. Yeah, well, so, so you know, whatnot started and it's, it's mainly with solarpreneurs, single single people that are doing everything and it's a great platform for that. Now they've, you know, they've raised, they raised um, money twice last year in the beginning of the year at a, at a five, uh, billion dollar valuation and then at the end of the year at an 11 billion dollar valuation.
00:32:01 -- 00:32:16 So you can see where it's going. Yeah, yeah. So a part of this money is investing and they want to get the, the larger brands on the platform. But that, that growth is revenue based growth. It's not like AI and stuff which people are investing in.
00:32:16 -- 00:32:38 And the hope that it grows, the hope it becomes a certain size. It's like, and again I always give, I always feel the need to say like disclaimer. Uh, we're not giving financial advice, we're not saying you should go and invest in whatnot, but we're just saying that actually it's like in terms of hedging your bets and giving it a go. I mean that's amazing. And I think that leads me on really nicely then to my second and final question on this second final question, if that makes any sense.
00:32:38 -- 00:32:53 But the, the question is how do you pay whatnot? How do whatnot benefit from the stuff you guys are doing? Yeah. So whatnot functions just like um, any other marketplace. They have their fees.
00:32:53 -- 00:33:21 So whatnot takes um, 8% for themselves. And then there's also a uh, 3% and 30 cent credit card transaction overlay. So 11 points of the order are coming, uh, never going to you. They're going straight to the platform which, you know, ebay is roughly pretty lean. Yeah, yeah, ebay is, call it probably 13, 14 points.
00:33:22 -- 00:33:40 Um, Amazon is 15 if you're, if you're fulfilling yourself. But we all know you've got to do fulfilled by Amazon to really show up, which is another 15. Amazon's taking 30. And we haven't even talked about storage return having such a bitch about Amazon today. But it's all true.
00:33:41 -- 00:33:54 Yeah, I mean, but Amazon's great, right? Like I love Amazon Yeah, um, it serves its purpose. We love selling on there. Um, it's just a different economic instant customer reach and I think that's the real power of it, isn't it? That's what you're, you've got.
00:33:54 -- 00:34:15 Yeah, you've got next day delivery, you're reaching people really, really quick. And actually if you run an offer or something, you can so quickly build customer reviews, which is so much more valuable than just version. It also gives you the insights you need. So, yeah, I've seen a lot of people that have done a Kickstarter and then gone straight, straight onto Amazon and even called it like, you know, 20, 25 top Kickstarter, uh, product, uh, or something. Yeah.
00:34:15 -- 00:34:31 Which again is like a really smart way of just connecting up those two, you know, the two facts that like we're here and we were Kickstarter. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Well, I do have one final question, but it's a very easy question, John, that you shouldn't have to think about at all. If people are listening to this and going, john, this sounds amazing.
00:34:31 -- 00:34:36 How can they come and meet us? How can they cheque out? You know, where's your website? What are your social channels? What's your whatnot?
00:34:37 -- 00:34:45 Is it a handle? I've not really used a lot myself. It's a handle just like, just like any other channel. So, um. So yeah, so on, on whatnot.
00:34:45 -- 00:34:55 It's. It's at battlebox. Battle, um, Boxes is our handle and all other social channels and it's missing the E, isn't it? On Battlbox, I always spell it wrong. Spell cheques in Google for me.
00:34:55 -- 00:35:02 Yeah, which I love that. It, uh, Google will correct you now. It's like. Do you mean battlebots with no way. And it will show you the results of.
00:35:02 -- 00:35:10 What do you mean? Anyway, like, we know what you're looking for, so we've given you the result and you can just click the button. It's a vanity button. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, Battl box.
00:35:11 -- 00:35:25 Um, also we'll be, we'll be at Sub Summit, um, live selling on stage. Uh, nice. Yeah, so we're looking forward to that. We'll have ah, the Whatnot team there and we'll be. Yeah, we'll be.
00:35:25 -- 00:35:35 The Battlbox Whatnot team will be there selling on stage, uh, probably every day. Nice. Still working on the details. Yeah. And we had your good friend Chris on.
00:35:35 -- 00:35:48 I mentioned you to Chris, I've mentioned you to three people now in the last couple of weeks and they were like, yeah, of course we know John. It's like this guy is like, he's a good guy to know. Um, but yeah, Chris, who we had on a couple of weeks ago from Sub uh Summit, it might have been last week. I don't know what the scheduling plan is. Sorry.
00:35:48 -- 00:36:17 Yes. Yeah, and it's, and it's beyond my pay grades, uh, to know when we're, when we're posting stuff on my own podcast. Um, but yeah, we had Chris on and he mentioned you, John, um, and said you're going to be there. And he also said, guys, if you're a brand and you want to come along, people like me are paying to have meetings and suppliers and tech apps are paying to have meetings with people. So if you do those meetings, not only do you get a free ticket and they cost thousands of dollars, they will also give you up to $750 towards your travel and accommodation, everything else.
00:36:17 -- 00:36:31 And if you're not crossing the Atlantic like me, it's probably going to be a lot cheaper than what I'm doing and you won't be as jet lagged as I'm going to be the whole time there. So yeah, yeah, if you are in the U.S. come say hi. We'd love to meet you all. And um, yeah, I want to say a massive thank you to, to John for coming back. John, two incredible episodes, uh, under your belt now.
00:36:31 -- 00:36:42 We hope to get you back in a year or two, see if whatnot still exists, see how it's going for you guys. So thank you so much Nick. Thank you for having me. I'll see you, see you in a couple months at Sub Summit. I'll see you in a couple of months.
00:36:42 -- 00:36:54 And for everybody else listening, um, back again on Tuesday with Tuesday Tea Break Talks. I am missing one week but I think it would have already happened by the time this one goes out again. I don't know. That's scheduling, uh, scheduling, uh, list of episodes that's coming up at the moment. But hit subscribe button if you haven't already.
00:36:54 -- 00:37:07 I hope you've enjoyed today's show and if you've got any questions, send us an email. Hello@uh, winningwithshopify.com thanks for tuning in. See you next time. Does your email marketing suck? Do you wish it converted better and integrated better with your store?
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