When I was new in retail, I hosted a meeting with a potential new e-commerce platform supplier. I was two weeks into the job and had come from a marketing background. The meeting was to discuss the transfer of front-end data into the ERP – stick with me here. It’s fair to say that I spent the hour smiling, nodding along and promising lots of, “We’ll get you the detail on that.” I walked out with severe doubt that this was the career path for me and three pages of terminology that I spe
nt the next 24 hours googling.
No one enjoys feeling clueless. It’s stressful to be totally out of your depth and feel like you are making it all up. Imposter syndrome is never far away. It’s amplified in retail, when you are surrounded by, ‘This is how we’ve always done it.’
But you will find yourself clueless throughout your career. Often. And that’s a good thing. Cluelessness is where the gold is if you embrace it.
After 200 episodes of the Add To Cart e-commerce podcast, I’ve been lucky enough to speak with Australia’s brightest e-commerce founders and leaders. There’s one common trait that shines through for most: they had no idea WTF they were doing at critical points in their retail journey. And it made them. Not knowing what they were doing was a blessing.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who need to hear this right now, as we move through some hairy times in retail. Whether you are a founder who feels like you are fumbling, a leader who is at a loss, or a junior navigating the retail world for the first time, if you feel clueless, embrace it. Opportunities will follow. Here’s why:
Naivety makes you bold
Once you’ve been in retail for a while, you quickly understand the retail process and the everyday challenges. And you naturally avoid these challenges if you can.
But naivety can be a blessing. It means you are less daunted by a challenge and not afraid to take on problems that others have shied away from.
Take, for instance, the founders of flower and gifting company LVLY. Hannah Spilva and Verity Tuck came from an advertising background but wanted to revolutionise the online gifting world. The problem (or blessing) was that they had no idea about the intricacies of fresh products, breakable packaging, or on-demand delivery.
Yet, seven years after they came up with the idea, and thanks to a lot of determination and ingenuity, LVLY was acquired for $35 million.
“We were lucky that we were so naive. If we did really know the challenges that we were going to come up against in the business, we probably would never have done it,” said Spilva.
The experienced naysayers will make you doubt yourself along the way for sure. But if you crack that big scary problem that others have been avoiding, you crack it big time.
You’ll focus on solving the problem
Experience can be powerful. It can also be a handbrake. The more you know, the more scars you have. You know where the costs are. You understand the tech challenges. You see the supply issues. In short, you know lots of reasons why a great idea might be bloody hard to implement.
But if you come without that experience, you focus on solving the problem and work out the process later.
So it is with JAM the label, a brilliant new inclusive brand that makes on-trend fashion more accessible to the one-in-five Australians with disabilities. However, founders Molly Rogers and Emma Clegg are occupational therapists, not fashion designers.
“We would look at clothing that was trendy or that we were wearing and think, well, how can we make this more functional? What are the dressing difficulties so many people are facing and that we’re getting feedback on and how can we make that more accessible?” said Clegg.
Inclusive design is (hopefully) a proposition that has been raised countless times around fashion tables. However, acting on inclusivity is often deprioritised due to the unique requirements and perceived market size. These practicalities don’t deter Molly and Emma. They have a problem to solve. And if a standing ovation at Australian Fashion Week is any indication, it’s going pretty well so far.
Don’t let the perceived impracticality of implementation get in the way of your big ideas.
Old ideas become new opportunities
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut. We have all experienced this. You’ll be banging away at the same opportunities in the same way, knowing that there is growth to be had but not at the rate you want. But what if you are tapping away at the wrong opportunities and need a little nudge in the direction of the unknown to unleash that potential?
A slight change of perspective was the key to Bikes Online’s success. Founders James van Rooyen and Jonathon Allara ran Manly Bike tours for four years before realising a bigger opportunity.
“We sort of started this bike rental/bike tour business about 15 years ago now. And it was a nice enough business. Every year we would replace the fleet of bikes and we just thought these bikes seemed super expensive. And we thought, ‘Why don’t we see if we can buy them direct from the factory?’ ” recalled van Rooyen.
With no previous retail experience, the pair have made Bikes Online the largest online retailer of bikes in Australia – and they’re now taking on the world.
Sometimes we need to unfocus ourselves to realise the alternative opportunities around the corner.
You bring new skills
One of the brilliant things about retail, especially e-commerce, is that we have such a hodge-podge of unique backgrounds. There’s no straight line to an e-commerce career. I’ve interviewed founders who have been everything from neuroscientists, to DJs, to tradies.
Each brings their unique skills and spin to what retail could look like.
Richard Kelsey and Geoff Huens, founders of Beer Cartel, no doubt have a love of beer, but they came from corporate research careers and that proved valuable.
Today, Beer Cartel is known for its brilliant Australian Craft Beer Survey. It’s a clever tactic that’s been running since 2016 and engages over 20,000 craft beer drinkers each year. As a result, Beer Cartel has established its brand with great customer data, smart cross-sell and strong PR opportunities. It was the founders’ research expertise that set up this project for success.
“The good thing was that because we came from the research background, we knew how to do it. We had tools that made it easier to get all the data,” said Kelsey.
Applying outside experience and skills to a new retail business means you will not only find new opportunities but also will be able to execute them brilliantly.
You’ll have to get your hands dirty
The more experienced we get in retail, the more likely we are to get off the tools and spend more time managing people and budgets and, let’s face it, booking meeting times. It’s easy to lose track of the intricacies of product development, technology capabilities, and marketing possibilities when you start developing specialist teams.
Most founders don’t have the luxury of delegating at the start, however, they have to do everything and get their hands dirty. And this is often where the opportunity lies.
Co-founders of the Bubble Tea Club, Pamela Yip and Jenny Le, loved buying bubble tea. But did Yip have any idea how to make it? Absolutely not. It seemed crazy that they had to go to the shops to buy their bubble tea – especially during lockdown.
“I did search online on how to make it, but a lot of the ingredients were very hard to source,” Yip recalls. “When Jenny brought the ingredients over, I made it for my family. I’m like, ‘Wow, this actually tastes really good. And it was actually really easy to make. Why does this not exist?’ ”
Hence, the Bubble Tea Club revolution was born. Yip and Le are now turning over millions of dollars in home bubble tea kits. They have attracted equity funding and are featured in Inside Retail’s Top 20 Coolest Retailers.
While this story is about making a product, hands-on experience is valuable across a retail business. Building your first website, answering customer service enquiries, pitching to new supply partners – they all provide insight when you are feeling a bit clueless.
Being in the trenches and getting your hands dirty isn’t just a means to an end, it is often the breakthrough itself.
Support from beyond retail circles
No matter how experienced we are, most of us know that we can’t, and shouldn’t, do it all. But we often fall back on the same people to help us. Our teams. Our managers. Our suppliers. Our agencies.
Those with less experience don’t have the luxuries of these support networks and are forced to look outside the typical retail circle to solve old problems in new ways.
This was the case for Alexandra Sinickas, founder of Milkdrop. She wanted to design a breast pump that actually worked. One that was more comfortable, less damaging and ultimately empowering for women. So, where did she start?
“I called a friend of mine, Daniel, who is a roboticist. And he had a friend, Ravi, who works as a prototyper at Swinburne [University of Technology] in a lab there, and his whole job is to help people make stuff. And so, with those two guys, and also my husband, who’s a GP, we understood the physiology of the breast and what’s happening when a baby’s suckling. I’m just really good at bullying people to get behind designing great things for women.”
This mish-mash team has totally redesigned the breast pump and has even caught the eye of Amazon, which awarded Milkdrop the Amazon Launchpad Innovation Grant in 2021.
While most founders and leaders wish they had the luxury of an established network, the scramble associated with using whomever you can get hold of can lead to unexpected outcomes.
Real relationships with customers
While most of us in retail will say that we’re customer-focused (even customer-obsessed), our understanding of customers is often through the filtered lens of data, feedback forms, and online feedback. But when you are feeling really lost and unsure, the easiest way to get feedback is often directly from the customer. As in, really and truly direct from the customer.
Adam Lindsay, co-founder of cleaning brand Koh, established very direct relationships with customers when getting started. Even though Koh’s vision was always to be an online direct-to-consumer brand, the company spent its first six months as a seller at local farmer’s markets.
“When we went there, it was the opportunity to listen and engage with customers. It was the opportunity to do the demonstration with customers, hear what they’ve got to say. And what we saw was that there was this validation, that we would have other customers from the previous week while we were in mid-demo go, ‘That stuff actually bloody works.’ And we’d go, ‘Yeah it does, doesn’t it? It’s great.’ So we had this validation.”
Today, 10 per cent of Aussie households use Koh and the company is on track to exceed $50 million in revenue. Not bad for a farmer’s market stall. You’re never too experienced to have a real relationship with your customer.
All the founders that you read about here felt totally and utterly clueless at some stage. And it was this cluelessness that helped them find the breakthroughs that changed the game.
They all embraced their cluelessness, rather than hiding from it.
So go find the areas or ideas you feel a bit clueless about and embrace them, whether you are starting your retail career, leading a big project, managing people for the first time, or launching your first retail business.
There are going to be many moments of cluelessness along the way, go grab them.
And if worst comes to worst, google it.
Finally, there’s one other commonality that has made these founders stand out. They have shared these moments with everyone coming after them. They don’t hide that it was hard but they share it openly and honestly to help everyone else. And that’s something special we have in our Australian retail industry. No one has it all figured out. Keep sharing those moments of cluelessness. They make retail special.