Nathan Bush, Host of Add To Cart: E-comm tips for bush businesses
This conversation with Nathan Bush, e-commerce strategist, coach and the host of the Add To Cart podcast is part of an expert series we have put together for rural small business owners. The Buy From The Bush mission is to crisis-proof rural Australia by enabling small business and empowering founders. We believe sharing actionable insights is an important part of this. Nathan brings a wealth of expertise as the Co-founder and Director of eCommerce talent agency eSuite and before that, the Group Digital Manager at Super Retail Group. He was placed in the Top 50 People in e-commerce four years in a row. We asked him a few questions about doing business in 2024. We hope it’s useful!
1. What is a common leadership/management trait you see in successful retail founders?
Curiosity. Anyone who calls themselves an ecommerce expert, can scale your business to six figures in a week etc etc is a BS artist. We are all learning and we can learn from everyone. The moment you think you have ecom sorted it is all over. Read, listen to podcasts (hint hint) and connect with other founders. Stay curious and don't get put off by the public "success stories" that are out there. This is a gritty game and we are all figuring it out. Those that remain curious will stay relevant.
2. What are 3 things retailers and e-comm operators should be focussed on in today's market?
1. Customers. Your brand is what customers say about you when you are not in the room. What are they saying about you right now? Your most profitable customers are your 2nd, 3rd, 4th time customers who tell their friends.
2. Product. There is no middle ground for "OK" product. Temu and Amazon will eat you. If you don't have a unique product that connects with a customer need or desire, it's a short game. Bonus points if you can charge a premium for it.
3. Margin. Unless you are working with a product that has at least 50% gross margin, ecom life will be tough. Customer acquisition and staff costs are at an all-time high, you need product margin as a starting point to compete.
Don't sweat on UX, TikTok, AI, same day shipping, affiliates - all that stuff can be experimented with once you have the foundations right.
3. What is one small thing I can do in e-commerce to yield big results?
Create a group of 3-4 likeminded ecommerce founders that are willing to share openly. Whether you catch up weekly, monthly or quarterly, you will get more out of transparent conversations with real wins, lessons and ideas from like-minded folk than any course or time spent on LinkedIn. This isn't the best advice from someone who runs an online ecommerce learning community and podcast - ha!
4. Which episode of your pod should bush business owners listen to right now (to give them some big gems)?
Asking me to pick a baby! From the recent episodes, I would say that Carla Penn-Kahn and David Kahn's episode on profitability was great to set the foundations of a successful ecom business from two successful entrepreneurs (who are not up themselves). You can't go past the amazing Jane Cay from birdsnest as an amazing example of a bush business with an amazing team culture. And if you want to get nerdy on ecom tactics, Matthew Pezzimenti is a conversion rate powerhouse. See, told you I couldn't pick one!
4. Do you have any suggestions for specific tech or software that bush businesses should get their heads around to leverage opportunity in retail/ecomm?
My number one is to take as much tech off the shelf as you can rather than falling into the "special snowflake" camp of building your own. From a bush perspective, three that might be worth mentioning...
Shopify. A no-brainer for many. More than the tech, I think the opportunities it opens up for bush businesses to go global, set up physical stores and connect with like-minded individuals is massive.
Shippit/Shipstation. Two similarish platforms. Essentially they allow you to aggregate different delivery partners. Obviously shipping is a big expense from rural areas - having more customisable shipping options is crucial.
Tiktok. I know, don't kill me. But we are in a window where organic reach and acquisition is still possible (as opposed to Meta). Tune into Laura from Snotty Noses, Alice from Ovira and Emilio from Muscle Nation to hear the impact it's had on their businesses.
