Meet Jack. Alongside his co-founder, Sim, he runs Ideal Direct, a UK-based e-commerce group that manages 10 private label brands across Amazon, eBay, and other DTOC channels. We kind of earned the trust early on and took the reigns of the business and things started going well. We haven't really looked back. >> Together, this pair took over a multi-deade family business and transformed it into a modern Amazon powerhouse. Scaling brands, systemizing operations, and thinking well beyond the buy box. You just don't get the same leverage with your time as you would in with Amazon. And I think that was the key difference. >> Join us in today's episode as we explore how Jack and Sim turned a traditional mail order business into a lean, datadriven Amazon brand portfolio. >> It was a case of right, we have to get what they get left behind. They just put things up and and kind of hope for the best. So there was no real science around it. >> Why they're aggressively pruning SKUs and shifting focus to fewer higher margin products. I'm confident in our sort of financial environment and the way that we appraise products. If the opportunity is coming through our system and it's saying right the margins are in our internal targets then I'd have no cost we've taken on on funding and the bold shift Ideal Direct is making off of Amazon and what that means for themselves and their brand. >> We've created this whole infrastructure and and this whole footprint of a company that is more than just an Amazon brand. We just want to see how far that goes. So, if you're scaling on Amazon or simply looking to build systems that grow beyond it, then this is the episode for you. >> I think what's really important for us is communication where we don't attach our ego to any particular idea. If one of us disagrees with something that the other is doing or saying, but ultimately we're confident in having a discussion and actually disagreeing and then coming to a common resolution. >> Hey guys, if you're enjoying the videos, why not consider subscribing? We drop bi-weekly content that will help you improve your business right here on the channel. Jack, thank you so much for joining me. It's a pleasure to have you. >> Thank you very much for having me, Jordan. It's a pleasure. >> Can we just kick off because I know that the Ideal Direct kind of business that you guys run now has got long and historic roots back in, I believe, the 70s. Can you just talk me through that kind of journey of the business and how it evolved to what it is in its current form today? >> Absolutely. So, for those that that know of myself or Sims, so you'll know that that we effectively took over the family business. Um, so it's Sim's father, my father-in-law, so I married Sims sister, so a bit of a scandal. Um, but, uh, so, uh, yeah, um, Peter Sim's dad set up the business years and years ago. So, he was a a cost accountant, um, for a company in the UK, uh, for a number of years and absolutely despised what he did. So, he saw the the early opportunity of of going to China, um, you know, finding these products and bringing them back over to the UK and he was effectively one of the earlier adopters of that. Um and and then he managed to get some some great contracts with uh whether it be newspapers or cataloges and things like that. So it was initially the business started on that model. It it was the days of where you'd see an advert in a newspaper or magazine that you'd then send off your order by post a few days later you might get an acknowledgement and then maybe two or three weeks later you get your product. So it was a very very different world in in which we live now. So uh that went well for for for a long time and and the business grew and it was it was very much bootstrapped and of course along came the internet uh which completely changed things right and and the business kind of went through a transition early in the the 2000s. So that was still before Sim and I had joined but ultimately it was a case of right we we have to get with it or let get left behind. Um and it was actually Sim as a youngster who helped set up some of the earlier listings. I think I think they were on eBay first um and then sort of moved into Amazon, but this was like the real start of things. It was kind of like everything was an auction. They just put things up and and kind of hope for the best. So there was no real science around it. And because they got in early, there were some products that did really really well and kind of developed a real healthy mo around them. And and to be honest, some of those products are still going today. Some were kind of at the end of their life cycle. We kind of had to move on from those. But ultimately yeah it evolved slowly in into that online uh sort of e-commerce business leveraging the platforms like eBay like Amazon and had their own website as well at the time. Now effectively what kind of happened is we got to uh when was it? It was about 2016 2017 and Peter Sim's dad kind of got to the point where he he'd been doing it for a long long time and effectively the business was built around him and couldn't really function without him and he kind of wanted to step away. I think on top of that there was um perhaps they kind of hit a little bit of a ceiling in terms of their uh knowledge when it came to to Amazon in particular. Uh and so he asked Sim to join. So Sim joined back in 2017, I believe. And then it was a kind of a conversation that happened in the pub. I was at one of my accountancy firms at the time. Um, yeah, I got to be careful what I say here, but I'm not an accountant at heart. Uh, it was, don't get me wrong, it was it was a fascinating grounding, but um, there was always that entrepreneurial streak in in me, and I knew I wanted to do something different. and my wife Nikki uh she knew that I wasn't particularly enjoying it and she's like, "Well, look, dad wants to step away. Sim could do us some help. Why don't you go and have a conversation?" So, we had a couple of beers and before I knew it, I'd accepted a a job there. And and to be honest, at the time, I saw it as a a bit of a stepping stone. I was going to go there, help them sort of um move things forward, set up some systems or whatever, and then see what I wanted to do elsewhere. But uh Sim and I got along phenomenally well and yeah we we we kind of earned the trust early on and took the reigns of the business and things started going well and we haven't really looked back. >> Interesting. I I want to touch on a few things that you said. The first one being kind of the shift from mail order to online. Was that because you could see kind of volumes declining from the mail order side? Was it just kind of opportunity of the internet was clearly where the future was? Like what pushed that decision? You know, >> it it was both really. Again, that transition kind of started before uh I joined, but you know, from the stories that I heard and and to be honest, there was there was still m some male order stuff going on, you know, when I did join, but ultimately it was clear to see it became such a small percentage of the business. And then we had effectively what was about 75 plus% of the business of the business revenues were coming from online platforms, but at the same time, the business didn't necessarily have the knowledge that it needed to at that time. And so it was very much um you know we'll list something we'll we'll do the basics but actually there was there was no deeper dive there was no knowledge there was no use of tools like helium 10 or anything like that at the time. I I think there needed to be a big change in in culture a big change in the approach because I think culturally with with mail order it's it's very unique or not necessarily unique it's very different to e-commerce because of the pace the pace of things and and and obviously how aggressive the competition is as well. So there was a there was a lot of sort of a little bit of a reluctance to make fast decisions at the time. There was a bit of reluctance to speculate to accumulate so to speak. There was there was a reluctance to put budget into advertising and do these things to to really grow aggressively on Amazon. Um so they were kind of caught in in in a little bit of a a gray area, bit of a middle ground whereby the the mail order stuff was clearly on a decline and the opportunities weren't there as as they were before. But ultimately the business kind of wasn't all in in terms of pushing forward with with the online stuff. So that that's effectively what what Simar wanted to do when when we joined is is really grabbed that opportunity with with both hands. >> Okay. And you mentioned there kind of you know obviously you're doing this in the the early days almost of the internet and it is kind of a wild west. You know you're you're trying out different platforms. How do you kind of approach that and at what point did you kind of shift your focus you know away from the eBay's the kind of website and more towards Amazon? >> I think quite quickly Amazon became very very dominant right and and you know those that sell on Amazon will know that you can gain a lot of traction very quickly if you do the right things and I think that sort of Amazon flywheel so to speak is extremely powerful and you don't necessarily get that with with with the other platforms. Now there is a darker side to that. there is, you know, for every good there is a bad and and perhaps we'll get into that a little bit later, but but ultimately in terms of growing quickly and and getting your products in front of customers, you know, doing that on Amazon is fantastic. And, you know, if you get your position where whereby your products are are really being pushed by the algorithm, then your growth is exponential, right? With eBay, you know, eBay was doing doing pretty well. Um, and we do I think we do about a million pounds a year still on eBay now. Um but it's you just don't get the same leverage with your time as you would in with Abson. And I think that was the key difference and recognizing that actually um at the time we needed to bootstrap so we need to go where our time our return on time is is is is the best and that was Amazon. >> Okay. And is it so it's more of a case of you kind of double down on the channels that working best like Amazon and you just you know you still keep the other ones going. you just don't focus as much on them rather than like shutting them down. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. And and you know, like I said, eBay still does okay, but it's very very hands-off and it you know, we actually hired someone as an eBay uh listing specialist a couple of years ago and she very quickly got sucked into Amazon um because it's always the priority. So there is always a little bit of a frustration from some of the guys when they you know they see eBay's not not being pushed as as much as it could do. But you know with when it when it comes to us having resource constraints we we have to go where where the rewards are right. >> Okay. And you mentioned something else as well about kind of products reaching the the end of their life cycle. Is that kind of a timing thing of when you know there's product market fit or is that a case of different channels different products you know maybe the slowness of mail order is better suited to different products to Amazon? Have you have you found you kind of change the brands and products around based on the channel focus? >> Um well I would say our strategy at the is very much when we're sourcing now is sourcing for for Amazon. So the as I kind of alluded to there the other marketplaces are certainly an afterthought but I think with some of the earlier products you know the um one of the products which was basically made it from a mail order onto Amazon and it's still going today but it was like a wooden shoe stretcher and then it used to be a running joke. It's like how how the hell this is still selling like surely everyone in the UK has got at least one by now it was just bizarre. Um, but then you know we start to see products like that start to slow down and I think it was just a case of of one a little bit of market saturation in terms of people have already got what they need but two competition increase massively and so a lot of products became commoditized quite quickly and actually we we found that because uh we were part of the Amazon vendor program for a couple of years which probably the biggest mistake that we made but we were effectively I was I'm judging by your smile that you've you've probably heard that before but um we were effectively forced into commoditized markets and and we're we're still dealing with the consequences of that. >> Okay. I I want to come back to the kind of Amazon side of things in a moment, but the the final part of your story I want to dig into is the kind of partnership side. So, I've heard a kind of lot of stories of, you know, partnerships not working out, some working out. What to you is is kind of the the fundamental reasons why yours and kind of Sims relationship work so well from a from a business perspective? >> Yeah. No, that's that's that's a great question. Um I I think ultimately is that we've we've and this is by pure luck, not design, but we've effectively got opposite skill sets. So I I don't know how much audience will know about Sim, but he's from a professional gambling background and I'm from an accountancy background. So as you can imagine, he wants to take all the risks and and like I'm pulling my hair out going, "No, no, no, no, no. We can't do this. We haven't run the numbers." And so actually what happens is we we we we we come to a nice middle ground and you know it there are always potential difficulties being family as well and and obviously with a with a with a business partner you you spend a lot of time with one another. I think what's really important for us is is um communication. I think that's very important. I think where we do well is that we we don't attach our ego to any particular idea. And so if one of us disagrees with something that the other is doing or saying that ultimately we're confident in having a discussion and actually disagreeing and then coming to a common resolution. And I think that's really important because obviously you want to make sure that that the staff are seeing a coherent message going forward. >> Okay. And then in terms of that kind of decision- making process I'm assuming you know if there's a big decision to make sometimes it can be you on the one end and and Sim on the other. How do you resolve those kind of junctures I guess or logger aheads? one of our um sort of call them our ideals but they're effectively the the sort of moral compass of the company but but one of those is is is data driven and so effectively what we make sure is that okay yeah we anyone can come up with an idea that's absolutely fine but actually as far as we can and I appreciate you can't always do this but but let's put some let's put some information to it let's put some numbers on it and let's make sure that we're in a position where we can make the most informed decision and sometimes there is you know you do have to make a bit of a leap of faith because you can't accurately predict everything with the information that you've got. But but I think by always having a good business case, by always having the data that we need, it basically ensures that less often we're having to take unknown risks and those big leaps of faith. And I think that really helps. >> I want to move on now to kind of talk about the different channel mix that you guys have. And I guess my first question is in terms of team, how do you manage kind of the shift between you know different channels? Um, and I guess that's in terms of, you know, team expertise, but also kind of culture and what people are focused on. >> Uh, no, that's a very good question and it and it is difficult because Amazon is a bit of a black hole as I said there. Um, so so we have um someone that works exclusively on the off Amazon marketing side of things. Um, and to be honest, she spends most of her time now on Tik Tok because we've seen some really, really good results there. We're actually restructuring the company at the moment to to build out that off Amazon marketing team. And something that really not changed our minds but kind of made us slightly stop and say actually this now needs to be a priority was um so so my wife Nikki Sim sister she's got her own jewelry business and they're more off Amazon uh got the website well the sort of direct to customer across Google Metar ads and things like that and they've they've done a lot of training on metar ads recently internally and they had huge success with one of their campaigns and when we look at what they're doing in terms of their back end of their email marketing flows and and actually how they're keeping and owning the customer that obviously reduces friction to purchase and the cost of acquisition going forward. We've kind of seen that well actually that's that's kind of a way out of the sort of Amazon hustle a little bit and not that we'll never completely move that way but it's it's just another whole revenue stream that that we hadn't tapped into. So we're actually collaborating with them at the moment and and we're looking at ways that we can share resources to build that off Amazon team to really drive some of our brands away from Amazon. >> Okay. So is it kind of a case of sharing knowledge and upskilling the current team or are you actively looking you know when you look at new channels or new opportunities do you look at hiring and bringing in new people? >> So ordinarily it was a case of we'll try and use what we've got inhouse. Um, and that was that was very much at a time where, you know, we were trying to be very budget sensitive, but what you realize with experience is that, you know, you can try and do it yourself. You can try and teach yourself, but ultimately there's always going to be someone better out there to do it than you. And and you know, I've read um Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time, right? If you haven't, I'd highly recommend it. But that was really the kick up the backside that I needed to say actually as a company, but also myself, we've got to let go. We've got to work through other people. we got to hire in that expertise because that's not that's not where we're going to add value. And so now it's more a case of right, let's get the right people in the right seats. Let's hire externally. Let's hire people with expertise and let them run with it. Give them the resources that they need to to run with it. And ultimately that's going to lead to exponential growth. >> And does that look like kind of you know in-house hiring or is that partnerships with agencies or kind of other external people? We we have used uh some agencies before. Um we've had a few bad experiences um with some of the off Amazon stuff. Uh and so at the moment it's all hiring in house. So um I'd like to say we're getting quite good at recruitment. Um that's not to say we haven't made a lot of mistakes in the past in terms of the process, but yeah, I think we're getting pretty good at it. I think sometimes the problem is getting particularly where we're based if we want someone in house we're based just outside of London right we're in Kent so it's difficult to to get someone to come and work for us when they could go and work in London for a big firm for a lot more money so it's it's striking that balance and um and getting the right people in on the sort of right structure in terms of working in and out the office. Can you explain that hiring process and some of the lessons you've learned because I know that's a big headache for for a lot of people is how do you find and attract quality talent? >> Okay. So, it depends on the position. Um, so we we run our own warehouses as well. So, the the recruitment process for someone that will work in the warehouse is very different to the recruitment process to someone that might be say a head of department or a senior manager. what what we do do uh sort of at the management level is we will put job ads out um whatever boards we can um but also we'll look at people within the industry as well so we're part of a number of groups networks so we we'll kind of go out to people there and say look do you know of anyone that's got experience in this that can do this and so on and we'll try and make it an attractive offer um whereby you know there is the opportunity of profit share and things like that going forward or great bonus schemes because I think it's very important want to make sure that the company's success is aligned with you know the the individual's earning potential. Now we will then put the candidates through a series of of tests that'll be IQ tests, aptitude tests, um test tasks as well. And to be honest, this is probably something that we should have done sooner, but there was almost like a reluctance to go through these multiple steps because it's we asking too much. It's like, well, actually, you know, if we want to be the best, we have to take on the best, and we can't let people that aren't a players through that process. So, they go through multiple tests. Um, for example, we had a QC uh candidate come in recently, did a full days trial test. We set that up for him. We've got some business analysts that we're we're hiring at the moment. Um, so we've got them on test task. They'll then have a first interview as well. That's before the test task. That's normally with who they'll be reporting to. So depending on the level, so for example, it' likely be one of our heads of department and then there'll be a final interview should they get through the test task whereby they can present their results to either myself or s both of us. And at that point, we're just looking for uh softer skills like we know technically that they're adept. It's more so have they got the softer skills? Are they going to be a cultural fit? Um so it's quite a few steps but it wasn't always like that. It was almost like >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think so. >> Is that kind of learning from mistakes and you've just kind of tightened up and gone more in depth with the recruiting process? >> Yeah. Uh I think so. I think sometimes perhaps we've taken sort of personal recommend not so much personal recommendations but more so like friends that could do a job for a little while. And I I you know what I think the key difference is the fact that as the business has grown and it's gone through a different stage or going through a different stage in its life that we've moved away from needing generalists that could kind of help out with a number of different tasks to actually now we need specialists and I think that's the key difference because we're we're really looking for technical knowledge first um then also as I say making sure they're a cultural fit but yeah we we've made mistakes not so much in terms I don't think there have been too many that have actually got right the way through. Um there's been one or two uh that we've then had to let go because it hasn't worked out. Um but I think we've wasted a lot of time with letting poor candidates get a lot further through than they should have done which ultimately takes up time of everyone in recruit recruiting process. >> Perfect. Okay. Um can I just ask now in terms of you know the split you've you've obviously got people in different countries. Can you just lay out roughly in terms of departmental org chart what people you have in in kind of what different roles? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, we we've kind of got a bit of a classic vertical org chart, albeit we do have uh employees that sort of run across that and I'll explain what I mean by that shortly, but effectively we've got four distinct departments. Um, and SIM looks after two of those and I'll look after the other two. So um we've got content and creatives which is underneath SIM and then we've got sales and marketing which is also underneath SIM. Um and then on my side of the Yorkshire we've got supply chain and operations and then we've got financial planning and kind of HR falls into that as well which is effectively geared around skill sets. Now what we have in finances effective what we have got is effectively an analytics team and then we've got like a financial reporting team. um operations. We we've got a head of operations and then our operations manager on the ground and then sort of all the warehouse staff that make things happen and we've got supply chain specialist um and sales and marketing is is slightly different and this is what I mean by sort of people that work across the org chart. So we've got um a brand or a structure where we have brand directors and then we have brand managers um underneath them and effectively they are responsible for pulling everything together. So though they are within sales and marketing, they're responsible for the growth growth and development of the brand. Um they're kind of working right across the orb chart to make sure that things get done. Um and then on the other department, we've got content and creative. We've got our in-house design team uh that will do our images uh and video content there. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I think my kind of final question on team is you know you're growing pretty rapidly. How do you kind of I guess not get too bloated? So yes, you want team to to kind of support the growth and to get them in, you know, spots where you're hoping to build things out, but how do you Yeah. ensure that you don't overhire um and just Yeah. get too much bloat in there? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um that is a real challenge and we've we've certainly made that mistake before. Um and obviously it's not easy to to go the other way or teams. It's never easy letting letting people go. Interestingly, it what what I'm working on at the moment is an internal project that that we're calling scale ready. Um, so I'm I'm effectively sort of sticking a consultant's hat on and and really auditing all of our systems and processes that we've got in place and I'm I'm I'm kind of going through each department and and working with the people that are actually doing all of the tasks and saying, look, okay, what what's the process flow here and what are the steps that you go through? And so we're working really hard to identify all of all of the steps that that each of us go through because then I will then go away and and analyze those and look at right okay well where are are we doing this because it's the way it's always been done or are we doing this uh because it's the most efficient way to do it. So effectively that would be step one in terms of making sure that we haven't necessarily got the bloat by by actually working with the individuals on the ground to say right okay well we've got a defined process in place you've got your your standard operating procedure we've got the controls in place so that we can delegate effectively um and we've got systems in place to facilitate that process and I think by doing that we're looking at every step and saying right okay we're doing it as efficiently as possible so we know that we're getting the most out of the staff that are there and then we can then make a decision as we grow. like okay well actually do we need to do we need to hire more or is it because things aren't get done efficiently and actually the next step on top of that is looking at all of those processes and I was speaking to Sim today about um AI agents in terms of which of those processes can now be carried out by an AI agent rather than a human being and that's not to say we're going to let everyone go because that's absolutely not what we're going to do but actually if we can leverage AI tools to grow that would be fantastic >> for sure and I think every kind of member of the team becomes more efficient right with the with the AM. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I want to shift gears kind of slightly now and and talk about the brands that you guys have. So I think there's 10 brands, 10 private label businesses under the kind of ideal direct umbrella. Um do you guys see yourselves as kind of brand builders or kind of marketplace players? Uh now we're brand builders and and and and actually our sort of uh internal company strapline is that that we want we want to build brands that add value and provide our customers with quality products. That is what we want to do and that is that is how we want to define our culture. I think before in the earlier days when when we were kind of learning it was effectively right we found this product opportunity uh seems really great. We don't have a brand, so we'll crowbar it into one of our other brands or we'll just set up a brand specifically for that, right? And it worked for a while. It did work for a while. Um, but I think it's fair to say that people are becoming more brand sensitive nowadays. I think there's been a bit of a transition. It was kind of like, okay, we'll only buy from brands. Then there was all this really cheap stuff that was coming from the world. Um, and so we'll jump on that train. And then actually sometimes people realize they're not getting the level of service or they're not getting the products that they thought they were. And so now people are identifying with brands again. And I mean you all know this coming from from marketing. But but from our point of view it's like if if we can build brand loyalty and build brand trust we can then use that as an opportunity to own the customer but also we kind of escape these price wars um you know Amazon the the fees are always going up. So there's always margin erosion and it sometimes it feels like a race to the bottom but but actually if we can engage with the customer in a different way if we can add value away from that um I think it it's not necessarily measurable in the short term but I think longer term is it's going to work wonders for our longevity and and hopefully margin as well. So yeah in answer to your question we are now moving down that route of of actually building good brands that that do what a brand should do effectively. And when you're looking at kind of new opportunities for kind of building a brand, are there any signals that would tell you there's kind of a gap or opportunity in the market or that a brand in that space would kind of make sense? >> Not so much at the moment. There there are there is a brand that we are working on and I'm I'm hoping to get my wife involved because she will be much more of a knowledge center on this than I ever will be. I don't want to talk about that too much yet cuz I don't want to I don't want to uh give too much away. um and is very early stages. I think I think for us is with with one of our brands de we kind of stumbled upon that opportunity and then it was like okay I I mean I kind of developed a really random passion for for marketing you know I love listening to Hland those guys and um yeah we worked with um Ben Leonard for a little while as well just uh help us with some offers and stuff and yeah I really got into it and and and so we kind of out of interest we we then sort of started dipping our toe in some offers and marketing and looking at our email flows and driving traffic to our website, Tik Tok and all of this for that brand. Uh, and we really saw the value in it. So, right now it's like I say, we've got that brand that's in the very early stages that we have identified a bit of a gap in the market. Albeit that was probably by accident, but it's more so, right, okay, we're looking at the brands we've got now that are already doing well, but um, albeit largely on Amazon. It's like, how can we extend those elsewhere? because one, we're going to make more money off of Amazon, but also it's it's going to make our experience on Amazon a lot a lot easier. >> Okay. On that point as well is is I guess more of a maybe a personal question, but how do you know that you know you have the bandwidth or the team has the bandwidth to focus on something new and that that would have kind of higher returns than focusing on the existing portfolio? >> Uh good question. Uh, I guess we don't always um there is there is kind of an element of let's give it a go and figure it out afterwards, but you know, I'm I'm always very conscious of of creating overwhelm and putting too much on on the team's plate considering how busy they already are and doing a phenomenal job on. But that's kind of goes back to why we're we're looking to leverage expertise from a wife's company and we're looking to make external hires so that actually we can kind of ring fence these projects at least to start with and you know our brand directors and brand managers will be involved to some extent but a lot of the heavy lifting will get taken care of for them. So, you know, they might be involved in terms of the initial brand strategy. Um, but ultimately we're going to have, you know, whether it's Google Ads experts, meta ad expert, branding experts that are going to be doing uh everything for them. And I think that's the idea. And again, going back to what I mentioned about the internal project that we're running through is I think if we can get everything as efficient there as possible first, then we can make a decision and an assessment on okay, is there any existing capacity from the team that working on Amazon to cross over this stuff? Otherwise, we're going to use uh bring bring new people in to deal with that. >> Um and then I believe all of your current portfolio is launched by you guys, right? Is that true? >> Yes. Yes, it is. Although, and it's a bit of a sour point, we were collaborating with an agency to launch in the USA. Now, we've had to shove that for the time being for obvious reasons. Uh our good friend Donald Trump hasn't particularly helped there. Um but yeah in in in in the UK and in Europe we we've always launched ourselves. We have tried a couple of launches in the USA it was a lot more difficult a hell of a lot more difficult. Um >> but but we found in terms of our knowledge and our understanding of how the UK and European marketplaces work we can we can launch pretty well there. >> I I want to come back to geography but my question now is in terms of launching versus acquiring. What what are your thoughts there? And you know, have you previously kind of tried to acquire businesses and and grow them rather than launch from scratch? >> Well, funny you should say that. We actually had an offer from one of our competitors a little while while ago. Um, I won't mention any names, but I think I mean, they were running the business part-time. They did a very very good job with with the resources that they had. Um, and they actually approached us asking, "Look, okay, look, you're clearly the number one player in this game, like in this niche now. look do you wanna I want to sell I want to get out do I'll give you first offer um it didn't quite make sense for us there but I think with our infrastructure and with our expertise that we've developed over uh a number of years I think there certainly is an opportunity to take some brands on whereby there is a lot of potential but the individuals running that business haven't necessarily been able to um realize that potential it's certainly a fast track to growth so I think if if you're going to do it, you got to do it very carefully and and and properly of course because these things can be very very cash intensive. So yeah, I think right now the focus is on growing our existing brands. Um but I I can see us taking on one or two in in the not so distant future >> if if it's kind of the right opportunity. You would certainly look at it. >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay. Um and then yeah, just kind of touching on what you said previously about geography. See, you're kind of UK based obviously and mainly focused on the UK with some Europe. Is that true? >> Yeah, I think probably Well, yeah, in terms of overall revenue, I think we're about 75% UK now. Um, probably about 15 to 20% Europe and then the rest is USA. We we actually plan to to change that drastically, but yeah, most of the focus is in the UK. We've actually got a bit of an edge in the UK. We we we sell for Phil Prime. Um we because we do such a a large volume we we're able to get very very good rates with our couers. Uh and so we've actually developed a bit of a hybrid model we built our own rericer which means that during uh cutoff times the the the our SFP offer will win the buy box. Um so then the orders rerooted or rooted for our warehouse where we make more margin. Um but post cut off for SFP it switches back to FBA so the customer is always seeing next day delivery. um that's been a real um fruitful strategy for us. So that's been great. It's meant we've been able to be more competitive on pricing uh particularly on bulkier items than than a lot of our competition. So that's worked really well. And and for Europe, we we kind of stripped back our catalog a lot when we were on the vendor program. Uh Amazon basically told us look if you launch in the UK, you have to launch in Europe. Uh, and what that meant is there were a lot of products that weren't doing particularly well that were just there to tick that box. Uh, and we were kind of getting the fruit from the UK. We've kind of stripped back all of that and we're focusing on the real big winners. Um, we've had a few supply chain issues, but I anticipate that that Germany in particular, but Europe will probably get to like if we forget USA growth for the time being, we'll probably get to about 40% of the business quite quickly. >> Okay. And you mentioned kind of the USA there a few times. Was it the plan to focus more on that before these kind of tariff changes and has that now changed >> it? It's it's not the end of the opportunity. I think there's always there's always a way around it, right? And uh we wouldn't be entrepreneurs if we if we gave up every every barrier. But so we we had I think it was three launches that we put a lot behind. I think we've got five or six containers that just finished manufacturer. Now we're lucky very lucky that we can redirect those to the UK and we can store them and dispatch them ourselves. Um, so that was a bit of a get out of jail card, but we had invested a lot in research. As I mentioned, we were collaborating um with the guys over at Clear Eds uh on on on that one. Um, so there was some cost there. Now, the problem that we've got is that everything's so uncertain. I think if if we knew that the tariffs were going to stay where they are for the duration of time, you can make a plan, right? But obviously, we don't and it seems to seems to be changing with the wind. So, we're effectively just going to going to stand back and see what unfolds um over the next month or so and then we'll make a decision on whether we go again. But right now, um it's it's difficult to to get the margin that we need, almost impossible, in fact. >> Okay. Um and then you you kind of you know, we're talking about tariffs and supply chain. I want to kind of roll back a few years and just talk Brexit. How much did that kind of implement the business for you guys? >> Yeah, Brexit was Brexit was a very tough time. um as a percentage we I think we're doing more in Europe than we are now. Um and we used to fulfill everything from the UK, right? So we'd send from our UK warehouse over to the fulfillment center in um wherever France or Germany and it was very easy, right? It was very easy to get goods across. Um, one of my biggest frustrations actually when when we got through the transition period, it's like, right, okay, well, now we need to abide by the new rules and actually anything leaving the UK to Europe is an export and an import was kind of talking to to some of the big holers and customs brokers and and they just didn't know what was going on. It was like nobody knew. It was so frustrating. So, in the end, what we decided to do is we set up with a 3PL in Poland. Initially, we went via Germany. Um that came with some difficulties around duty calculation methods and stuff like that. But we settled in Poland, went out to Poland. There was a lot of admin to do. I had to go fly out there, visit the bank, set up a bank account. And one of the big pains there at the moment is that if you're importing into Poland, um you have to pay your import VAT, which is deferred here, then you got to claim it back. So it's cash that gets sunk in. Actually, we're working on deferring that now. But so it it it wasn't without it difficulties, but now it's up and running. We we've been Yeah. pretty much since since Brexit, um we we've been running that model and it's working really really well for us. But it yeah, it was just a case of um we we just couldn't we couldn't suffer the duties twice, we couldn't suffer the the the cost of freight twice. It was like right, let's just get it directly into Europe the bringing it in kind of from China direct to Poland. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. >> Okay. And on that China side, I know there's kind of a lot of talk in the past few weeks with with Trump of them kind of losing that number one kind of export position. Do you think there's truth there? Do you think there's anything to that? And are you looking at kind of other alternatives for that kind of manufacturing or groups? Uh well actually one of one of our brands that we launched I think I think it's actually only been live for two to three months and it's done phenomenally well and all hats off to our brand director there uh Tom but that's effectively gone in 3 months gone to a seven figure brand and that's with a UK manufacturer um that we've made that work. So there are other options. I think in terms of the so-called like decline of Chinese export, I I actually think it's a bit of an opportunity for uh for our UK and European markets at the moment. I think they're going to want to suppliers and manufacturers are going to want to replace the business that they're currently losing from the USA. I think on top of that, the Chinese government have allowed uh the R&B to to devalue, right, against the dollar. And so that puts us in a better purchasing position. Um, and we're now, you know, actively negotiating with all of our suppliers, which I would urge everyone and anyone buying from China to do so. Um, so I think certainly in the short to medium term, there's an opportunity there. Where it goes from from here is is is kind of anyone's guess, but I think having success with that UK supplier has has really helped us. I think the brand that I mentioned that we're going to start off of Amazon, we're looking at UK and USA suppliers for that as well. So I I think there was always a little bit of a subconscious worry about overdependence on China. Um but I think that's kind of been brought to the forefront a little bit more and so if we can find another, you know, another route to market, another supplier, we certainly will. >> But it sounds like kind of yes or no to answer my question. It sounds like China's doing quite a lot to accommodate people that still want to buy from them. But then there's also opportunities. >> Okay. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Interesting. >> Can we talk marketing now? Um so obviously you guys are yeah pretty focused on Amazon but if I'm hearing correctly there's still kind of you know a shift off of Amazon maybe um a focus on Tik Tok and the DTOC model. >> Is that correct? >> Yes. Yes. So uh initially the the Tik Tok play was if if we can go viral on Tik Tok then um ultimately you know we don't necessarily worry too much about making profit on Tik Tok like if we can do a break even that's fantastic because what we saw when we were experimenting with that uh was that we were getting a lot more in terms of branded search term on Amazon right and we know the algorithm loves external traffic so so that was great but then actually well when we look at it now it's like you know we can we can reduce those affiliate percentages. We can charge a little bit more and we're still doing quite well on Tik Tok. Um with with dear oak, our brand there, we're doing a lot more in terms of PR. Uh we're doing more in terms of uh SEO and stuff like that. Again, it has come down slightly to resource constraint with everyone getting sucked into Amazon. But with this sort of new restructure and bringing in Amazon expertise, we're really going to be pushing that. And actually, Sim and I are due to go to a um like we've got a pop-up at Hampton Court Palace that we're going to do that we never would have thought about doing, right? And it seems bizarre like we're running, you know, an 8 figure company and we're going to be standing at a market store speaking to people about our brand, you know. Um so, but it but it's great because, you know, we we want to be having these multiple touch points with people. We want to engage with the customer. We want to find out what they like. We want to find out um you know what interests them so that we can position ourselves best to serve their needs. Um so yeah in answer to your question there will there will be more of a push to the to to the off Amazon stuff and I think that's probably one or two of our existing brands but then the the newer brand that hopefully we're going to get get going >> and aside from kind of the odd popup here and there. What are your thoughts on kind of B2B and and kind of retail channels? >> It's clearly a model that can work and can work extremely well. my I I've actually been in a position where I've had clients in in my past life that have had huge huge retail um uh contracts and they've just pulled the rug from underneath them. I I think quite often it can it can be a case of you know you everything is dictated to you. Um it's very hard to negotiate on terms and ultimately it's a huge cash flow drain because you know some of them won't pay you for 90 days. That being said, you know, if you want to be a nationwide brand, then it helps to be in a John Lewis or someone like that, you know, and so there is a balance to be had, I think you've got to be very selective with with who you partner with. Um, and I think you got to do it when the time is right. I I kind of hear a lot of people that their sole aim is to get into retail. It's like, well, retail generally is on the decline. So, you're already selling online where the growth is. What's the desperate need to move towards, you know, an avenue which is which is going you know the wrong way and I get it it's brand recognition and everything like that but I think sometimes people just see that as the holy grail but don't actually think as to why they why they believe that so I think it is important to to make a very honest assessment with you know the risk reward of that and actually why you're doing it >> on that point so I was having a chat with a guy called Preston Rutherford who I think IPO chubbies so they're like a nine 10 figure kind of US business his viewpoint is that at a certain point the kind of B TOC or online market caps out and he said at that point that's when you should kind of make the push into retail acknowledging all the kind of other downsides of of you know that as a channel that you said but do you think that's kind of a valid point? >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense and you know if you listen to the likes of Hormosi or any of these sort of business gurus they always say that you've got to fill one cup up completely before you move on to the next. And I think that's exactly what he's described there. I think for a lot of people they they've only got a cup sort of quarter or half full before they move into the next one which again is a distraction and can mean that sort of things start to go wrong. Um I think the other thing obviously to consider is if you're looking to exit a brand um being in retail is is great for your multiple. Um there's no denying that and so you know if you're building to sell then it should probably should be part of your strategy. Um, obviously that's not necessarily what we're trying to trying to do right now, but yeah, I think it comes back to to timing and circumstance. >> Okay. And I I think you're also saying not spreading yourself too thin. There's a lot of opportunities on the table. Focus on the few that you can really scale up pretty quickly. >> Yeah. Stay away from shiny object syndrome. It's a real killer. >> I hear you. Going back to kind of Amazon then, can you just talk through your kind of main focus areas on the platform for growth? in, you know, 2025. >> Well, as as as you'd know or or if you don't, go go go and look it up. But Sim Sim's very much a guru in the main image space. Um does a lot of solar sessions on that and and um you know, really has got a great knowledge base there. So, we're we're making sure that our main images are as good as they can possibly be. Like we've found that just a just a focus on that has probably been one of the biggest levers that we've pulled. Um so that that's been really really good. I think the other one is is market penetration outside of the USA right now. So, we've got a lot of products that have done phenomenally well that we've got lined up to to go in Europe. But I think it's as well as as well as that in terms of our catalog, it's refining our focus. It it was really interesting actually Sim did a bit of analysis on our on our profit and it was almost perfect Pareto. So I think it was something like yeah uh 21% of our products were driving 79% of our um of our profit and we're like well you know why are we bothering with that 300 there let's just get rid of that and and really sort of go inch wide and mile deep and that's kind of what we've been doing and we've changed our culture slight in terms of that and hopefully that's going to reduce the overwhelm with the staff. It's going to mean that that we get more value on our time invested in any one product. Um and actually yeah we we should see some growth through there. So yeah really those three things I would say main image um moving into other marketplaces with Amazon. Interestingly there's another one Amazon Island is there's not gone live so that's probably one that we'll explore. >> Um and and and then just refining our focus. >> Okay. So does that last point mean kind of stripping back the product portfolio of stuff that's not selling at a high level? Yeah, we we've been really aggressive with it. Uh to the point where it's like we tried running deals and and some some instances worked really well, but we we'd run quite aggressive deals just to sell through, but in other cases we've just gone to liquidators and said, "Look, we don't want this anymore just because we we actually we're in the process of buying another another one, but we've run out of warehouse space as well." So, it's not just the fact, you know, we can't afford to have dead stock just lying there. There's a there's an incremental cost of of storing it now. So, um, yeah, a lot of times we've gone to liquidators, you know, it was really funny actually. We had a product um that we, well, we will still be discontinuing it, but we just got some stuff up on TikTok and it went viral and it was selling like hundreds a day out of nowhere. It was like, where was this when we were making a decision, but um but yeah, so it it it's just kind of, you know, we're going to take a bit of a short-term hit on this. But I think the upside is that we're going to be able to focus more as an organization and that's infinitely more valuable in my opinion. >> Okay. How do you balance that though between kind of that mindset, you know, the 8020, but also still launching new stuff if you still want to to hope that you get kind of the next winner out of that launch? Well, I I think the first thing is to make sure that our so we've got what we call a product validation flow which goes right from product research to effectively final sign off um at director level and our aim is to make that as sort of uh systemized as possible so that it's very easy to do that that we're using automation where we can that we're using tools where we can so that ultimately it's not that ownorous to to identify these opportunities um and and and that we don't have to have these huge meetings where everyone's in them and it takes so much time out of everyone's day. So, I think it all comes down to that. I think if if we can do that successfully, then ultimately we're we're going to have a machine that we're effectively going to be able to put more through and the the results that come out of it are going to, you know, it's pretty much going to be linear. The more we put in, the more we get out. >> And is that you kind of knowing almost before you launch to a certain percentage point that, you know, this is going to be successful? >> Yeah. >> In the UK, yes. Um, we do do a hell of a lot of research. Um, and actually obviously as you'll know from ideation right through to actually launching the product, there's there's quite a long time period that passes and so we're always making sure that at certain points throughout their processes we're kind of reanalyzing the opportunity to make sure it's still there. Now, you can't always guarantee it. Sometimes you'll launch and then a week later competition comes in and with, you know, and just really goes for it. But by and large, we we we're really thorough with the the research that we do. Um and so and given the fact that we've also got the the the um uh the ability to to dispatch ourselves and sell on multi channels, the very worst that's ever happened is we've just held on to the goods and it's taken us a little while to sell through. We haven't lost any money and we just move on to the next opportunity. >> Okay. We talked there about kind of the positives of Amazon and you guys are kind of focusing on. Are there any kind of headaches you're facing or any causes for concern? Um, yeah, I know there there's probably quite a few and you you may not want to answer this one, but is there any that kind of springs to mind? >> I was going to say, how long have you got? Um, yeah, Amazon, as we know, are very difficult to work with. I think we we um so so Adam, our head of sales has done a phenomenal job uh in terms of the way he's managing our PPC versus sort of deal campaigns. Um, and we actually got our tacos, I think it was like four or five% across the organization and it was the most efficient we've ever had it. Um, and that was because we combining it with really strategic deals that we were running. Now, Amazon have I think it's from June this year, but they're changing the the way they're charging on deals, they've they basically caught on to this and said, right, rather than charge a flat fee, we were able to charge a percentage of sales now. So, that's a bit of a pain in the backside. Um I think cash flow um I mean cash flow in any inventory based business is always going to be a problem but it was in August last year that Amazon started charging local VAT on FBA and um uh referral fees. So obviously that's a cash flow drain and then you know holding on to cash a bit longer to cover returns has been a problem. Uh I know a lot of people manage to get that extension period but you know sooner or later they're going to have to deal with that. So so cash flows um cash flow is the other one. And I think just generally there's there's a hell of a lot of uh competition now. Um the the sort of barriers to market are uh not perhaps what they used to be which is I think is why when we're sourcing though we're trying to go for things where there are more barriers in because we know we've got the logic and expertise to to get over those. Um whereas other people might stop. Uh so that gives us a bit of an edge but then also you know there's there's a knock on effect with the US tariffs right um we could see a lot of uh sellers US sellers come over to UK and European markets and there's going to be a lot of dumping of products because they don't want to go through US customs. So we got to keep our eye on that. That's going to have um we're going to see a shift in the market probably downward price trends perhaps. So um a lot to consider there. >> It's not always fun. H >> no I've got a few more gray hairs than when I started put it that way. Um I want to touch on kind of what you're saying there though in terms of managing you know inventory forecasting and and supply chain complexity. How do you manage this across a pretty broad you know product and brand portfolio you know multiple kind of geographies and and marketplaces that is a lot of moving parts. And how do you stay on top of all this stuff? >> Yeah it's it's not easy. Um and it's it is getting better. We actually, funny enough, when I when I first joined, one of the first things I did was sort of digitalize inventory management. Um, my father-in-law was still using sort of pencil and paper, and I couldn't believe that that was still happening. The amount of time he was spending on that was it was phenomenal. Quite admirable really that he managed to do it. But yeah, we we've uh so so my head of finance is is also like a data genius. Um, and he's developed what we we call we kind of called it Idolytics after Idol directs. Um, so we we plug in uh to APIs for all of our information, whether that be um sales and profitability, um the search group performance data, um but then also inventory data right across all of our platforms, our own internal systems, and we've got various things where we collect data manually. So um we've effectively got data links where all of that information is pulled into now. Um there was a lot of development and it's still going on. Um but ultimately we've just got sort of self uh well we've got automated reports that just refresh themselves and they'll tell us they'll give us indicators based on different sort of sales velocities as to how and when we need to to order. Um and then on top of that we we're putting together a forecast. So obviously that's looking at historical data but we'll also put together a forecast which we'll sit down and we'll speak to the brand managers and the brand directors because obviously what's happened in the past isn't always an indication of what's going to happen in the future. So, um, you know, we we've we're using data as best we can, but we're sort of keeping that that interaction between our business analyst and and our brand managers and brand directors to make sure that we're not we're not missing anything. But we're never we never get it right. In fact, we went too far the other way. I think we're we're now holding on to too much stock because we just didn't want to run out. Um, and now we're having to pay for external storage to deal with it. >> Yeah. You can never win, hey? >> No, no, no. >> Okay. I want to kind of finish off by just talking about the long-term vision um and what you guys kind of want from the future. So yeah, obviously you've been going for is it nearly 50 years? >> Uh the company has. Yeah, the company's been going for a while. So you know the the the good news is that that Peter, my father-in-law, kind of achieved his aim. So uh he's um he he's not overly involved in the business. There's still certain areas he likes to be kept up to date with and and we do that and that's that's enjoyable to to have those discussions. Um, I think you you never really know what's going to happen in the future. And Sim and I have kind of had sort of broad discussions on this, but I don't think we'd necessarily want to sell the business in its entirety. It would be nice to be able to to pass it down the generations, although kids might tell us where to go. I think what's more likely is that we perhaps sell some brands and have some um liquidity events along the way. Um, but ultimately I'm I'm really passionate about building something uh and developing people and being the best leader that I can be. And so I think really what we want to be able to do is create an organization that effectively runs itself to some extent so that we can then kind of step away a little bit, really empower those people that that are doing such a great job now. Um, and then we can perhaps work on other things. >> So the long-term vision is almost build the infrastructure, potentially carve out some brands for exit, but keep the machine. >> That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly that. Yeah. >> Okay. What what is the kind of driving force behind that? Like why not? You know, I feel like a lot of people building for, you know, an exit event. You you seem pretty adamant that that's not what you want to do. Certainly in the entirety. >> Yeah. I I Do you know what? It just feels a shame. We we've spent so much time and energy. I mean, there's been some uh I'll have to catch up with you one time. was some incredible stories, some some weird and wonderful stories. And it's it's just like we we kind kind of want to see that through to the end. And and I genuinely believe, you know, we we we if we if we do this the right way and you know cuz there are there are Amazon businesses which are not like any other business and they're probably not set up in the same way and they're very different. And I think we've created this whole infrastructure and this whole footprint of a of a company that is more than just an Amazon brand if that makes sense. So I think really for we just want to see see how far that goes and to be honest I think it would be a very difficult cell um as as an entire unit. >> And then kind of the flip side to that is would you consider raising capital to go kind of further and faster towards that that destination? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um we're lucky enough at the moment we've managed things well enough that we're completely debtree. um we're you know we're doing okay there and so it's not something that's on our immediate horizon but you know I'm confident in our sort of financial environment and the way that we appraise products and the way that we manage our cash that you know if if if the opportunity is coming through our system and it's saying right it's is cash flow positive or you know or the margins are in our total targets then I'd have no no qualms with taking on uh funding >> and is that you know potentially especially if you're using debt to acquire ire new code. Would that be possible to kind of have it as a separate entity but still utilize your kind of human capital infrastructure on that and try and grow it? >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We we've got a uh we've got a group of companies uh now effectively. Um and and to be honest, I think now we're, you know, like I said, we've got the main trading company, which which as I mentioned, we we very likely wouldn't sell, but where we're now of the opinion actually, yeah, maybe we can sell one or two brands. We're trying to ring fence those in their own limited companies so that it's it's easy to upload. So um absolutely if if if that opportunity come probably would be in a separate entity just under the same parent company. Scaling an ecom brand is hard. That's why we're on a mission to share as much info as we can to help make it easy. From weekly interviews with the biggest names in the space to case studies, brand breakdowns and tips and tricks and much much more. Subscribe so you don't miss out.