Discover how to sell luxury goods online without discounting. Casey Golden reveals why high-end eCommerce requires abandoning conventional conversion tactics in favour of service-as-product thinking. Learn the psychology behind luxury purchases, how to build trust with high-value customers, and practical steps for creating concierge experiences at scale that justify premium pricing.
Ever wondered how luxury brands sell £5,000 handbags or $6,000 sweaters without offering discounts? Casey Golden, founder and CEO of Lux Lock, has cracked the code. Her approach isn't about pushing products—it's about creating experiences so remarkable that price becomes secondary to desire.
Casey's journey through luxury eCommerce has taught her something most brands miss: high-end retail online isn't a different channel, it's a different business entirely. After years working with brands from Dior to emerging luxury labels, she's discovered that success in this space requires abandoning almost everything conventional eCommerce teaches about conversion optimisation and customer acquisition.
Before diving into tactics, we need to understand a fundamental divide in retail that shapes everything about how products should be sold online.
"In retail there's always been two types," Casey explains. "There's low touch, which now we can easily say has turned into self-serve. Those are functional utility purchases. The sale is driven by the price."
This is the eCommerce most of us know—Amazon's domain, where convenience and cost rule supreme. Customers know what they want, find the best price, and checkout as quickly as possible. Success metrics focus on conversion rates, average order values, and minimising friction at every touchpoint.
Then there's high-touch retail. Brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Christian Louboutin, Jimmy Choo—even your first pair of £150 jeans. This isn't price-driven retail. These brands don't offer sales for ten months of the year, yet customers queue to buy from them.
"It's not about price, it's not price driven," Casey notes. "There has to be a different reason and a different process of selling an item that is expensive and full price."
That different reason? Service becomes part of the product itself.
The fashion industry, particularly high-end fashion, was notoriously late to eCommerce. Many luxury brands didn't launch online stores until the late 2000s or early 2010s. This wasn't technological ignorance—it was recognition that the online shopping experience couldn't replicate what made luxury retail work.
Walking into a high-end boutique means relationship-building with knowledgeable sales associates, personalised attention, expert styling advice, and an environment designed to make you feel special. The transaction is secondary to the experience.
Early eCommerce couldn't deliver this. Shopping carts, product filters, and checkout flows optimised for speed fundamentally contradicted the unhurried, consultative nature of luxury retail.
But technology has evolved. API integrations, sophisticated customer data platforms, and personalisation engines now enable brands to recreate that concierge experience digitally—if they understand how luxury customers actually think.
Casey identifies what truly drives high-end purchases: "There's brand affinity. It's more about desire and really wanting something. Finding joy from purchasing something. It's about guilty pleasures and spoiling yourself or splurging on something."
For many luxury consumers, it's also about time savings. Building a wardrobe that works requires expertise most people lack. Luxury brands offering concierge services solve this problem—they save clients the effort of shopping whilst ensuring everything purchased works together perfectly.
This creates an interesting paradox: luxury customers are simultaneously less price-sensitive and more demanding. They'll pay premium prices, but they expect premium service in return. They want personalised attention without waiting. They expect white-glove treatment delivered at digital speed.
Understanding this psychology reveals why conventional eCommerce metrics often mislead luxury brands. A 2% conversion rate might be excellent for mass-market retail but potentially disastrous for luxury—it might indicate you're attracting browsers rather than serious buyers, or that your experience doesn't match brand positioning.
Casey's solution to this challenge is Lux Lock, a platform that enables luxury brands to deliver personalised shopping experiences at scale. The concept emerged from recognising a fundamental gap in the market.
"We help brands understand their customers better," Casey explains. "We're building technology that allows brands to have more meaningful interactions with their customers, to really understand their preferences, their style, what they're looking for."
The platform works by creating persistent customer profiles across multiple luxury brands. When someone shops at one Lux Lock-enabled boutique, their preferences, sizes, and style choices inform their experience everywhere else. It's like having a personal shopper who knows you intimately, regardless of which brand you're browsing.
This addresses a major frustration in luxury shopping. Currently, customers must rebuild relationships with each new brand. Every time you shop somewhere new, you're starting from scratch—explaining your preferences, confirming your size, describing your style. For luxury customers who value efficiency, this friction is unacceptable.
Lux Lock eliminates this inefficiency whilst enabling brands to compete on service rather than simply inventory and price.
Perhaps Casey's most important insight is this: "Service is part of the product. There's no separation."
In luxury retail, you're not just buying an item—you're buying the entire experience surrounding that purchase. The knowledgeable sales associate who understands your style. The beautifully wrapped package. The follow-up call checking if everything fits perfectly. The stylist who sends photos showing how to wear your new purchase three different ways.
This fundamental principle reshapes how luxury eCommerce should function. Every touchpoint must reinforce the premium positioning. A clunky checkout process, generic confirmation emails, or poor packaging undermines the value customers expect.
Casey shares an example: "You might have a customer who's been shopping with you for years. They know their size, they know what they like. But maybe they're trying a new category. That's where that service element becomes crucial—helping them navigate something unfamiliar with confidence."
This is why Lux Lock focuses heavily on the post-purchase experience. Confirmation emails aren't just transactional—they're opportunities to reinforce the relationship. Packaging isn't just protection—it's the physical manifestation of brand values. Follow-up isn't just customer service—it's relationship building.
One of Casey's most powerful recommendations is deceptively simple: map your customer journey by pretending to be the customer.
"Take yourself through your own website as if you're a first-time customer," she advises. "What questions would you have? What might make you hesitate? Where might you get confused or frustrated?"
This exercise reveals friction points invisible from the inside. That category structure that makes perfect sense to your team? Confusing to newcomers. That product description your copywriter laboured over? Missing the specific detail preventing purchase. That checkout flow you optimised for speed? Feeling rushed and impersonal for luxury customers.
Casey takes this further by recommending direct customer contact. "Pick up the phone and call 25 customers. Ask them about their experience. Why did they buy? What almost stopped them? What exceeded their expectations? What disappointed them?"
This qualitative research provides insights analytics cannot. You'll discover emotional drivers, unmet needs, and opportunities competitors haven't noticed. More importantly, you'll understand the language your customers actually use—invaluable for copywriting and positioning.
Whilst psychology and service drive luxury retail, the technical implementation must support these goals seamlessly.
Casey emphasises several technical considerations often overlooked:
Inventory management: Luxury often means limited quantities or even one-of-a-kind pieces. Your system must handle this complexity whilst preventing the catastrophic customer service failure of overselling rare items.
Personalisation infrastructure: Delivering individualised experiences requires sophisticated customer data management. This goes beyond basic segmentation to true 1:1 personalisation based on browsing behaviour, purchase history, and stated preferences.
Integration capabilities: Luxury customers expect seamless experiences across channels. Your online store must integrate with in-store systems, customer service platforms, and potentially external services like personal shopping apps.
Performance optimisation: Luxury shoppers won't tolerate slow websites. Page speed directly impacts perceived quality. If your site feels sluggish, customers subconsciously question whether your brand truly delivers the premium experience it promises.
Casey shares a fascinating insight about the financial challenges many brands overlook when launching luxury eCommerce.
She worked with a cosmetics brand selling products under £5. The immediate question: "How do you profitably sell £3 items online?"
"There's not enough margin in that product," Casey explains. "It becomes about volume plays and lifetime value. If I can sell four pieces every single month to my customer for the next three years, now we're talking a different story."
This illustrates why luxury eCommerce can actually be easier financially than mass-market. When average order values reach hundreds or thousands of pounds, you can afford the personalised service that justifies premium pricing. The economics support the experience.
However, Casey warns about hidden costs many brands underestimate: "We had to build out an ROI analysis. Advertising costs by channel. Average conversion rates. Customer service costs. Logistics. Packaging. The cellophane the product goes into. All of that costs money."
Particularly dangerous? Returns. "They can just haemorrhage cash," Casey notes. Luxury returns are especially costly because of higher product values and often more complex logistics. One solution: bundle pricing that encourages larger purchases whilst reducing per-item return rates.
Trust emerges as perhaps the most critical factor in luxury eCommerce. When customers consider spending thousands of pounds, scepticism is natural.
"You have to earn trust," Casey emphasises repeatedly throughout our conversation. But how?
Transparency about products: Detailed descriptions, multiple high-quality images, accurate sizing information, and honest representation of colours and materials. Any disconnect between expectation and reality destroys trust.
Clear policies: Returns, exchanges, authenticity guarantees—luxury customers want to know they're protected. Making policies difficult to find or understand signals something to hide.
Responsive communication: Luxury customers expect prompt, knowledgeable responses to enquiries. Slow or generic replies suggest you don't value their business.
Consistency across touchpoints: Every interaction must reinforce brand values. An exquisite website followed by a generic confirmation email creates cognitive dissonance that erodes trust.
Casey's advice? "Think about the brands you trust and why. What did they do that earned your confidence? Then ruthlessly audit whether your own brand delivers those same trust signals."
One of Casey's strengths is drawing insights from outside luxury fashion. Her background spans various industries, each teaching valuable lessons applicable to high-end eCommerce.
She mentions working with technology companies, cosmetics brands, and even businesses selling products under £5. Each presented unique challenges requiring creative solutions.
The cosmetics brand taught her about lifetime value and subscription models. The technology sector demonstrated the power of seamless integrations. Lower-priced products highlighted the economics of logistics and customer acquisition costs.
"Every industry has something to teach you," Casey reflects. "The key is being curious enough to look for those lessons and humble enough to admit you don't know everything."
This openness to learning across industries helps explain Lux Lock's innovative approach. Rather than simply replicating existing luxury retail online, Casey borrowed concepts from technology, finance, and service industries to create something genuinely new.
There's a fascinating tension in luxury eCommerce: using technology to deliver deeply human experiences.
Casey doesn't see this as contradictory. "Technology should enable human connection, not replace it," she explains. "The goal isn't automation for efficiency's sake. It's using technology to make genuine personalisation scalable."
This philosophy shapes Lux Lock's development. Rather than building chatbots to handle customer enquiries, they're creating systems that give human stylists the information needed to provide better service. Rather than automating product recommendations, they're enabling personal shoppers to make more informed suggestions.
The technology handles data management, preference tracking, and coordination across brands. Humans handle the relationship-building, styling advice, and emotional connection that luxury customers crave.
"At the end of the day, people want to buy from people," Casey observes. "Technology just helps those people do their jobs better."
So how do you actually implement these principles? Casey offers several concrete recommendations:
Start with customer research: Before investing in technology or redesigning your site, understand your customers deeply. What drives them? What frustrates them? What would delight them?
Audit your current experience: Go through your entire customer journey as if you're a first-time buyer. Document every friction point, confusing element, or moment that doesn't match your brand positioning.
Prioritise based on impact: Not everything needs fixing immediately. Focus on changes that most significantly affect trust and desire—the two drivers of luxury purchases.
Test thoughtfully: A/B testing makes sense for some elements but can be misleading in luxury contexts. Sometimes you need to make bold changes and give them time to demonstrate impact rather than optimising incrementally.
Measure what matters: Track metrics aligned with luxury retail success—customer lifetime value, repeat purchase rates, average order values—rather than just conversion rates and traffic numbers.
Invest in service infrastructure: The technology enabling personalisation, the training ensuring knowledgeable staff, the processes supporting seamless experiences—these investments pay dividends in customer loyalty.
Looking ahead, Casey sees enormous opportunities for brands willing to rethink online luxury retail.
"Technology keeps evolving," she notes. "We now have capabilities that didn't exist even five years ago. API integrations, sophisticated data platforms, personalisation engines—these tools enable experiences previously impossible online."
She predicts increasing convergence between online and offline luxury retail. "The distinction between digital and physical shopping will blur," Casey suggests. "Customers will move seamlessly between channels, and brands need to support that fluidity."
This means persistent customer profiles, inventory visibility across channels, and service continuity whether customers shop online, in-store, or through personal shopping services.
She also anticipates more brands recognising that luxury eCommerce isn't simply about transaction efficiency. "The brands that win will be those that understand online shopping can deliver experiences as rich as in-store visits—just different."
Selling luxury goods online requires abandoning conventional eCommerce wisdom and embracing a different philosophy entirely. It's not about conversion optimisation and cart abandonment rates. It's about desire, trust, and service as product.
Here's how to begin:
The brands succeeding in luxury eCommerce aren't just selling products online. They're delivering experiences so remarkable that price becomes secondary to desire. They've understood that in high-touch retail, service isn't just important—it's inseparable from the product itself.
As Casey reminds us: "You have to earn trust. You have to create desire. And you have to deliver service that justifies premium pricing. Get those right, and selling a $6,000 sweater online isn't just possible—it's profitable."
Read the complete, unedited conversation between Matt and Casey Golden from Lux Lock. This transcript provides the full context and details discussed in the episode.
# Episode 4
**Sadaf Beynon:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Curiosity Podcast, a show about everything, e-commerce and digital business. The aim is simple to help you thrive online. And now your host, Matt Edmundson.
**Matt Edmundson:** Welcome my fellow e-commerce entrepreneurs. My name is Matt Edmundson, and this show is for those of us who are curious about e-commerce and want to know how to get better at doing digital business. And in today's show, I'm gonna have a fantastic conversation with the amazing Casey Golden, who is the founder and CEO.
Of looks like, and she's gonna share with us her secrets on how to sell a $6,000 sweater online. Yes. That's what we are getting into, how to [00:01:00] sell Highend goods online. I will put a link to Casey and looks like in the show notes, along with a transcript from today's show that you can find at Matt Edmundson dot com.
And a big shout out to today's sponsor, which is Curious Digital. It is the eCommerce platform that I use. It's a brilliant platform and experience based eCommerce platform. They call it experience based, because actually the whole development of it came out of, uh, multiple eCommerce websites over multiple years.
It wasn't, you know, this is the best way to build an eCommerce website according to developer, and therefore you have to use it that way. No, no, no. This system was designed around. Real e-commerce businesses that are live and in the trenches, and it is a great platform. It is definitely my platform of choice.
So if you would like to know more about Curious Digital, [00:02:00] do check it out at Curious Digital. That's curious with a K Curious digital. Now let me introduce to you, uh, today's guest, Casey Golden, who, like I say, is the founder and CEO of looks lock. Now, so much has changed in the world of eCommerce in just a short space of time, right?
Uh, from how companies feel about selling online and how consumers choose to shop online, right? You will have noticed this even in the last few months. It is changing, but surprisingly, very little has changed in terms of high end fashion and for consumers in high touch retail, right? Where you find the high end.
Brands that aren't price driven. Um, where it all comes down to desire brand identity, guilty pleasures, and what we call in the UK splurging. That's right. Just going out and buying something like that and looks like brings this kind of [00:03:00] concierge service that consumers equate with high costs. They expect personalized on demand services where they aren't left waiting around for someone to get back to them, but they don't want it automated.
Right. And this is where looks like, uh, and Casey has started to do some really. Interest in things and have some amazing ideas. They've worked super hard to understand the needs of their customers in order to provide this incredible experience where trust and intrinsic value are established and built on.
Okay. Now, even though you may not be a luxury brand, uh, and selling $6,000 sweaters, um, with a sales strategy, like, looks like there are lessons that you will definitely want to learn and take away from this conversation with Casey about customer service. For me, the key lesson being understand the value of your customer, [00:04:00] get inside your customer's head and understanding them and their experience will help your business thrive online.
Absolutely. We are gonna get into that and more. So without further ado, let's get into my conversation with Casey Golden. Great. So Casey, thanks for being on the show. Great to have you.
**Casey Golden:** Happy to be here.
**Matt Edmundson:** And at the time of recording this, you are in New York, in Brooklyn, New York, correct. And I can see the sun is shining outside of your window, is that right?
**Casey Golden:** It's about gonna be, uh, about 80 degrees today. So, um, we, we deserve it. It's been raining all week,
**Matt Edmundson:** we deserve it. You know what, I'm looking outside of my window as well, and the sun is shining, but it is not 80 degrees.
**Casey Golden:** It'll come.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah, well, no, no, this is England. This is the summer. It might get to its mid seventies, but that'd be about it.
Um, so give us a little bit of background. You've been around, uh, [00:05:00] e-commerce for a number of years now. Um, you are the founder of, uh, looks, look and is it going well?
**Casey Golden:** Yeah, um, e-commerce and, you know, shopping online has evolved. Um, over the last 15 years, uh, quite a bit, and we've gone through a lot of different transitions, um, between how companies feel about selling online and how consumers, um, have decided to start shopping online to where it's become much more natural, um, than it used to be.
Mm. Um, and technology has evolved to a place now where we have access to, um, API integrations, affiliate marketing, different types of consumer data advertising platforms, and, you know, we've got this, this great hub right now of [00:06:00] innovation that can be scaled that it couldn't have been. Even five years ago.
**Matt Edmundson:** No, I mean, it technology is crazy, isn't it? I mean, I started in 2002, so a little bit before you did, uh, e-commerce and the, the platforms back then went to, when I think about what they were to what they are now, oh, it's unbelievable how, how much has happened in such a short space of time.
**Casey Golden:** It has. Um, and as much as e-commerce has changed over the years, um, I find it interesting how little it's changed in the fashion industry, especially the high-end fashion industry.
They, they were late to the party, um, in most cases in the two early two thousands. Um, and, you know, they're, they're catching up.
**Matt Edmundson:** So, yeah, when we were, when we [00:07:00] were talking about this before we hit the record button, um, you were talking about these sort of two different types of e-commerce that you see, right?
And, and this I thought was fascinating. What, what, what do you mean by these two different types?
**Casey Golden:** So, in retail there, there's always been two types of retail. There's low touch, which now I think we can easily say that that's turned into self-serve. Mm-hmm. Um, and those are functional utility purchases. Um, they're, the sale is driven by the price.
And then you have high touch retail, which is brands like, um, Dior. Uh, Louis Vuitton, uh, Christian, Lou Vuitton, Jimmy Chu seven, even like down to your first pair of $200 pair of jeans. Mm-hmm. Um, and buying a pair of seven for all mankind. Right. Um, that's high touch retail. Um, it's not about price, it's not price driven.
Um, they [00:08:00] don't offer a lot of sales, uh, traditionally, so there has to be a different reason and a different process of selling an item that is expensive and full price. Um, you know, 10, maybe even 10 months out of the year.
**Matt Edmundson:** Okay. So how, because this is your specialty, isn't it, as says, is selling, um, what you call high touch products, these expensive products, this is where you sort of, you all your journey has sort of led you to this point of being able to sell exp well, expensive products,
**Casey Golden:** correct.
**Matt Edmundson:** Um, and so it's not about price. Um, it's not about sales. Uh, what is it about,
**Casey Golden:** you know, there's, um, there's brand affinity. There's, um, it's more about desire, um, and really wanting something [00:09:00] mm-hmm. Or really finding joy from purchasing something. Um, and it's, it's about like guilty pleasures and, and spoiling yourself or perhaps splurging on something.
Um, or for, for many of these luxury brands, it's about saving clients time and effort of the process of shopping and building a wardrobe. Mm-hmm. Um, they have, they offer more concierge services, um, and in this high touch section of retail services, part of the product. So there's
**Matt Edmundson:** no, there's no separation.
It's all,
**Casey Golden:** no, it's, it's that beautiful experience. Um, being able to walk into a store, have a relationship with a sales associate with the brand, and have, um, you know, a unique shopping experience [00:10:00] that is very special to just you.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Um, and having somebody thoughtfully curate, uh, your purchases
**Matt Edmundson:** mm-hmm.
**Casey Golden:** And educate you about the brand. Um, and sometimes we just wanna be filled up, um, and have a happy moment when we had a really bad day. I think half my shoes were purchased on a bad day.
**Matt Edmundson:** Okay.
And so this is, I mean, the phrase you, you said a a second ago, which I thought was quite interesting, was this, um, this idea of finding joy. So these high-touch products you find it's finding the joy, it's the guilty pleasures. It's the, it's the, it's engaging more than just a kind of utilitarian approach.
I need this just because I need it, but I need this because I actually really want it.
**Sadaf Beynon:** I really want it.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. And I've, I've worked hard or saved hard, or Do you know what I mean? I, this [00:11:00] is, this is something special versus something that is just ordinary. And so is that, that, and that actually I, from a psychological point of view, is gonna be.
A mood booster, which is why you've bought your shoes, half your shoes on your, when the, the day is going bad, right?
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. Um, you know, retail
**Matt Edmundson:** therapy, that's, the retail
**Casey Golden:** therapy is real. Um, you know, there's, there's so many different types of drivers that lead us to make a purchase that have nothing to do with, um, an email marketing campaign, a Facebook ad.
Um, this part of retail has been working for decades. Yeah. Probably over, you know, since the first retail store, the first custom, uh, dress maker is being able to have that experience of, I want something just for me. Mm-hmm. Uh, and you know, there's, there's this beautiful thing that happens that, you know, as you change stages in your [00:12:00] life, you need different things and more opportunities become present.
Um, not everybody could have a stylist. All the time. Um, only a, a certain, certain people had access to that, you know, luxury of that real relationship. And since then, um, over the last, you know, 10 years I've been part of, um, this, uh, subscription economy of everybody gets a personal stylist, we'll put all these products in a box, we'll ship it to you.
Um, and I've been on, I've been on both sides of that as a startup that is sending the boxes and as a brand that's getting all the returns from the company that ships all the boxes right after the season. Sounds
**Matt Edmundson:** fun. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. So, um, there's, there's a lot of different constraints in the supply chain.
Mm-hmm. How many products [00:13:00] are in the mail on our way back? Mm-hmm. Uh, and what value are we providing the end consumer, um. How can we do it better? Yeah. So, um, you know, it's starting to get used to that. People feel like I should be able to have good customer service if I'm working with the brand. And as the price of the product increases, you know, the level of customer service expectations also increases.
**Matt Edmundson:** You know, that's a really interesting point actually, that the higher the, the higher the value of the product, the more the customer service expectation increases. I think it's such a true statement that, um, if you're selling something just for a couple of bucks, you don't expect great customer service.
**Casey Golden:** No. There's really not a, um, expectation that, um, I'm going to receive great customer service. Um, and so we have a lot of [00:14:00] solutions for customer service that include call centers. Mm-hmm. Um, that support that model. Mm-hmm. It's, um, but when it comes to how do we provide premium customer service to every shopper, there's not a lot of options today.
Mm-hmm. Um, but it's becoming more prevalent and consumers are demanding it. You know, they want personalization.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** They want on demand, um, service. They don't wanna wait for somebody to get back to them within 24 hours. Having bucketed customer service, um, AI tools or bots is frustrating to, to the consumers that are, that are used to receiving amazing service from some high-end brands
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** That are now implementing an AI tool or, um, [00:15:00] proactive, like predictive messaging. Mm-hmm. They're being let down because they're used to receiving great service and now they're, they're stuck. Now they're
**Matt Edmundson:** getting an automated service.
**Casey Golden:** They're getting an automated service. So they, and
**Matt Edmundson:** this is what, this is interesting, because there's a lot of conversation at the moment.
Um, you know, do you put these bot systems on your site because they become super trendy and everyone's like, my revenue increase like 4000000000% by adding this bot to my website. Um, but they are very, uh, rigid conversations. It's a bit like talking to me. You know, when I travel around Germany, I've got my phrase book, and they're the only phrases that I can say, I can't have a conversation.
I can just say these fixed phrases. And it doesn't, it, it doesn't, it doesn't work that well, does it? And I that I, I thought that was quite an interesting comment that, um, actually, certainly for high-end products, the idea of automation is attractive, but the outworking of it is, is not so spectacular. Is that what you're saying?[00:16:00]
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. I mean, in order to. In order to program one of those systems, you really have to know your customer mm-hmm. And understand the shopper journey. Um, and so I've spoken to some, some brands that have attempted to implement one of those systems and you know, you have to program it. Mm-hmm. So you have to build those recipes and those funnels of conversation with the assumptions of, you know, what, what could come back.
Right. And um, you know, I think one of the weaknesses that we've had for a long period of time in retail is that we've been very wholesale driven businesses instead of direct to consumer. And so we don't have a lot of data to understand what is my customer journey. Yeah. What kind of questions will they ask?
What is important to them when. They want to engage in customer [00:17:00] service. Just having some of those real time conversations and having that customer service department as you know, human beings that are, that are experts in the space Yeah. Can really help you understand, or like us to understand how can I anticipate the customer's needs better?
Um, so that's something that we're working on with, you know, our live chat. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, how can I facilitate the need, um, and, and make it a very special and, and custom experience.
**Matt Edmundson:** This is where AI becomes interesting, isn't it? Because actually the, the, the systems are learning with you as you go along, which gives you a better.
A better end result? Um, I would, I would, this is where I, I think it's, it's the whole field of e-commerce merging with AI is gonna start to be quite fascinating. I dunno if you've come across this
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. It, it's gonna be [00:18:00] interesting. Um, but there's something that, you know, there's a difference between buying and shopping.
If I'm buying, I already know what I'm gonna buy when I come onto this website, um, when I come to a website, um, because it's now Summer Laos, do I need dress? I, I don't, I have no idea. Sure. Um, but a, a shopper is expected that to know where they're navigating to on an e-commerce store as soon as they arrive.
**Matt Edmundson:** I'm with you.
**Casey Golden:** Um, well, I just don't know yet. Shopping is more about like exploring, getting, um, getting some ideas in front of you. So when people walk into a store, they usually walk around the store and just grab items and throw them over their arm and then just dump them in a fitting room. And go through the exploration process and, and maybe ask some people, um, you know, Instagram's very popular, um, to kind of get some style inspiration.
But when you go to these high-end brands, you have an expert [00:19:00] there that will help you cur curate that. So, you know, our objective is when you visit a website, um, you know, just click a little button, get assigned a stylist that you can continue to have that relationship with and they can go ahead and say, ah, here are the best three dresses, um, that would look great on you for, for summer.
If you do shopping really well, um, the customer will buy.
**Matt Edmundson:** This is like, this is very different to your, it's a very
**Casey Golden:** different process.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. The, the low touch process, which is like you say, I know what I want. Buy. Just take that. Yes. So you, you are talking about now high touch products. The, the buyer comes to the site, they don't actually know what it is they want, um, other than they're gonna come to that site.
And if there's someone there, which they know and trust and have some kind of relationship with, because they're experts in that field mm-hmm. They're looking for these sort of recommendations and then they're gonna, that's [00:20:00] gonna help them make these decisions. Right
**Casey Golden:** there. We have this feeling that I need to look at everything before I can make a decision if I'm doing it by myself.
However, if I'm, if I'm working with somebody that I know, um, I trust them, you know, they can, they can guide me through that. That's, um, decision making process and make me feel really confident about my purchasing decision. Mm-hmm. Um, and. Because I'm gonna go back and see them again and work with them again.
Um, I feel more, more trust. Mm-hmm. Right. I feel more of some accountability that this person is just not trying to sell me something. Um, this is a relationship that's gonna be nurtured over time. And this is something that's always happened in the store, um, in a physical store, but it is never been translated online.
**Matt Edmundson:** So it is possible to, to take these ideas now and bring them online.
**Casey Golden:** We can ha create these digital experiences, um, that [00:21:00] are custom curated on demand in a moment, um, and really transform what happens in a store on, in an online presence, um, with more speed.
**Matt Edmundson:** How do you bring this level of experience, this level of, uh, customer service, the concierge type thing, to a.
A website? How, what's your thinking in that process?
**Casey Golden:** Today, a website is essentially a digitized catalog. Mm-hmm. So before there was e-commerce, um, we had catalogs that came in the mail, right?
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still remember them,
**Casey Golden:** right? Yeah. We got a catalog you'd go through, you'd circle it.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** And you'd call a phone number and you'd place your order, you know,
**Matt Edmundson:** or you'd fax it If you had technology, you know,
**Casey Golden:** that's right.
There was a page you could rip out and [00:22:00] fax it.
**Matt Edmundson:** State of the art. State of the art. That
**Casey Golden:** is essentially what we've, what we, what e-commerce is today, in my opinion. Yeah. It's a digitalized catalog business, um, which is a still pretty much self-serve. Mm-hmm. Uh, and it's just streamlined and more efficient. Um, and I feel that if we created the internet today.
I don't think we build e-commerce stores.
**Matt Edmundson:** Ah, okay. I'm loving where you're going. Keep going, keep going.
**Casey Golden:** I don't think that we would rebuild a catalog business in 2019. Um, I think we would build something different. Um, I think we would go about it a little bit differently, and I think Amazon, you know, moved a little faster on breaking boundaries mm-hmm.
Than the rest of the industry has, has moved. Um, because [00:23:00] e-commerce didn't mean anything to a lot of premium brands for a while. Hmm. Social media wasn't, didn't seem important for a while. Hmm. So, um, today it's number one and it's all about the consumer. So can we just take all e-commerce stores and say, Hey, you know what, let's be mobile first.
Let's be. A totally different platform and digital infrastructure. No, it's, it won't work. There are too many players. Um, and, you know, whether or not the consumer's ready or not for a different solution. Um, the supply chain management of how products are distributed and, and, and cataloged isn't ready for a brand new platform.
Mm-hmm. To just like implement. So like in 2020, we've got innovation. You know, I feel that there's gonna be a process Okay. Of, of change [00:24:00] and building out a digital infrastructure, um, that is really direct to consumer focused. Um, for a lot of companies that have been wholesale focused. Mm-hmm. So I see the greatest opportunity, um, in chat software.
**Matt Edmundson:** They're confident with it as well, aren't they? They're
**Casey Golden:** confident with it. They. In fact, if you don't have a chat piece of chat software on your website, um, it could be a barrier of why somebody's not making a purchase. Yeah. Uh, because for some businesses, even the bucketed answers and the proactive messaging, it works.
Mm-hmm. You're asking questions that everybody asks. Um, so it's really important to understand your product and understand your customers to say, how can I serve you? Mm-hmm. Um, what potential questions could you have throughout the buying decision that I can prepare for and make sure it's really fast [00:25:00] and easy for you to get to that information.
Um, the problem comes when the question is, I'm looking for a gift for my sister, for her graduation.
**Matt Edmundson:** So the problems that when it's outside of the script, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Casey Golden:** It's outside of the script.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** I have so many questions to ask. How old is your sister? Is she graduating from high school or college?
There's so many questions that I need to ask that have nothing to do with the consumer data that's being maybe scraped from my browsers and cookies because that's me.
**Matt Edmundson:** Sure.
**Casey Golden:** Not my sister. And so for us, we decided how do I shop for you looking for something for someone else, um, and do a really beautiful, great job.
So we've decided we have a chat software directly connected to somebody who works at that brand and has worked at that brand for quite many years.
**Matt Edmundson:** It's not robots, it's not automation. They're real people.
**Casey Golden:** No. We're going more towards [00:26:00] human augmentation. How do I help these people that do a really great, great job?
Um, have been in that career for a while and how can I help them scale their reach? Mm-hmm. How can I make their lives, their work lives easier? Mm-hmm. And, and grow their business. Um, because that helps everybody. Yeah. It helps the consumer, it helps the brand, and it helps the, the end, you know, associate so that we're all working together again for the same result.
Um, and we are able to put outfits together. So, uh, in order for me to purchase an item, I need to see it. If I'm gonna be purchasing multiple items like an outfit. Or even cosmetics, which you may not be as familiar with. Uh, but they, we, we do all of these, we, we wear layers. So you have a prime, you have, you know, you [00:27:00] have your lotion and you have a primer, and then you have your foundation and you have concealer.
These are all things that are purchased together.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yep.
**Casey Golden:** They're all part of a process. We wear a shirt, a pair of pants, a jacket, um, and we might have some of these things that we already use and have favorites of, even from different brands. We use them, you know, together. Yep. So for me to have a meaningful conversation with somebody about a product, it's helpful for them to know what I use and if we're gonna work together on a regular basis, they should just know and have access to that.
Mm-hmm. Uh, which we call zero party data. Um, so
**Matt Edmundson:** zero party data? Data,
**Casey Golden:** yeah. So that's data that I say, Hey. I want you to have this extra information about me so I can get a better
**Matt Edmundson:** Right service.
**Casey Golden:** Get
**Matt Edmundson:** a better service. Yeah. Which would be the questions you would ask if to somebody who walks into your store.
You would find that information out. So we would
**Casey Golden:** find that information out, um, and save them [00:28:00] time. 'cause at the end of the day, everything is about saving time. You know? That's the way that we get customers to come back without having to pay for them through, you know, uh, a marketing channel. Mm-hmm. Is you really serve your customers in a way that you're creating value, an intrinsic value.
Um, because it's, it's really expensive to advertise. Um, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty inexpensive. Um, and it's getting less expensive over time. But in order to compete, you know, you needed like 10, a minimum of like $10,000 just on social media ads. A. That's quite expensive for a lot of companies to get started.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Um, and that number just goes up to where you have some companies that are spending a hundred thousand dollars just on Instagram ads a month. Um, well, it's great
**Matt Edmundson:** if you've got the budget.
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. It's really great if [00:29:00] you've got the budget.
**Matt Edmundson:** But, uh, like you say, the customer acquisition then becomes quite expensive.
You know, you, um, your first customer often you're either making a loss or at best breaking even because of the advertising it's taken to get them there.
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. And then once that person makes a purchase from you, my methodology or or way of thinking about it is I now I can do things for this person now differently.
Why am I gonna, I, I shouldn't have to pay them to come back and shop with me again.
**Matt Edmundson:** Sure.
**Casey Golden:** I should have been able to do something and provide a service and a value of a product and introduce them to the brand in a way that they wanna come back. Yeah. Or they want to tell somebody else that, oh, oh, you're looking for that.
I just had the best experience with this company. Um, those are the types of things that just work a lot better, but they're harder to control. [00:30:00] You know, you can't just pay somebody to say, Hey, put this in front of this person again. Sure. Uh, but, you know, we pay for referrals. Right. That's pretty common.
Mm-hmm. If you share with friends, you get 25 off or something of that nature. Um, but, you know, if you're purchasing a $6,000 cashmere sweater, how important is 25 bucks? Or 25 pounds? Right. Like,
**Matt Edmundson:** yeah.
**Casey Golden:** I, it, it's, it's not, it
**Matt Edmundson:** doesn't make sense. You're right. It, it totally doesn't,
**Casey Golden:** it's not make it or break it.
Um, we can't compete on price. Um, otherwise we're just. Competing with ourselves. Yeah. And racing to the bottom. Um, we need to create more value for current customers and really think about how can I nurture these customers in a way that makes them want to have brand affinity and loyalty with me. Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, I don't need points. [00:31:00] I don't need discounts. I don't need 10% off. Um, what I really need is, you know, when I come to shop with you that I get service, it's good, and I get, I achieve my goal. Mm-hmm. You know, and, and you remember me and make me feel valued, like I matter.
**Matt Edmundson:** I mean, bringing this all back.
This is what you've developed with your, your company, right. You've developed software to, to do this.
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. We're, we're starting to do it, you know.
**Matt Edmundson:** Okay. Because it sounds to me like if I'm, if I can be candid, this sounds. Remarkably intuitive. It sounds very simple. And I think, I mean, I, I run e-commerce businesses, so I go, oh, this will be amazing to do this.
But then the technology side of me thinks, how in the world do you actually do that? Right? Because I mean, it sounds, I mean, all the best ideas sound remarkably simple, [00:32:00] um, and intuitive and remarkable. But the complexity of that, you must be finding that it's, uh, it's quite a steep learning curve, I would've thought.
**Casey Golden:** Yes. So, um, how to do it is a very different conversation, um, versus what we do. You know, there's a great quote saying, um, I could have said less, but it, I didn't have an extra hour. Okay. Like, and that was really what it came down to, is. It has to be very simple for the consumer. Mm-hmm. And the shopper experience and the technology needs to be invisible.
Mm-hmm. It just needs to work. Um, but in order to do that, we had to spend an immense amount of time building out this infrastructure for, for something that doesn't exist yet, you know? Um, [00:33:00] and, and understanding how do we connect all of these dots to create this as simple as it is to put an outfit together that you can buy in one click and make sure that it's specific to you as one individual.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. Um,
**Casey Golden:** so people ask me, they're like, oh, well how do you do it? And I'm just like, ah, we'd need a whiteboard. Um, why don't you just go here to this, this website? Go try it, see what you think. Because, um, it's taken us a long time. So, and, and technology has helped in that. Um, in that process because it's evolved so much.
**Matt Edmundson:** So the software that you've created, um, what's been the, the, the customer sort of feedback and experience with it? I'm, I'm really intrigued.
**Casey Golden:** We've, we've done a lot of like, user testing. Um, we've even gotten on the phones with, or like video calls with some shoppers that, that spend [00:34:00] $500,000 a year on clothing.
And we've, we've shown 'em, this is, this is what we're, what we're creating. You don't shop online today, um, but you'd like to. Mm-hmm. But you find that it's, it's too cumbersome. There's too many choices, it takes too much time. What do you think about this? And, um, we get jazz hands, so that's really exciting.
Um, I've sold a lot of technology in the past that's, that's not very sexy. Mm-hmm. Uh, I, nobody ever gave me jazz hands.
So the fact that we're getting these big smiles, um, they're like, ah, how'd you do that? Um, this is great. I would totally do this. Um, can I work with, you know, my stylist that I already work with? I'm like, sure, why not? They're like, oh my gosh, this is great. Mm-hmm. Um, and we have, we've, we've spoken to, uh, we started at the age of like 14 to see what's, you know, what, what do, what does a younger generation think?[00:35:00]
Mm-hmm. Um, they're really great at cutting out extra steps.
**Matt Edmundson:** Sure.
**Casey Golden:** They just expect everything to work.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. And quickly don't, don't miss about Yeah. It
**Casey Golden:** all has to just work and it has to be only about them. They don't want mass anything. Mm-hmm. And so they've been great to work with. Uh, I mean, like we're working with the, with, with teens, um, and, and getting that user feedback and it's helped a lot.
And then when we talk to, to luxury shoppers that are used to this beautiful high touch service that they've been getting for 10 years, they're like, huh, I like it. This is, I can do this.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Um, because I can't always go into a store. Mm-hmm. And to be quite frank, you know, we're very lucky. I live in New York City.
You live right in the, you have stores. Mm-hmm. Right in [00:36:00] London. Um, when you live outside of a metropolitan area, a lot of stores are closing. And so they're being left with only having an online experience to do their shopping. Um, and so how do we make sure that those people still have access to the service that, that they've had in the past or to provide a service that they've never had before or never had access to because they don't live in New York City.
**Matt Edmundson:** So, I mean, this is all fascinating and I'm really, I'm really intrigued and, uh, massively enjoying the conversation. I What would your advice be, um, Casey to somebody then who's listening or watching the show going? That's, that's great. I, but I don't sell a $6,000 cashier sweater.
**Casey Golden:** Exactly. And trust me, I, I understand that this is, this is not [00:37:00] every business and, and my software, it's not, it's not gonna be for everybody.
Mm-hmm. Our goal is to be everything. Hmm. And that, that's really our goal, um, because it's a different sales strategy, but that doesn't mean that there's not lessons that can be adopted mm-hmm. Into, um, a utility purchase or a, um, self-serve environment or like even, you know, just lower price points. In general, my biggest, um, advice would be to pretend you're the consumer and what map out that journey and why would somebody come back to your store without advertising?
**Matt Edmundson:** Mm-hmm.
**Casey Golden:** If somebody's made a,
**Matt Edmundson:** that's such a great question. Such a great question.
**Casey Golden:** Why would anybody come back to buy a product from you?
**Matt Edmundson:** Mm-hmm. [00:38:00]
**Casey Golden:** Was it quality? Was it the speed to checkout? Was it branded? What are the reasons? Are you donating money to a cause and, and are you sustainable? Are you what marks?
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Why does it matter that anybody buys a product from you? And that seems like, um, a very simple question, but trust me, you can spend two hours trying to figure out why would anybody want to buy this product, and then why would they wanna buy it from me? Mm-hmm. And I think it's just a really nice, um, a really nice way of thinking about it because some companies send me two to three emails a day.
**Matt Edmundson:** Wow.
**Casey Golden:** My question is, why does any person need one email from a brand? Any brand, even once a day?
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a little bit of overkill to me.
**Casey Golden:** It is so normal. Mm, so normal. Um, you know, I get a lot of emails every day from, from brands, [00:39:00] um, asking me to buy something. Mm-hmm. Every day. You know, that's a really good way to just kind of turn the table
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
And
**Casey Golden:** ask yourself if I was, I am a consumer, we're all consumers.
**Matt Edmundson:** That's right. How do
**Casey Golden:** I wanna be treated? And how can, what would somebody, what would a brand or a company do that would make me feel even more valuable? And what can I do for my customers that is unique to me? Mm-hmm. You know, I think those are some very simple questions that you can ask yourself about manners even.
Yeah. Um, and think of it a little bit more as hospitality. Mm-hmm. How am I greeting people when they come onto my eCommerce store? Um, how am I saying thank you after they've placed a, a purchase? Um, these are very simple things that you can take some of the learnings of what premium and luxury [00:40:00] brands do in a store.
And say, Hmm, I can add that to my playbook. Yeah, that seems a really nice way of engaging. Um, there's something that Sephora does, um, that I find is very interesting. I think anybody can, can implement this. Um, they give you things every single time they make a purchase. Mm-hmm. They actually give you product instead of asking you to buy more.
**Matt Edmundson:** Okay.
**Casey Golden:** So I'm not
**Matt Edmundson:** shop there, so I What, what do you mean? So if you
**Casey Golden:** make a purchase, you get to pick like two samples of other products to go home and try it.
**Matt Edmundson:** Okay.
**Casey Golden:** Um, so a lot of, a lot of women are going to Sephora because you get treated with, with more things to try.
**Matt Edmundson:** So, apart from Sephora, can you think of any sites that you shopped with that have done that well,
**Casey Golden:** you know, in, in different aspects?[00:41:00]
Um. There's some companies that, you know, I'm not your typical shopper.
**Matt Edmundson:** No. I mean, you, you know, too much saw this through way more than the average shopper has. Let's, let's just be real. Right?
**Casey Golden:** I know too much. Yeah. Yeah. And my expect and my expectations is that, you know, I challenge, uh, a brand when I engage with them, I challenge it and I try to break it.
Yeah. Because if I can break it, I have something to fix and build. Yeah. Uh, so I will challenge, um, almost every single circumstance I can get myself into. Um,
**Matt Edmundson:** and that's fine. I mean, I'm the same way, right. Whenever I order something. I, I record the whole buying experience as I'm, and I'm talking, I'm screenshotting, I'm, because I know too much.
Right? When the, like today, a parcel arrived from a site I'd never purchased from it before. It was, the site was getting a bit of traction in the uk. I thought, I'm gonna buy something from them and see what that's like. That experience. [00:42:00] And it was a, it was a, a cosmetics company and they were selling a soap and one of the big things on their website was sustainable.
It's environmentally friendly to buy this solid bar of soap rather than the soap and the plastic jar. Right. It's a common message I see these days. And I was laughing today because it turned up this soap in a plastic bag. It was in a inside a sealed plastic bag, which I now have to throw away 'cause it's single use plastic.
Um. And that plastic bag was in a plastic bag, which was its packaging, which I now have to throw away 'cause it was single use. So the whole message on their website versus the reality was, was quite different. But I'm like you, I, I analyze everything from how quick the website loads to how it arrives through my letterbox.
Right. Yeah. I, I always remember listening to Tony Show from Zappos talking about, you know, one of the things he's always insisted on is the phone number for his company was always on [00:43:00] every page and easy to see. We're not trying to not have people call us. We want people to call us. We wanna make that easy.
Um, and obviously he was known, or Zappos is known for its service, or at least it was
**Casey Golden:** customer service.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** You know, that was, um, he has an interesting story. Yeah. He, he, he set out to create Zappos to just. Build the best company you could imagine. Mm. You know, that was his goal, is I'm just want to build the best company that I can, you know, dream up.
Um, so very, very interesting founder story. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that, you know, no matter what product you're selling or you choose to sell, you know, there's so many different opportunities whether or not you're gonna be a retailer or whether or not you're gonna kind of be a marketplace, if you're gonna take a specific niche market, um, and focus on maybe sustainable products, um, and, and sell [00:44:00] some of those problems and just kind of be that one stop shop for a specific type of consumer.
Mm-hmm. Um, you know, or if it's just, you know, utility purchases, um, and selling through Amazon channels and direct consumer sales, things like that. I think it just kind, you know, comes down to. Stay in touch with your customer.
**Matt Edmundson:** It's fascinating listening to you talk about it because it's, it's the, the basics of taking care of your customer and understanding your customer and offer and value that, if I'm honest, seems to be the biggest challenge to e-commerce businesses.
They, you know, you know, as well as I do, it's easy to throw up a website, right? You can throw up a website in less than 20 minutes. Just go to Shopify, right? There it is. Um, you could even buy a reasonable product to sell on your website pretty quickly. You know, it's the finding, sourcing the products is, I mean, it's an issue, but it's not the key issue.
**Casey Golden:** No.
**Matt Edmundson:** The key issue is understanding your customer. [00:45:00] Who are they? Why do they want to buy? Where are they hanging out? How do I find them? How do I connect with them? How do I build a conversation with them rather than just treating them like. You know, they owe me a living. Right. You, you, it's, it's fascinating, uh, that this is the constant struggle I think of online business.
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. There's, um, something happening on Instagram right now that was, was just brought to my attention, which speaks to this, um, over Mother's Day. There was a lot of ads, right. Because a lot of people are advertising on Instagram. It's kind of the number one place, especially for product and fashion companies.
**Matt Edmundson:** Sure. Um,
**Casey Golden:** to get in front of an audience. There was a lot of ads leading up to Mother's Day and the day of Mother's Day and the day before, and the whole entire week after I noticed that my newsfeed on my Facebook [00:46:00] and on LinkedIn. The conversation turned to, I purchased an item on an Instagram ad. I went to go check my shipping because it hasn't arrived yet because Mother's Day is tomorrow and the website no longer exists.
**Matt Edmundson:** No,
**Casey Golden:** I think that that's the first time I've, that it's just been really presented to me that this is an issue. Yeah. That I think could get a lot bigger. Yeah. And you know, it only takes a few bad players to ruin the trust for everyone.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah, it does. Yeah. '
**Casey Golden:** cause if you can create a really pretty picture and a really beautiful website, that doesn't mean that you're safe to check out and that it's a reputable real company.
Yeah. I think that that's going to be more of a challenge as. Over the next couple years mm-hmm. [00:47:00] Is to really understand who's a real company and who's just an advertisement. And, um, and that communication and that access to your customer and building trust is gonna become more important and being validated.
There's no way to validate what business, what e-commerce store is legit, you know, you can copy and paste pictures of logos that you, you can say you're MacAfee secure. Yeah. It is really just copying a picture and placing it on your website. Yeah,
**Matt Edmundson:** yeah. No, it's true. Yeah. Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** It doesn't actually mean anything unless it really means something and you build a relationship.
So I think that's gonna be a very curious aspect to look, um, this holiday season, to see if that becomes more prevalent.
**Matt Edmundson:** One of the trends I've seen a lot with Instagram advertising is people will go and they'll, they'll find a product that's probably. A great little niche product. Um, so a [00:48:00] classic example was on my Instagram feed.
Uh, I saw an advert, someone put an advert on my feed, um, for a ultrasonic face scrubber. It's like an exfoliated for your skin, right? Because I got a lot of beauty sites. 'cause I own a beauty eCommerce business. And so I clicked on the ad, went to the website and it's like, um, it was, it was a, it was a nice design site, um, free worldwide shipping and you know, it was like, uh, 60 books as opposed to 120 books if you bought within like the next three days.
And then they had this little thing popping up. So and so from this country is to bought so and so from this country is to bought, you know, the little thing that pops up in the corner. Yeah. Which I think is a waste of time and I never believe it.
**Casey Golden:** No, it's actually not real. You program it.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's totally not true. Sure. I always tell people to take it off their site Anyway, this product I thought was fascinating because, you know, the way they. The way they displayed it and talked about it. This was an advertiser, this wasn't a business, this was an advertiser who'd figured [00:49:00] out how to, he changed, you know, he, they did clever images and clever video with clever headlines.
I just went to Amazon Ultra, so skins scrubber. It was half the price they were trying to sell it for on that website. And so these guys were literally just advertisers. They were taken, they wanted the impulse buyer there, and then
**Casey Golden:** mm-hmm.
**Matt Edmundson:** They were using all the tricks to get me to buy in an instant, paying twice as much money as I could buy it on Amazon or on any Google search, actually.
I mean, I find Amazon's actually never the cheapest these days. You know, you just, no,
**Casey Golden:** it's not.
**Matt Edmundson:** And it's, and uh, and, and you could same product, right? And so I get what you're saying that advertisers, I think are, are a very different animal in eCommerce now, aren't they? And they're here today. They've gone tomorrow.
**Casey Golden:** That's why I love luxury goods.
**Matt Edmundson:** Because there'll always be a market for luxury goods.
**Casey Golden:** Well, they've never used really advertising.
**Matt Edmundson:** Mm.
**Casey Golden:** They've been in brand management and creating a brand and a [00:50:00] dream and beautiful product, and it was never on sale.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** The sense of urgency was in collections.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. And
**Casey Golden:** leveraging the items that your past experiences with the brand and compounding that I'll save for one year to buy something.
Mm-hmm. You know, just one thing because I don't need, we don't need a lot of stuff, you know, and I think that that kind of marketing kind of triggers and feeds that you need a lot of stuff.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Um, and I think that, you know, when you think about. What I'm gonna do for my marketing strategy, just ask yourself why.
Mm-hmm. You know, what's the purpose? And am I doing something that's hyped today that can gimme a short term? Which is fine. You can have like short term wins and strategic, you know, um, [00:51:00] initiatives. But you always really wanna have, what's my long-term strategic growth. Mm-hmm. Going to look like what's my plan?
Um, and then you can stay true to that, you know, and, and your own business ethics and, and really create something that you, you're passionate about. Um, you can be passionate about those sonic skin, you know, um, scrubbers. I have one. They're great. Um, you can be very powerful. Just get your
**Matt Edmundson:** review. Uh, yeah, yeah.
It's good to get your review. Great.
**Casey Golden:** Um, but it's, you know, why would somebody come back? Because you're in, you're on the agency side, you know, I've been on the agency side in the past. Um, a client calls and says, Hey, I need to increase my Instagram followers. I need a social strategy. Um, you go onto their website or their Instagram and they have, you know, 50,000 followers, like, okay, I can work with that.
And [00:52:00] then you start going through all the posts and there's four, like
**Matt Edmundson:** yeah,
**Casey Golden:** there's one comment.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** And you're like, ah, you just bought everybody. Mm-hmm. We're actually starting from zero.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. Let's be real.
**Casey Golden:** We're, we're, we just have to be real. We have to, we're starting from zero. Um, and, and, and it's just like, you built a business and then you bought fake customers.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** That's not gonna help sell your product. Um, so, you know, we would just go through and we just like, just delete it. Of, of those and, and find out who's real. So let's run some competitions, let's run some contests to get these followers engaged to find out who's real. Mm-hmm. And who did you pay for?
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's one of the, it's really interesting, actually. The same with, um, same with email. You know, you say to clients all the time, well, how big's your email list? Oh, I've got, had one, [00:53:00] uh, chat with a client this week. Right. Um, value in his business. And they're like, Matt, we're trying to value our, our site and we've got 120,000 people on our email list.
No, you don't. Yes, we no. Mm-hmm. 20,000 people. Okay, well, let's take off everybody that's not even opened an email from you in the last six months. Right? Yeah. And then let's take off everybody that's, uh, not clicked through to your website in the last three months. In other words, you've got 120, you've got a big old list, but a thousand people maybe are actually real customers interacting with you on a regular basis.
Well, if you can, if you, it's like coming back to what you said. If you can do something really great with those thousand customers, great. But you've gotta wake up to the reality that actually 120,000 is not what you've got. You've got a thousand
**Casey Golden:** and out of that thousand, you know, you've really got 20% of 'em will likely make a purchase again.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** In the next like three months. Right? Like, we gotta be real here. Like we don't buy a whole bunch of stuff. Like I'm [00:54:00] not gonna buy it every day. You know? Um, and I think that it is a very 'cause, 'cause units. Equal potential conversion rate to come up to a revenue number and a forecast, and you know, somebody like us when we dig into the business, I can ruin that, that revenue forecast just by taking out of all the people that Yeah, that's just, this is just hard reality.
Like that doesn't work. That's, that's they'll never buy anything. Yeah. Um, and, and if they haven't opened in six months or they've only ever made one purchase from you, find out why. Grab 25 of them randomly.
**Matt Edmundson:** Call 'em up.
**Casey Golden:** Call them. Mm-hmm. Say, Hey, I'm the CEO of this company. You made a purchase from us once.
I'd love [00:55:00] to learn more about your purchasing experience. So many consumers are floored when they receive that phone call. They are so happy to tell you about it. And to say, yes, it worked. No, it didn't work. If you need to process a refund on the flight a year later, just process it.
**Matt Edmundson:** Mm-hmm.
**Casey Golden:** You will knock their socks off.
**Matt Edmundson:** That's a really interesting challenge. So would you, um, I'm, I'm sort of thinking with my British hat on, uh, which is obviously quite different. Well, often is quite different to, to the US hat. Um, I'm the CEO of a company. The thought of calling 25 customers that haven't purchased in the last three months, that doesn't phase me.
Uh, would you, would you just call them on the fly or would you say, actually first send them an email and say, listen, my name is, I'm the CEO, I'm, I'm just really intrigued. I'm, I hope you don't [00:56:00] mind, but, um, can I give you a call in a day or two? The number I have for you is this. So would you email them first with some, I would
**Casey Golden:** definitely email them, you know, and.
A lot of times we don't have their phone number. You know, SMS marketing is becoming, you know, bigger and bigger. So we do have a phone number. Um, but yeah, just, you know, I would email and just ask, you know, ask permission and say, you know, would you be open to having, you know, a brief conversation with me so, um, I can understand what your, what your shopping experience was like, and maybe how I could have made it better.
Mm-hmm. Um, and just learn more about, you know, your experience with our product.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** And I think that, I mean, 25 is, is not a big number in the grand scheme of having a No.
**Matt Edmundson:** You'll do that in an hour 'cause only five people will answer, right?
**Casey Golden:** No, exactly. And, and, and just setting up those appointments, but it just gives you a peek into some potential opportunities.
**Matt Edmundson:** Mm-hmm. [00:57:00]
**Casey Golden:** You know, it's just a couple potential opportunities of what can I do better? Where did I miss?
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Um, and, and understand where am I winning? And just do more of the, you know, reduce more of the stuff that you're missing and do more of the stuff that you're winning and just, you know, what can I do to just focus on knocking it outta the park?
Um, I think it's very interesting how aggressive marketers are in the office.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** And then when they go home, they get frustrated at all of these advertisements. And I don't want this, and I don't want you to have my data and I'm deleting Facebook, but nine to five,
**Matt Edmundson:** that's what they do. Right. I'm
**Casey Golden:** sending $200,000 on Facebook ads for the company.
I'm doing this, I'm sending out emails, we're working on strategy. And then you get home and you turn into the mar the consumer and you're like, well, you don't like it either.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** So I understand that those are standards, these are industry standards. Things are working. Email works. It converts. [00:58:00] It works.
But what happens when that channel changes?
**Matt Edmundson:** I find there's. When people email or Facebook, because they're anonymous mm-hmm. What they say can often be quite mean. And it, it's often there's a frustration built up inside of them and it just becomes like this, Do you know
**Casey Golden:** what
**Matt Edmundson:** I mean? This explosion when they, when people email you.
So, but when you call people and talk to people, actually they're more human. Mm-hmm. Because they know they're talking to a human rather than when you email, you don't feel like you're talking to a human. Do you know what I mean? It's, it's a really odd experience. And so I think, I mean, I think you're right.
I think this, this whole, it does change. It is changing. It is much more personalization. It is much more how can you care for me? How do you show value? And bizarrely, I think that's actually coming back to the conversation. And, you know, we, we employ people of various different age groups. And what I find fascinating is, [00:59:00] um, if I ask someone in our company who's say over 45, 4, say over 40, could you, um, you know, and maybe we had an issue with a customer.
I say, would you mind just giving that customer a call and just seeing how they get on? They're gonna pick up the phone. They're gonna call the customer. Right. Anybody who's under 30, if I say the same thing to them, the net, if I go to them the day later and say, did you call that customer to see how you, you know, see, see what was going on?
They went, yeah, I sent them an email. It was, it is really, and I've, I, I've just noticed this trend that anybody that sort of over a certain age that was used to calling people was happy to call anybody who is young is like, it's like this thing scares them.
**Casey Golden:** It is a, it is a fear thing. It's an calling is actually quite intimate.
Mm. Right. Like you are calling somebody to talk to them, person to person, human to human. You're taking up time. You're asking somebody to stop what they're doing and have a quick [01:00:00] conversation with you, and it is intimate and you know, I have a friend who, who has a technology company and his sales team is under 30.
They're new, they're hungry. Mm-hmm. They're passionate, and you know, they're, they're coachable. And he's like, Casey, will you please come over here? What can I do for you? Because I would really like you to come over and work with my sales team for a day, because they won't pick up the phone. They're scared of the phone.
Like they've had a demo with someone, uh, twice with the team. They have multiple emails and they're sitting here saying, gosh, I wonder if I should email again. I just emailed two days ago and they didn't answer me. I'm like, pick up the phone and call them. They're scared. And so I was like, okay, give me like [01:01:00] 20, 30 customers that are just dead, right?
Like they were leads, they're dead leads. They don't qualify. They're not a good fit for you. You have a half an hour to call every single one of them,
and you need to just get hung up on. Yeah. And you just need to just call and introduce yourself. Hi, my name's Casey. Like you can do this. Um, and a lot of people say like, cold calling is dead, even in sales. Um, but I can trace back to every single piece of software I've ever sold. I, none of it ever came from an email that I sent.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** It was from a relationship. It was from a phone call. It was because I understand their business. I understand their some constraints. I'm gonna reach out to the person who probably has this problem and see if it makes sense for us to talk. 'cause when you're in sales or you have a [01:02:00] product that you're selling, you are, you're a painkiller, you know, you shouldn't be, um, a bother.
Yeah. You should wanna talk to me because I'm here about relieving pain and if you have pain, I wanna be the person coming to the rescue. Yeah. Um, to relieve that pain. I'm not just trying to get money from you. And I think that those are, you know, different sales tactics. Yeah. Um, but I'm like, you can be really great if, and you can close a deal faster if you just
**Matt Edmundson:** pick up the
**Casey Golden:** phone and have a relationship.
Because if there's five vendors that somebody's choosing from the person that builds the relationship wins.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. No, it's true. It's very, it's, it's a, i I think it's a really great challenge actually. And if you are, if you are listening to the show and you do have an eCommerce website, why don't you do that?
Just get the 25 people, give 'em a call, um, and uh, find out some of the best [01:03:00] changes we've made to our website. I've come as a result of calling our clients, um, and saying, listen, we're thinking of doing this. What do you think? And they'd go, well, that's kind of cool, but it'd be really nice if dot, dot dot Oh, you're like, wow, okay.
We were just about to spend thousands of pounds or dollars building this over here. But actually what you want is the $5 solution. Um, you know, thank you.
**Casey Golden:** That's all it takes.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. Okay. Missed that would not have, I thought you needed complicated, but apparently you don't, which is wonderful. Uh, so, hey, listen, Casey, this has been.
Fantastic. And I'm, I'm aware of these conversations. Yeah, yeah. No, they're great. And we, if you don't mind, I, I'd like to check in with you again in a few months time, uh, 'cause I, I find, I find it fascinating. Um, lemme ask you one final question if I may. Um, uh, girlfriend comes up to you and says, Hey Casey, listen, I wanna start an e-commerce business.
What do I, what, what do I do? What's your, what's your top piece of advice for them?
**Casey Golden:** Why?[01:04:00]
It's a lot of hard work. Yeah. Um, my, my first advice is to get proof of concept. And that would be like open up a Shopify account. Mm-hmm. It's inexpensive, it's proven, it's easy to add add-ons. Yep. Um, and you can design it. Quite pretty, um, very easily. Um, and just start with Shopify account, sell your product and, and start understanding, um, who your customer is.
But the first time anybody like says, Hey, I wanna open up an eCommerce store. I mean, my first question is like, for who? What customer is it for? Yeah. Um, and a new customer. Who else is selling it online? It changes completely when you go from hanging a product in a store mm-hmm. To [01:05:00] going online because people say, I've heard it a lot from a lot of clients.
Oh, we don't compete with them. As soon as you go online, Google yoga leggings or yoga pants.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** You compete with them.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** What about you? What do you, what's your first advice?
**Matt Edmundson:** Oh, uh, exactly the same thing. Um, it's like, uh, we have a, I I have a very set specific questions that I go through and, and very early on in that list is, well, what are you selling?
And to who are you selling it and why are they gonna buy it from you? You know, these sort of, how, how's it gonna change their life? Um, because you, you wouldn't believe the amount of people who have started eCommerce businesses and they, they get in touch and they're like, Matt, can you review my website?
'cause I'm, I'm getting like hundreds of thousands of people come into my website. Um, but no one's buying anything. And in fact, if you go to the Shopify forums, it's the biggest thing. I, I've got traffic, but no [01:06:00] sales. And it's because they've not done what you said. Um, they've not taken the time to understand who their customer is and actually what, what do they want to buy?
**Sadaf Beynon:** Yeah.
**Matt Edmundson:** So they've, they've figured, and I mean, one of the things that Shopify, I, I always tell people, start on a Shopify site. And Shopify are great at showing you how to go and find people using Facebook ads, right? It seems to be this road. They take you down, you signed up to Shopify, we're now gonna teach you about Facebook advertising.
And because it's cheaper than Google ads, it's quick and it's easy. Bush away you go, we can teach you this in two hours. And so, you know, before you know, you've got your site set up, you spent 400 books on advertising, you've had a thousand people come to your website and no sales whatsoever. Um, and so yeah, I'm often, I often talk people into to sort of avoiding that trap, um, because that's just a waste of money.
I'm just like, just gimme the 400 bucks and don't open the site and you'll be better off. You know? Um, but no, the same thing. The same thing. Proof of concept. How do you, how do [01:07:00] you, how are you gonna prove this? Who's your customer? I wanna know about them.
**Casey Golden:** Yeah, there's,
**Matt Edmundson:** why are they gonna buy that product from you?
**Casey Golden:** There's a lot of hitting costs in e-commerce that people don't realize. It's like, just because you build it doesn't mean anybody's gonna come.
**Matt Edmundson:** No, not anymore. It used to be,
**Casey Golden:** it used to be
**Matt Edmundson:** 2002 when we built our first eCommerce website. That's exactly how it worked. But this is like, you were magic 16 years ago, right?
We were just like, this is amazing. Uh, how, how, why is nothing like as easy as it, but it doesn't work like that anymore?
**Casey Golden:** No. Um, I was working with a client that, um, was celebrity, had a celebrity endorsement, like it was a celebrity's, you know, product. And, um, the product that they sold that they wanted to launch e-commerce with, um, was not expensive at a very low price point.
Um, and the question came up to, I don't know if you can afford to compete with your [01:08:00] pricing, because if it costs $3 and 99 cents. You can't ship for free.
**Matt Edmundson:** No.
**Casey Golden:** You can't afford customer service. No. You can't afford the box that it comes in, you know, packaging. Mm-hmm. Like the overall cost. Like what is your average order value have to be for you to absorb the cost of logistics, of shipping a product
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
And
**Casey Golden:** potential return.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Because it can just hemorrhage cash.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. Massively.
**Casey Golden:** And so, um, you know, there was a lot of technology that we built in their e-commerce shopping experience to bundle so that the more you bought and the more you added, the better price that you got so that we could ship four items or five items and re reduce the amount of like any potential of returns.
Sure. Because they could not afford free shipping and anything for returns. [01:09:00] Mm-hmm. Um, because you have to cover your. Your logistics partner. Mm-hmm. You know, you have to pay for those returns in, in, in labor. And, um, you know, and we had to build out, uh, an ROI analysis. This is how much money you're gonna have to spend for advertising by channel average conversion rates.
This is how much customer service is gonna cost by x amount of like, time per week logistics, packaging. The cellophane that goes, the product goes into that, goes into the box. You know, that costs money too. Mm-hmm. Um, so how much does it actually cost you, uh, to open up an eCommerce store? Um, and what does a minimum viable product look like?
Um, you know, the, the lean startup, you know, like what's the minimum that I can do and, and how do I grow that? Um, but it took us some. You know, a room full of execs [01:10:00] and like strategists to come up with, how do I sell makeup That's all under $5.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah.
**Casey Golden:** Online. 'cause that there's not enough margin in that product.
**Matt Edmundson:** No, there isn't. There isn't at all.
**Casey Golden:** So it comes into, you know, volume plays and, and like different strategies that are less about, you know, luxury, but that lifetime value.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yep.
**Casey Golden:** If I can sell four pieces every single month to my customer or every other month for the next three years. Okay. Now we're talking in different story.
Yep.
**Matt Edmundson:** We have, it's fun to be a part of the journey. Like you, I quite enjoy the challenge. I love the fact that it's different today than it was yesterday, and you've gotta constantly kind of move and stay up with it and, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's fantastic.
**Casey Golden:** We're learning so much in our industry on a daily basis that I talk to some friends that [01:11:00] maybe work in finance or they work in, in other aspects of like, different industries.
And I'm just always so excited to talk about what I'm doing because I'm learning so much every day. And, and they're kind of, they don't have as much of that content or industry changes that affect their day-to-day job like. Casey, you're the most excited person I know. That like, goes to work.
**Matt Edmundson:** Well, that's a, that's a wonderful, uh, testimony to have.
Right. You know, I'd rather people say that about me than, oh, you hate your job.
**Sadaf Beynon:** I'm like, it's so fun.
**Matt Edmundson:** Yeah. Yeah. Life is so fun. Casey, how do p how do people get hold of you? How do people, uh, connect with you? Where do they find you?
**Casey Golden:** Yeah. Well, I think the, the most meaningful way is you can visit our website at www.luxlockluxlock.com and you can claim your closet.
We will be, you can sign up, register, and then [01:12:00] as we onboard new brands that use our technology, uh, we're gonna be compiling your closet and all of your preferences so you can get these beautiful custom shopping experiences with the brands that use our software.
**Matt Edmundson:** Wow. And is it free to sign up or is there It's
**Casey Golden:** free to sign up.
You should never have to pay for service.
**Matt Edmundson:** That's very true. Very, very true. I like it. So actually I'm gonna go sign up.
**Casey Golden:** We love early adopters and you might even get a phone call from me to ask you how everything is working. Have you tried it yet? Um, what are your favorite brands that, you know, you would find this helpful with?
So, um, yeah, fantastic.
**Matt Edmundson:** Fantastic. So that's looks lock.com. Check it out. Go sign up for your free account. Casey, listen, thank you so, so much. Pleasure. It's been great on the show. It's a pleasure. Brilliant to get to know you, brilliant to hear your insight. I've made lots of notes in my using my analog pen, [01:13:00] uh, and lots of notes, lots of ideas, which is, is always great.
And uh, so thank you so much. Really, really do appreciate it.
**Casey Golden:** Such a fun conversation. Anytime.
**Matt Edmundson:** Wow. Wow. Just, wow. I really, really enjoyed this conversation with Casey. It was a fantastic conversation, and my thanks again to Casey Gordon for taking the time to, uh, chat with us and give us the amazing advice that she did.
Take Casey's advice, right? And pretend you are the consumer, and map out that journey. Ask yourself, why would somebody come back to your store without any advertising? Is it the quality? Is it the speed of the checkout? What are the reasons? Why would they want this product? And they, and more importantly, why do they want it from you?
Right. One thing is clear, you've gotta understand your customer. Even if it means picking up the phone to 25 customers to understand [01:14:00] their experience, do it. It will be worth it. It will transform your website. Oh, I know you're gonna wanna listen to this, uh, episode again, which you are more than welcome to do, of course, but you can get hold of the transcript as well.
I'm gonna put that with the show notes, uh, along with a link to all things Casey, uh, on my website, Matt Edmundson dot com. So do head on over there, uh, and download that. It will give you all the notes you need and you can read and inwardly digest many times over and extract all the goodness for your own business, right.
It was so good, so, so good. Anyway, make sure you connect with me on social media, uh, and, uh, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm really actually, if I'm honest with you, I'm loving Instagram at the moment. I've started doing this, uh, little mini vlog series on Instagram, which is going well.
Uh, so [01:15:00] if you want to check that out and see that, make sure you go to instagram.com/ Matt Edmundson and connect with me there. It will be great to meet you and to, uh, talk with you and engage with you on the, on that platform. I am really, really enjoying it. I dunno what your platform of choice is, but mine is definitely Instagram at the moment.
But of course I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Like I say. Um. And of course it goes without saying, do subscribe to the show, wherever you get your podcasts. Uh, it will be great to stay connected with you. I really wanna make sure that the show is continually bringing some great stuff, uh, for my fellow e-commerce entrepreneurs out there on how to do business better online.
So subscribe. It is totally free and it is jam packed. Full of good stuff. Okay, thanks guys. Thanks for listening. And until next time,
**Sadaf Beynon:** you've been listening to The Curiosity [01:16:00] Podcast with Matt Edmundson. Subscribe and join us next time as we carry on conversations about all things e-commerce and digital business.
Casey Golden
Lux Lock