Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] Well, hello, my name is Matt Edmundson and you are listening to the E-commerce podcast. I've been in e-commerce since 2002, and these days I partner with e-com brands to help them grow, scale and exit. And if you'd like to know more about that, just head over to the website, e-commerce podcast.net. And if this is your first time listening.

Come follow me on LinkedIn. It'd be great to connect. In fact, if it's not your first time listening and we're still not connect on LinkedIn, come find me. Uh, it's a great place. Just get over to LinkedIn. Search, search there. Search Matt Edmundson. Uh, and you'll find me there. Now. That's enough about me.

Let's talk about Paul. Paul Chambers, uh, the legend who is on our show today, all the way from the other side of the ocean. Uh, Paul, it's great to have you, man. I've been looking forward to this because. Um, well, lemme just read out your bio here. It says that, uh, you are the co-founder of SubSumit, the world's largest conference exclusively.

Exclusively note the [00:01:00] word, uh, dedicated to direct to consumer subscription businesses. We're gonna be diving into what might be the most misunderstood balancing act in subscription commerce today. Retaining subscribers whilst creating a frictionless customer. Experience. Paul's smiling already. Uh, I wonder if we've all been a bit guilty.

I love this. Uh, have we all been a bit guilty, uh, of this at some point where we secretly hope customers forget about their subscription renewals to squeeze out an extra month of revenue? Yet Paul has built an entire movement around the opposite philosophy, creating so much value that customers never want to leave.

Paul, welcome to the show, man.

Paul Chambers: Great to have you. Thanks so much, Matt. Thanks for having me. And that that wild rollercoaster ride introduction. Holy cow. Holy cow. I've set the bar high. I've set it high. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no pressure. You know, one, one, I'll give you a fun fact. I don't think I've ever revealed before.

I always like to reveal something new [00:02:00] on, on different podcast I do. I maintain the title of co-founder. Because I have it, it just doesn't behoove me to have any other title because the things I do change so much sometimes on a daily basis. My job around SubSumit is to, you know, my main focus is to help build out content and find amazing speakers and, and bring amazing minds.

But, um. You know, I'm, I'm always just helping with operations, helping, you know, Chris, Chris George is our CEO, helping him kind of guide us in the right direction. Um, keeping an eye on the finances, whatever it may be. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, when, when he shared that, uh, I finally, I'm like, just don't gimme me a title.

I don't want COOI don't want president. I don't want CEO, just, just, I'm just here to clean up and keep things running around with the net catching things as they fall, putting 'em back, tidy up. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: It's, uh, I I love that. I love that. If you're a regular to this show, you'll, you'll recognize the Chris George.

'cause Chris has been on, um, he's been on, I've spoke to Chris on quite a few occasions on the [00:03:00] podcast, but, um, it's good to have, uh, the, the, maybe the better half of the equation on the show. Just the better face

Paul Chambers: I. Yeah. Always got something going for me. Yeah. You know, we compliment each other well, we really do.

Um, and you know, that's from a standpoint of just having different minds, different ways of looking at things. Um, yeah, I've had a number of co-founders in my business journey. Different businesses, different co-founders, and, um, Chris is one of the better ones and if not the best, and, um, it's just 'cause.

Our, our brains both click at a fast rate, but in just different ways and looking at different details. So works out. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Nah. Cool man.

Paul Chambers: Cool.

Matt Edmundson: Legends a pair of you. Uh, before we get into it, let's just do a quick plug for SubSumit. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what's going on this year? I.

Paul Chambers: Yeah, so sub Summit, um, as you kind of aply described in the beginning is the event dedicated to $3 trillion subscription, membership and loyalty industry. So this is what we found in our decade [00:04:00] of doing this now is more and more subscription and membership are, and, and loyalty especially are the core.

Hmm. Of most businesses. It's where that relationship starts and, and forms and really engages customers and creates a long lasting relationship. So Sub Summit is a place where brands come together? Yeah. To learn how they continue to scale their, their programs continue, how to invest in them. If they're not already doing something great, they learn how to, to grow it.

We've got sessions, we've got an expo hall, we've got networking, we've got one-to-one business, uh, to supplier meetings. Uh, you name it, it's over the course of two and a half days. Um, just a, a massive absorption of knowledge. Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: it is a, it's a huge event.

Paul Chambers: Um,

Matt Edmundson: I. When you go and I, I've, I've been there fortunate to have been there the last two years, going again this year, which I'm looking forward to.

So, uh, if you are in SubSumit, uh, this year, come say, how's it, I would love to meet you if we've not Al Met, already met and, um, some great friendships actually have started there over the last few years. So I'm quite looking [00:05:00] forward to catching up with folks, uh, and seeing crazy things happen.

Paul Chambers: Cool program too, where brands can get there for, uh, little to no investment.

We've, they can get a free ticket and seven 50 in travel and hotel reimbursement through a hosted program, um, which I'm sure we can talk about later, but it's just a great frictionless way to get people to the event and to, to learn and grow.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. I was, when Chris mentioned this, the first time that you guys were doing this, I thought that's actually.

I'm used to going shows in the UK where I think budgets are different. Chris, I'm, uh, Paul, I'm not gonna lie, I, I, I think the budgets are very different on occasions. And so when I heard that you guys were paying or offering free tickets and subsidized travel to go to the show, I'm like, you've obviously figured out a way to make that work for you guys.

And I, I think that's really, really clever. Yeah. Um, really clever. So yeah, if you're listening and you want to go to sub submit, do check. Where would they go to to find out more about that?

Paul Chambers: The, the grid starting point is always the website, sub summit.com, and from there you can click on the, the tickets button, get more details [00:06:00] on that program if you're interested.

Yeah, if you're interested in sponsoring, there's link to that. I can show you, you know, venue. Everything's, everything's right there from the homepage and lots of great details.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. Okay, so let's get into it. Uh, what made you, uh, I mean your, your, I have here a very long list of your history, Paul.

Um, I went to perplexity. Do you use perplexity by the way? I haven't, no perplexity, I've ai. It's, uh, it's, it's, so, it's AI meets Google search. It's really clever. Yeah. And boy, what did it uncover? They've got this, yeah, they've got this new feature called Deep Dive, I think called Deep, deep something or other Deep Research.

So I, I clicked that link and it's where it just spends. Quite a bit of time doing some research and I said, tell me a bit about Paul Chambers.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. Did it label me as a jazz musician? 'cause there is a famous Paul Chambers jazz musician. No, no, no. Not

Matt Edmundson: at

Paul Chambers: all. The things

Matt Edmundson: that I learned about you that I didn't know, uh.[00:07:00]

I mean, obviously I know your connection with the subscription commerce industry, but where was it? Um, you exit, you had a company, gentleman's Box, you exited that. You joined forces with Chris, you've got subter, which is a subscription trade association. You co-founded that. Now we've got Sub Summit, um, uh, which you are involved with.

And then there was some other, what did it come up with? I thought it was phenomenal. I wanted to check to see if it was true. That was my thing. Um.

Paul Chambers: Let me tell you this while you're checking your notes. I built my first E-Commerce website, fifth grade. But, well, I started, I started selling in the back coat room in fifth grade.

Okay. But I built my first actual e-commerce website, I think it was 1997. Wow. It was for a company in Detroit here on Woodward Avenue called Nathan Camera Shop. It was this guy who had a little camera shop on Woodward Avenue, and he wanted to, he had so much inventory. He heard about this internet thing, and he wanted to start selling his cameras and his [00:08:00] spare parts online and the.

The hand coding of everything back in that day was remarkable compared to what we, what we have today. Yeah. Our whole inventory systems. Yeah. Syn up with his point of sale system. Um, so is it still going? Is he still online? No, he retired. He eventually retired and, and shut down his shop. You know, didn't really sell it off or do anything with it, but, um, you know, this being the e-commerce, you know, an e-commerce focused podcast, just thought that'd be a fun little tidbit to share.

Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: yeah. Yeah. Wells certainly than me. I was 2002, so you definitely beat me. By four years, you know,

Paul Chambers: and I, not saying you, you might've had a better, 2002 might've been a much better website compared to my 19,

Matt Edmundson: no, no.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. Um, it certainly has grown over the years, but that's, you know, my history, my background, I've had a marketing website agency that I've had for 25 plus years now.

Yeah. Um, that's been the catalyst for, for kinda spinning everything off and that's what I'm doing my full focus. My main focus in time goes towards sub summit nowadays, but, [00:09:00] uh, certainly. Tell me about, and this

Matt Edmundson: is if it's true, right? I'm curious to, to check this out. The popcorn and franchise location in metro Detroit and the Capri Pizza in Southfield, Michigan, I.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. Um, in 2004, stumbled across a newspaper article about Isaiah Thomas rolling out a chain of gourmet popcorn stores. Isaiah Thomas is a former Detroit Piston and NBA All Star and, you know, admirable in the i the eyes of many basketball fans across the world, but a lot, especially in Detroit here. And so I was like, well, that sounds interesting.

I better look into that some more. Long story short ended up, um, becoming a franchise in the popcorn chain, Dale and Thomas Popcorn. Mm-hmm. And, uh, opened up, uh, up to, at one point I had five stores were on Metro Detroit retail stores. There was an online porn I. Part to it as well, but as a franchise franchisee, franchisor relationship mm-hmm.[00:10:00]

It's actually one of the important things that I worked with them to help learn and grow about is how you do online sales, but contribute that back to franchisees in the system, um, grew that nicely. Ultimately, 2008 came along, ended up really affecting the business and, and. Hurting it. And when most disposable income went away for people.

Yeah. Um, they stopped buying gourmet popcorn as well. Um, but it was definitely an interesting adventure and, and certainly learned a lot about retail that led the foray years, decades later into, um, buying a distressed pizza shop here in metro Detroit. Uh, and that's where, you know, my branding marketing agency comes along and mm-hmm.

We did almost like, um. A bar, bar rescue type situation with it, where it was really distressed, needed new life, breathed into it, did like a really just paint and touch up makeover on it, put new branding to it and really elevated it. Um, unfortunately our operating partner as part of that business ended up leaving and we ended up finding a new happy home to, to run [00:11:00] that pizza shop for us.

Matt Edmundson: Right.

Paul Chambers: Um, but you know, retail is one of those businesses that, um, I have a love hate relationship with. Where. I love, I love having a business on Main Street and connecting with people and you know, you get such fast, instant insights. Yeah. Into the minds of people. One of the craziest things I learned of in my gourmet popcorn store was when I would be low on an item on the shelf, if there's just one thing left on the shelf, it would sit for weeks untouched as soon as I would load another item behind it.

So there were two of that sitting on the shelf. Sales would pick back up again. Crazy, and it's just like instant consumer psychology that you can't see oftentimes in the digital space. Yeah, you start running heat maps and you look at it and you watch green recordings and those kind of things, but I.

It's just, you know, when you're sitting there talking face to face with somebody, you know, the upsell, I, you know, we'd, we'd have a, a bag, you could get a bag of popcorn for this price, but a dollar more, you get a bag and a half is what we'd call it. And, and it was so fun to experiment with the way I'd [00:12:00] present it to people and the way I'd talk to people about it.

And so you, you look, you take those things and you can apply 'em to online space, but it was like, you know, for a dollar more, only a dollar more, you can get 50% more popcorn. Yeah. You sure you don't wanna do that? And so it's always, it's always fun and fascinating to, to play with those kind of experiments.

And then I take them and apply 'em to the websites we were building and stuff like that.

Matt Edmundson: That's fascinating,

Paul Chambers: man.

Matt Edmundson: Fascinating. I could talk about popcorn all day long, but I, I probably should. Uh, and, and the pizza shop is my daughter's idea of, of heaven. Mm-hmm. I, I feel, um, but let's get into subscription, right?

Because obviously this is your bread and butter now, isn't it? This is where your genius lies. Um, and I, I follow you on LinkedIn. We're in a WhatsApp group. I see some of the videos you post, which are very funny, I have to say, uh, a great, and I'm one of the things which has come out through that. Um, one of the things I've learned from you guys is this traditional [00:13:00] approach, approach of making cancellation of subscriptions difficult, how that actually harms your subscription business in the long run.

Do you wanna comment on that?

Paul Chambers: Oh gosh. I can't tell you the number of conversations I've had with brands where they've had that realization. Mm-hmm. And, and because, you know, the position, position we're in, a lot of big brands come to us and, and want to, to chat about what's going on, how they can continue to improve.

And um, the number of times I've heard from them where it's like, as soon as we change the cancellation process, as soon as we reduce the friction or allowed them to cancel much easier. We saw immediate uptick in our customer lifetime value and long-term retention. Um, and they say immediate because you would see people would.

Cancel and be like, oh, you know, and they'd want to come back later. That's the biggest challenge that we face in the industry of, yeah, kind of that bad reputation that people get that companies get from subscription or membership. They feel like, gosh, if I commit to this, I'm [00:14:00] one gonna have a challenge of canceling or two, I'm gonna forget about it and.

You know, we take the position that one, never hide the cancel button. Robbie Kelman Baxter, who you know as well often. Yeah, yeah. She's great. Robbie, she on the stage, she's stood on the show as well. Yeah. She stood on the stage two years ago and made everybody hold their hand off and do a pledge to not hide the cancel button.

I remember. It's that important. Yeah. And you know, we, we see that time and time again. When you give people the ability to pause, skip, find ways to make them more comfortable in their relationship with you as a brand, it immediately will show that that. The, the benefit to the business from that side. So we, you know, we really focus on that.

And then, you know, the other challenge sometimes is a lot of companies will build subscription for the sake of building subscription and not give enough thought into like, the real value to the customer. At the end of the day, you see a lot of these membership programs popping up from different retailers or different online, um.

Sales places that are building a membership program just to kind of maybe [00:15:00] capture some additional revenue or engage their customers. Yeah. But it really has to be done right. And one of my favorite examples is Panera Bread. Uh, they're famous here in the United States for fast casual food and eateries.

And they, when we, we talked to them and they talked about this at Sub Summit as well, so this isn't anything special proprietary. They realize that. Just really start at a low friction, easy point with the customer. That's that free loyalty program. Yeah, bring 'em in, show 'em the benefits, build that relationship, and then over time introduce 'em to other options.

Hey, by the way, we have this SIP club, which gives you unlimited coffee, gives you free delivery, it gives you ongoing specials, and it's only 10 to $12 a month. And you get, you're, you're getting into this membership where it's creating tremendous value on top of the value you're already feeling from that, that retailer or that website.

And so that's where, you know, we talk a lot about building the right subscription program or membership program. That's for your [00:16:00] audience. Yeah, no, I love that. I, I,

Matt Edmundson: because I, I think the default. Um, Paul, which I, we've mentioned on the show before, certainly in the uk. I, I, I think, um, things are changing, but certainly with a lot of e-comm sites, um, if e-comm is their primary driver, right?

The subscription thing is something that they add on because that's what Amazon did. You know, with a subscriber, save, you know, buy this and save 5% every month if you buy it on subscription. That then became the default model. Subscribe and save. Including some of my own, uh, e-comm businesses. That's what we did the whole subscribe and save thing.

And I think if there's one thing that I've learned from you guys other than don't hide the cancellation button, uh, it's probably don't do, subscribe and save. Um, I think it has to be, uh, more than that. And so I, I love this example that you're talking about, about almost like a, a subscription funnel, isn't it?

And at every level, you're increasing the value and taking people further and further in.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. And there's um, oh man, I wish we could talk about [00:17:00] already, there's gonna be a really fun announcement at Sub Summit from a, a big brand about some, some cool stuff happening in this space here, what you just talked about.

Um, but. You'll, you'll hear about it in just a few months. One of the things that, um, I can talk about that I've really enjoyed is, um, there's a brand that met at SubSumit last year called Bottomless. Mm-hmm. Have you heard of these guys or seen them yet? It's not what you think it would be. Um, bottomless created this scale for coffee companies that they'd put underneath their coffee grounds, and it would, uh, when it would.

You know, you'd put it in a little container and it would get down to a certain level. It would recognize it, and then it would auto-ship you your next bit of coffee that you needed to refill that container. Mm-hmm. Absolutely brilliant. Mm-hmm. I've been talking about this for the longest time of the way, you know, I've got a dog and you know, I've got dog food, but I also have like poop bags.

How many were we using a day? The, the, the goal of the company should be to understand the customer's mindset and give them the replenishment exactly when they need it, right at the right time, without worry or concern. [00:18:00] So I actually got into Biola's dog food trial and I put, I have a scale that sits under our dog food container.

And I will tell you it works flawlessly. Wow. As soon as it's starting to get down the next I I get a shit. I see a shipment notification in my email, and just a couple days later, I have the next bag of dog food that's on my doorstep. The, the, the point of friction I would always have with Chewy, who, by the way, 70% of their revenue is autoship, chewy dog food, massive multimillion dollar brand.

70% is subscribe and save as autoship. The friction point I would always have with them, uh, I love 'em to death 'cause their customer service is amazing. Their products are amazing, like things are doing are great. It always like, it always show up like a week, two earlier or a week too late or Yeah. You know, I'd be worried like, oh shoot, the dog food's getting low.

Is it gonna show up on time? And so, you know, it's about understanding the, what the cus customer needs Right at the right time. Bottomless, one of the challenges with it is you gotta have like this scale and we gotta set it out. It needs to be near an outlet and so I think there's some things to be worked through on that.

[00:19:00] Yeah. But that idea and that mentality of how you can meet the customer at that right point. I'll never like. Why would ever cancel that? Why would, unless my dog stops eating that food. It's just going to keep coming.

Matt Edmundson: It, it, it is fascinating. While you're talking, I'm thinking about, um. Something that Amazon did a few years ago, but it never really seems to, I dunno if it's taken off or whether I just don't see it anymore, was you could, you could buy little buttons that when you were running mm-hmm.

Running low, you would just push them and it would just sort of just turn up.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. I don't know. I remember that too. Um, I forget what it was called, but I missed that and I never tried it 'cause it was before I really got into. This space. It was, it was a while ago. They stopped those and I don't know why.

I think they probably realized maybe subscribing Save was better. There's had to maintain the buttons. Who knows? I. Do you know why they stopped that? I have

Matt Edmundson: no idea. I've, I'd like you, I've forgotten about it. I, I, I, I, I will find out because I, I'm intrigued as to why that I wonder sometimes I think technology is [00:20:00] too early.

Um, true. And I, I just wonder whether that was, was too early. Um, I'm, I'm less one, one of the things that I'm thinking about as you're talking, I'm like, I, I love this idea of the scales. 'cause the scales actually, they're just. They're quite easy to produce. Once you've got the technology, they're not gonna be a, a, a high barrier to entry.

It's kind of like the Nespresso thing, isn't it? Where you buy the machine for next to no money really, and the money's in the pods. Right.

Paul Chambers: Well

Matt Edmundson: that's,

Paul Chambers: and that's exactly like what I'm saying. You know, one of my. Things I'm saying the bottom list is just providing they're, they're the conduit for all these things.

But if you find somebody that can create an attractive dog food container, 'cause the one I have in my kitchen's, not good looking, but an attractive dog food container like that in itself is a product. And now people, you give them that for free or whatever you wanna charge for a small amount of money, and now they're getting your dog food nonstop and very rarely gonna cancel.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, no. Fascinating.

Matt Edmundson: Listen, if you are listening to this, uh, conversation that Paul and I are having and you're enjoying it, well, [00:21:00] why not come join my little free membership? Did you like how I did that there, Paul? Uh, it's called Cohorts. Uh, we have a cohort in New Zealand, Australia. We have just started a brand new one in the uk.

We've got another one now going in the uk. This is where we just jump on Zoom once a month and have catch up calls and we just chat about e-commerce and all that sort of stuff. So if you wanna know more, just check out the website eCommerce podcast.net. Paul, I'm curious, right, if you were, um. If you were in Eco, because I know that there are a lot of pure subscription businesses, right?

I think of our friend John Roman and Battle Box and the cool stuff he's doing there, and you kind of go, this is really fabulous, you know? Um, but I, a lot of people listening to the show will have e-commerce businesses. How do you see those two things colliding and mixing?

Paul Chambers: Yeah. Well, a couple things. Um, you know, I mentioned earlier and talked about membership programs and loyalty programs.

Mm-hmm. And [00:22:00] that's where, you know, it's an. A lot of what we talk about at Sub Summit as well, it's not just subscription and pure play where you think, subscribe and save or you think mm-hmm. Subscription boxes or things like that. Um, membership programs are a really big part of that, and that's where, you know, we see a lot of retailers doing and trying different things and some are successful and some are, are not so successful.

Uh, three brands that come to mind. One vie Avi's played with their membership program for a lot of different ways. A lot of different times. They're a collagen. Product here in the States and, um, they've been successful with it in introducing different things along the way. They do, if you're a member, you have free shipping, you're gonna get access to products early and special discounts.

And they followed a similar model to True Classic, which is a, a great clothing brand. Yeah. Done very similar things. I've seen True Classic play with their membership programs over time. Um, and find different ways to do it and offer different benefits. Um, I. Some will do, [00:23:00] uh, you know, just $25 annually and some will do a $400 annually.

I think I, I haven't gotten any feedback on which price point works the best. I think it all depends on your market and what you're offering, um, because I don't think there is a true, like, perfect price point for any of this. It all depends on your brand. Um, the other brand that that comes to mind, which is, uh, a really good reference point is Uncommon Goods.

I joined the membership program because I want free shipping. So it's no different than Amazon Prime. Mm-hmm. You're gonna join Amazon Prime for, you know, the, the benefit or Walmart plus. Yeah. For the benefit of the free shipping, of the fast shipping, of the different things like that. So e-commerce retailers, if you find your customers are coming back to you time and time again, introducing a membership program like that would be a phenomenal way to continue to engage your customers.

And, you know, if they're. If they know they already have that membership, like every, every holiday season comes around and it's like, oh, I should go look at Uncommon Goods because I know I get free shipping with them. That should be one of [00:24:00] my first places to shop if I'm looking for unique gifts outside of Amazon or other places.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I first heard about this concept from Jay Meyers, who I, we both know, in fact, you were on Jay's podcast recently, weren't you? Uh, which I'll come to him in a a second. Do, came on my

Paul Chambers: podcast recently, actually.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, he came on your podcast

Paul Chambers: or, or quick 10 minute interview. Whatcha are you

Matt Edmundson: doing? I just, just, I saw your post and stuff on LinkedIn about it.

Um, yeah. And Jay's a legend from Bold Commerce and, um, I heard him, he did a talk at some, something about memberships. Um, and the using this, you know, the psychology of the sunk cost fallacy, so I've paid whatever it is, 80 bucks for my Amazon Prime membership. So even though it might not be cheaper on Amazon Prime, I've, I've paid this membership, so I'm going to use it, you know, and that, um, and how.

In some respects, memberships can be more valuable than subscription, uh, was what he said. Depending on, I guess how you separate the definitions. [00:25:00] Um, but this idea of introducing a membership for your e-comm site, I think it's totally true. I think it's totally right. I think in the UK it's funny listening to you talk about free shipping because I think free shipping's important, but in the UK, shipping is a lot less, uh, the fees are a lot less 'cause it's a much smaller country.

Uh, and things get around much quicker. Everything's overnight. Right. And, um, and so, uh, but I think if you are it, we played around with a membership where you got free shipping with the beauty company we had here in the uk, it was Okay. Um, I think we needed to do more than just that to add value from the, from the shipping point of view.

Yeah.

Paul Chambers: I mean, look, it, that's, that's the, the thing that, to, to think about free shipping is one element of a program like that that can be successful. I always say, and I I should stop saying it because they've been raising the prices lately. Like Amazon doesn't charge me enough. I get so much value from it.

And same thing from, from Walmart plus, like Jeff Bezos watches me talk somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that price. Paul's not paying enough. Yeah. I'd be behind AI's listening

Matt Edmundson: in, you know, that's what it [00:26:00] is.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. I'd be, I'd be willing to pay more just if it's because of Joe. Listen, because he needs more money.

Yeah, I know. But you know, to that point, you know, so they keep layering in more and more offerings. And one of the things they just did recently too, they introduced Alexa Plus. Mm-hmm. Which is this new AI agent built into Alexa that you can buy standalone for 1999 a month, but if you have Amazon Prime, it's included.

You're like, well that's a no brainer. Why don't I just, you know. Get Amazon Prime if I don't, if I'm one of the few people on this planet that doesn't have it already. Yeah, yeah. Uh, Walmart Plus does great with this, say layer in, you get a Paramount plus subscription, you get discounts on gas at the pump, at Walmart stores and.

You know, if you're an eCommerce store and sitting here listening like, well I'm not Amazon or Walmart, I'm not gonna, I can't go out and make a deal with Paramount Plus and I can't do this. Then find ways you can add value. Yeah. Is it, is it a complimentary eCommerce website where you could partner up and put your memberships together under a bundled membership where as a member here you're gonna get access Here.

Here. Mm-hmm. Sure. You can talk about share [00:27:00] wallet and things like that, but you know, looking the ideas to look at unique and creative ways, understanding your audience and adding value. The more you can add value, the more likely they are to come back and stay loyal to you as a brand, thus increasing your, your overall value.

And if you're looking to sell it someday or do more with it then mm-hmm. It's only gonna work out for you.

Matt Edmundson: No, that's so true. And value, uh, just again to reiterate, uh, from what you're saying Paul, and because this is something you guys have, have hammered quite rightly. Value is not discount value is a whole bunch of, uh, other things.

Having a really fascinating conversation with my, I. With my family on the family WhatsApp group the other day because within like three days I get an email from Netflix and I get an email from Disney Plus, both of which I'm subscribed to, both of which are subscription services. Netflix has put up their prices massively as have Disney plus I.

And so I'm like, well, neither of you're really giving me any increased value. You're just charging me more money. Um, there's a few shows I like, but there's [00:28:00] always a few shows that I like. It's not like I've, I, a diehard show like Amazon have done well, I think with the Reacher series, but that's just me.

It's a personal thing. Um, but I think, so the conversation in the WhatsApp group now. This is not an affordability thing. I just want to put, I mean, you know, if you want to pay for my Netflix subscription, if anyone's listening and feel the freedom, I'm not gonna stop you. It's not an affordability thing, but it is a, I'm really annoyed thing.

And um, so now in the WhatsApp, we've got this family poll thing going on, going, well, which one do we cancel guys?

Paul Chambers: Yeah. And you know, we're seeing that more and more in the marketplace as the streamers continue to rise prices. Mm-hmm. You know, I think they're gonna find there's an upper limit that they can go to.

And it, I almost wonder like, are they testing it? Do they have data that suggests it? I mean, it could be d all the above. Um, but you know, we had Truebill on our stage, uh, a number of years ago at SubSumit, and Truebill is the app [00:29:00] that. And now it's called Rocket Money. Mm-hmm. Um, the app that's out there screaming from the rooftop, download this app so you can cancel your unto unwanted subscriptions and they get into your credit cards and they see like, you're using this, using this, and then we'll cancel it for you and all that stuff.

But one of the things that, um, haru, the founder of Truebill set on stage and shared on stage was we're finally, uh, and this is like two years ago. Hit the threshold where the number of subscriptions people are adding kind of cross with the cancellations basically kind of found what that upper limit is on number of subscriptions.

People will keep now over time as things like this happen. You know, I'm like you, I have Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, Amazon, all the streamers just 'cause whatever makes my kids happy. Mm-hmm. But I'm at that same point now saying, if we're not watching Netflix as much. Why are we continuing to pay for it every month?

And I think some of this is being combated or helped, I should say, by bundling. We're seeing more and more bundling where [00:30:00] like, yeah, you can get Netflix, Uber, like Hulu, Disney Plus and ESPN mm-hmm. Are together and different things like that. Um, yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna. Price themselves out, but then it just becomes a numbers game.

Are you capturing more revenue from those subscribers that stay?

Matt Edmundson: Okay. Yeah.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. Interesting to see. Well, they

Matt Edmundson: definitely don't care about it all me, but I do think it's interesting the mindset that I'm in now. Yeah. Where I'm, I'm like that. I, I feel like I've got enough subscriptions, man. I, I, I'm, I'm really guarded about which ones I take on.

Yeah. And I'm quite happy to get rid of a few of them. Now.

Paul Chambers: My, I don't know if you're. Worried about my hesitancy used to be for canceling, let's say something like Netflix was like, oh man. Then all my episodes I was midstream on or recommendations when I go to sign back up again, those will be gone and lost.

Um, I'm going to cancel Netflix soon, I think to look at the flow and see what happens there.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

Paul Chambers: because it's a hesitancy in my mind like, ah gosh, I gotta rebuild the profiles. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's good to start fresh. 'cause [00:31:00] you know. You know what's super interesting? There's a tweet out there from me somewhere that vowed I would never go back to Netflix.

I was like this, I'm done. I'm tearing it up. Um, and it was when they first raised their prices and rolled their DVD out separate from their streaming. Okay. That's how long ago this was. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, this, this company's done. They're toast. Um, I ate my words on that and I, I went back to it. Mm-hmm.

Um, but it was because again, they just. You know, there's content, you know, there's value and things like

Matt Edmundson: that. Yeah. Um, yeah, well, at some point I might be the same. I might, I, to be fair, I think we're gonna cancel Disney Plus. 'cause I think the, the output of Disney Plus has been useless the last year when you've watched the Marvel movies and there's nothing else really to, well, there was that Shogun TV show, but I, I think the, um, I think that at some point the value may well increase past the price, but at the moment it isn't, and this is just to your point, isn't it?

[00:32:00] With our e-com sites, with our subscriptions, with our memberships, the value has gotta far outweigh the price. And I think I heard at SubSumit, uh, again, it may be Jay that says actually the value has to be at least three times the price or the three times the perceived price. Or no, the perceived value has to be three times the cost of whatever it is they're buying.

Yeah.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. He's done a lot of, Jay, by the way, I've had to kick Jay off the stage so many times because he's like, he'll go in a good way. In a good way. Um. He'll go up and he'll give a talk and then he'll get so many questions, question, question real quick because he's driven so much value and knowledge to a room where people just have to, like, they have so many more questions, what he's talking about.

Um, but the, the fascinating thing is, you know, he's right in, in in that number. There's a talk he gave in Orlando in 2022. I'm trying to remember exactly what it was, but it was like, it was the subscription death curve and, and talked about, you know, just kind of that point of where if you're not.

Providing new, you know, [00:33:00] value and giving people things to talk about and talk to others, um, then you'll eventually, you're gonna plateau.

Matt Edmundson: Hmm.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. Yeah. So true, so true. I mean, don't download Jay's brain.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Just, just download that into ai. That would be a whole LLM in itself. There we go. Um, well let's give it a try Jay, if you're up for it.

Let's do it man. I'm sure, uh, I'm sure Musk's got a tr some kind of chip we can borrow that would allow us to

Paul Chambers: think about Jay. He's Canadian. He is so nice. He would of course say yes. They're so nice Canadian, like, yeah, sure. No, that sounds great. Oh

Matt Edmundson: God, love the Canadians. Um, the part, the part of the empire, you know.

Anyway, let's not go there. The, um,

Paul Chambers: which one? Are we gonna have them sooner or you keep it up?

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I, well, I dunno. Let's talk to Donald to see what he says. All of the Donald Oh, brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. What, I know you've given some [00:34:00] examples of sites that you're really liking at the moment, but thinking about the, where it's all going, and I I'm, you're gonna talk a lot about this at Sub Summit, I know, but where it's all going 20, 25, 26, what are some of the things that you are seeing that you find the most promising, uh, for the sort of foreseeable future of subscription commerce?

Paul Chambers: Yeah. Um, you know, when we, we look at, you know, what's promising is a lot of, uh, a lot of brands we're talking to are, are looking at bundling options. You know, how are, are they coming together to, um, help give more to the customers? Yeah. So we're seeing a lot of promise there. Um, you know, we talked about earlier about easing the cancellation flow, um, and seeing a lot of promise there.

Um. You know, it's, and the other part, you know, the ecosystems continuing to grow and expand Shopify. Um, for better or for worse, sometimes I get a little frustrated with Shopify's kind of hold on their ecosystem. [00:35:00] Um, but. They're building a great product. They're leaning into subscription. And so from that, one of the really promising things we're seeing is more and more, uh, apps are being developed, more partners, which creates more opportunity.

When I launched, when we launched Gentleman's Box, we built it on WooCommerce and we had to, and there was a subscription add-on at the time, and we had to hack the crap out of that to get it to work the way we want it to work. And, um. At the time, Recho was just spinning up and recharge was just an idea.

And O Sheen's and his partner's heads and. Since then, obviously more and more you've got stay, you've got lube, you've got, uh, Yapo got into it for a hot minute, but they realize that they wanna stay, focus on their core, uh, charge bee and recharge and bold. And so there's so many great options out there for focusing on recurring billing.

And then the things they add in, layer in there. So, you know, this investment from Shopify of lightly dipping their toes into. Native subscription and what they're seeing [00:36:00] there is creating more and more opportunity on top of that. So it's, it's easier than ever to build this out, but again, i, I just continue to encourage these businesses, just make sure you're doing it right, taking some time and focusing on how you build out the program and everything behind it.

Um, we talked earlier about, uh, subscribe and save, and one of the things I want to kind of loop back around to is if you can. Find a way to ask customers questions that will make it less frictionless for 'em, then that'll be, um, a better off experience as a whole. So the example I provide from time to time, and I started to get into here was dog poop bags, for lack of a better term, if you know you're gonna be using these bags twice a day, you take your dog on two walks and you're using twice a day.

Um, you know, if, if the brand that's selling those were to ask me that question, like. How often do you use these refuse bags for your dog? Okay, we notice you're using 'em three times a day and we sell this many. Our default shipment's gonna be [00:37:00] this often for you. So really just kind of easing the customer's minds from the get go.

You know, seeing things like that of better ways to connect with customers, whether it be the, like I talked about earlier, the Panera $0 loyalty is a starting point or asking questions to get to answers. Those are where we're seeing success.

Matt Edmundson: That's,

Paul Chambers: that's really cool.

Matt Edmundson: Uh, and it, again, it comes old school principles.

Just talk to your customers. Right. Figure out what it is they want and figure out a really easy way for them to get it. I mean, it's, it's not rocket science, but sometimes I think we're overcomplicate it.

Paul Chambers: Yeah. And you know, look, in fairness, I'm a business owner operator. If you're in the weeds, sometimes it's, it's hard to see, you know, out beyond them.

You're, you're in the day to day, you're doing things. Mm-hmm. And you think you built what people want. And, and sometimes we just have to encourage ourselves, and that's why people listen to content like this. 'cause they wanna. Maybe get the opportunity to think outside the box or think, you know, work on the business, not in the business.

And so, you know, just taking a step back and, and not being too hypercritical of yourself. Like, man, I failed. I didn't think about this. It's [00:38:00] just this is an opportunity to open your mind up to look at it in other ways.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. Um, if you've, uh, been enjoying this and you've made it this far and you haven't already done, so, why not sign up to the newsletter called E-commerce?

So that's the newsletter we send out. Every single week, we're going to feature all the links to Paul, all the tidbits that you've shared in here, and probably add one or two extra bits in there as well. So do come, uh, and check it out. Paul. Listen, man, uh, it's always wonderful to talk to you. Uh, it always feels like it was just yesterday and, but it wasn't.

It was probably a SubSumit. To be fair, when you handed me some very delicious e-commerce podcast socks, yay. I Hopefully you didn't eat them. Yeah, no, no. I just, I just thought they, they just looked amazing.

Paul Chambers: You handed me these branded e-commerce podcast socks, which I thought was great. It was fun. One of that's, so that's where I, I dip my toes in the water from time to time.

One of the brands we support is Custom Sock Shop. Um, my, mark, my [00:39:00] agency supports, and I've worked with them for a decade, and so they're great partners of ours, um, and, and friends of ours and, and I. I kind of lend my knowledge to them on the, the side here and there. Hmm. Because it's, uh, it's, it's fun to just kind of stay in tune with things and, and keep in it.

And so, uh, custom Socks shop, I give them all the credit. They, they made those awesome socks for you and the

Matt Edmundson: Oh no, they did designed. Brilliant. And um, we, uh, I've, I've given the link to that shop, uh, that does the socks to many, many people go there and buy some really funky socks because this is such a cool thing.

Paul Chambers: Yeah, yeah. It's a good group. They're based outta Detroit here. Uh, they manufacturing here. They have some overseas manufacturing as well, but just a good, good family operation and they do good work and they care.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Paul, listen, how do people reach you? How do they contact you if they want to do that?

Paul Chambers: LinkedIn is a great place to find me. Uh, so I just search for Paul Chambers and look for my beautiful headshot that you might see on the podcast here. And then, um, I'm, I'm active on x, formerly known as Twitter, uh, [00:40:00] x.com/paulchambers. And then, uh, you can always email me [email protected]. And always happy to help.

Mm-hmm. It's a better one. If you email info@subsummit or [email protected], there are multiple people that check that, so you get a much faster answer than.

Matt Edmundson: I say that to people all the time. Yeah, you can have my email if you like, but you really don't want it. Uh, you really want this person in the team's email 'cause they're gonna be much more helpful.

Paul Chambers: Actually, if you email the team, it gets to me faster. Often times it really does. Like I'll try to reach Paul and then Lauren comes over to my desk and starts pounding.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Uh, Paul, listen, thank you so much man. And just again, just to plug subs, Sumit, I will be there. If you want to find out more about it, go to SubSumit.com.

We will of course link to that, uh, website. We will link to, uh, Paul's LinkedIn to his. No, not Twitter, X. Uh, we'll put all of those, uh, in the show notes as well. Uh, which you can just scroll down in your podcast [00:41:00] app or you can head over to the website ecommercepodcast.net. So, Paul, listen, I like to save the best tool less.

I should have told you this before we hit record, right? It's okay. Um, but I, I completely forgot. So for those people that have made it this far that haven't quit, uh, listening to the show, we just like to, we've started throwing this thing, it's called Save the Best or Last In There. So my question, after decades in the subscription business and selling successful companies, um, and helping countless entrepreneurs through sub to and sub summit, what's the one counterintuitive piece of advice?

That you would offer e-commerce entrepreneurs that has consistently proven true for you, yet most business owners struggle to accept or implement. I appreciate that's the world's longest question. Uh,

Paul Chambers: ooh. So, oh man. Um, there's a variety of things that come to mind on that. Um, the, the thing that I've found is best is to [00:42:00] oftentimes.

Second, guess what I think is right? You know, the piece of advice I got from an entrepreneur one time and I'll, I'll make it a little more pg, is is sometimes you have to look in the mirror and, and. Don't believe your own bs. Um, yes, so true. Yeah. I, I was sitting across from him at a table and saying like, I think this can work and I wanna make it work.

And he was a truly successful entrepreneur. I really admired, also sold me a bad business at the time. And, um, you know, his choice advice when I asked him for my hundreds of thousands of dollars back, uh, was sometimes you gotta look in the mirror, not believe you're on bs. Um, and it was true the number of times I've had to stop and, and be like.

Am I trying to talk myself into this and where this applies to the e-commerce businesses. If you're an operator, if you're a marketer, if you're, no matter what your role is, uh, if something's not working, you're sitting there like just beating your head against the wall trying to say like, I know this should work.

Maybe it isn't. Or, you know, mm-hmm. Maybe you need [00:43:00] to take a step back and, and take a reevaluate and take a look at it. Find better ways, more efficient. We're constantly finding ways to be more efficient in what we do. We've run events for 10 years. We're still like finding every single day, finding ways, like, why didn't we do this?

Why didn't we do this? So, you know, I think that's, that's really some of the best advice I ever received.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I love that. Absolutely love that. 'cause, uh, you're right, the banging your head against a brick wall, was it Einstein that said, uh, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results or something like that, that yeah, giving the same result, like, okay, well

Paul Chambers: you the same, you know, and expecting something different to happen.

Yeah. It's um, you drive, you insane.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it will. Absolutely. I butchered the quote, but you know, you get what I mean. It's that whole insanity thing. Just stop doing the same thing. Yeah. It just, the results won't change if you do the same thing. And there was that other phrase, is it Marshall? What's the face?

What got you here won't get you there. That's great. Have you read that book? It's a great book. What got you here won't get you there. It's a really interesting title, Marshall, I can't remember his name now. [00:44:00] It'll come back to me as soon as I hit the stop record button. I'll

Paul Chambers: find out. I'll, I'll type those first words in the word Marshall.

Amazon. It'll find it for me.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, where? Just tell ai. There should be a button. Just push the button and the buck will turn up tomorrow. Amazon. Jeff's listening. Jeff, send him a complimentary compli. Yeah, that's my ad that's coming next

Paul Chambers: you.

Matt Edmundson: They aren't

Paul Chambers: listening.

Matt Edmundson: Don't lie to me. You're listening. You'll be amazed what might happen. Uh, but listen, Paul, awesome. Uh, thank you so much my friend. It's been an absolute treat, an honor. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it. Wow. That's it from me. That's it from Paul. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.

I'll see you next time. Bye for now. [00:45:00]