Global E-Commerce Leaders Forum co-founder Kent Allen join Kai Li, VP of International at REVOLVE, Agustin Farias, International GM at Everlane and Matthew Steinbrecher, Vice President, Platforms & Partnerships at Reach to catch up on all thing cross-border and talk about their exciting session at of the upcoming GELF event in New York, September 28th and 29th 2021!
Global E-Commerce Leaders Forum co-founder Kent Allen join Kai Li, VP of International at REVOLVE, Agustin Farias, International GM at Everlane and Matthew Steinbrecher, Vice President, Platforms & Partnerships at Reach to catch up on all thing cross-border and talk about their exciting session at of the upcoming GELF event in New York, September 28th and 29th 2021!
Our guests each talk about their respective businesses, state of cross-border eCommerce, two starts and one stop advice and finally give a brief overview of what they will be talking about at the NYC IRL GELF 2021 event.
There’s light on the horizon! On September 28th and 29th, the Global Ecommerce Leaders Forum (GELF) community returns to New York City live and in person. This year we’re bigger and better than ever as we join our friends from the CommerceNext team at the New York Hilton!
GELF NYC 2021will co-locate its annual gathering in New York City with CommerceNext In Real Life (IRL) 2021. Join the GELF community for keynotes, breakout sessions, executive roundtable meetups and networking as our global ecommerce programming grows to two full days this September.
We look forward to getting the GELF community back together in real life after the long layoff since GELF LA 2020, which was our biggest and best West Coast gathering ever!
GELF NYC 2021 will bring together leaders from retailers and brands selling direct-to-consumer. Top global consumer brands will join digital natives from the fashion and apparel world, health and beauty, consumer electronics and other leading retail verticals for two days of education, sharing and networking. Digital commerce innovators, cross-border ecommerce experts and global ecommerce thought leaders will debate how the boom in ecommerce translates into international expansion as the retail world comes back online.
If you liked this podcast you can follow us on Apple iTunes, Spotify, Amazon music podcast channel or your favourite podcast platform, please rate and review with a five star rating and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail and cross-borders commerce industry.
I’m Michael LeBlanc, Founder and President of M.E. LeBlanc and Company Inc. and you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co, and you can learn more about the Global E-Commerce Leaders Forum and continue to keep up with the latest on cross-border commerce online at https://www.globalecommerceleadersforum.com/
Until next time, have a safe week!
Michael LeBlanc 00:03
Welcome to the Global E-Commerce Tech Talks podcast. I'm Michael LeBlanc.
Kent Allen 00:07
And I'm Kent Allen with the Global E-Commerce Leaders Forum.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
We're starting a series of special episodes leading up to GELF. NYC, September 28 to 29th. Be sure and visit GlobalECommerceLeadersForum.com to learn more and register Kent, could you take, it nice to see you and nice to hear your voice, could you take a minute, introduce our guests, and then we'll have each of them tell people something about the backgrounds and the organizations and, and let's start there.
Kent Allen 00:32
Thank you so much, as always, Michael, great to have you and really appreciate our guest today. I mean, it's just been wonderful that we're able to get everybody back together this September, live and in person and a big shout out to our friends at CommerceNext, who will be co-locating with us and there are helping us out, but yeah, without further ado, I really wanted to kind of introduce two of our keynote speakers. There'll be joining us right after lunch on the first day.
Kent Allen 00:57
Tuesday, September, 28th. We'll get going probably around 1:15, 1:20 or so. And you know, Kai Li is, is back from REVOLVE, Kai Li has been a huge help to us over the years at GELF and he has keynoted several of our events and it's just great to have Kai Li back. And you know, we've also got Agustin Farias joining us for the first time I've chased after him for years and he's going to talk a little bit about some of the cool stuff they're doing at Everlane and we've also got Matthew from WithReach you know, we can't do this without our sponsors so big shout out to the WithReach guys so without further ado, Michael, I'll turn it over to you and we'll talk shop here.
Michael LeBlanc 01:39
Yeah, right on, right on thanks to everyone and, and welcome. So, it's a short snappy kind of snack-size episode where we're gonna ask basically the same three questions in and around, so, Kai, why don't we start with you tell us about, a little bit about your background what you do and the organization you do it for?
Kai Li 01:57
Absolutely. I'm with REVOLVE. REVOLVE is Los Angeles-based online fashion retailer, we carry 800 brands. on a quarterly basis, we have over a million active customers and REVOLVE I'm responsible for all aspects of international business from marketing to operation. Prior to REVOLVE, I spent five years in international roles at Amazon. Before joining Amazon, I spent 10 years in Asia reading market entry and expansion strategy for startups and established companies in Asia.
Michael LeBlanc 02:28
Fantastic. So, lots of global experience Agustin, tell us about yourself.
Agustin Farias 02:33
Yes. Hi. I'm Agustin, I'm responsible for the International Business at Everlane. Everlane is based in San Francisco, California. And we are a global brand, which, which goal is to help people live the best through what they wear and have the least environmental impact in the planet. Right, and a little bit about me, I have over 20 years of experience working on international e-commerce for Fortune One companies like Walmart, I also spent time working at eBay, DHL Express managing their e-commerce operations for the Americas. And then a couple of startups in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s.
Michael LeBlanc 03:21
Well, you certainly come to the, come to the role with a lot of great experience, that's for sure on both sides of the table, right, the logistics and the brand and the retail experience. Matthew, tell us about yourself, tell us, and thank you, again for being part of the support network for these thought leadership events.
Matthew Cannon 03:37
Of course, happy to be here. My name is Matthew, I head up partnerships at the Reach side here. We are a Global Localization Platform that specializes in lots of things from online payments to tax compliance, and many of the other complexities when it comes to global sales. And we really just help you know, online businesses in general, with their full localization solutions for accepting payments and cross-border transactions.
Michael LeBlanc 04:05
Well, it's fantastic. You know, it's, it's the glue that holds it all together, I recently did a transaction on a magazine site that's a favorite of mine called Monocle. And what a disaster, I have to say in like, they, you know, I get charged three times the amount and it just, it just was not done well. So, I'm going to put you in contact with them because they need help. They need help getting this done, wonderful product, but they just, you know, it's so important, right? So, vital that stuff behind the scenes just impacts the customer experience.
Matthew Cannon 04:32
Makes all the difference.
Michael LeBlanc 04:33
So, the format is a fun, kind of, "two-starts and one-stop" advice for the listeners based on what you've learned maybe over the past 18 months or you know, based on your experience, and it's, kind of, you should start doing these two things. And then you should probably stop doing this thing. And the stop isn't like meant to be negative. It's meant it, this used to work, it doesn't work, or we've tried it and I see people doing it and it you know, it's probably not the best practice. So, first of all, two things you think they should start doing to make their business thrive, and then one thing they should probably think about not doing or doing less.
Kai Li 05:08
Oh, well, I'm talking about national. So, I'm thinking about things you really should be doing, should be, you really should do with localization. So, I'm talking about translating your content, having activating local channels. I also really believe, strong believer of supporting payments in different markets. If you look at Europe, that there's a payment market, it's very different from here, particularly when we're going to emerging markets, that credit cards may not be the primary way of transacting, there's other emerging payment options that we should adapt in order to penetrate the market.
Kai Li 05:44
The things we should stop doing, I think, is I'm not sure if there's things that have been discouraged. But I often hear people ask me the question, "Hey, we've all bought Amazon, how do you guys to discourage people from doing returns", that we, you know, we are actually a strong believer, that return is part of the business that we actually show that facilitate and help customers to get returns, that, you know, one side return would help us, would actually increase operating costs. However, on the other hand, it also dramatically reduced customer hesitation to make purchase, at the end of the day, that helping customer to do the returns will actually help your business.
Michael LeBlanc 06:26
You know, I love talking about returns, I'm a big believer, I was a retailer myself for 20 years, a big believer that return is a wonderful opportunity to, you know, to cement a brand experience, it's also an equal opportunity to mess it up. But done well, returns can be a very powerful piece of adhesion to brand experience for sure. Wow, that's great. And of course, this is a this is a bit off the cuff.
Michael LeBlanc 06:50
Agustin, I'm going to throw you now into the deep end with the same, kind of, two questions, advice for what what people should start doing, based on what Everlane has been experiencing, and what would your two pieces of advice and one thing to do a bit less of?
Agustin Farias 07:04
Okay, yeah, I was thinking more about from an individual standpoint, what people should start doing and what they should stop doing. So, for my individual standpoint, I think I was, and again, everlane being so environmentally conscious. And as you think about growing internationally, that it's important that even from the get go you make a decision, 'Are you going to be doing cross border e-commerce?', meaning doing international shipping, or 'Are you going to be thinking about setting up a logistics operation in region or a market?', and that has very different implications, right? Maybe, the second, has obviously much upfront cost.
Michael LeBlanc 07:39
Right.
Agustin Farias 07:39
But, in the long run, if you are invested in a particular region, maybe that's a better approach. Also think about the impact your operation has, again, in the environment. How, now, in this day and age consumers are looking at, how do they connect with a brand, and how do they have a more meaningful conversation and then less of an impact. So, think about, is there a way for you to offset your, your footprint from a different standpoints like carbon offsets as you as you offer different international shipping options.
Agustin Farias 08:15
What you should stop doing, I mean, that's a hard one.
Michael LeBlanc 08:15
Right, right.
Agustin Farias 08:20
Because again, I was thinking more from a consumer standpoint, and this is something we advocate, even with our products is, is stop using single-use plastic products, right. And we do that through our products. I mean, we, we now have a, we have a line of products called Renew, which is made of recycled polyester, from reclaimed water bottles from the ocean.
Michael LeBlanc 08:42
Well, how much, how much time and effort, and I'm gonna imagine a substantial, goes into your organization's thinking about the supply chain from that environmental perspective.
Agustin Farias 08:51
Yeah, quite a lot.
Michael LeBlanc 08:52
I imagine pack packaging and all those things. So, talk about that for a bit. There's always been this tension I found, you know, I was with, you know, a lot of retail companies that shipped in and consumers would go, it's too much packaging, but then at the same time, you have to have enough packaging that it arrives safely and in good shape, right. So, that's always been a bit of a conundrum. How do you how do you tackle that conundrum?
Agustin Farias 09:13
Yeah, and again, we have a supply chain team dedicated to looking and vetting our factories. We start from the from where even, our source, our raw material comes from, right.
Michael LeBlanc 07:39
Right on.
Agustin Farias 09:24
What are the, the meals and what are the, the even, even, where the cotton is coming from, for instance, for all our organic cotton products that we're starting to do now, and we have a commitment to to really face out and introduce organic cotton into our products. But it requires quite a big effort. Yeah, it’s not trivial.
Michael LeBlanc 09:47
Yeah.
Agustin Farias 09:47
And, and I think organizations need to really speak from the heart to when they're doing this, because consumers know, in conscience, this is just a marketing tactic or this is integral to their, to the to what the brand stands for.
Michael LeBlanc 10:02
Yeah, I think, I think that, that consumer savviness around the messaging, right is as if anything's changed over the past 18 months, I think people are, if hopefully more thoughtful, but also, more savvy about because you know, it's funny, right, because the amount of packages we see in our, you know, in our recycling bin, that those, that material has been there in retail, it's just kind of you don't always see it, I think just the awareness has been raised. And, an authenticity just is so important for, for both your brands.
Michael LeBlanc 10:29
All right, so Matthew, same question, now you're working at a different level because you're working with a number of clients across a broad spectrum. So, you've kind of got that 10,000-foot level, what are you hearing, in terms of, and then what kind of advice would you have reflected back, in terms of things folks should start doing, and one they should stop.
Matthew Cannon 10:49
I would say two things to focus on is, number one, for sure, watching the trends in consumer behavior, this whole pandemic has really shifted the world in many different ways, whether it's from accessibility of cash flow with, you know, buy-now, pay-later solutions, or global supply chain disruption, or, you know, as Agustin said, as well, right, talking about renewable energies and solutions like that, in our increasingly global environment. And number two would be pay attention to your data as well. It's an important metric. And every business is a little bit different. And so it's really good to dive into that. And listen to what the numbers are telling you.
Michael LeBlanc 11:31
All right. And when you're in front of people, and they tell you look at their organizations in terms of what they do and go to market and how they operate. What's that one thing, and you go, "Hey, I see you doing this.", and maybe that doesn't work as well as maybe you think, or I don't see other people doing it, or what would that be for you?
Matthew Cannon 11:47
Yeah, I would, I would say, don't listen to the fear of not going global. There's, there's a lot of misinformation, I think out there that it's very difficult to sell cross border, but in the reality and the trends, and what we're seeing in the market, cross-border is growing twice as fast in the e-commerce space, as it is domestically. And it's definitely an accelerated market and yes, it is complex. But there are lots of solutions out there and strategies to where you can, you know, slowly start to build your, your localization tools and tactics, because at the end of the day, if you have an online business, and you have a URL, anybody in the world can access it.
Michael LeBlanc 12:23
You know, it's one of the things I love about GELF, and this podcast is at the high-level global e-commerce is, is not simple. But there's lots of partners who can help make it simpler and help make it doable, right. I mean, that's, that's the essence of why we bring these people together.
Michael LeBlanc 12:38
All right, last question. For everyone. So we're all together, IRL, in real life, on the stage instead of the virtual stage on September 28th, 29th, coming up in New York City, Agustin, and what are you going to be talking about? And give us a little snapshot of the, the panel that you're on, and what you're going to be talking about in a bit more detail.
Agustin Farias 13:01
Sure. My, I think my main focus will be helping or, or at least explaining the journey that Everlane has taken over the last couple of years, as we expand internationally. And, in particular, some of the lessons that we learned as we built a profitable business, and we scale because it's easy to put dollars in marketing and really grow and build your brand internationally. But when you, once you want to do this profitably, it's more challenging. So, how do you, how do you enable profitable growth internationally? At the end of the day, yes, yes. I mean, you still have to make, make, make money to run your business, right, especially as a brand. Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 13:51
Right on. And so unit economics still matter, right, at the end of the day, especially as you go global, right, because that, that can get that if you're not careful that I think could probably get away from you quicker than domestic.
Michael LeBlanc 14:02
Kai. Over to you. What are you gonna be talking about at the GELF event in September?
Agustin Farias 14:06
Yeah, we'll be talking about, over REVOLVE's approach to international expansion that we took a staged approach to international expansion is a feedback-driven process to discover opportunities overseas. At each stage, we go deeper into localization was largely investment based on the discoveries we made from the last stage. So, we use this process that we've been using. I've been using at REVOLVE or Amazon. When I think about international expansion.
Michael LeBlanc 14:37
All right, right on.
Michael LeBlanc 14:37
Matthew, last words to you. On the stage, where do you get, what's it gonna be like for you, on an actual stage, it’s fantastic. I'm, I'm still not used to saying that, but what are you going to be sharing with the people in the audience and the folks at home?
Matthew Cannon 14:51
Yeah, it'll be nice to see some faces for once. But we'll just be talking about the trends within the industry. A lot has changed since last time. We've, we've all been In person, and
Michael LeBlanc 15:01
Yeah.
Matthew Cannon 15:01
Seen some familiar faces and actually had a conference here. So, we'll be talking about some of those shifts in, you know, consumer behavior and different trends that we're seeing within the industry. And overall, you know, how everybody can look at the world in a new light in a sense, and make sure that everybody's progressing in the right way.
Michael LeBlanc 15:19
Right on, I guess, I guess we're all trying to figure out the difference between what was a short-term accommodation and both consumer behavior and, you know, retail, and a longer-term structural change. Right. So, I guess that's the essence of what I think we'll all be talking about, over the next many months, I'm sure so, listen, it sounds like a great event. Kent, back to you for final words. Thanks for bringing us all together.
Kent Allen 15:42
Thanks to our speakers, you know, the one thing I would suggest not to do is, don't have the plumber come install a sink when you're recording a video podcast with, with the guys. So, no, we're just you know, we're really thankful to all the speakers really thankful to our sponsors. And, you know, as always, you know, really appreciative to the GELF community for supporting us and coming out and you know, getting back to, you know, kind of business in real life. So, thanks, guys. And really looking forward again, if you'd like to register, you can just come to globalecommerceleaders.com and click on a, you know, note about how to register for CommerceNext: In Real Life, where GELF will be operating the global stage. So, we're co-locating with our friends at CommerceNext year. And again, it's GELF, NYC, 21 on September 28th, and 29th. That's a Tuesday and Wednesday, and really looking forward to having everybody together again. So, thanks, and we'll take it from there.
Michael LeBlanc 16:39
If you like this podcast, you can follow us on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon music podcast channel, or your favorite podcast platform, please rate and review with a five-star rating. If you're so inclined to be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail cross-border commerce industry.
Michael LeBlanc 16:53
I'm Michael ball founder and President of ME LeBlanc & Company Inc. And you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co. Of course, on LinkedIn and you'll learn more about Global E-Commerce Leaders Forum and continue to keep up with the latest on cross-border commerce online and news of the upcoming event at www.globalecommerceleadersforum.com.
Michael LeBlanc 17:13
Until next time, travel safe and have a great week.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
brand, agustin, global, commerce, talking, localization, people, cross border, retail, stage, returns, business, consumers, market, podcast, revolve, internationally, kai, international shipping, bit