Add To Cart: Australia’s eCommerce Show

Obsess Over the Details, Win the Customers: Bon Maxie’s Clare Spelta on Smart Ecommerce Growth | #561

• Nathan Bush • Episode 561

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In today’s Add To Cart episode, Clare sits down with Bushy to reflect on Bon Maxie’s 10-year journey, from the early days of handcrafting in a sawdust-filled garage to manufacturing internationally. She explains how she’s built a customer-first brand while also shaping her business to suit her family’s needs, rejecting the traditional idea of what a “big” business should look like.

Today, we’re discussing:

  • How Clare transformed a jewellery storage frustration into Bon Maxie’s first cult product, and what it took to move from hand-drilled plywood to scaled manufacturing.
  • The obsessive product design philosophy behind Bon Maxie’s bags, wallets, and organisers: from strap lengths to zipper strength.
  • The reality of outsourcing production overseas: quality control, communication challenges, and why understanding the process before you delegate is critical.
  • How Bon Maxie built a fiercely loyal community through authenticity, from late-night pizza box photoshoots to Betty White gifs in Facebook ads.
  • Why Clare believes messy, radically honest marketing cuts through more than polished perfection in today’s ecommerce landscape.
  • The shift from serving repeat customers to acquiring new ones, and how Clare adjusted her ad strategy, content, and product range to match.
  • Redefining success: what it means to grow a business on your own terms, balance family priorities, and design a lifestyle that works rather than chasing traditional scale.

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SPEAKER_00:

We have some customers who've purchased 72 times, one of everything, in multiple colours, and that's not uncommon. And I thought, hang on, why is nobody created something that is a really nice aesthetic way of displaying jewelry? If it makes me seem like a real human and it connects to our customers who are real humans looking for true solutions, then I mean it's a win.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey, it's Nathan Bush or Bushy, joining you from the land of the terrible people here in Brisbane, Australia. Today's guest is all about solving life's little annoyances. And it all started when she lost an earring on the way out of the door, and now she's turned that into a multi-million dollar accessories brand. My guest today is Claire Spelter, who is the founder of Bon Maxi. You may have seen Bon Maxi around. You may have one of their handbags, you may hang your earrings from them, you may have one of their many accessories. Based in creativity, based in authenticity, and with a whole lot of heart, Bon Maxi has gone from hand-rilled plywood boards that are made in Claire's garage to being a cult favorite in the Australian accessory scene. Known for clever, functional designs that solve everyday problems, Claire's built a brand that stands out in a very noisy market with unique products and a focus on quality and attention to detail. In this episode, I had a chance to sit down with Claire and talk about how she managed to transition from homemade products in her garage to overseas manufacturing in China without compromising on quality and without turning away customers with the fear of not being Australian-made. We talk about why obsessing over tiny, tiny little details is so important in creating a competitive edge, especially when you're up against the bigger guys as well. And we talk about how Claire has structured her business around her life and maintaining the passion for business without feeling guilty. As always, a huge thanks to our partners Clavio and Shopify for supporting Ad Descartes. Let's get into today's very special episode with Claire Spelter, founder of Bond Maxi. Claire, welcome to Ad Descartes.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, Nathan. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03:

Awesome to have you here. Happy 10th birthday.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. I feel so, so young.

SPEAKER_03:

How exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

It is very exciting. It's kind of just come and rushed up and about to pass. And yeah, it it I haven't really sat and thought about the gravity of that.

SPEAKER_03:

No, I saw you did a big sale. So that was kind of true business owner. It's like 10th birthday. Let's have a sale. Let's not sit back and reflect on you know where we've gone in 10 years. How did your uh 10th birthday sale go? Was it some sort of celebration?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was great. Our lovely warehouse company sent us a bottle of champagne and some chocolates. So the chocolates are gone. The champagne's still in the fridge.

SPEAKER_03:

It's almost Friday night.

SPEAKER_00:

All i it off. Yeah. How good? Yeah, it was a great sale. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you should be congratulated because they haven't been the easiest from a external perspective, haven't been the easiest ten years. If you were going to choose 10 years, you've probably chosen 10 of the toughest ones, 10 of the most up and down ones.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. Let's get into the Bon Maxi story. Tell us, because we've kind of had a few conversations here and there over the years, but we've never had a chance to sit down properly. And I'm curious to hear about your backstory. Why you started Bon Maxi 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_00:

So I don't know how many women out there get bored on maternity leave, but it seems to be the origin story of half half the business.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a trend, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's the brain shift of busy, busy, busy, stop. What on earth is this? I'm so bored. And playing with a little baby on the ground is mightily boring for most people. I used to do a lot of portrait painting and just painting casually. I was in marketing and advertising prior.

SPEAKER_03:

What were you doing in marketing and advertising? Because you can see that's through in the brand now. But what was what were you doing before that?

SPEAKER_00:

Um I studied business and creative industries actually at uni. So funnily enough, had no idea what I wanted to do. And it's really come to that point where I'm like, oh, I've actually created the job that I needed, you know, back then when I was studying and wondering where I was going to go with it. Went into ad agency land in account management. Great initiation of fire.

SPEAKER_03:

It's good in your 20s, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh, yeah. Like, and drinking culture and office politics and all of that. Very much learnt what I didn't want, I suppose, in the long term and moved on to a marketing consultancy role with a work from home role or a business that was alongside Telstra. So it was quite a large role, but nobody had worked from home at that point. So that was everybody just thought I was going into a fake role, which was fun. But I feel like that's where I got a lot of my skill set that I now utilize because we were doing local area marketing for locally owned Telstra stores.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So Calgoolee, Carindell, a whole mix of things, radio, TV, copywriting, and then also dealing with Telstra corporate. So that was kind of my backstory.

SPEAKER_03:

Fair to say you know your postcodes pretty well now.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yes, yes, I suppose so. Yeah. And so on maternity leave, I was just crazily bored and I started doing these portraits because, you know, it's something to do. And there were a lot of friends having babies, and I was just doing like little caricature things or painting on wooden boards. And I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna try and find a community somewhere because Facebook groups weren't a thing. Instagram was a thing, but only fairly new, and I was really not in a good place. And so I hopped on to this Instagram app and realized there were so many different small businesses, all the artists that were selling their wares, handmade businesses. And I thought, I'm just gonna open up a page and see how it goes so then I realized, oh, people are actually making okay money. This is their career. I'm gonna start my page and set myself a goal and try and launch by September 2015. And so that's what I did. Hopped onto Big Cartel. Are they even around still? I don't even know.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh no, but that's a flashback.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, five free listings and free websites. So I tried to have to like to minimize and make sure everything was a variant instead of kind of expanding out further. And then put some paintings of mine, got them printed onto bamboo wood, got them laser cut, which was a mission in itself because nobody had laser cutters back then.

SPEAKER_03:

And was it branded Bon Maxi right from the start?

SPEAKER_00:

It was. I got a little custom stamp cut and I was stamping the back of everything and then got some prints made of my paintings. So I did some nursery decor because baby, you know, Vil, and launched and it was crickets. And I was like, I thought the, you know, you build it and they will come.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought I was good at this marketing and advertising stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

And then realized I had told nobody.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So 12 weeks later I finally got my first sale.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's kind of where it grew. And then I got booked out completely where uh with my custom portraits and realized my son was starting to move. I didn't have capacity to do all of these custom things. What can I do that is something en masse that I can potentially solve a problem because marketing? And I started looking for problems in my life, which is a really healthy thing to do.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh especially when you've got a newborn, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

I know, I know. And it's my job now.

SPEAKER_03:

Stuff that's gone to shit around the house.

unknown:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

But it was one moment where I was rushing out the door, my husband was waiting at the door waiting for me, and I couldn't find my second earring. And I was like, where I upended five, six jewelry dishes onto our bed. I'm like, where is this? And then that was the light bulb moment. And I thought, hang on, why is nobody created something that is a really nice aesthetic way of displaying jewelry? And I'm like, hang on, they probably have. What am I thinking about? Hopped onto Etsy, there was chicken wire, wood kind of things, and then there was plastic, clear plastic and acrylic styles of things. I'm like, nobody really wants to, like, if you've got really nice jewelry, you want somewhere nice to display it. So I thought I'm a painter and I'm an artist, and why don't I merge the two and create something that's aesthetically pleasing but solving this problem? So I went off to Bunnings and almost got banned because I would go there every couple of days with big sheets of plywood and ask them to cut them down to A4 sizes.

SPEAKER_03:

So Bunnings was your original manufacturer.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03:

What do you mean you almost got banned? Were they?

SPEAKER_00:

Because they were not happy with me. I had 20 people behind me and I said, Can you just those off cuts, can you just slice them down a little bit further? I didn't have a jigsaw at home. And they said, you know, we're gonna have to start charging. I'm like, fine, a dollar per cut, fine, absolutely fine. And then they said, you know, we can't really do this anymore. And I was like, I'll take my business elsewhere. So I went down to the next spunnings and started to get them.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm surprised they didn't try and sell you a jigsaw because you know they sell.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. Well, I think, you know, I was a woman, maybe they don't think I can operate heavy machinery, but I started drilling holes in all of these boards, made sure they were A4 so I could post them as a letter with Australia Post, and we wrapped up over a million holes hand drilled. Wow. And the house was full of sawdust. And I'd paint them and put them up on Instagram, and it just exploded. Jewelry organizers, because there were all of these beautiful handmade earring businesses that are still around, and nobody had anywhere to store them. So we really became that kind of first earring holder that was a thing in Australia, and we've sold over, you know, 200,000 around the world.

SPEAKER_03:

Because you're still selling them today, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00:

I do. They've evolved into I got them manufactured, and then I thought, what are the the issues with the hesitations with people putting things on, you know, how can I make it effortless? And so I've I've evolved and evolved and made all of these different styles over the years, but now it's a metal one. You put the earring backs on. This wouldn't mean mean anything to you, I don't think. Put the earring backs on and drop them in effortless and then I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03:

I I picked my daughter's jewelry up from a floor.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, okay, there you go. So it's like a wool hanger or a stand, and then you can customize where they go, you can add bits onto them. So it's a real thing now that kept me up at night, and I've spent so many times, so many hours thinking about jewelry storage that nobody else really has. But um, yeah, I I love that they're still here.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that your well, not your original product and your portraits, but your your first manufactured product is still with you. And you know what I mean? Like it's still part of the range. But yeah, from my understanding, it's not the core range now. Is that fair? You've you've kind of evolved since then.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. It took me a while to let go of the initial side of things, and I think that's that's the danger in business. I mean, earring holders are certainly not our key core business, but I still have that thing where I feel like it really does match what I'm trying to do here. But because I was handmaking everything, I did buy a laser machine, and then I was 24-7 on the laser in the garage, fuming myself, almost passing out creating anything that came to mind. And I've made different things that could fit into Kmart jewelry boxes because jewelry boxes didn't have earring holders. So I would then go to Kmart. You know, Kmart was starting to get really creative with their interiors, and everybody was buying the same thing. So I would then create an item that would retrofit into that, and then that would go really well.

SPEAKER_03:

What are you making it out of? So what are you lasering? Like what materials are we talking? Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So I would go off to the wood yards, you know, in Logan, there's a few round that way, and show up with my baby in arms and just talk to guys about different types of like hoop pine and they're like, what I don't know. I did a lot of wood research because you know, when you're laser cutting something, there's there's the fumes and all of that. So hoop is the the safest. Acrylic, I tried to do some leather at some point, but in the end, I kept thinking, well, this is all good, but jewelry organization is not quite a luxury, but not everybody thinks that they need it. What is something that really does solve a problem? And right at that point, almost on cue, my favorite bag broke. And I thought, oh gosh, how am I gonna replace it? Because it was one that was just a you know purchase 10 years ago from Witchery, I think it was. Perfect size fit my water bottle, really, really great size. And I wrote a big wish list. And I'm like, where am I gonna find this? Could not find the right replacement anywhere. And I started to realize, okay, there isn't this product. I have a business where I create products that are handy and solve a problem, but maybe this is my calling.

SPEAKER_03:

That's a big difference though, going into bags.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, but I think lasering plywood in the garage.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

What was your first step to create your ideal bag off your checklist?

SPEAKER_00:

So adjustable straps were, I mean, I'm not the tallest of per people, but I'm above average. And I was always I have a bit of a back problem. And they have buckles that have five holes. And I was always like in between the hole where I needed an extra one, or it just wasn't long enough. And if you have ever carried a bag that is just not quite sitting where you want it to, that's an issue, you know, when it's the whole day. And most small crossbody bags don't hold a water bottle, a 600mm water bottle. I did listen to the memo bottle. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I love that business. So I just realized that there were so many businesses out there or brands, and it has very much changed now, which is catching up to where I think everybody should have been back in the past, is that it was all about aesthetics and it was all about fashion-led season, seasonal, you know, releases.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

That were this is here and then it's gone, this is here, then it's gone. And it looks good, it's cute with an outfit, and that's all it needs to do. It needs to carry some stuff, but it doesn't need to carry, you know, the things that actually people need to carry in real life and would help organize their day with very simple fixes. So the straps were a part of it, the size was a part of it, the materials, the detail, the quality. I had a really nice, expensive bag that I got given for my 30th, and I put my hand through the lining on day two. So all of these kind of things grouped together, I just realized how much of a gap there was in that market. So sure. Yeah, that's when the the mini wallet came about, which is a coin purse and a card holder combined into one. So you don't have to change your purse to suit your bag when you're going out on the weekend. And then it's just grown and grown from there.

SPEAKER_03:

Awesome. And it w in the early days, local manufacturing.

SPEAKER_00:

Nobody would touch me with a 10-foot pole when I was asking for 300 holes in an A4 piece of wood. So I did try. I called around a lot of people and I thought, oh, I'm gonna have to shut down because Australian made, if I tell my customers that I'm going offshore, I'm done for. No biggie. In the end, no one said anything. But there was nobody who could help. And you realize, you know, when you look at some of the manufacturing areas in China and around that the technology and the manpower and just the advancements that they've got over there, we can't match it here. So that's what I did. Turned to manufacturing and um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I had this conversation with a retailer this week around they were shifting to manufacturing overseas after a long time of being Australian made, and they've done it now for 12 months. And I said to them, have you noticed any changes, any customer feedback around a country of origin? Like, absolutely not. Like, not one piece of feedback. But I remember three or four years ago, it was such a big thing. It was probably tied to COVID when people had a little bit more money, there were a little bit more sustainability, Australian-made, you could be a little bit more morally justified with your purchases.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It feels like that's fallen away now and it's not such a huge claim.

SPEAKER_00:

I think because China was in such a big spotlight three to four years ago, people started to go, oh, is this actually where you know we should be manufacturing? Is it something that we can do here? And customers were then, you know, worried that what you're importing does it have COVID on it, or does, you know, they there were all of these implications that without much education, customers were kind of making these assumptions. But they do forget that the things that they buy from Kmart, the things that they buy from Target, the things that they buy from, you know, most of the things in their household are not made in Australia. So I think there's that education piece. And there was a big call out for big businesses to list their manufacturers on site. And I think customers now, with all of that Founderland content behind the scenes that is becoming so much more open, businesses are being open about it. And so therefore it's not so taboo because it's just like, well, this is what it is.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I get the sense that with your creative background and just looking at the run sheet that we sent through and your level of detail that you put on it, which is a compliment, by the way. Uh I can tell a lot by how much people review and add notes to the run sheet that we share beforehand about how they approach business. But your attention to detail in that was phenomenal. And I could sense that you are someone who really values quality, like you said, the the experience of putting your hands through the bag. You value creativity, you value attention to detail. How did you ensure all of that lined up as you gave control over to an overseas manufacturer?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's a a blessing and a curse having done it myself. I knew exactly what I needed. So when I outsourced my first item, it was the wooden earring holder. I knew the type of wood, I knew the finish, I knew that some ply would bend in transit. So we had to have a minimum mil between three and four mil. Really deep.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly, exactly. Three mil will break in in Australia Post, four mil not so much. But all of that, I knew exactly how I wanted to do it because I could make it perfect to myself. And if I sent it out and a customer had an issue on the other side, I was the one who could change what I needed to. And I knew exactly what I had to do to make that never ever happen again. So when I was finding somebody to help manufacture things, I had that requirement to not go back in quality, not go back in how we did things because I couldn't afford to do that, because we had the customers who had that expectation of high quality. So it was very difficult handing over the reins because you have to let go at some point and go, well, if whatever comes is going to come. And you're learning a whole new level of business and communication and lead times. It's not instant. When it comes out of your laser, you can sell it the next day. And that in itself, I didn't realize how much of a leeway I had to give for manufacturing in general, that on mass errors will happen. And they will happen when you didn't think that they were gonna happen, you know, three years on from something and suddenly something changes. So it was good for me to let go. But the detail side of it, I I'm so grateful that I had that eye already because I knew what my standards were before I even had that product in hand.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I love that approach around making sure you understand it before you outsource it. We talk a lot about that with founders, especially with meta ads and performance. Like, yes, you can use an agency, it's always an option, but if you don't understand what you're handing over, then you're in for a world of pain.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

What are some of the rules or lessons that you've learned around managing an offshore manufacturer? Is there anything that you put in place to make sure you maintain that quality? Like you said, things will happen. There will be slip-ups, and that's to be expected. But from a communication perspective or a sign-off perspective, is there anything that you do that's just part of your process now that you think set you up for that maintaining quality?

SPEAKER_00:

I have to have something in hand to approve it. Sometimes, and I've made that mistake of we've had a deadline or we're trying to meet a certain point where I get a photo on my phone and I talk to, you know, my manufacturers more than I do most of my family. So we have a very good relationship and we're chatting a lot. But sometimes that then makes you relax thinking that they know exactly what they think you want. Yes. So I get an image and I go, oh yeah, yeah, that looks fine. Let's go with it. But lighting, sizing, camera angles, all of that, you know, you didn't turn the item over to feel it. I've signed off on stuff and the samples have arrived for photography where I'm like, no, I should have actually put my foot down or made the effort or shifted that timeline because now we're gonna have to sell something that is not to standard. And if that ever happens, I end up going, well, this is the second sale. Like I can't knowingly put that out there, send out a few thousand items to people and just wait by my customer service inbox for the issues to come in. Yeah. So it's having that thing, knowing full well what it is before you sell it and testing it because our products are useful items. They have to be tested, you know, to really ensure that the function is there too.

SPEAKER_03:

When it comes to testing, like, because I love your philosophy around solving everyday annoyances. Do you get those samples out to like friends, families? Because I can imagine if you're taking it out now, you're biased. You kind of know what you're trying to solve. Do you go out and test it with people that you know?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I do. I think, you know, when you're in a category of items like bags, I now know what to look for. And I know my standard for things is still high. And I forget that customers have never had a key chain in their bag before. And so I kind of take the small things for granted. So I'm kind of still operating up here with what I want them to be. And, you know, people probably don't have that high a standard because they're used to not, you know, having anything that functions like that.

SPEAKER_01:

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

But I've got some very critical family members in terms of function. So an avid traveler is.

SPEAKER_02:

But they're not as useful as yours, obviously. Obviously, you're putting yours to use.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. My sister's an avid traveller and she's she had a very strict list of things that she wanted in her travel wallet. And I was almighty scared when she took that on on her last trip, but it passed. So I was pretty happy. Yeah. But I do get, I mean, it's a baby, really, every product. So I get a bit sad if somebody doesn't love it.

SPEAKER_03:

Is there any invention or any kind of thing that you've come up with and you're like, we're gonna build this into the product and it's gonna be amazing because it's gonna solve this problem that's been bugging me for a long time. And then you've got it out there, and everyone's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um, hampers, I think, oh, I'm I'm still gonna bring them back. We had canvas hampers, like if in doubt, if you've got a mess on the ground, chuck it in a hamper. It's brilliant. Oh, it's it's absolutely brilliant. The floor drobe is my big career goal to solve. And I have multiple sketches and multiple ideas of how I can do it. How do we stop the toss? How do we get rid of the chair of doom? But hampers are one step there. You know, if you can have hampers in every single room that are aesthetic, and this is like a little canvas thing. I've got five behind me. Canvas thing with handles, and you make them really big and nice looking, and you chop use clothes, shoes, everything. Instant, instant calm in your house. It's really so yeah, I'm gonna keep pushing them, but uh it's gonna happen. Hampers are gonna it is gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03:

I love on your site, you do such a great job of showcasing your product, and it's so funny if we go back to your original business of having those first 12 weeks and not getting a sale and then going, Oh, I haven't advertised. It feels like you've gone the opposite way now in that you do such a brilliant job of showing off the product online in that you can spend ages because you've got gifts, you've got flat lays, you've got in situ, you pull it apart, you know, and and show how it's all used. You do such a brilliant job there. What's your process for capturing that product content to be able to put on your product pages and your category pages?

SPEAKER_00:

I think because I've been such a key part of the design process, and I find that really fascinating. You know, there's one element of my photographer who does our website, photography, came in and he said, we need to like whenever I'm on bag sites, anything, they don't seem to show the insides of bags. And I find that really weird because the bags on the inside are what kind of help you use the bag. And when you can't even see inside it to see how many pockets there are or what it kind of looks like, it makes me not want to, you know, commit to that kind of purchase. And this is all the way from, you know, the fashion brands to Eve St. Lawrence. Uh they don't have the insides of bags. So and even showing them on people.

SPEAKER_03:

Because what's your price point?

SPEAKER_00:

Your your price point is kind of between between a hundred and four hundred, you know, depending on leather or canvas or nylon.

SPEAKER_03:

So it's still a considered purchase.

SPEAKER_00:

It is, yeah. I'd say it's affordable in terms of the quality, but it's that, you know, who are we competing against basically mid-tier. And my photographer said, Well, why don't we just turn the bag inside out? That's how they make them. I'm like, okay, yeah, this is awkward, but yeah, so turned it inside out. It's called berthing, which I find like nails on a chalkboard.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. It's not the best term, is it?

SPEAKER_00:

It's not the best term. But it is so useful to be able to show what fits in what pockets and show the insides of a bag because that's really what matters. So that kind of instigated the well, let's try and be really transparent about every element of it. Size inclusivity is such a key conversation in finally in fashion. But when it comes to bags, that was one thing that I found, you know, when I was talking about the strap before. I couldn't find anything that was longer than 120 centimeters, which is one of the shortest settings on our bags. And when you've got a tall person or somebody with a different body shape, or somebody that has a bad back and wants to, you know, wear it in a different way, that's not accommodating to them. So all of that, I needed to be able to display that visually as well as in words for people who are just scrolling through. And it's kind of what makes up a good chunk of our site is that transparency.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you have like a content process? Because there is such a different range of content that you've created for each product. How do you do it in an efficient way that it doesn't just take over your life?

SPEAKER_00:

It takes over my life.

SPEAKER_03:

Give into it.

SPEAKER_00:

I guess there's the chunks of you know, the e-com photography that's done there. There's the stuff that we do on a shoot, and there's the DMs that I'm answering every day because again, I'm the designer, I'm the person who can answer it quickest. So often I just shoot a little video and send it to a customer, and that's what makes it onto the feed. So it's a lot of, oh, I didn't realize that they wanted to know that, or they want to see if this particular thing fits in there. It happens, and then we're just constantly uploading more and more stuff to the site because if one person is asking, it means there's 3,000 people who can't be bothered asking.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What happens when 87 stores, one Shopify site, and a whole lot of disconnected data walk into a TRM? There's unfortunately no funny punchline here. For InterSport, it meant missed sales, slow reports, and a lot of guesswork. Each store had its own data, none of it talked, enter Clavio. They helped unify it all, online and in-store, so that InterSport could finally track behavior, percentage offers, and hit the right customer at the right time. The result was one that any cranky sports coach would be proud of. DRM-driven online sales were up nearly five times, and there was a 350% increase in returning customer rate. To learn how Clavio helps multi-store brands like Intersport grow smarter, visit Clavio.com forward slash AU. As someone who values design, what's your view on AI and AI images in that product experience?

SPEAKER_00:

It's funny. I think it's been such a quick life cycle of, oh, AI is fun for brands as well. This is really useful. Let's try and make a lot of ads with it. Oh, customers are calling us out, and there's like a sixth finger on that human. Like it just doesn't quite align with the transparency, honesty side of things that customers are begging, you know, businesses for. So when you're being advertised something that is the text is not quite right, I think for us especially, it's different when it's a let's put a shirt on a model, but I still think you know that's valid in how it drapes or the sleeve length there. But when it comes to a leather bag or a canvas bag, is it super shiny? Is it a bit wrinkly? Is it this? Is it that? The zips are a bit funny. Like I notice it straight away when I try to generate something. So I can't wholeheartedly put that up and go, well, hopefully nobody sees that this is incorrect because they will and they will email us about it and then you know we'll have to take that down. So while it's a great tool, I think you have to openly call out that it's AI and almost make a joke of it, right? Like the big inflatable things that are so obviously AI and that works fine. But I think it's not quite where the transparent advertising, you know, doesn't align with that at all.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think you're using that to your advantage too, because I was having a scroll through your reels before we jumped on. And the reel that jumped out at me was your late night pizza box in the kitchen photo shoot. You can explain it better, but I love that you were not only doing a photo shoot late night in the kitchen using a pizza box as the backdrop, but you actually filmed it as content for your audience, like which doubles down on that authenticity, right?

SPEAKER_00:

I'd love to say it's funny, a lot of people say, Oh, you must be so organized, all of these organizational products. I'm like, no, no, no. I have the organizational products because I need, I need the help there. So it's one of my core values being genuine and it doesn't align. Even the hardcore sell, I just it doesn't align with me. I've made something, this is what it does. It helped me. If it helps you, great. That's how it kind of carries through with the content too. So I find it pretty funny that the pizza box was the only thing, white thing that I could find. And I'm so pressed for time at the moment for content that I'm like, well, this is gonna have to be it for the night. And we had a launch like half an hour later. So I mean, if it makes me seem like a real human and it connects to our customers who are real humans looking for true solutions, then I mean it's a win.

SPEAKER_03:

That's awesome. I love it. I love that behind-the-scenes stuff. I think that's so valuable. One piece that I picked up on your website, which I thought was really interesting because it's Shopify site, right? Your bundle builder is different to a lot of other bundles that I've seen. And it's really interactive. You've got a sale on at the moment, which I also love that you've called out a sale on bundles only. It might not be on sale by the time this goes live, but a unique angle. But then you get there and the it looks fun to be able to build your own bundle. How did you go about that process in putting together the right bundles that you think your customers will love?

SPEAKER_00:

It's probably one of the biggest things that keeps me up thinking at night is how does a bundle make sense? How does the experience of building a bundle make sense? Am I going to overwhelm people with all of the options? Do we need preset options? All of that. I mean, Shopify automatic discounts was something that changed the game, you know, a couple of years ago because I kept trying to say, well, you can add this and add this. And, you know, we've got 50 things that you can choose. And when we're, you know, 70% new customers now used to be so much more return customer-centric. And so people were familiar with our things. We have some customers who've purchased 72 times, one of everything in multiple colours, and that's not uncommon.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you have like a personal relationship with them?

SPEAKER_00:

Like you're just there's too many of them to do that. But I took that for granted and I just thought people just know their way around things. And I realize with all of these new people coming to site, and they are so used to the sites that just kind of feed them 10 options or not even, you know, with what they want. I can Overwhelm new people very quickly with our 20 tote colour choices. And we haven't even spoken about you know how that kind of eventuated into what we are now. So to be able to do that, you have to you know think through the process of as a new person, does this make sense? How can we lead them to a bundle builder when they're on that single page and that is still somebody I'm actually working with in the sidecart to see how we can create it in their instead? Because when you're on a page looking at a product and then you get kicked off to another page, we have to find that product again. It's not cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Especially when there's so many details in each of their products, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. And you want to make sure they understand what's in the bag, not just, oh, this is a black bag or a brown bag or whatever. So all of that is a huge consideration and and constantly evolving for us.

SPEAKER_03:

Are bundles worth your effort?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yeah, yeah. I think so. I think when they're fed at the right point with the right combination, you know, reporting is is great for that because you can see over the lifetime what do people come back and purchase on top of their original purchase. And I've called that out in ads too, you know, save yourself from coming back. A lot of people come back and buy the second things. Therefore, I have created a bundle and here it is. Save yourself XYZ dollars, including double postage. But that info is so useful because you know, you're upselling and you're you're creating something that really does make sense and they gel together. So that that helps customers do.

SPEAKER_03:

There's been a conversation in our community recently around bundles. And one of our members was like Sidekick, Shopify's Sidekick AI Assistant has been amazing for this because they've used it to kind of go in there and go, have a look at our bundles and then have a look at our customer data and our purchase data. What are three bundles that I'm not offering that I should be?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is pretty brilliant.

SPEAKER_03:

Have you found any insights that way at all? Or you kind of intuitively and using the data that you've already got, know enough?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh well, we've had bundles for a while before sidekick was a thing, which is funny because my main bag, my first bag is called the sidekick, so that always throws me. I am always in DMs with customers and I always try and accommodate everybody's feedback. So if there's a problem or whatever, I will sit on that and genuinely go, can I fix this for the next round of things? So I'm always getting, oh, can you create a bundle of this? Can you do this? Can you do that? So I find that that is the most powerful thing because people in DMs, it's the easiest thing for people to just, you know, message that and ask the question versus send an email or whatever. So that's one key part of the info. And of course, data. You have to look at that. Sidekick has some nuances that it will feed in your free gifts with purchase or your parcel protection products and then tell you that you have to bundle all of that together. So you do have to be wary that it will feed you, you know, info that isn't quite correct. But I mean, it's really good. I'm like, huh, yeah, okay, that's that's really cool. I'm gonna try that and see how that goes. So yeah, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_03:

When you mentioned before that you did that big shift from loyal customers, a focus on loyal customers, and you know, I get the sense that you're still serving them correctly, but now the needle has swung a lot more towards new customers. Was there any significant change in marketing that you did to attract much more new customers to your business?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Our ads, so it was agency back in the day, and the retainer that we were on allowed us to have one campaign and one custom campaign a month. And it was pretty much a set and forget thing. And this was before, you know, Advantage Plus and AI kind of thing. So it was obviously a lot more difficult for agencies to service clients at such a detailed day-to-day finishing with the the accounts when we had that realization that oh, because we kept saying we do want to grow with plateaued, how can we add more budget? Oh, we might break the you know the system. Let's just not go too hard. My husband, who is not in marketing, not in any of that stuff, started looking into the accounts. And this was two weeks out from Black Friday. He was able to run a few ads and we got 2,000 new subscribers to our email list, which was more than what we had over six months of running the campaigns that we had. So that was a huge moment of, oh, okay, so there are different ways that we can do this. Do we need to now understand, you know, how to run Facebook ads? Because prior to that, it wasn't really served to business owners that you actually had, you know, you were equipped to be able to learn this in a day. It was you have to stay up to date with all of this stuff and IRS changes. And I suppose that was filtering through from agency, which of course they have to protect how they they manage things. So that shift into getting back to understanding, you know, the processes of your own business really meant that we we grew from there. And that was a huge, huge change. And that meant that instead of me having to create a new product every week, which was, you know, great for our existing customers, but exhausting for me, it meant that we had to now look at stock levels and our best sellers we had to always maintain in stock. And how do we do that? So yeah, huge shift, but it's it's what really changed the business.

SPEAKER_03:

Awesome. And was there any particular messaging or strategy to give away as much as you want to give away, hold hold back the secret source if you need to, that really appealed to new customers versus your existing ones?

SPEAKER_00:

I guess it's, you know, why are you different? I think at pain points, it's all of the typical things that everybody talks about. Solve the problem. What are the pain points? But I think it's mixed with how we say in. So because we are being so bombarded with a TikTok now and TikTok style content that is jump scares and you know, shocking this and demos of this, that it's you could keep flooding feeds with that similar content, which potentially still works for a lot of people. And yes, it does still work for us too. There's also so many more businesses that are focusing on why I made this product. I have this problem, yes, and this is the solution, or watch me design this thing. So, you know, how do you stand out? It's just by doing that, but then adding a next level, whether it's humour, your face, just being radically, you know, it's the radical candor side of things, which I'm really leaning into now. And it seems as though being messy with your ads is what really, really works, and just stopping people's cycle of what they expect in an ad and making them get stop. So Betty White is my secret source. Betty White gifts.

SPEAKER_02:

What do you mean, Betty White gifts?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, just I just load a stack of Betty White gifts onto a an ad for sale time and then just write anything to do with Betty White. We've got a sale on and Betty's, you know, really excited and on your Betty. It works. It works for top of funnel, works for middle of funnel.

SPEAKER_03:

I love it. There is something there, isn't there? Like, I love that you're having fun with it and you're being authentic. But there's also, I could imagine after having 10 years and having told your story multiple times, it's almost like everyone knows it. Getting a bit self-conscious about telling the origin story again or why we exist. But that ad mechanism is a really great way to tell it automatically to people who haven't heard it without you having to do it yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And we get complacent with saying the same thing again and again. And I mean, I found a textbook a few months ago at my mum's on marketing. Social media wasn't even in there. It's really I didn't think I was that old, but I am that old. And it was talking about, you know, the seven or eleven points of you know, people have to be the touch points throughout their day, seven times before they convert. They still say that, but how many more messages are we being, you know, bombarded with on our feeds externally? It's just so much all the time. So that cut through, you know, we have to constantly shift how we're we're thinking about things and disrupting that flow is really I mean, that's the key part of marketing now is how can you yeah. Yeah, it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that was gonna be my next question because obviously you've designed this business with your family in mind. You you started Bond Maxi when Max was born, and we've talked recently around your hiring and you know, your hiring team and your building team, you've got partners internationally, you're still doing a lot. You're the face of the brand, even more so now in all your authentic posts and your videos and stuff. Your designing, your quality control, like you've got a lot on your plate. What do you put in place for yourself to try and make sure that Bon Maxi isn't all consuming? Because I get a sense that a family is really important. You talked about your husband being in the business. Max was, you know, part of the reason why you started Bon Maxi in the first place. What have you put in place to help you? Because there's a lot on your shoulders at the moment. We've all been there, right? Slipping on a great-looking pair of shoes, only to regret it a couple of hours later. Who knew that blisters could get blisters? Well, the founders of Frankie Ford did, and that's why they've created a line of stylish, podiatrist design footwear that don't just look good, they actually feel good too. But what began as an online success story quickly stepped into the real world with retail stores opening across the country. And when they moved to the Shopify Plus plant and rolled out Shopify Pods in-store, Frankie 4 really hit their stride. Now everything works together. From online browsing to in-store buying, it's one smooth, unified commerce experience for both customers and the Frankie4 team. And with the Shopify App Store, they're able to test new features quickly to see what works. It's paying off too, with a 170% increase in site visits, a 25% drop in return rates, and more happy feet than ever. Streamlined, stable, seriously stylish. That's Frankie4 on Shopify. To read more success stories like this, search Shopify Case Studies online.

SPEAKER_00:

I think the biggest thing is self-compassion. Business is all-consuming. The issue with founders is that they are passionate. And when you're passionate about something, you don't really want to put it away and shut it down at the end of the day and go and, you know, not think about work like most nine-to-fivers.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a different mindset than going to work.

SPEAKER_00:

It is a different mindset. And when you work from home, which is what I do, business and you know, home life is very much together. And our phones, you know, it's all there all the time. I would say that yeah, being kind to myself and allowing myself to think a lot about the business because, you know, I I've half shared this. My son has a fairly severe disability, and that consumes my brain if I'm not thinking about something else. So I put a lot of thought into work just to stop me from thinking about that some days. But it's all of the, yeah, it's the self-compassion of you're allowed to be passionate about your business. You're allowed to want to improve things, you're allowed to worry about this or save money or whatnot, instead of feeling guilty about that and feeling guilty about daydreaming about a product. I think that's okay because gosh, like if that's the worst thing in our lives, yes, you have to be present with your kids, but that's a fairly good position to be in, to be daydreaming about how you can improve your business that is helping, you know, serve your family in your future. I mentioned that, you know, we work from home. That is a huge part of it. I worked from home prior to starting the business. So I had a a taste of what it was. And yes, there are still people who drop in and assume that you're not working.

SPEAKER_03:

We get that all the time. People are like, we'll just pop in at three o'clock and drop this off. And I'm like, two hours later, you're like, that was not a pop-in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And yeah, I've got a client meeting or, you know, sometimes meeting with the high up Telstra people that um, you know, somebody walk in just for a coffee. But that kind of set me up to go, well, I can actually have life and work in the same spot and not have to worry about commuting, not have to worry about leaving my son, who at that point was having lots of seizures. Like I couldn't leave him. It set me up to go, well, how can I have this business done differently? And we did have a warehouse down the road for a year that I never went to because I didn't want to leave the home because it was too much effort to to do that. So I think I've really crafted how I want to run this business. And it's been a lot of trial and error. You know, contractors have been a huge part of it because they're business owners, they're good at what they do. I don't need to keep in touch with them every single day like you do with staff. So that's been a big model of what I've done is if I don't want to hire somebody, you know, outsource it to somebody who already knows what they're doing. So it's still a refining, you know, process as it is. And obviously we've connected over the years when I've been looking to hire, but I think it's certainly allowed me to, you know, I might be pulling my eyes out at seven o'clock in the morning and then online at 7 30 chatting to my team. So that can't happen in an office. And and I need that a lot.

SPEAKER_03:

And looking back at these 10 years, do you feel you've designed, I don't even like saying the word work life balance because it's not. We've designed the lifestyle because I love what you're saying there, that there's no guilt in ambition. There's no guilt in loving your business. And I think a lot of people don't understand that looking on the outside, go, oh, you work so hard, you've got crazy hours. That's so hard for you. And you're like, actually, well, it's not like going to work. It's like this is my thing, this is what I do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you feel looking back on where you started 10 years ago that you go, I've created the life that I set out to create?

SPEAKER_00:

I had no idea what life would be. I'm speaking for a personal and business situation. Painting watercolor portraits with my son next to me, I thought was the dream. But then it came to a point where I didn't want to go back to work and be somebody's employee. And then my son has a genetic condition and we have no idea about his future. We were told he wouldn't walk or talk, uh, walk or talk. He's walking, he's very active, and that's brilliant. But every few months something changes or something is just not what I ever imagined it could be. But both positively and negatively, you can't plan. I never thought that we would be 10 years on and doing what we're doing with the business and the size that it is. And when I go out on the weekend, I see four of my bags, you know, at the local shopping center. And I go and I'm that awkward person that I hope maybe they've seen me on Instagram at some point and they recognize, you know, that this crazy woman's talking about their bag. I have lent out the window of a car to a lady once and shocked her. And then later on she clicked who I was and then um messaged me on Instagram. But yeah, we just can't see what the future is. And I think that's kind of the beauty of of life is that whatever anxieties that we do have, it's probably not gonna happen or probably are gonna happen or 10 times worse. But yeah, I just try to to live literally hour by hour and hope that the next few years are something that I could never imagine in the most positive way.

SPEAKER_03:

Amazing. I'm sure they will be like based on everything that you've built and everything you've gone through in these 10 years, and and before that, you know, the change that you've handled, you know, even how you've moved from portraits to bags, you know, that's a huge transition. So I've got a feeling that you're the kind of person that will be able to take it day by day and make the changes that are needed to keep yourself happy and to keep the family happy and business happy. Speaking of not being able to predict the future, I'm gonna ask you the question I ask everyone, next 12 months. What are the biggest priorities for you?

SPEAKER_00:

Course. Work-life balance.

SPEAKER_03:

Tell me when you get there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I will. There's an analogy actually. I I heard in a I won't even pretend to remember where it was from. I know somebody thought of it. There's a name. Burners. So you've got health, family, work, and friends. And they all come from the same gas bottle. So they all can't be on full blast all at once. Right now, my work and my family, you know, sometimes their health gets turned up when I got shingles three years ago and that's literally out for two weeks, which I wasn't planning on. So, you know, thinking about the future is just not something that I'd like to do anymore just because it is so unpredictable. And customers tell me what they want. I'm doing things that I didn't think I would be doing, and customers have forced me into it. So I literally work with a passion. If I feel an idea about a product, I try and push until it's done. I get a sample in hand and it's either viable or it's not. And I've got two full walls of covers of product samples that haven't made the light of day yet. But I just, you know, it's not live life in the moment, it's just survive and get through. And it's almost like let life happen to you, because forcing it or planning it just often turns into disappointment or disappointment in yourself that he didn't make it happen. So big wish list of things that will happen or could happen. And then I just let life happen to me.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. I love that. And it feels like if you're able to stay authentic and stay true to your values and what you believe in, stay connected to your customers, listening to your customers. You gave a few great examples of that, lean out some more car windows and keeping creative and give your root yourself space to design and create and do all the things you love. But no doubt that, you know, that's a that's a plan in itself. So I love it, Claire. I think just looking at it, I just love looking at your business and I love seeing the creativity and the energy and the passion that goes into everything you can that you're doing. And I can tell there's real heart behind it. So it should be. I'm glad that comes across. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's great.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you so much for joining us on Ad Descartes.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

If you're like me, I've got no doubt that Claire's story and her business philosophy has inspired you. Myself as an avid planner and strategist and needing to know the future was in awe of her ability to take things day to day. And you can tell that she's learned a lot through her business, but also her personal life with her son Max that has equipped her with a whole bunch of resilience and a whole bunch of taking each day as it comes, which helps her as a business owner. And it was really refreshing to hear that she doesn't have these huge grand plans for the future turning into a huge business that she's got to address each day as it comes. And I suppose it ties into what she's doing with product. It's just solving those everyday problems as they come along. Really refreshing approach to business and to e-commerce from Claire there. All right, there are three things that stood out to me that I think e-commerce professionals need to take notice of or that could help anyone in their e-commerce career. Number one is customer frustrations or feedback as opportunities. Claire mentioned there that she spent so much time in her DMs or yelling at her car window at customers for that connection to get that feeling of what customers really want and what they'll commit to. I tried to lead her down the AI path and ask her around how sidekick and the AI data can help inform her choices. But after 10 years, you can tell that Claire has this really deep gut feel that usually turns out right because she stayed connected to her customers and the feedback, both the good and the bad, that makes decisions a whole lot easier for her now. So while I'm sure she doesn't want to spend every day in her DMs, every day that's building more and more gut feel for decisions that may never be outsourced to data or AI. Really, really important in being able to spot those opportunities that will help differentiate you from everyone else by knowing your customers. Number two was understanding the process before you outsource it. In this context, we talked about that in two areas. We talked about it in manufacturing. Claire was manufacturing herself, both the bunnings, and then in her shed, inhaling those fumes, but she made product. She knew how it all came together, she knew what to expect, the quality that could be achieved. And then we talked also about it in terms of advertising and paid ads, in terms of how her husband went in and played around and created his own ads, even while they had an agency on board. And I think as a founder, most founders have this built-in that you want to get in and you build and you do things yourself before handing it off to anyone else, whether that be agencies, teams, manufacturers, or otherwise. And it's really, really prudent. In an effort to scale quickly, it is very tempting to hand off things that you may not be good at, may not be interested in, but at some level, you need to have an understanding of how it works to know the quality that you should be expecting to hold others accountable to that quality as well. Great lessons there. And the third one is defining success on your own terms. I wanted to ask Claire that question around has this turned into the lifestyle that you want? And she reminded me that in business, even though we go out to design our own business life, life never lets us design the life that we want. I'm sure that her life hasn't gone exactly where she thought it would go back when she was in the advertising agency, both from a career perspective, but also the challenges that they've had with Max's health. And it goes to show that every day we are designing life on our own terms. And that if Claire tried to compare herself to someone else, that there's so much going on that's unique for her and unique for her family and unique for her business that there is no point looking at what the bros might be doing or what other successful people are doing to try and design a life like theirs, we need to design a life that fits within our own circumstances. I think Claire is an inspiration for that. That's it for Ad to Cart this week. Thank you so much for joining us as always. If you want to jump in and discuss this episode or discuss any of the topics that we were talking about in here, whether that be product photography, manufacturing quality, or AI use, come on over and join the Add to Cart community. It's free to join, and we have over 500 e-commerce professionals in there discussing all sorts of nerdy e-commerce topics. We'd love you to join us. Head on over to adducart.com.au to apply, and we'll let you in there so you can join the discussion. Thanks again to Shopify and Clavio for sponsoring Add to Cart. We really appreciate your support. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit subscribe. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on Spotify or Apple, we'll keep bringing you the good stuff to help you in your e commerce business or career. I'll see you next time.