Today we are here to talk about e-commerce and I want to give you a little bit of context around why I felt this area was so important to talk about. E-commerce has become so broad, it's such a huge area that there hardly is any sort of really global community around e-commerce. It's a lot of specialized fields nowadays and I think that these pockets of specialization are extremely important and fascinating and one of them is definitely e-commerce these days. So today I'm joined by you, Monica Trabia-Belle. You're one of those experts in a special field around e-commerce called e-commerce so we're going to talk a lot about that today. But for starters I want to dig a little bit deeper into your experience as a head of e-commerce in the past before we sort of get into the details about Create2Stay, where you're the chief commercial officer now, and the whole e-commerce experience. So why don't you just walk me through the typical day of a head of e-commerce, what was on your mind back when you did that and what did your day look like? Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And also this, now I see some more, I have some more information on it today because there's also some worries about, would this affect the new sales? So if we start to sell secondhand shoes in our own shop, would this affect that we would not sell as many new shoes? That will be a concern and that is a concern for brands today. So that was also a reason why we started out in the small. Okay, so what happened then in reality? But what happened in reality was that the customers really liked it because when you sell a shoe back to Rockamore, there is no hassle. You just log into the Rockamore website or you go into one of the stores. Here is my shoes. What kind of reward can I have for this? So you log into the system and you find the shoe. So for instance, the one I'm wearing today, you could log in and you can see, okay, I can get a discount voucher code for around maybe a thousand Danish kronos for my next purchase. And you can think, okay, that's fair enough. That's good for me. Maybe I could get more if I sold it on the Facebook group, but then I would have to communicate with a customer or with another person. You would maybe have to take a lot of measures. What's the measure inside? How, okay, can you take some more pictures? Can I see pictures when you're wearing it, et cetera? And, you know, our customers, maybe they just don't want that hassle. It's just so much easier for them just to sell the shoe back to the brand. Yeah. So specifically what happens? Let's just talk through the case of a shoe that gets back to great to stay. So for instance, now I'm wearing these shoes. I don't want them anymore. So I go into the Rockamore store or I go to Rockamore website. I log in with my email. I find the shoe. I can see all my orders. And then I can see what is the amount that I will get as a reward for these shoes. So I click, okay, I accept this. And then the whole system is starting up. It's a formula that looks exactly like the brand's other visual identity. So I get a QR code so I can send the shoe back. I just go to the local GLS store or I hand it in in the store. And then it's sent to the Create to Stay warehouse. But I wouldn't know that as a customer. I would think I'll send them to Rockamore because the address is kind of a Rockamore address. Then I would get an email that is also sent from Rockamore that says, thank you very much. We have accepted your trade-in shoe. Here is your, it was, then it would be a loyalty point. So you get points in your loyalty club that you can redeem for a discount on your next purchase. And then the shoe is now at the warehouse, the Create to Stay warehouse. So the staff, the team in the Create to Stay, they will like open the box. They will check the shoe. What is the grading? So we're looking for this. Yes, we accept it. Yes, we accept it. We have a system that is, that is completely integrated into, in this case, it was the Shopify platform. So therefore they could like remake this product. So it's a single skew product. It gets a new SKU and then it's, it's created on the old metadata from this original product. So therefore it's pretty easy to create the new secondhand item in the same, in the same Shopify store. And the pricing and the pricing and everything is set by the brand. So Rockamore, for instance, decides that we resell this for a, let's say, I think, I don't remember. I think it's 60% of the new price or something like that. So that's just automatically set. Then also the Create to Stay team take pictures of this exact shoe. So that is also shown on the website. So you see the shoe that you actually get. And then it's, it's also stored in the warehouse. And then it's up for grabs. So then Rockamore creates a collection that is entirely contains these secondhand shoes. So you can see the price now and the price before you see the picture. If there is any issues, if there is a tiny scratch or something, there's also pictures of that. So the customer can see anything regarding this exact shoe. So let's say that then you buy them for your wife. And then you buy them within the Rockamore shop. So you don't know that it's actually not in the Rockamore warehouse, but it is in the Create to Stay warehouse. And then when the order is fulfilled, it is shipped from the Create to Stay warehouse as well to you. And it's wrapped within Rockamore branded material. It has maybe a postcard, stickers and so on. So you get a firsthand experience from buying a secondhand item. And we are very careful about that. So we really want this to be a good experience for the customer. We don't send it back in an old box or anything. So you get a firsthand experience from that. That makes sense. So for the shopper, what are the benefits? You mentioned that you don't have to deal with the sort of the hassle of measuring the shoe or communicating with another shopper. What else? What's the upside? For the shopper for the shopper over just going on vintage? Yeah, I think, of course, there is because this is sold by the brand. So you know that it's a real genuine product. It's not a fake product. Also, they kind of it's vetted by the brand. So also the whole grading, everything is checked. Is there any marks on it? If we have in Create to Stay, we have around 30 brands there and we check all the clothing. It's cleaned. So we have a professional cleaning company that takes care of that. If there is anything wrong with it, we repair it. So you know that it is vetted and it's graded and we know that the product is fit to be sold again. But also due to the legislation, you have 14 days return, right? So there's also like no hassle return. And you don't really have that when you buy something on vintage or and then you probably just end up with even more stuff that you don't use. And so so that's a clear benefit. And also you have the whole the purchases is within the brand. So for instance, for Rockamore, you also earn new points from buying secondhand items. So so it's it's just an entry to the brand that gives you the same experience as buying new. And and what we experience is that it's a it's a really, really good channel to get new customers. So for instance, in the Rockamore brand, we saw that 42 percent of all secondhand items was bought by new customers. So that's customers that had not bought by the brand before. And why is that? Is that a sort of a safer, less expensive way in? Yeah, I think there is, of course, this thing about, you know, you take a stand, you don't want to buy new and also you kind of want to reduce the footprint. So the whole sustainability thing in it. And that is one thing. But definitely also the whole thing about being able to get something from this brand for, let's say, half price and you get the same experience. So so what we experience in this is that it's a really loyal customer that you get because it's it's a it's a person who really want this brand. So it's they may be already brand ambassadors from the first order because they buy secondhand. So they really, really want to have this item. They really want to be a part of this brand. So so that is definitely. And for me as an e-commerce manager, I was like super thrilled with these numbers because getting customers from me to ads, they are not loyal customers. It's like a double screen browse and you didn't really know what you were doing. And then you bought a pair of shoes and you wake up next morning. And what kind of forgot about that? I think everybody knows that the thing you buy laying in bed at night. So the also, as I mentioned, the whole return process. And this is so we offer returns because you have to do that in Denmark when you buy online. But but the return rate is is around 50 percent of the return rate from a new new product. So we see that. And that's a new product. Yeah. And that's both within the shoes and also for fashion brands. So we have some of the customers in Create to Stay that have almost no returns on secondhand items. So you really buy something that you really want. There's also this thing as when you work with marketing or e-commerce, there is this whole FOMO thing. Because a lot of us, we work with, for instance, the Rockamore, they are limited edition. Most of the items are limited. So there is only this number of shoes. But when you when you get your hands on the secondhand item, there is just this one. So so when so the whole thing about integrating it into your Klaviyo email marketing is is a it's a super cool tool because you can. So if you have a Browsted or abandoned basket, it really makes sense to do a formal communication as this is a single SKU or SKU item. Yeah, that makes sense. And when I'm sort of elevated a little bit and ask you to explain what are sort of the entire field of e-commerce. What does that include? Now, sort of we've talked about the the particular create to stay approach with a certain brand and so forth. What are the boundaries of it? What else is is inside? Inside that box of e-commerce. The biggest thing and the thing that has been existing for a long time is the whole peer to peer market as we all all of us know eBay, for instance. So it's it's this has been there for many years and everybody knows this and and and there's been a lot of reasons to buy used items. I think it has been a mostly a price thing. And therefore, there's also been some barriers that a brand would not be a part of this because you don't want to sell used items. But there is a change in the mentality of at least we see that here in Europe is growing and it's increasingly it's it's like the Boston Consulting Group just released a report a report on this and and also the numbers from them is that this is growing three to four times faster than the new fashion. So this is just increasing. So customers really want to buy used items for both the the sustainable reasons and also because it makes sense to buy things cheaper. So so the whole peer to peer thing has has been there for many years. There are also some new platforms out there that kind of integrate peer to peer in brand platforms. But in that way, but in that way, you don't really get the data from the from the cells because it's it's in another platform. But still you kind of offer this to to your customers. We call it. It's like the supreme after sales service, right? So the brand takes the responsibility for the products life cycle all the way around. And and and and I think that's super interesting. And also. Yeah. So and then the model that creates a stay. provides provides is a take back solution. So that means that the brand owns this re-commerce within their own system. So we both provide it to the online stores. But you can also use this in your physical bricks and mortars, because today there's also some challenges about getting people to enter the regular physical stores, because everybody's just shopping online. And what should you do in the store? You should do something to make it interesting to go there. And in Rockamore, for instance, it makes super sense that people could bring their old shoes and you could have a chat about them and and then they would get a voucher discount for for purchasing new shoes. And you don't as an online store, you the ones that go to create to stay, they don't feel that they sort of lose the interaction with the community that they may have had before via the Facebook group or wherever that was sort of going on. I think that we did not experience that at all in Rockamore because it was just the group was still there. And it's still free for everybody to sell and buy on other platforms. So I think this is just an extra that you offer for your customers. So the whole buyback is just I think it's just a survey that you should consider. There's also a thing about this that is pretty interesting, because if you are a wholesale brand and you don't have your own B2C channel, so the direct to consumer channel, but you are, for instance, huge on Boost and Zalando, which a lot of fashion brands are, and they're really happy about it and still they're also a bit concerned because they would also like to have more traffic and more revenue for their own channels. So this is actually also a tool that you can use. We have a lot of customers that offer a take-back solution from items that is not bought within their own system. So if, for instance, I had bought a pair of jeans at Boost, or maybe I just had them in as a gift, then you can also trade them back in the brand's own platform. So in this way, you also get the wholesale customers directly into your own platform and you get the data, email, and permissions on those customers. So that's also a super interesting tool. So I don't think that you lose any relations with your customer. I think it's the other way around. You get even more contact. You get even more loyalty. Because the whole thing about also because this is still a unique thing. It's like a really small percentage of old-fashioned brand and lifestyle brand that offers this. So this is still super unique that you, for instance, as some of the Danish brands that we are working with, they use this as a USP also in the wholesale community. So they can tell the resellers that actually we take these items back. So you can say that when you're selling these jeans, that the customer can always sell them back to us. So what's the, when you are approaching a new prospect, what are sort of the characteristics about them as a company? At what point of maturity do they need to be at? Or what kind of purpose do they need to be married to for it to make sense to start a We Loved sort of aspect of their e-commerce business? I think it's a super good question. And we're also talking a lot about that because we have so many different customers in Creators Day today. So we have the, so for instance, we have the Rogamo, of course. It's handmade shoes. And it's okay. That's a pretty weird thing, but it's working really good. The numbers are really good. Then we have some outdoor brands, hunting brands. And also the whole, because isn't this just a female thing? Isn't it only women who buy secondhand? And no, it's not. It's also growing really, really big. Within the male audience. So for instance, buying expensive hunting gear, it makes sense that you want to upgrade. You started on this, maybe like a beginner hunting gear, and then you want to upgrade. That's a man thing. Also, I think, you know, buying bicycles and stuff like that, you need a really good gear. So we see that it's working really good also in that area. But it's important when we look at a new suspect for e-commerce. It's important for us. We can see that it's super important for us that it's based in the C-level. You know, it has to be the management of the company that really wants to do this. Because if it's not really a part of the strategy, and it's not really thought into in all aspects of the company, then they don't succeed as well. So it's really important for us that it's not just some person that is super on fire in this. It has to be a thing that is... So if the CEO loves this, then it's a good idea. It's kind of what we experience. But it can also grow from the e-commerce staff and then expand into the retailers. Because we also see that it's working really good when you use this also in the physical stores. We have Spidersport, for instance. It's an outdoor Danish brand. They do some super cool campaigns in the stores where they take back clothing in the stores. They have this buyback promise. So they are kind of owned by the Danish scouts. So it's a really scout kind of... We promise this. It's in Danish called Te Beek, Købs Løfte. So they promise the customers that we buy this item back within three years. And we give you 30% of the new price in reward. So it really makes sense also to use it in the physical stores. I think there's been some backlash, at least with H&M in terms of their program. How big a theme is that in terms of sort of the greenwashing risk you might be associated with? Yeah. I think we have not experienced any of our customers doing this as a greenwashing thing. We experienced that this is something that the company really wants to do because they can see that they gain revenue from this. So, of course, they do it because they want to do a change. And it makes sense to use clothes over and over again. That truly makes sense. I think it's kind of the baseline for this, that, of course, we do this because of environment. And we need to cut down on the use of, you know, you buy things, you never wear them. I think that's kind of basics. Sure. But for this, the reason why I'm so hyped on this is that it's really a beneficial, tool to grow revenue. And I would not call that greenwashing because it makes sense. The clothing works. It gets a longer life and we can see that the customers buying the second hand is happy. The customer trading in the items are happy. So, yeah, everybody is happy. There's not really any waste in it. But, of course, there is a limited amount of times that the jeans can be resold, of course. So, we're also working with the whole reuse of materials. And that's a huge thing right now. And also, there's some new laws in Europe right now for the whole waste of textiles. So, of course, we're also looking into that along with our customers. So, how should we reuse this? We actually have a customer there called Elsk. So, they sell men and ladies clothing. It's like a bit of a surfer vibe going on there. But they do this. So, when their T-shirts cannot be sold anymore, then they actually use them to make art. They are working with some artists who makes these textile paintings, you could call them. So, it's kind of making the landscapes from Tü in the northern of Jutland. So, that's a pretty cool thing to do with the textile. I think that actually makes sense. Yeah, that's a really lovely example. I think I've also seen sort of other types of creative aspects around this with the clothing brand called Toast as well. They also have like they're not only repairing the reloved items, but sort of making them different or unique with additional patches on them and all sorts of stuff. It's an interesting area where there's sort of a lot of different new creativity around it and how to do things. Yeah, definitely. And also, we also offer repair solution for our customers. So, we just recently launched this because it's a huge thing in the fashion industry that there can be like the button coming off or there's some stitches missing somewhere. And it's just a fact right now that a lot of users, consumers, they don't know how to fix their items if they're broken. So, we help them out with that. So, we have a collaboration with some tailors both here in Denmark and also in Europe. So, we offer this repair solution and it just makes sense because there's actually a lot of items today that would be discarded because the buttons come off, which is kind of weird, right? So, it makes a huge impact. What are other brands that you feel they are really getting it right when it comes to sort of taking full advantage of the re-commerce opportunity? We have, I think, most of the people that we are working with, they are really doing the best they can and trying to incorporate this into all their marketing and doing campaigns around this. One of them is doing extremely good. They're called the Green Cotton Group. So, they are a manufacturer of organic cotton clothing mostly for babies and smaller children and then they also have a men's brand and a women's brand. But they have incorporated the resale and the repair within their product passports. So, that makes, it's like, it's super cool and I think maybe we could link to it somehow here. But they do a product passports. So, you scan a QR code in the care label of your baby's pants and within, it actually also says, don't cut me, I have value, which is pretty cute. And then you scan the QR code and you land on their product passport. And within that product passport, they, of course, talk about care and material and production, where is this manufactured and so on. But then they also offer the repair solution in there and they offer to buy back the item from the customer. And they see super results on this. They have a very, very loyal customer group. And of course, it makes sense because kids outgrow their clothing so many times. I think it's around, is it seven sizes or something you have in the first year of a baby's life? So, there are so many changes in the wardrobe. And of course, it makes sense that you buy, well, you sell back the clothing and then you buy some new and maybe you just buy new secondhand. So, the whole circle is just full on there. And also, the repair of baby's clothing is a big success. We see some really, really happy customers. They really like the idea of taking care of items in this way. Yeah, I can imagine that. What about the sort of the online shopping experience on the actual web shop? Does it always need to be sort of compartmentalized that it's a special area? Or are you seeing interest in, okay, why not surface both new products and we loved products in the same search result? Where do you see that going? I think that as we spoke about earlier, it's like if you are afraid that this will ruin the number of new items sold, then you could, we see that often when you start this, when you launch it, then you kind of hide it away a little bit. So, it's not in the search results. It's like excluded from search. It's included, excluded from categories with new products. And then it has its own like collection of used items. But then when, when they kind of see the numbers and new customers coming in, they say, okay, let's open up a little bit. So, then it kind of becomes just a part of the web shop. But we recommend that you have a collection that tells the audience what is this, what can you experience? here and what can you expect from the product that you receive? We also see PDPs that contains all these images and explanation of the re-commerce strategy for this exact brand. We also see, we see a lot of super cool visuals that the brands produce. So, they kind of show a customer standing there in the wardrobe, taking out this summer dress. Now it's winter outside. I don't need to stress anymore. Wrapping it down and making a trade-in on the mobile phone and then receiving a voucher code and buying something new. So, they, we have a really good content around this. Yeah. But where do you see this going? I mean, in a couple of years when more brands have adopted the approach and have become accustomed to what does this mean logistically and for the, the shopping experience and the brand perception and everything, is it just going to be, be completely mixed and then there's just clear labeling, but it sort of exists all over their online stores that there is that mix of, of we loved and new items? I think it depends on the brand because we see some brands, they are, actually also taking it back to their own warehouses. So, it is mixed with the new items. Okay. So, we just provide the whole grading and, and, and, and cleaning and, and photos. And then they handle all the, the warehouse and shipment afterwards. So, we see some mixing and we also see, for instance, in the spider sport that they also sell re-loved items in the physical store. So, they hang them on the racks with the new items. Okay. But it's also, it's an outdoor brand. It makes sense. So, it's kind of like the Patagonia. So, it makes sense. So, it makes sense. So, it makes sense. But I think it would be, I think it would be mixed more also because it just makes sense that because it is brand lovers who buy secondhand items. So, so, I definitely think it would make sense to mix it up and not hide it away. Yeah. So, I think that's a, that's a great place to, to stop for today and, and wrap up. Is there anything, if you sort of think about your fellow heads of e-commerce, e-commerce managers, is there anything you want them to sort of really think about when they explore the, the e-commerce opportunity? Yeah. I think that, that you should really, if you are into this, I think you should look at what business model would fit you. Are you doing this because you want to make a change? Are you doing it because you want new customers? So, what is it? Can you, can you build this into the, to your physical stores as well? I think you should look into what, what should be the strategy for the, for your brand? Because if you have to succeed with this, you have to have some KPIs. You have to have a strategy for where you want to go. And it's, it's not necessarily that the strategy is to make revenue. It can also just be, just be, to get new customers because that is what, we see on average today that, that our, the brands working with create to stay, they get 53% new customers on their resale. So, it's, it's a really, really good channel to, to reach the new, new customers. So, I think you could start there. That could be a good KPI to start out with. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you.