Chris Forbes is the co-founder at Cheeky Panda, leading the bamboo revolution selling toilet paper, period products, kitchen roll and more. Founded in 2016 they now sell via multiple international Shopify sites, and a plethora of wholesale and marketplace locations. Turnover is now £15,000,000 a year, and did I mention they’re a B Corp? 
 
In this episode, Chris Forbes reveals how The Cheeky Panda turned a bold eco idea into a £15M brand loved by customers and retailers alike. From smart scaling moves to making sustainability fun, Chris shares the mindset and marketing strategies behind their incredible growth. 
 
Hit PLAY to hear: 
 

How The Cheeky Panda grew from a bedroom idea to a £15M sustainable brand 
Chris Forbes’ biggest lesson: what to focus on (and what to outsource) when scaling 
Why sustainability alone isn’t a USP anymore — and what actually sells now 
How a giant panda costume helped them win fans and supermarket deals 
The secret behind their omnichannel growth across Shopify, Tesco, and more 
What it really takes to turn purpose into profit — and stay ahead of the competition 

 
Key timestamps to dive straight in: 
[04:24] “Sustainable Innovation with Purpose” 
[07:36] Expanding Bamboo Product Range 
[12:01] Supermarkets Prioritizing Sustainable Suppliers 
[13:47] Pricing and Quality Drive Success 
[16:12] “Cheeky Panda: Fun & Friendly” 
[21:14] Channel Strategies: Pros and Challenges 
[22:36] Listen to Chris’s Top Tips! 
 
Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/569
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WEBVTT
00:00.031 –> 00:11.461
[SPEAKER_02]: Don’t reinvent the wheel non-core things like finance and operations, you know, just use regular systems where you really got to excel as a brand is creating great quality products and making fun and engaging marketing.
00:14.164 –> 00:27.496
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast, air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business, cutting through the highly to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome.
00:34.143 –> 00:35.305
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s great to have you here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now I love to start some of our episodes with a little shout out to the listeners who are kind enough to take the time to post a review of the show and I’ve got one of those to do right now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Huge thank you to Lynn Power who left this lovely review on pod chaser for us.
00:56.461 –> 01:21.895
[SPEAKER_00]: a great conversation getting into the nuts and bolts of running an e-commerce business, great advice for anyone interested in e-commerce data-sea business marketing and more, well that’s all of you, so you thankfully tuned into the right place, Lynn, thank you so much for that review, and if you, listening right now, would like a shout out at the start of an episode, then go to ECMP.info forward slash review to find out how to leave us a review.
01:21.875 –> 01:41.453
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode we are catching up with a phenomenal business, they lead the lights in the world of sustainability, they’ve grown from an idea in a bedroom to a full omnichannel business selling via ludicrously large number of channels and into different countries.
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[SPEAKER_00]: doing now £15 million a year in sales and we’re lucky enough to get to talk to one of the co-founders to Chris about how they’ve gone about building that, how they kind of the key tenets that have got them there.
01:55.287 –> 02:00.872
[SPEAKER_00]: He’s also dropping loads of nuggets of clever ideas and things which you can copy as we go through there.
02:00.892 –> 02:02.414
[SPEAKER_00]: So really cool episode.
02:02.734 –> 02:04.476
[SPEAKER_00]: Huge thanks to Chris for coming on the show.
02:04.976 –> 02:09.060
[SPEAKER_00]: Please make sure you listen to the end so you don’t miss out on his top tips which are really good.
02:09.040 –> 02:11.043
[SPEAKER_00]: and you’ll get my own take on this episode as well.
02:11.323 –> 02:22.180
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, there’s a little bit of background chatter from Chris’ team who clearly are very excited to be working with Chris and at the brand, but please forgive us for that.
02:23.041 –> 02:25.885
[SPEAKER_00]: We tried to get rid of as much of it as we cam its a little bit still left in.
02:32.007 –> 02:34.089
[SPEAKER_00]: And now to introduce our special guest.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Chris Forbes is the co-founder at Cheeky Panda, leading the Bambi Revolution selling toilet paper, period products, kitchen roll and more.
02:44.218 –> 02:52.945
[SPEAKER_00]: Founded in 2016, they now sell via multiple international Shopify sites and a plethora of wholesale and marketplace locations.
02:53.466 –> 02:59.331
[SPEAKER_00]: Turnover is now £15 million a year, and did I mention that there are B-Corp as well.
02:59.531 –> 03:00.732
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Chris.
03:00.998 –> 03:02.540
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Chloe, I love it to be here.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for inviting me along this onto the show.
03:04.884 –> 03:06.306
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m awesome to have you here.
03:06.366 –> 03:10.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Big fan of your products, your business, and what you’re doing, so it’s really cool to have you here.
03:10.212 –> 03:13.017
[SPEAKER_00]: But how did you get started in e-commerce?
03:13.057 –> 03:16.342
[SPEAKER_00]: Was Cheeky Pandey your first foray or was it before?
03:16.742 –> 03:21.690
[SPEAKER_02]: So, actually, my first them foray into e-commerce was with a…
03:21.670 –> 03:36.067
[SPEAKER_02]: website called phishingnet.com, which was back in 1996 and we decided to map out the Scottish River System and then sell services like hotels and their accommodation and fishing tackle.
03:36.428 –> 03:42.655
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and that was actually, at one point, the second most visited fishing site in the entire world.
03:42.775 –> 03:44.978
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I
03:44.958 –> 03:46.460
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, unfortunately, it didn’t quite make it.
03:46.480 –> 03:48.824
[SPEAKER_02]: It was in that sort of dot-com boom and bust stage of things.
03:48.884 –> 03:52.510
[SPEAKER_02]: It never actually got any funding, but it just had absolutely loads of traffic.
03:52.530 –> 03:59.961
[SPEAKER_02]: So, um, and yeah, I’ve sort of always kind of been very sort of technically minded and, uh, into e-commerce ever since then.
03:59.981 –> 04:02.545
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yes, it could, could fairly your dears now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: very cool.
04:03.548 –> 04:06.612
[SPEAKER_00]: So how come you decided to start cheeky panda?
04:06.632 –> 04:14.162
[SPEAKER_00]: Because almost 10 years ago now, which was kind of at the very beginning of the eco consumer journey.
04:14.743 –> 04:16.065
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that your primary reason?
04:16.145 –> 04:16.966
[SPEAKER_00]: Was the ecology?
04:17.006 –> 04:19.129
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it the green side of it?
04:19.189 –> 04:20.671
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it the financial side of it?
04:20.691 –> 04:23.134
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you just have a desire to make kitchen roll?
04:23.875 –> 04:26.018
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, so, I mean,
04:25.998 –> 04:38.833
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess it was more the is an original idea, so like a lot of ideas because so many people have done so many different ideas, like a lot of ideas are twist of lemon and original theme or like a copy.
04:39.434 –> 04:54.672
[SPEAKER_02]: The fact that this was an original idea of taking the world’s fastest growing plant and making it into tissue which no one had done in Europe before us, that’s what really excited me and you know I lived in the island of Scotland so you know I’ve got a good appreciation
04:54.652 –> 04:57.476
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you think you sort of think, you know, what sort of legacy do you want?
04:57.496 –> 05:08.913
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I was running a business as a head hunting business, which was making slightly rich people richer and as happy as it was for them, you know, this, this definitely had a lot more meaning.
05:08.933 –> 05:16.123
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I did it mainly for the sustainability angle, but I always thought there was a decent business in it as well.
05:16.644 –> 05:22.633
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you think it would get this big and this successful was that you’re always your plan or have you just kind of seen how it goes?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I always believed that the market was right for disruption.
05:27.503 –> 05:32.009
[SPEAKER_02]: We had businesses that have been doing the same thing for fairly years.
05:32.069 –> 05:48.891
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think in any sector where you looked at, like, like, I code that moment or digitization of that, or blackberry, and in the end of the Apple, when you actually have things that are better products, I do believe that the market will shift.
05:48.871 –> 05:59.282
[SPEAKER_02]: but it’s always a question of time and if it’s you that it helps make that shift so lots of risk but I always believed it would become a decent size business and we’re now about 1% of the UK retail tissue market.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That’s mad isn’t it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: There’s still so much potential.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Well we’ve got 1%, but there’s 99% we don’t have so it’s likely.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think even like a couple of more percent is probably we’re not aiming to become the market leader.
06:11.695 –> 06:18.743
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think that’s realistic but you know I think the fruit fruit time we could definitely get to 5% to 10% of the market
06:19.280 –> 06:20.183
[SPEAKER_00]: how exciting.
06:20.704 –> 06:26.380
[SPEAKER_00]: Now tell us that let’s go through the nuts and bolts of the business for anyone who’s not hugely familiar with it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What are the products you’re currently selling, what’s your or current ranges?
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we have lots of different products.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got some really nice D to C products which would be like the toy that we’re all which is on subscription Great thing about toy that tissue everyone uses it every day.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s a high repeat product Facial tissues again highly use kitchen towel We’ve done sanitary products which we launched earlier this year.
06:49.602 –> 06:58.635
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s been really successful and total We’ve got about 35 different skews and yet it’s an nice play and everything’s made out of bamboo and everything is yet disposable
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you said the D to C range, so is there a separate B to B range?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we do do.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got an only channel business, so we do supply stuff like antiles, system roles, which we’ve sort of more finding like office environments or like stadiums or sort of larger sort of industrial areas like the airports, for example.
07:20.030 –> 07:23.294
[SPEAKER_00]: to go different reformating of the same core product.
07:23.314 –> 07:31.442
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it’s still 100% bamboo instead of maybe 200 sheets on your big rolls you’ve got more like 2,000 sheets.
07:32.203 –> 07:35.547
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, how did you work at a which point to expand the range?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of it, particularly in the beginning, a lot of it, we started off with toilet tissue and then we had customers say, and to us, well, can you make special tissue?
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[SPEAKER_02]: and we were like, well, you know, it’s going to be good quality to shoot, so it’ll make good quality official tissue.
07:50.641 –> 07:52.804
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are a lot of it within in the early stages.
07:52.824 –> 07:55.968
[SPEAKER_02]: We were sort of led by consumer feedback.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then in some cases we work retailers or we work with other distributors and then they sort of start requesting other types of products.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we just sort of expanded the range based upon do we think there’s a big enough market in it for us.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Does it fit with our brand?
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[SPEAKER_02]: And if it does, and it’s made it a bamboo, then that’s absolutely something that we’ll consider.
08:13.374 –> 08:19.143
[SPEAKER_02]: Not all ideas made it, we’ve had a couple of field products, and yeah, some super successful ones as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Very cool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And what’s the team look like these days?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because your team must have grown so much over the years?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, like we started off from the bedroom, myself and Julie, my wife, you know, she’s a CEO, a majority shareholder of
08:36.153 –> 09:04.337
[SPEAKER_02]: We then did the Facebook thing which was kind of build a team in the house and then she got pregnant so we had to move out the house and then we left and she had offices and eventually we ended up in our current home which has got about very people in the UK and then we’ve got a small team in five people in China which helped to work with our manufacturers and suppliers over there because bamboo grows best in China so that’s where our products come from.
09:04.874 –> 09:08.011
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do you, presumably, you’re outsourcing some things?
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[SPEAKER_00]: How do you decide what to outsource and what to keep within the business?
09:12.046 –> 09:13.647
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we’re not aware of our business.
09:14.068 –> 09:15.950
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re not our manufacturing plant business.
09:16.030 –> 09:19.333
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the good thing is just try to stay in your lane.
09:19.373 –> 09:22.475
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s good advice is don’t try to go into great.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Or certainly, if you go into great, you have to do it at scale.
09:26.439 –> 09:30.042
[SPEAKER_02]: If we built a factory, then we would have spent all the money before.
09:30.623 –> 09:34.226
[SPEAKER_02]: We got to a size where we would be able to use the capacity of the factory.
09:34.286 –> 09:42.053
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it don’t reinvent the wheel non core things.
09:42.033 –> 09:48.903
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but where you really got to Excel as a brand is creating great quality products and them making fun engaging marketing.
09:49.624 –> 09:54.531
[SPEAKER_00]: So is that what that’s what the team, the 30 people in had us office a day now all about product and marketing?
09:54.991 –> 10:02.001
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, we are probably about 10 people are sort of sitting in finance, operations and sustainability, and then the rest would be in sort of sales and marketing.
10:02.662 –> 10:04.885
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have a specific sustainability team.
10:05.371 –> 10:13.341
[SPEAKER_02]: We have one individual that’s full-time in that role and then we all chip in as well, you know, part of being a B-corp.
10:13.361 –> 10:23.714
[SPEAKER_00]: I find that fascinating because you would think the further down the B-corp journey you go, the less there would be to do, you know, you can kind of like see when people begin on the sustainability or B-corp journey.
10:23.734 –> 10:30.923
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like right, we’re going to designate a person to managing this the first time or maybe the second time we go through the process.
10:31.426 –> 10:43.191
[SPEAKER_00]: but the fact that actually to keep on top of it a business who has sustainability in their core from day one, you need that person who owns it, even in year 10.
10:43.323 –> 10:43.904
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean sustainability is an evolving journey, right?
10:46.306 –> 10:57.679
[SPEAKER_02]: So just because you’ve done something and you’ve got like a tick box, in terms of like, you know, we recently got Goldicovadas, which we were already proud of, which is used by a lot of the big companies to evaluate how good customers are supplier.
10:58.360 –> 11:04.687
[SPEAKER_02]: So we will always be given sort of like the quest and, you know, like carbon reporting is something that we have to do every sort of tree.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So there’s constant workflow
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[SPEAKER_02]: things that we need to stay on top of and you know that it needs a full-time dedicated resource to be able to just manage that and in many instances it also takes quite a lot of the other teams time as well because it’s you know operations have to get involved finances to get involved the rest of the way the team has to get involved and you know as part of a core part of the business so we all enjoy it isn’t it we never get any grumbalings or our sustainability you know
11:36.260 –> 11:53.786
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Chris, you mentioned there about how you’re constantly working on the sustainability and how big businesses are more and more asking for these factors and these guarantees and marks and awards, et cetera, before they purchase from you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, is that one of the things you needed to get in line to be able to get into the big supermarket?
11:58.814 –> 12:00.917
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I know you’ve been doing a lot on that this year.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so all the big supermarkets are now using eco-virus or similar tools to assess the quality of a supplier.
12:10.458 –> 12:13.364
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it is important.
12:13.384 –> 12:17.252
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, as we go forward, and I look back to 2016.
12:17.232 –> 12:18.373
[SPEAKER_02]: There was none of this, right?
12:18.393 –> 12:20.215
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was no framework or anything like that.
12:20.796 –> 12:25.061
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it is becoming, you know, more important, you know, and there’s much from a governance point of view.
12:25.101 –> 12:30.947
[SPEAKER_02]: We, you know, we’ve got one large client that basically uses sustainability, you know, implementing it.
12:31.508 –> 12:42.700
[SPEAKER_02]: As a way to mitigate risk, so that if you have, if you’re doing the right thing and buying the right products, then even if laws change in a particular country, like sort of Sweden changes their laws or Denmark changes their laws,
12:42.680 –> 12:52.088
[SPEAKER_02]: If you’re a company, then you don’t need to change your whole supply chain or a higher and army of consultants and to change everything because you’re already ahead of what that legislation might look like.
12:52.108 –> 12:59.735
[SPEAKER_02]: Where you end up in more troubles, where you’re always firefighting, or the brought on a plastic ban, or no, we need to get rid of all these plastics at an our business.
13:00.536 –> 13:11.185
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you’re kind of sort of forward thinking and sort of thing actually, we can see down the pipe, we don’t want chemicals in our business, we don’t want these plastic
13:11.165 –> 13:15.190
[SPEAKER_02]: you’re less likely to have to spend a lot more money at that time.
13:15.891 –> 13:20.797
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that’s such a clever way of looking at the sustainability activity.
13:20.837 –> 13:30.489
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s not just sitting around waiting for the government to make it, you know, it’s pretty easy to see the writing on the wall of where they’re going to be sending us all as businesses and as consumers.
13:30.930 –> 13:38.539
[SPEAKER_00]: So to be keeping ahead of it makes sense and so I guess for you as a business who’ve been ahead of the curve for so long that must
13:38.519 –> 13:47.432
[SPEAKER_00]: give you a slightly better chance when it comes to some of the big deals and the negotiations that are going on because you can tick those boxes for your customers.
13:47.792 –> 13:57.446
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think at the end of the day, you can tick the boxes and you can have all the right credentials, but essentially it’s all going to come down to the quality of the products in the price.
13:57.867 –> 14:07.260
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ll probably be given about 20% variation away from the mean in terms of what price would be, but as soon as you start to drift outside of that
14:07.240 –> 14:09.002
[SPEAKER_02]: you’re just going to become a very niche product.
14:09.042 –> 14:10.464
[SPEAKER_02]: And listen, don’t get me wrong.
14:10.484 –> 14:17.653
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s lots of categories in business where you can absolutely be a niche product and you can make lots of money and it can be a very, very nice business.
14:18.194 –> 14:22.019
[SPEAKER_02]: But certain categories like tissue, you need to kind of be a mainstream business in order to make it work.
14:22.479 –> 14:30.970
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, you kind of still need to be very conscious, you need to be competitive in your pricing despite having all the credentials and of an upgrade brand.
14:31.422 –> 14:42.937
[SPEAKER_00]: So something I mal a lot myself on, which we’ve discussed a fair few times on this podcast, is whether or not being sustainable is still a USP, which is kind of what we’re drifting into talking about here.
14:42.957 –> 14:45.801
[SPEAKER_00]: So let’s slap up the words, USP.
14:46.662 –> 14:50.707
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think there’s a space for sustainability as a USP anymore?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you think you now, as cheeky panda, have a different USP?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that it’s less of a USP now, where it might have been five years ago.
15:01.751 –> 15:03.554
[SPEAKER_02]: I think people are expecting sustainability.
15:03.714 –> 15:10.947
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the general 50% of consumers will not buy products are understandable.
15:10.927 –> 15:16.031
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, you a large part of, you know, just basically saying it’s, you’re going to cut that mark out.
15:16.472 –> 15:21.796
[SPEAKER_02]: So then it’s all about, okay, but then how do you take that sort of mainstream consumer and how do you attract it?
15:22.097 –> 15:28.002
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you then start really coming into, you know, your messaging and the quality of products.
15:28.042 –> 15:34.087
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that’s probably we lean much more into quality and softness and strength of tissue.
15:34.127 –> 15:40.933
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we do, we don’t lead with sustainability anymore.
15:41.369 –> 15:47.979
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned before we got on this call that you’ve just launched in Morrison’s and Tescoes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So huge congratulations for that.
15:50.463 –> 15:57.855
[SPEAKER_00]: But you also mentioned there that messaging is a big part of what you do, trying to get the right message in front of the consumer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I know you did some slightly zany things to celebrate those launches.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is that,
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[SPEAKER_00]: humanizing of the brand that amusement value of the brand is that a key part of the USP as well to help you stand out in the market.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cheeky pandas are family brand.
16:15.479 –> 16:21.207
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s nothing that’s hard enough in the world right now, politics and cost-of-living crisis and stuff like that.
16:21.267 –> 16:24.111
[SPEAKER_02]: You don’t need someone beating you over the head for a stick or a sustainability.
16:25.452 –> 16:26.674
[SPEAKER_02]: You almost wanted it to be fun.
16:26.694 –> 16:33.583
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was kind of wanting it to be this like a lovable friend where you can sort of say in my house, I’ve got this thing and it feels like cuddly.
16:33.563 –> 16:37.949
[SPEAKER_02]: because it’s a panda, and it’s friendly, and that’s really how we see our brand.
16:37.969 –> 16:46.420
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can have a lot of fun with it, and as you alluded to there on our Instagram, we’ve got a panda with a trolley being chased by the Tesco Supermarket Manager.
16:46.801 –> 17:02.001
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was a little bit hilarious, and I think, you know, if you’ve got like a giant panda, as a mascot, and you know, you’re a brand-collar cheeky panda, you can have a lot of fun with it, and I think bringing a smile to people’s faces is probably one of the best things you can have
17:02.504 –> 17:06.950
[SPEAKER_00]: And so much more interesting than just kind of one of those press release Instagram posts.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We’re now available in Tesco.
17:08.932 –> 17:09.292
[SPEAKER_00]: Marvelous.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, give me the panda being chased by the manager with a trolley around the supermarket.
17:14.479 –> 17:17.122
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s what what’s going to stick in the customer’s mind, isn’t it?
17:17.182 –> 17:18.143
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s what we’re going to do.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think it must have been a challenge for our market manager who was in the costume at the time.
17:23.470 –> 17:27.415
[SPEAKER_02]: Prishing a troll, you would be like, I know, but it’s hilarious.
17:28.222 –> 17:30.947
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you flip a coin to see who had to go in the cost?
17:31.147 –> 17:32.550
[SPEAKER_00]: We were all being in that cost, actually.
17:32.570 –> 17:38.380
[SPEAKER_02]: I’ve been in that cost room, you know, as far as Colin has part of the team.
17:39.422 –> 17:41.466
[SPEAKER_00]: So what, what have you got planned?
17:41.746 –> 17:45.673
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s coming up in the business that’s your big focus now?
17:45.991 –> 17:56.029
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, really interesting stats that we have was like in the UK we’ve got about 33% brand awareness and when you get to over 50% you become a household name.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we’re sort of tipping now, so we’ll we’ll hit in the next six to 12 months we’ll become a household name.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess like when you start out at a business in your bedroom,
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you always kind of sort of dream of kind of being like a household name and and to sort of see that that’s that’s happening is such an amazing feeling and you know, the fact we sold 86 million toilet rolls last year and five million different products, you know, it just shows the size of the number of people that I’ve actually embraced our products in our range and I think that that’s that’s just so rewarding and to know them out of treasing plastic and carbon that we’ve saved as part of people making those purchases and decisions it’s it’s just exceptionally rewarding.
18:37.696 –> 18:40.983
[SPEAKER_00]: that start of becoming a household name.
18:41.524 –> 18:49.920
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea you could actually track that, but that must be, I mean, I think if I was you, I’d have almost like a lie feed up on the wall of the office.
18:50.301 –> 18:51.544
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it’s gonna 34, 35.
18:51.564 –> 18:54.089
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, you have to be honest.
18:54.149 –> 18:58.337
[SPEAKER_02]: We get the data from you guys, because that’s one of the better ways to do it.
18:58.317 –> 19:15.092
[SPEAKER_02]: So, because it does it across the country, so you can sort of see different demographics where we index higher in the southeast and lessen the north, whether we’ve got less distribution, but now that we’re getting distribution further up into north west and south east and into Scotland, then we’ll start to see that tipping.
19:15.132 –> 19:16.673
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you have to pay for it every time.
19:16.733 –> 19:22.338
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it would be a very, very expensive to keep paying for all these uGov service, just to see at which point we tap.
19:22.378 –> 19:25.962
[SPEAKER_02]: I think maybe you sort of like one every six months, isn’t it?
19:26.202 –> 19:26.502
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it
19:26.785 –> 19:33.451
[SPEAKER_00]: And presumably the rate that that percentage increases is exponential.
19:34.292 –> 19:46.202
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m guessing to get from 33 to 50 should be, if you don’t screw something up, whatever, then it should be easier to do that than it was to get from 20 to 33.
19:46.462 –> 19:48.424
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven’t got the message right there.
19:48.444 –> 19:51.427
[SPEAKER_02]: 100% and getting to 10% is probably the hardest thing.
19:52.007 –> 19:54.970
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you start to get the solution, you start to get one of them.
19:54.950 –> 20:24.231
[SPEAKER_02]: and then when you get distribution then it’s kind of people see it more often and then they sort of reckon isn’t and consumers have to see things free to seven times in order for them to make a purchase so you know all things that we do kind of makes an impact in that whether it’s seeing it in a local store or seeing it online or seeing a Facebook ad or seeing you know an Instagram post or here in someone else talk about it you know these are all things that just build
20:24.211 –> 20:28.459
[SPEAKER_02]: you know that trust in that brand visibility before people can make sort of purchase in this season.
20:28.479 –> 20:44.430
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the science to it and it does take time and effort and you know some people get very lucky on TikTok and just overnight become a overnight phenomenon but you know for for for for for for most businesses is really have to kind of work work quite hard at it to get to to this point.
20:45.001 –> 20:54.229
[SPEAKER_00]: And as an omnichannel business co-founder, do you care what channel the sale comes from?
20:54.269 –> 21:00.214
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it about overall consumers reached overall number of products sold?
21:00.295 –> 21:07.501
[SPEAKER_00]: And so long as the channels make financial sense and strategic sense, you’re not too worried where the sale comes from?
21:07.681 –> 21:14.367
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you prioritize one channel over another when it comes to your own
21:14.684 –> 21:41.805
[SPEAKER_02]: Every channel’s got its pros and cons, so like you know if he just said sort of five years ago D to C was easy is the best channel because cost of acquisition was low, now we’re Google and Metter, you know cost of acquisition is very high and there’s lots of competition and cost of acquisition So yeah, while you own the data and that’s great that you own the data and you’ve got customer stuff and you can upsell and do lots of creative things with your customers It’s become a sort of margin challenge to keep building that top it’s not just you can just add an easy formula
21:41.785 –> 21:42.586
[SPEAKER_02]: in retail.
21:42.606 –> 21:45.470
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a slightly different game, but it’s more like mass market.
21:46.011 –> 21:52.360
[SPEAKER_02]: So each channel has got an out 60% of people in my category by their toilet tissue from the grocery.
21:52.841 –> 21:58.489
[SPEAKER_02]: So I’m not going to get that 60% to switch to go buy online, though they’ll buy it in the channel that they feel happy is to buy it.
21:59.130 –> 22:03.416
[SPEAKER_02]: So you know, for us it’s all about being in the channel that’s someone’s to buy, having that availability.
22:03.957 –> 22:07.742
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they got their availability then hopefully they choose
22:10.675 –> 22:15.508
[SPEAKER_01]: E-commerce most at land is supported by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.
22:15.648 –> 22:26.035
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I love this section because me and our list has some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Chris, are you ready for the top tips?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cool for it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the book top tip.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?
22:46.695 –> 22:50.400
[SPEAKER_02]: I would see in the one that I’ve just read, which is predictable revenue.
22:51.522 –> 22:52.984
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, what’s that about then?
22:53.504 –> 23:17.655
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s about and don’t say predictable revenue is well in in finance you’ve got like a finance manual and in operations you’ve got an operations manual this is kind of like a sales manual for sales so like we have blind guidelines in marketing and stuff like that but you know having a applying the same philosophy to sales is actually quite a very interesting book
23:18.057 –> 23:18.558
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, nice.
23:18.578 –> 23:24.067
[SPEAKER_00]: And is that a kind of traditional sales, does that go as far as kind of across all the channels for sales?
23:25.389 –> 23:28.634
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s mainly outbound lead development.
23:28.915 –> 23:36.026
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that channel, but maybe in the creative individual that I am, I’ve been able to apply it across inbound in account management as well.
23:36.527 –> 23:40.073
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you don’t want a different philosophy, rolling different parts of the business to you.
23:40.133 –> 23:43.879
[SPEAKER_02]: So to complicated, you know, try to keep it as sweet and simple as possible.
23:44.500 –> 23:46.567
[SPEAKER_00]: like so I will have to check that out myself.
23:47.089 –> 23:53.430
[SPEAKER_00]: A traffic top tip which marketing method do either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.
23:53.765 –> 23:56.048
[SPEAKER_02]: I love affiliate marketing these days.
23:56.429 –> 23:57.550
[SPEAKER_02]: I love audience share.
23:58.732 –> 24:12.973
[SPEAKER_02]: So where we can kind of do, because of the thing, because of the price of meta and Google these days, I think it brands, many hands make like work and if we can plow each other’s fields, then it’s just a lot like our touch to be able to do audience share.
24:12.993 –> 24:19.041
[SPEAKER_02]: So if this brands are listening to this, think we’d be a great match with cheeky bander, then reach out to me.
24:19.782 –> 24:21.004
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re always up for a collab.
24:21.490 –> 24:27.060
[SPEAKER_00]: No, so both kind of traditional affiliate marketing, but also collaborating with other brands serving a similar market.
24:27.440 –> 24:28.182
[SPEAKER_02]: 100%.
24:28.202 –> 24:34.332
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice, one of the most underrated channels in e-commerce, in particular, I think.
24:34.873 –> 24:44.550
[SPEAKER_00]: My journey started off in the world of mail order, where those kind of partnerships and parcel bounce backs and those sorts of collaborations were bread and butter, and then D to C arrived and everybody seems to stop doing it.
24:44.590 –> 24:46.654
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love that you’ve recommended that.
24:46.634 –> 25:07.866
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it’s made a right old renovation actually, the leaflet drops, they’ve come right back and a lot of people do that in the DTC packs and as well when you sort of see that and you know, if you get like, I’m membered national trust and I’m also English heritage member and I get a little leaflets of people saying, hey, subscribe to my wine or my beauty box.
25:08.302 –> 25:13.396
[SPEAKER_00]: always fascinating as a marketer to see what comes with which magazine, yeah, I’m with you on that.
25:13.997 –> 25:24.505
[SPEAKER_00]: The tooltop tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone app or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day.
25:24.856 –> 25:51.657
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say Monday CRM is our actually Monday.com and then we have the CRM bit but probably Monday’s the thing that if you took out of our business it would really struggle because of the collaboration and running projects multiply across different things and not always having to have meetings about it and you can just get the updates and flow as it is and you know I think if we didn’t have a tool like that we’d almost need to create one so that’s probably our top tool that we use.
25:52.025 –> 26:10.323
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we use a sauna here and I don’t know how anybody can run a business anymore without one of those types of tools be it Monday, BS on a sauna or something else because they are just so I find myself thinking in the structure of a sauna when I’m thinking about a new project.
26:10.704 –> 26:13.426
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m sure it’s the same on Monday.com so I love that recommendation.
26:13.987 –> 26:19.112
[SPEAKER_00]: The carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
26:19.784 –> 26:22.648
[SPEAKER_02]: don’t offset, it’s a cheat as we out, right?
26:23.008 –> 26:32.160
[SPEAKER_02]: Take ownership of your supply chain, try to work with the right partners, ask them tough questions and that’s how you reduce the carbon footprint.
26:32.521 –> 26:35.144
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a believer that there’s no such thing as net zero.
26:35.805 –> 26:42.614
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything that we touch, everything that we are never going to do creates carbon, but I am a believer of think called carbon neutral.
26:43.355 –> 26:48.542
[SPEAKER_02]: And what that means is all the plants and all the ecosystems and the planet that they produce
26:48.522 –> 26:52.568
[SPEAKER_02]: absorb enough carbon, the full, the stuff that we admit that we can be neutral.
26:52.628 –> 27:07.729
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that’s probably the goal we need to stop moving away from these tag lines and we start to need to take more ownership of actually how to get to a neutral place rather than a place where we’re producing more than where the panic and absorb.
27:08.452 –> 27:09.533
[SPEAKER_00]: lovely take on it.
27:09.594 –> 27:10.675
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for that, Chris.
27:10.715 –> 27:16.723
[SPEAKER_00]: Now before we say goodbye, could you please at the list us now when they can find you in your business on the web and social media?
27:17.244 –> 27:37.851
[SPEAKER_02]: So cheekypanda.com and cheekypanda HQ, you’ll see if you go on the earth maybe we’re recording a little bit in advance but when it comes out, hopefully we’ll be a bit of a month back and the the pandemic and chase down the aisle and I’m sure there’ll be lots of our very funny
27:38.253 –> 27:38.635
[SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant.
27:38.735 –> 27:40.583
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much Chris for coming on the show.
27:40.603 –> 27:45.262
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s been a real pleasure chatting with you and thanks for sharing so many nuggets and bits of inspiration for the audience.
27:45.403 –> 27:46.367
[SPEAKER_00]: Really appreciate it.
27:47.050 –> 27:47.512
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks Chloe.
27:47.532 –> 27:48.516
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s been an absolute pleasure.
27:54.368 –> 27:56.652
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I can’t believe that was less than half an hour.
27:57.153 –> 28:01.982
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris and I covered so many topics in their loads of cool stuff to dig into.
28:02.002 –> 28:12.420
[SPEAKER_00]: The part about staying in your lane and knowing who you are as a business and focusing on that rather than reinventing the wheel in finance or manufacturing or logistics.
28:13.001 –> 28:16.748
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I thought his take on
28:16.728 –> 28:25.601
[SPEAKER_00]: where the sale comes from channel to channel was so interesting and polyrene reflects the size of the business and where they’ve got to in the business now.
28:26.542 –> 28:41.503
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m sure in day one, when they had two channels that he’d have had a more solid idea of where he wanted the orders to come in, but now as they grow and as they’re chasing that household name status, it has clearly evolved
28:41.905 –> 28:45.132
[SPEAKER_00]: We want the product sold and we’re not so worried about the location.
28:45.593 –> 28:50.184
[SPEAKER_00]: Clearly a guy who really understands his target customer and the market is operating in two.
28:50.845 –> 28:58.142
[SPEAKER_00]: You get your hands on our notes from this episode including those top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
28:58.122 –> 29:08.498
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also use our direct episode shortlings, just put ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll be redirected straight to the right page on the site.
29:09.019 –> 29:16.831
[SPEAKER_00]: When you get to the website, you can also add yourself to our email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other things I share to help you improve your business.
29:18.173 –> 29:25.885
[SPEAKER_00]: If you liked this episode, then make sure you check out episode 509 where I’m chatting with
29:25.865 –> 29:32.823
[SPEAKER_00]: X of who gives a crap can you say who gives a crap and cheeky pander in the same podcast episode?
29:33.104 –> 29:42.287
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes it appears you can and in that episode episode five oh nine Jenna is taking us through how she built their crazy growth
29:42.267 –> 29:56.530
[SPEAKER_00]: and in on the website even we have a whole page with all our D to C brands that you can improve and find out other big D to C interviews and that’s ECMP.info forward slash DTC.
29:57.131 –> 30:02.079
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning into this and every episode that you do of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.
30:02.099 –> 30:09.591
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses including
30:09.571 –> 30:14.517
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s edit this on the fly, progressing along the path to carbon neutral.
30:14.638 –> 30:15.739
[SPEAKER_00]: We won’t say zero today.
30:16.159 –> 30:21.887
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.
30:21.907 –> 30:36.726
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

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