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E113: George Ioannou

Why eCommerce Is Failing The Planet and What We Can Do About It

George Ioannou

Podcast Overview

Green green grass, blue blue sky, you better save the world, one day at a time.

eCommerce businesses are struggling to keep up with consumers’ ever growing demands. Faster, cheaper, I want my product yesterday mentality is giving brands a headache. But, at what point does the responsibility of sustainability lie with the customer or the business? 

Are companies enabling the world’s shopping and consumerism addiction? Is SHEIN as bad as a drug dealer giving their client their quick and unhealthy fix at the expense of their family? 

Listen to this week’s podcast where George shares how eCommerce businesses can do and be better for the planet. 

 eCom@One Presents:

George Ioannou

George Inannou is the Managing Partner at Foolproof, an experience design company. They work with global brands such as, The White Company, Shell, Suzuki, Post Office and Sony PlayStation. George has worked in a variety of sectors including, retail, apparel, financial, FMCG, luxury, travel and more over the past 20 years! 

In this podcast, George shares how he found his passion for eCommerce. Most importantly, he tells us why eCommerce is failing the planet at an alarming rate. Does this responsibility lie with the business or the consumer? Listen to find out who. 

He chats about the negative impact and wins of next day delivery and how businesses can reduce the amount of returns they get. Tune in to find out the future of sustainability and one thing you can do right now to reduce your carbon footprint. 

If you are an eCommerce business wanting to become more sustainable, this podcast is for you. 

Topics Covered:

1:56 – Finding his passion in eCommerce 

6:40 – Why eCommerce is failing the planet

9:05 – Who is responsible for saving the planet

16:55 – The negative impact on free next-day delivery 

21:05 – How a business can reduce the number of returns they get

29:24 – Future of sustainability

33:44 – One thing a business can do right now to become more sustainable

36:01 – Book recommendation 

 

Richard Hill:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One. Welcome to episode 113. In this episode, I speak with George Ioannou, MD at Foolproof who over the years has worked with household names like Charles Tyrwhitt, the White Company, Rohan, and many of the biggest football clubs on the planet. Now heading up Foolproof with a focus on sustainability. George and myself cover why George thinks that e-commerce is on the planet, who's responsible for making a change, customers or businesses? How can businesses make sustainable changes when consumer behavior is becoming more demanding? One thing businesses can do right now to make their business more sustainable, and so much more. If you enjoy this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now, let's head over to this fantastic episode.

Richard Hill:
This episode is brought to you by eComOne, eCommerce marketing agency. eComOne works purely with e-commerce stores, scaling their Google shopping, SEO, Google Search and Facebook ads through a proven performance driven approach. Go to ecomone.com/resources for a host of amazing resources to grow your paid and organic channels.

Richard Hill:
Hi, and welcome to another episode of eCom@One. Today's guest, George Ioannou, managing partner at Foolproof. How you doing, George?

George Ioannou:
Hi. Good to be here. Thank you, Richard.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, everything. All right?

George Ioannou:
Yeah. Good. It's been a busy time and yeah, I had a little bit of a break last week.

Richard Hill:
Nice.

George Ioannou:
So raring to get back into it.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. We were both having a little chat before we came on when we were both had a nice little break, which was I think obviously always nice. So this is the first podcast I've done for quite some time, George has done a couple, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. So let's get into it, shall we George?

Richard Hill:
So how did you find your passion for the world of e-commerce? How did you get into it and how come you're in the space?

George Ioannou:
Well, I think like most things in life, it's being in the right place at the right time. I guess it really took off when I was at a company called Snow Valley in, gosh, it must be like 1999 now. It got acquired by Micros, it's now part of Oracle, if it still exists. But we were a small specialist engineering studio. I went in there to improve the UI and user experience of some of the financial products and we were approached by a company basically to fix and complete a site from an agency that they were meant to be selling the England football replica kits. And they did a lovely design, but then they couldn't get it to work and they couldn't get the e-commerce, the technical parts work.

George Ioannou:
So we started doing that, and long story short, we took the job on, we learned quite a lot of the aspects of e-commerce needed to do it pretty fast and that paved the way for gaining e-commerce clients. So I was really lucky, right time, right place. I got to sort of launch Charles Tyrwhitt, the White Company, Links of London, ToysRUs, Rohan, loads and loads of football clubs. And so it just became one of these things that, I guess the lucky part is it was at the very early stages, so you didn't have to learn everything. It was like, as things came in to being and people understood cross sell upsell, well, how do we market this? And we should have email marketing and we should then do affiliate marketing, and all these sort of things I was learning as it was maturing. So that's where I got my passion I think.

George Ioannou:
I love the fact that thousands and millions of people sometimes would be seeing the work and were enabling our clients to open new channels and new revenue streams. The commercial, I guess also my commercial focus in my early days. So in my early days, I was a graphic designer, went into creative directing and that's where I got the bug. And I think to date, it's all about experiences, creating great experiences and relationships between the customers and the brands. And I think the thing that e-commerce really ticks for me across all other sort of designs is that it thrives on interactions, continuous improvements, and it brings sales, marketing, data, design, engineering, technology all together. You got a really good mix of that in e-commerce. So-

Richard Hill:
That's brilliant.

George Ioannou:
Yeah. That's why I love it.

Richard Hill:
That's a lot, isn't it? It's a lot of... This could be a long episode, I think, which is great. I think obviously so many things, I think when you said right at the beginning where you were brought into, if I caught you right, it's quite an interesting one where a designer a very nice looking interface, well it's not really, it's a design. And then it's like, "Right, now we're going to build this." Well, there's a difficulty building it, and then the reality is that it's not going to convert the UX side of things.

Richard Hill:
And I think it's trying to get that balance, I don't know if balance is the right word, but we work with a lot of designers in our agencies, some amazing, amazing people, but obviously we also work with some very, very talented in-house SEO people that ultimately want to make sure that those sites are generating traffic. Well, those two people, there's sometimes very heated discussions around what should go where and that's not going to work and obviously that conversion aspect. I guess over the years, you've had quite a lot of those discussions or quite a lot of interesting-

George Ioannou:
Absolutely. But I think that's where e-commerce is great, right? Because it allows that forum to have loads of different opinions, and yet the data tells you the story. And I think people in e-commerce are more open to that. And you know that the brief, from a design point of view, is to create great experience. It used to be drive money, drive revenue, but now I think a lot of the retailers we're working with now do appreciate the longer term value of a customer versus the sweet checkout that used to be e-commerce.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Just that one hit potentially as opposed to-

George Ioannou:
Yeah, exactly.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, that customer lifetime value and whatnot. Okay. So I know you talk a lot about sustainability and saving the planet and the impact that e-commerce is having on those areas. So I think why do you think that e-commerce is failing the planet?

George Ioannou:
So, I mean it's interesting. We had this topic inside of Foolproof quite a lot, a lot of our talent, the planet, sustainability, all sorts of initiatives around ESG is kind of important to them. So, sorry, I should say ESG is environmental, social, and governance, which is kind of the bigger umbrella where CSR sit. So it's important to us to take those reflections and we build out blogs and we bring out point of views around that. But I guess exactly what we've been talking about around e-commerce really being customer centric and trying to take that revenue uplift or create that long-term experience, it means it's just only cases for the needs of the customer and it overlooks the secondary needs maybe as a human being that's not the customer of that direct brand, but if you take us as human beings, we need to take in that aspect of wanting to do well with the earth, sustainable, make sure that we're here to protect the planet.

George Ioannou:
If you look at it from just a customer lens, it's about convenience, speed, and price. So I think sometimes there is that sort of single lens and we don't take ourselves outside. I guess it's the same as when you're in the business, you don't really think outside of that particular business, you think of yourself as a user in other places. It's the same sort of thing that businesses just think of the customer and not really the holistic needs or the holistic interests of the customer.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So you've got both sides there, haven't you? Obviously customer or the customer definitely, like you say, it's just too easy to focus on, "Right. I need it tomorrow. I need it cheap." But that impact that's having obviously there's a lot of different things there that are getting impacted, but who would you say is responsible for improving things and making changes and sort of bridging the gap and improving things, the customer or the business?

George Ioannou:
That's the big question, isn't it? It's the catch 22 or the chicken and the egg on that one. I think ultimately both. You've got, from a business point of view, government point of view, there's regulations and there's the legal aspects. But really innovation comes through discussions. Those discussions need to be championed and ultimately, a business looks after those customer needs and the customer trends. And so if the customer is saying, "Hey, this is important to me. I will make my buying decisions also based on these other aspects," the businesses have to listen to it.

George Ioannou:
And so it's in their interests to start looking at those things. So I would say e-commerce vendors need to work together and share knowledge. That will then lead to the retailers also getting that knowledge and understanding how to do things. Overall, e-commerce as an industry, it's a very large ship to turn around. So it's nothing that's going to happen overnight, but I think it's understanding that for businesses to survive, they have to meet those customer needs and the customers are becoming increasingly informed and concerned about any impact really. So it becomes an important topic for the businesses to start after it. And-

Richard Hill:
So are we saying then, well I'm sure you are, so it's important that the businesses that this is important to, and it should be important to everybody, they should be potentially documenting the things that they're doing, and documenting is the wrong word, but part of their story or when you look on their site, it should be very clear what they're doing in terms of, whether that's certain ways they're ordering their cardboard, their stock, their lorries, their power, offsetting what they're doing for their staff, whether it's cycle to work. There's obviously a lot of things there.

Richard Hill:
So you're saying educating potential customers to your business, as listeners to the podcast, on the things that you're doing, obviously that's good for business potentially because people are able to make more of an informed choice of who they're dealing with. And they're going to deal with your business over somebody who is not investing in and championing sustainability and helping to save the planet? Yeah.

George Ioannou:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it is that, exactly what you were saying about, you've got to do something. The supply chain's there. Can you have another option? Can you ask the right questions? How can we make this better? Could it be on the hosting? Looking for-

Richard Hill:
Yes. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
... green hosting. If you've got to go really extreme, people are looking at the type of technology and coding stacks, which is a more greener language to code in because it takes less line of code and storage? And all this sort stuff. So-

Richard Hill:
I think... Sorry. Go on.

George Ioannou:
No, I'm not saying for one minute drop... I'm sure there's people listening now going, "We're a commercial business and we need to make money." I am with you on that one. I'm thoroughly there, but if you can do it and look after the planet and create an impact and tell your customers exactly what you're saying.

George Ioannou:
So go, "I've heard you, it's important to us as a brand too. This is why you should shop with us." That's where I think there's something to be had there. It's not pivoting, it's more what are the choices? I'm going to do this anyway. I need to have hosting. I need to have cardboard, as you say. I need all this. What are my options? Rather than just taking the default. Well, I've always had this. A supplier that's been with you for three to five years, or even two years is a very easy path to ask for a discount or ask for another year of renewal. Have a little shop around, see what else you can do in packaging or how you even tag the products or... All of that stuff.

Richard Hill:
I think that's the thing, and there's something you said there, obviously ultimately we're all here-ish. We've got to make a profit, as we don't survive, do we as a business? But ultimately there are things you can do that mean that you can be more profitable and also help in your way. An example, something that dawned on me probably I think when this episode will air, but probably about seven months ago, I logged onto my Amazon account and Amazon tells you how many deliveries you've had. And I think it was 310 deliveries last year. And I was like, "Oh my God, what the hell am I doing?" And then literally, I did feel really bad about it.

Richard Hill:
And I was like, "Right," I went into work the next day and I said, "Right," and I literally... And at the same time, it coincided with me at home wheeling out my wheelie bin on a Friday with my cardboard and whatnot. And obviously it never fits in the wheelie bin, it's the wheelie bin plus six, eight bags. It's like, "Oh my God. Richard, this is ridiculous." So next day in the office was like, "Right," well, it was two days later actually, we had a all-hands meeting. I said, "Right. We're not ordering anything for the business, only on a Monday." So just that little, it's a small thing, but now... And then, so each week will roll, everybody knows in the business, if it's a Wednesday, "Oh, Richard, we could do with some new files," or whatever, I don't know, whatever. I'm like, "Well, it's Wednesday. It's not happening. It's not happening. It's not happening."

Richard Hill:
So Monday's roll around and I think we're, say whatever it is, 20 odd weeks into the year, a bit more and I think at the moment, we've only probably placed about 12 deliveries on Amazon. Whereas this time last year, we would've had, I can't even think, 100+. And now that's become a thing, and almost like a thing mentally for the people that work in the business, but also for me definitely, it's like, "Right, no we're not ordering anything. We're not ordering anything." And just obviously the impact on the amount of cardboard, the amount of transportation. Obviously the list goes on of what that's costing in terms of whether that's cardboard, transportation costs.

Richard Hill:
And then that has started to eek into other things in the business in a good way that we've changed, but we haven't really mentioned it on our website and things like that. I've just done it more for our own contribution, peace of mind type thing. Yeah. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
That's a great next, right? Put it on the website.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.

George Ioannou:
It doesn't have to be in your Ts and CS or the legal stuff in the footer, it can just be as lighthearted as a blog and then you publish it on social.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Picture of me with my 46 bin bags six months ago. So I think next day delivery is obviously something that everybody looks for, it goes without saying, we've done a lot of episodes on delivery and that part of an e-com business, obviously super, super important, but obviously that speed of getting products to consumers, to customers, obviously it's habit, it's taking its toll in other areas. What's your opinion for your next-day delivery or next-day delivery?

George Ioannou:
I think it's sort of, you got to take it in context. It's a fantastic thing. I mean even if you take certain parts of London, you've got within the hour delivery, right? So I think at times, it's good. I think what it needs to be is more intentional. It's a very easy, sometimes lazy marketing, advertising tactic, promotional tool. So let's give everyone free delivery.

George Ioannou:
I think that's the key point, right? So I think when you've got, within your business, in e-commerce with that mindset going, "Well, people won't want to buy the product plus a delivery cost." Or, "Let's just do free delivery." It's not so much the free delivery as a mechanic that's the problem. I think it's what it leads to with ordering too many, leads to more returns, for example, because you're getting free delivery. I think it's a good thing. Personally, I'm on Amazon Prime. I use Amazon probably a little bit more than I should because of the free delivery, but I'm in a location where I'm also encouraging local businesses as well. So I'm in a little village and I try and shop around and do that. And sometimes you pay a little bit, but they'll actually courier it themselves.

George Ioannou:
And so I think as a thing, it's great. It's what I think e-commerce has actually been built on to a certain amount of time. It's given a lot of retailers that oomph to get to the next level. The outskirts of what free delivery actually does, it creates probably more packaging, it creates more returns, that probably creates a lot more waste because there's things that can't be repacked, it's just got to go. So I would like to see more retailers using it the right way and more intentional. And finding some other promotional gimmick to encourage people rather than just delivering.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. And I guess, as a consumer, do you really need it that quick?

George Ioannou:
Exactly.

Richard Hill:
Can you actually spend a bit more time maybe and buy from somebody a bit more independent, potentially bit more local to you? Which I think-

George Ioannou:
That's really interesting you say that, because for example, if you had sort of the three box, one is free delivery, the next one is standard, it's called standard delivery and it's usually two to five working days, what if that was relabeled as a more sustainable? Would you like the free delivery or the next day, but here's your sustainable option. I know Sainsbury's do some sustainable slots and things like that-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think that would have a very dramatic change. A lot of people would straight away, I think, my thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting one. So you touched on delivery, sorry, on returns. Obviously returns are a huge part of e-com, sort of live or die by your returns department, the returns abilities. My previous life, I had a e-com store, my previous business and I think we always had about 70 to 100 grand in returns and it was the bane of my life, but obviously getting that right is so, so important for any store and obviously reducing the potential returns. So, what sort of things would you say to our listeners about how they can work towards trying to reduce the returns that are coming back into their business and how important is that?

George Ioannou:
So I think it's really important. I think that... I'm sure many, many retailers share your nightmare of when the returns come in, no one really wants them. So I think technology's really taking a step forward. If you look at AR and VR digital showrooming for certain either clothing or sofas and furniture and things like that, I think that has helped.

George Ioannou:
There's the aspect of also getting people to know your brand. So there's a lot of returns for, I guess, if you take clothing and apparel, you're not too sure which size you are, let's order the one I think I am, plus one, plus one lower, especially in that sort of retail clothing piece. That might happen a couple of times, but it shouldn't happen all the time. So as someone knows, "Oh, well with this place, I am a medium. In this, I'm an extra large." That loyalty then kind of carries on and I think that reduces the returns, but I'm kind of giving you examples beyond the, have a size chart, have a size guide, give them reviews and start writing stuff.

Richard Hill:
So I guess, once you've got customers that have bought once, obviously they know the size of said brand or brands that you sell, obviously all your brands, but if you are a brand, then yes, they'll know your brand sizing. And obviously, maybe they bought the medium and the large, realized that the large is too big and the medium's spot on, next time they come around obviously they know, so then that is more about obviously working on your lifetime value of customers investing in obviously still going to invest in performance. But we talk about it a lot, obviously that lifetime value, life cycle marketing, obviously there's a whole 50 episodes on that on the podcast. It's so, so important, which will then obviously reduce returns potentially, especially in obviously certain categories definitely, but in fashion for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
Yeah. I mean it's very controversial, but you could also look at paying for returns. It would discourage bracketing, which is that term I said, buying multiple of the same thing in different sizes, colors. But you can also look through working with your clients and your customers. So co-defining the solution with your customers, finding out not just the what, but the why. And that's something Foolproof really get to do quite a lot, and especially in our conversion rate optimization. So you always get the data. I said I love data, but it tells you the what, it doesn't tell you the why necessarily.

George Ioannou:
So coming up with some sort of co-creations to work out how you can better inform design, how to stay transparent as well. Sometimes in apparel you might shift to make people feel better, change the sizing, don't tell everyone, and you could have been a customer for two or three years, always ordered the medium and all of a sudden, you're a small or whatever. So I think transparency and, yeah, just co-creating. And going back to the environmental piece, it's letting them know the impact of what a return does, how much goes into waste, how much is getting recycled, how many goes back into the warehouses and can be sent out again. You've got a big movement, I can't remember the channel, but on TV with the food waste. Everyone's shocked at how much food waste there is and that's led to initiatives like the Wonky Food-

Richard Hill:
Oh yes, of course. Yeah. The Wonky Veg. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
I just think maybe there's something around returns that people, no one really knows how much money goes in returns, and as you said, the businesses have to make a profit. So if you're sending returns back and you're thinking it's a great thing, I'm getting next day delivery, I always purchase five of the same dress or whatever, I get to keep one. Well, they should know that that's got an impact and ultimately you're paying for it. So that's why that product is priced the way it's priced. It incorporates return rates and waste. So I think that, yeah, I mean maybe a bit more transparency and seeing initiatives around the different, yeah, I guess it's communication information.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. It is, isn't it? Ultimately if you know, "Oh, right. I'm going to just bought three of these and I'll send two back," but obviously through the process of doing that, if you're reminded of the impact of returns, you're reminded of the impact of multiple purchases of the same thing, and reminded that as a company, we try to offer you the best price on X, Y, Z. But ultimately if you keep ordering five of them, we're going to have a problem. Besides that, completely, that education piece, isn't it?

Richard Hill:
And I don't think that's done that well as a whole, from what I see. I might regret saying that, but looking at, I have bought a few clothes recently online. I know what size this particular brand, but I know what size and it fits me perfectly, so I'm not guilty of ordering four sizes or whatever, but I've never noticed or been reminded of that sustainability piece, that impact of heavier, higher returns or me thinking I'm going to order more, I guess because I haven't put more than one in the basket maybe, but I think that's where a lot of brands could definitely get the edge over their competitors by just having that messaging in the right place. And it's probably not that hard to do in reality, but the impact it will have, the impact it'll have on their brand... Yeah. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
It's amazing how little people know of how much is actually returned, how much of the returns are actually made back into the warehouse or on store shelves. It's much easier to probably treat them as waste than to relist them and go through the whole procedure of getting them back out there. So, yeah.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean returns, we could do a whole episode on returns to be fair. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just getting flashbacks. I used to walk through my returns department and like, "Oh man." We sell computers and computer components, so it was quite high, fairly high return rates because it was a technical element, things that, "Oh, they didn't work," but then obviously nine times out of 10, things did work, it was more of a user error. Not always obviously, but the value of the products were very expensive and it wasn't a 20 pound dress or a 50 pound pair of jeans, it might be a 400 pound graphics card or a 200 pound hard drive. So commercially, it was a bit of a nightmare to be fair at the time.

Richard Hill:
Okay. So, this is great, lots of great stuff. Now I think, it's given me loads of ideas for my business and I think the listeners will very much... I think if you're listening, you're still with us at this stage of the episodes, some of the things that George has talked about, what are some of the things that you're going to implement? I think that's something you need to be thinking about, but I think crystal ball time first, George. What's the future of sustainability? What are some of the things that we should be looking out for as e-commerce store owners, marketers? What are some of the things that we should be looking out for that are coming down the pipeline, if you like, on the sustainability side of things?

George Ioannou:
I mean I think it starts off what I was talking to before. It's that change of just looking at the customer lens of they are buying a product from me and this is the product they want and I need to get it into their hands as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, or most convenient. So I think there's going to be a war between consciousness of what the people want and convenience and allowing them to make their own choice. I think it's about choice. So I'm not suggesting people should change their business models, it's really about, how can you either do something better through a sustainable way? How can you do it sustainably in parallel? So I'm not picking choice A, B is everything I wanted, but also sustainable.

George Ioannou:
There might be some cost implications there, but we've found that when we talk to brands and studios of employment, the people that you have from an employee point of view and a customer point of view are more loyal and they'll stay. So you can get the money back anyway, but I think we might see reseller communities. So we talked about all the waste, maybe there are networks that would be created, obviously TJX and those sort of the discount chains, but a different type of community being done there. And I guess the sustainable part, as I said with tech and looking out for if you're a retailer in e-commerce, look for your vendors and people that this matters to, if it matters to you and you think it matters to your customers, look out for that, ask your IT or your agencies, what are your ESG initiatives? What you doing in CSR? How can you help?

George Ioannou:
We've done a number of RFP responses and we work with a number of our clients on initiatives. So we commit to help them with their initiatives and find out about their goals, not just ours, and that could be through different hosting. We won't get on flights, so COVID has taught us you don't really need to be in person. So we major on that and say, "Look, if you're happy to have a mixed model and use our global studios, actually sustainable and we're not going to get on a flight. Yeah. We will burn some more electricity with Zoom and-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. An interesting one, isn't it? Obviously trying to get back into some more face-to-face meetings, I've had a request to go over, well abroad shall I say, I won't say where exactly to do an interview and we're like, "Well, are we going to go or are we going to do it on Zoom? Are we going to go? Are we going to do it on Zoom?" Well, I've got a meeting with them in a couple of days actually just to decide on the final, but obviously it's sustainably a lot better to do it on Zoom, although it'd be nice to go and see them and build a relationship with them more face to face, spend more time with them, but obviously ultimately, that's going to be a flight or two, or three flight and various things that go with that, staying in hotels and taxis and various other things.

Richard Hill:
Okay. So quite a lot of things there you touched on. Now, if our listeners are thinking, "Right, okay, this is great, George. Where do I start?" Well, maybe what's one thing? I mean you gave us quite a few there, but what's one thing that's maybe a good start point that business can do that's quite straightforward that they could maybe act on in the next few hours potentially, or next day or two in their business to make their business more sustainable?

George Ioannou:
Got you. I mean I think, so we're kind of going onto another passion of mine, which is CRO and optimization. I think it's trialing and experimenting. So I mentioned earlier just that little bit around language and standard delivery. If you have a more environmentally-friendly or sustainable option, try changing the language. I think it's all around communication. Try things, experiment with things. You can do that today. If you've got an optimization team or you've got access to tweaking landing pages, things like that, have a look, see if that's of interest. Send out a survey to your customers saying, "We're doing these initiatives." We're thinking, so there's no committing, but, "We're thinking of this, this is important to us. What do you think?"

George Ioannou:
I think that the one thing we all need to do is talk more about it, be transparent. We're a business, we need to make money, we need to look after our customers. What is that you want? And what's important to you, Mr. Customer, Mrs. Customer? Look at the customers and say, "Right, well from a business point of view, this is what's important to us." So I think that community for dialogue isn't there and whilst that's not there, optimization, CRO, just testing and learning and experimenting is probably the quickest and safest thing to do today because it's in your control, how much traffic you put through, who sees it, try it with different personalization tactics, et cetera.

George Ioannou:
So that would be probably my one thing is don't sit and wait, as you said, just try it and see because there's nothing that everyone's doing correctly to follow. So I think this could be quite a nice USP for many people and many brands.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. That is a brilliant finish to a fantastic episode, George. Thank you so much for being on the show. I think that will have given everybody, me included 100%, a lot to think about, a lot to really think about. I think it's such an important topic. So we like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book that you'd recommend to our listeners?

George Ioannou:
I do. Well, actually I didn't, when I got the question I didn't know whether you meant personally or work by-

Richard Hill:
We don't mind. We don't mind either way.

George Ioannou:
One is my, I Love My Barbecue. Summer's starting, so I think it's a really good one. It's by Hilaire Walden, I think I've said that right. But professionally I think the one thing that changed a lot for me is Team of Teams by Stanley McChrystal. He is a four-star general, well he's retired now, but it really talks about how, it's basically organizational intelligence and structure and how you can build your teams to really make use of data and thrive really. So, really recommend that from a professional level.

Richard Hill:
Brilliant. Brilliant. I think I'll be getting both of those to be fair. Well, thanks, George. It's been an absolute pleasure. For those that want to find out more about you, more about Foolproof, what's the best way to do that?

George Ioannou:
So you can look at us at foolproof.co.uk. So www.foolproof.co.uk. And yeah, get in touch.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Maybe reach out to you on LinkedIn. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
Oh LinkedIn, yeah. LinkedIn, George Ioannou. I-O-A-N-N-O-U. YEAH, look me up. Please connect. Thank you so much for inviting me to this podcast. It's been brilliant.

Richard Hill:
Thanks, George. It's given us all a lot to think about and thank you and I look forward to speaking to you again. Thanks a lot.

George Ioannou:
Thank you. See you later.

Richard Hill:
Thank you for listening to the eCom@One e-commerce podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit subscribe and don't forget to sign up to our e-commerce newsletter and leave us a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the e-commerce marketing agency.

Richard Hill:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One. Welcome to episode 113. In this episode, I speak with George Ioannou, MD at Foolproof who over the years has worked with household names like Charles Tyrwhitt, the White Company, Rohan, and many of the biggest football clubs on the planet. Now heading up Foolproof with a focus on sustainability. George and myself cover why George thinks that e-commerce is on the planet, who's responsible for making a change, customers or businesses? How can businesses make sustainable changes when consumer behavior is becoming more demanding? One thing businesses can do right now to make their business more sustainable, and so much more. If you enjoy this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now, let's head over to this fantastic episode.

Richard Hill:
This episode is brought to you by eComOne, eCommerce marketing agency. eComOne works purely with e-commerce stores, scaling their Google shopping, SEO, Google Search and Facebook ads through a proven performance driven approach. Go to ecomone.com/resources for a host of amazing resources to grow your paid and organic channels.

Richard Hill:
Hi, and welcome to another episode of eCom@One. Today's guest, George Ioannou, managing partner at Foolproof. How you doing, George?

George Ioannou:
Hi. Good to be here. Thank you, Richard.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, everything. All right?

George Ioannou:
Yeah. Good. It's been a busy time and yeah, I had a little bit of a break last week.

Richard Hill:
Nice.

George Ioannou:
So raring to get back into it.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. We were both having a little chat before we came on when we were both had a nice little break, which was I think obviously always nice. So this is the first podcast I've done for quite some time, George has done a couple, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. So let's get into it, shall we George?

Richard Hill:
So how did you find your passion for the world of e-commerce? How did you get into it and how come you're in the space?

George Ioannou:
Well, I think like most things in life, it's being in the right place at the right time. I guess it really took off when I was at a company called Snow Valley in, gosh, it must be like 1999 now. It got acquired by Micros, it's now part of Oracle, if it still exists. But we were a small specialist engineering studio. I went in there to improve the UI and user experience of some of the financial products and we were approached by a company basically to fix and complete a site from an agency that they were meant to be selling the England football replica kits. And they did a lovely design, but then they couldn't get it to work and they couldn't get the e-commerce, the technical parts work.

George Ioannou:
So we started doing that, and long story short, we took the job on, we learned quite a lot of the aspects of e-commerce needed to do it pretty fast and that paved the way for gaining e-commerce clients. So I was really lucky, right time, right place. I got to sort of launch Charles Tyrwhitt, the White Company, Links of London, ToysRUs, Rohan, loads and loads of football clubs. And so it just became one of these things that, I guess the lucky part is it was at the very early stages, so you didn't have to learn everything. It was like, as things came in to being and people understood cross sell upsell, well, how do we market this? And we should have email marketing and we should then do affiliate marketing, and all these sort of things I was learning as it was maturing. So that's where I got my passion I think.

George Ioannou:
I love the fact that thousands and millions of people sometimes would be seeing the work and were enabling our clients to open new channels and new revenue streams. The commercial, I guess also my commercial focus in my early days. So in my early days, I was a graphic designer, went into creative directing and that's where I got the bug. And I think to date, it's all about experiences, creating great experiences and relationships between the customers and the brands. And I think the thing that e-commerce really ticks for me across all other sort of designs is that it thrives on interactions, continuous improvements, and it brings sales, marketing, data, design, engineering, technology all together. You got a really good mix of that in e-commerce. So-

Richard Hill:
That's brilliant.

George Ioannou:
Yeah. That's why I love it.

Richard Hill:
That's a lot, isn't it? It's a lot of... This could be a long episode, I think, which is great. I think obviously so many things, I think when you said right at the beginning where you were brought into, if I caught you right, it's quite an interesting one where a designer a very nice looking interface, well it's not really, it's a design. And then it's like, "Right, now we're going to build this." Well, there's a difficulty building it, and then the reality is that it's not going to convert the UX side of things.

Richard Hill:
And I think it's trying to get that balance, I don't know if balance is the right word, but we work with a lot of designers in our agencies, some amazing, amazing people, but obviously we also work with some very, very talented in-house SEO people that ultimately want to make sure that those sites are generating traffic. Well, those two people, there's sometimes very heated discussions around what should go where and that's not going to work and obviously that conversion aspect. I guess over the years, you've had quite a lot of those discussions or quite a lot of interesting-

George Ioannou:
Absolutely. But I think that's where e-commerce is great, right? Because it allows that forum to have loads of different opinions, and yet the data tells you the story. And I think people in e-commerce are more open to that. And you know that the brief, from a design point of view, is to create great experience. It used to be drive money, drive revenue, but now I think a lot of the retailers we're working with now do appreciate the longer term value of a customer versus the sweet checkout that used to be e-commerce.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Just that one hit potentially as opposed to-

George Ioannou:
Yeah, exactly.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, that customer lifetime value and whatnot. Okay. So I know you talk a lot about sustainability and saving the planet and the impact that e-commerce is having on those areas. So I think why do you think that e-commerce is failing the planet?

George Ioannou:
So, I mean it's interesting. We had this topic inside of Foolproof quite a lot, a lot of our talent, the planet, sustainability, all sorts of initiatives around ESG is kind of important to them. So, sorry, I should say ESG is environmental, social, and governance, which is kind of the bigger umbrella where CSR sit. So it's important to us to take those reflections and we build out blogs and we bring out point of views around that. But I guess exactly what we've been talking about around e-commerce really being customer centric and trying to take that revenue uplift or create that long-term experience, it means it's just only cases for the needs of the customer and it overlooks the secondary needs maybe as a human being that's not the customer of that direct brand, but if you take us as human beings, we need to take in that aspect of wanting to do well with the earth, sustainable, make sure that we're here to protect the planet.

George Ioannou:
If you look at it from just a customer lens, it's about convenience, speed, and price. So I think sometimes there is that sort of single lens and we don't take ourselves outside. I guess it's the same as when you're in the business, you don't really think outside of that particular business, you think of yourself as a user in other places. It's the same sort of thing that businesses just think of the customer and not really the holistic needs or the holistic interests of the customer.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So you've got both sides there, haven't you? Obviously customer or the customer definitely, like you say, it's just too easy to focus on, "Right. I need it tomorrow. I need it cheap." But that impact that's having obviously there's a lot of different things there that are getting impacted, but who would you say is responsible for improving things and making changes and sort of bridging the gap and improving things, the customer or the business?

George Ioannou:
That's the big question, isn't it? It's the catch 22 or the chicken and the egg on that one. I think ultimately both. You've got, from a business point of view, government point of view, there's regulations and there's the legal aspects. But really innovation comes through discussions. Those discussions need to be championed and ultimately, a business looks after those customer needs and the customer trends. And so if the customer is saying, "Hey, this is important to me. I will make my buying decisions also based on these other aspects," the businesses have to listen to it.

George Ioannou:
And so it's in their interests to start looking at those things. So I would say e-commerce vendors need to work together and share knowledge. That will then lead to the retailers also getting that knowledge and understanding how to do things. Overall, e-commerce as an industry, it's a very large ship to turn around. So it's nothing that's going to happen overnight, but I think it's understanding that for businesses to survive, they have to meet those customer needs and the customers are becoming increasingly informed and concerned about any impact really. So it becomes an important topic for the businesses to start after it. And-

Richard Hill:
So are we saying then, well I'm sure you are, so it's important that the businesses that this is important to, and it should be important to everybody, they should be potentially documenting the things that they're doing, and documenting is the wrong word, but part of their story or when you look on their site, it should be very clear what they're doing in terms of, whether that's certain ways they're ordering their cardboard, their stock, their lorries, their power, offsetting what they're doing for their staff, whether it's cycle to work. There's obviously a lot of things there.

Richard Hill:
So you're saying educating potential customers to your business, as listeners to the podcast, on the things that you're doing, obviously that's good for business potentially because people are able to make more of an informed choice of who they're dealing with. And they're going to deal with your business over somebody who is not investing in and championing sustainability and helping to save the planet? Yeah.

George Ioannou:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it is that, exactly what you were saying about, you've got to do something. The supply chain's there. Can you have another option? Can you ask the right questions? How can we make this better? Could it be on the hosting? Looking for-

Richard Hill:
Yes. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
... green hosting. If you've got to go really extreme, people are looking at the type of technology and coding stacks, which is a more greener language to code in because it takes less line of code and storage? And all this sort stuff. So-

Richard Hill:
I think... Sorry. Go on.

George Ioannou:
No, I'm not saying for one minute drop... I'm sure there's people listening now going, "We're a commercial business and we need to make money." I am with you on that one. I'm thoroughly there, but if you can do it and look after the planet and create an impact and tell your customers exactly what you're saying.

George Ioannou:
So go, "I've heard you, it's important to us as a brand too. This is why you should shop with us." That's where I think there's something to be had there. It's not pivoting, it's more what are the choices? I'm going to do this anyway. I need to have hosting. I need to have cardboard, as you say. I need all this. What are my options? Rather than just taking the default. Well, I've always had this. A supplier that's been with you for three to five years, or even two years is a very easy path to ask for a discount or ask for another year of renewal. Have a little shop around, see what else you can do in packaging or how you even tag the products or... All of that stuff.

Richard Hill:
I think that's the thing, and there's something you said there, obviously ultimately we're all here-ish. We've got to make a profit, as we don't survive, do we as a business? But ultimately there are things you can do that mean that you can be more profitable and also help in your way. An example, something that dawned on me probably I think when this episode will air, but probably about seven months ago, I logged onto my Amazon account and Amazon tells you how many deliveries you've had. And I think it was 310 deliveries last year. And I was like, "Oh my God, what the hell am I doing?" And then literally, I did feel really bad about it.

Richard Hill:
And I was like, "Right," I went into work the next day and I said, "Right," and I literally... And at the same time, it coincided with me at home wheeling out my wheelie bin on a Friday with my cardboard and whatnot. And obviously it never fits in the wheelie bin, it's the wheelie bin plus six, eight bags. It's like, "Oh my God. Richard, this is ridiculous." So next day in the office was like, "Right," well, it was two days later actually, we had a all-hands meeting. I said, "Right. We're not ordering anything for the business, only on a Monday." So just that little, it's a small thing, but now... And then, so each week will roll, everybody knows in the business, if it's a Wednesday, "Oh, Richard, we could do with some new files," or whatever, I don't know, whatever. I'm like, "Well, it's Wednesday. It's not happening. It's not happening. It's not happening."

Richard Hill:
So Monday's roll around and I think we're, say whatever it is, 20 odd weeks into the year, a bit more and I think at the moment, we've only probably placed about 12 deliveries on Amazon. Whereas this time last year, we would've had, I can't even think, 100+. And now that's become a thing, and almost like a thing mentally for the people that work in the business, but also for me definitely, it's like, "Right, no we're not ordering anything. We're not ordering anything." And just obviously the impact on the amount of cardboard, the amount of transportation. Obviously the list goes on of what that's costing in terms of whether that's cardboard, transportation costs.

Richard Hill:
And then that has started to eek into other things in the business in a good way that we've changed, but we haven't really mentioned it on our website and things like that. I've just done it more for our own contribution, peace of mind type thing. Yeah. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
That's a great next, right? Put it on the website.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.

George Ioannou:
It doesn't have to be in your Ts and CS or the legal stuff in the footer, it can just be as lighthearted as a blog and then you publish it on social.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Picture of me with my 46 bin bags six months ago. So I think next day delivery is obviously something that everybody looks for, it goes without saying, we've done a lot of episodes on delivery and that part of an e-com business, obviously super, super important, but obviously that speed of getting products to consumers, to customers, obviously it's habit, it's taking its toll in other areas. What's your opinion for your next-day delivery or next-day delivery?

George Ioannou:
I think it's sort of, you got to take it in context. It's a fantastic thing. I mean even if you take certain parts of London, you've got within the hour delivery, right? So I think at times, it's good. I think what it needs to be is more intentional. It's a very easy, sometimes lazy marketing, advertising tactic, promotional tool. So let's give everyone free delivery.

George Ioannou:
I think that's the key point, right? So I think when you've got, within your business, in e-commerce with that mindset going, "Well, people won't want to buy the product plus a delivery cost." Or, "Let's just do free delivery." It's not so much the free delivery as a mechanic that's the problem. I think it's what it leads to with ordering too many, leads to more returns, for example, because you're getting free delivery. I think it's a good thing. Personally, I'm on Amazon Prime. I use Amazon probably a little bit more than I should because of the free delivery, but I'm in a location where I'm also encouraging local businesses as well. So I'm in a little village and I try and shop around and do that. And sometimes you pay a little bit, but they'll actually courier it themselves.

George Ioannou:
And so I think as a thing, it's great. It's what I think e-commerce has actually been built on to a certain amount of time. It's given a lot of retailers that oomph to get to the next level. The outskirts of what free delivery actually does, it creates probably more packaging, it creates more returns, that probably creates a lot more waste because there's things that can't be repacked, it's just got to go. So I would like to see more retailers using it the right way and more intentional. And finding some other promotional gimmick to encourage people rather than just delivering.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. And I guess, as a consumer, do you really need it that quick?

George Ioannou:
Exactly.

Richard Hill:
Can you actually spend a bit more time maybe and buy from somebody a bit more independent, potentially bit more local to you? Which I think-

George Ioannou:
That's really interesting you say that, because for example, if you had sort of the three box, one is free delivery, the next one is standard, it's called standard delivery and it's usually two to five working days, what if that was relabeled as a more sustainable? Would you like the free delivery or the next day, but here's your sustainable option. I know Sainsbury's do some sustainable slots and things like that-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think that would have a very dramatic change. A lot of people would straight away, I think, my thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting one. So you touched on delivery, sorry, on returns. Obviously returns are a huge part of e-com, sort of live or die by your returns department, the returns abilities. My previous life, I had a e-com store, my previous business and I think we always had about 70 to 100 grand in returns and it was the bane of my life, but obviously getting that right is so, so important for any store and obviously reducing the potential returns. So, what sort of things would you say to our listeners about how they can work towards trying to reduce the returns that are coming back into their business and how important is that?

George Ioannou:
So I think it's really important. I think that... I'm sure many, many retailers share your nightmare of when the returns come in, no one really wants them. So I think technology's really taking a step forward. If you look at AR and VR digital showrooming for certain either clothing or sofas and furniture and things like that, I think that has helped.

George Ioannou:
There's the aspect of also getting people to know your brand. So there's a lot of returns for, I guess, if you take clothing and apparel, you're not too sure which size you are, let's order the one I think I am, plus one, plus one lower, especially in that sort of retail clothing piece. That might happen a couple of times, but it shouldn't happen all the time. So as someone knows, "Oh, well with this place, I am a medium. In this, I'm an extra large." That loyalty then kind of carries on and I think that reduces the returns, but I'm kind of giving you examples beyond the, have a size chart, have a size guide, give them reviews and start writing stuff.

Richard Hill:
So I guess, once you've got customers that have bought once, obviously they know the size of said brand or brands that you sell, obviously all your brands, but if you are a brand, then yes, they'll know your brand sizing. And obviously, maybe they bought the medium and the large, realized that the large is too big and the medium's spot on, next time they come around obviously they know, so then that is more about obviously working on your lifetime value of customers investing in obviously still going to invest in performance. But we talk about it a lot, obviously that lifetime value, life cycle marketing, obviously there's a whole 50 episodes on that on the podcast. It's so, so important, which will then obviously reduce returns potentially, especially in obviously certain categories definitely, but in fashion for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
Yeah. I mean it's very controversial, but you could also look at paying for returns. It would discourage bracketing, which is that term I said, buying multiple of the same thing in different sizes, colors. But you can also look through working with your clients and your customers. So co-defining the solution with your customers, finding out not just the what, but the why. And that's something Foolproof really get to do quite a lot, and especially in our conversion rate optimization. So you always get the data. I said I love data, but it tells you the what, it doesn't tell you the why necessarily.

George Ioannou:
So coming up with some sort of co-creations to work out how you can better inform design, how to stay transparent as well. Sometimes in apparel you might shift to make people feel better, change the sizing, don't tell everyone, and you could have been a customer for two or three years, always ordered the medium and all of a sudden, you're a small or whatever. So I think transparency and, yeah, just co-creating. And going back to the environmental piece, it's letting them know the impact of what a return does, how much goes into waste, how much is getting recycled, how many goes back into the warehouses and can be sent out again. You've got a big movement, I can't remember the channel, but on TV with the food waste. Everyone's shocked at how much food waste there is and that's led to initiatives like the Wonky Food-

Richard Hill:
Oh yes, of course. Yeah. The Wonky Veg. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
I just think maybe there's something around returns that people, no one really knows how much money goes in returns, and as you said, the businesses have to make a profit. So if you're sending returns back and you're thinking it's a great thing, I'm getting next day delivery, I always purchase five of the same dress or whatever, I get to keep one. Well, they should know that that's got an impact and ultimately you're paying for it. So that's why that product is priced the way it's priced. It incorporates return rates and waste. So I think that, yeah, I mean maybe a bit more transparency and seeing initiatives around the different, yeah, I guess it's communication information.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. It is, isn't it? Ultimately if you know, "Oh, right. I'm going to just bought three of these and I'll send two back," but obviously through the process of doing that, if you're reminded of the impact of returns, you're reminded of the impact of multiple purchases of the same thing, and reminded that as a company, we try to offer you the best price on X, Y, Z. But ultimately if you keep ordering five of them, we're going to have a problem. Besides that, completely, that education piece, isn't it?

Richard Hill:
And I don't think that's done that well as a whole, from what I see. I might regret saying that, but looking at, I have bought a few clothes recently online. I know what size this particular brand, but I know what size and it fits me perfectly, so I'm not guilty of ordering four sizes or whatever, but I've never noticed or been reminded of that sustainability piece, that impact of heavier, higher returns or me thinking I'm going to order more, I guess because I haven't put more than one in the basket maybe, but I think that's where a lot of brands could definitely get the edge over their competitors by just having that messaging in the right place. And it's probably not that hard to do in reality, but the impact it will have, the impact it'll have on their brand... Yeah. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
It's amazing how little people know of how much is actually returned, how much of the returns are actually made back into the warehouse or on store shelves. It's much easier to probably treat them as waste than to relist them and go through the whole procedure of getting them back out there. So, yeah.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean returns, we could do a whole episode on returns to be fair. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just getting flashbacks. I used to walk through my returns department and like, "Oh man." We sell computers and computer components, so it was quite high, fairly high return rates because it was a technical element, things that, "Oh, they didn't work," but then obviously nine times out of 10, things did work, it was more of a user error. Not always obviously, but the value of the products were very expensive and it wasn't a 20 pound dress or a 50 pound pair of jeans, it might be a 400 pound graphics card or a 200 pound hard drive. So commercially, it was a bit of a nightmare to be fair at the time.

Richard Hill:
Okay. So, this is great, lots of great stuff. Now I think, it's given me loads of ideas for my business and I think the listeners will very much... I think if you're listening, you're still with us at this stage of the episodes, some of the things that George has talked about, what are some of the things that you're going to implement? I think that's something you need to be thinking about, but I think crystal ball time first, George. What's the future of sustainability? What are some of the things that we should be looking out for as e-commerce store owners, marketers? What are some of the things that we should be looking out for that are coming down the pipeline, if you like, on the sustainability side of things?

George Ioannou:
I mean I think it starts off what I was talking to before. It's that change of just looking at the customer lens of they are buying a product from me and this is the product they want and I need to get it into their hands as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, or most convenient. So I think there's going to be a war between consciousness of what the people want and convenience and allowing them to make their own choice. I think it's about choice. So I'm not suggesting people should change their business models, it's really about, how can you either do something better through a sustainable way? How can you do it sustainably in parallel? So I'm not picking choice A, B is everything I wanted, but also sustainable.

George Ioannou:
There might be some cost implications there, but we've found that when we talk to brands and studios of employment, the people that you have from an employee point of view and a customer point of view are more loyal and they'll stay. So you can get the money back anyway, but I think we might see reseller communities. So we talked about all the waste, maybe there are networks that would be created, obviously TJX and those sort of the discount chains, but a different type of community being done there. And I guess the sustainable part, as I said with tech and looking out for if you're a retailer in e-commerce, look for your vendors and people that this matters to, if it matters to you and you think it matters to your customers, look out for that, ask your IT or your agencies, what are your ESG initiatives? What you doing in CSR? How can you help?

George Ioannou:
We've done a number of RFP responses and we work with a number of our clients on initiatives. So we commit to help them with their initiatives and find out about their goals, not just ours, and that could be through different hosting. We won't get on flights, so COVID has taught us you don't really need to be in person. So we major on that and say, "Look, if you're happy to have a mixed model and use our global studios, actually sustainable and we're not going to get on a flight. Yeah. We will burn some more electricity with Zoom and-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. An interesting one, isn't it? Obviously trying to get back into some more face-to-face meetings, I've had a request to go over, well abroad shall I say, I won't say where exactly to do an interview and we're like, "Well, are we going to go or are we going to do it on Zoom? Are we going to go? Are we going to do it on Zoom?" Well, I've got a meeting with them in a couple of days actually just to decide on the final, but obviously it's sustainably a lot better to do it on Zoom, although it'd be nice to go and see them and build a relationship with them more face to face, spend more time with them, but obviously ultimately, that's going to be a flight or two, or three flight and various things that go with that, staying in hotels and taxis and various other things.

Richard Hill:
Okay. So quite a lot of things there you touched on. Now, if our listeners are thinking, "Right, okay, this is great, George. Where do I start?" Well, maybe what's one thing? I mean you gave us quite a few there, but what's one thing that's maybe a good start point that business can do that's quite straightforward that they could maybe act on in the next few hours potentially, or next day or two in their business to make their business more sustainable?

George Ioannou:
Got you. I mean I think, so we're kind of going onto another passion of mine, which is CRO and optimization. I think it's trialing and experimenting. So I mentioned earlier just that little bit around language and standard delivery. If you have a more environmentally-friendly or sustainable option, try changing the language. I think it's all around communication. Try things, experiment with things. You can do that today. If you've got an optimization team or you've got access to tweaking landing pages, things like that, have a look, see if that's of interest. Send out a survey to your customers saying, "We're doing these initiatives." We're thinking, so there's no committing, but, "We're thinking of this, this is important to us. What do you think?"

George Ioannou:
I think that the one thing we all need to do is talk more about it, be transparent. We're a business, we need to make money, we need to look after our customers. What is that you want? And what's important to you, Mr. Customer, Mrs. Customer? Look at the customers and say, "Right, well from a business point of view, this is what's important to us." So I think that community for dialogue isn't there and whilst that's not there, optimization, CRO, just testing and learning and experimenting is probably the quickest and safest thing to do today because it's in your control, how much traffic you put through, who sees it, try it with different personalization tactics, et cetera.

George Ioannou:
So that would be probably my one thing is don't sit and wait, as you said, just try it and see because there's nothing that everyone's doing correctly to follow. So I think this could be quite a nice USP for many people and many brands.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. That is a brilliant finish to a fantastic episode, George. Thank you so much for being on the show. I think that will have given everybody, me included 100%, a lot to think about, a lot to really think about. I think it's such an important topic. So we like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book that you'd recommend to our listeners?

George Ioannou:
I do. Well, actually I didn't, when I got the question I didn't know whether you meant personally or work by-

Richard Hill:
We don't mind. We don't mind either way.

George Ioannou:
One is my, I Love My Barbecue. Summer's starting, so I think it's a really good one. It's by Hilaire Walden, I think I've said that right. But professionally I think the one thing that changed a lot for me is Team of Teams by Stanley McChrystal. He is a four-star general, well he's retired now, but it really talks about how, it's basically organizational intelligence and structure and how you can build your teams to really make use of data and thrive really. So, really recommend that from a professional level.

Richard Hill:
Brilliant. Brilliant. I think I'll be getting both of those to be fair. Well, thanks, George. It's been an absolute pleasure. For those that want to find out more about you, more about Foolproof, what's the best way to do that?

George Ioannou:
So you can look at us at foolproof.co.uk. So www.foolproof.co.uk. And yeah, get in touch.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Maybe reach out to you on LinkedIn. Yeah.

George Ioannou:
Oh LinkedIn, yeah. LinkedIn, George Ioannou. I-O-A-N-N-O-U. YEAH, look me up. Please connect. Thank you so much for inviting me to this podcast. It's been brilliant.

Richard Hill:
Thanks, George. It's given us all a lot to think about and thank you and I look forward to speaking to you again. Thanks a lot.

George Ioannou:
Thank you. See you later.

Richard Hill:
Thank you for listening to the eCom@One e-commerce podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit subscribe and don't forget to sign up to our e-commerce newsletter and leave us a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the e-commerce marketing agency.

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