E210: Stephanie and Samantha Frost

Richard Hill [00:00:04]:
Welcome to episode 210 of Ecom one. I'm Richard Hill, your host. Today, I'm joined by the powerhouse founders, Samantha and Stephanie, the sisters behind Pretty Lavish, The contemporary occasion wear brand that's grown from a spare bedroom side hustle into a 50 strong team shipping thousands of timeless pieces every week. In this episode, we cover how Sammy's fashion buying iron, Steph's finance brain turned a £500 test order into a global cult. Slow fashion thinking in a fast fashion world, twelve month design lead times, rental partnerships, and a resale roadmap. Hard one lessons including the first collection that appeared on a rival site before that even received stock. And we dive into their 2025 vision, deeper community events, US expansion, and doubling down on automation. Now if you enjoy these honest founder stories packed with practical ecommerce takeaways, do me one massive favor.

Richard Hill [00:00:59]:
Hit the follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening to this episode so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Well, welcome to the podcast, Sammy and Steph. I think, before we get into everything pretty lavish and, ecommerce, I think it'd be great for you guys to introduce yourselves and how you got into the world of ecommerce and, fashion.

Samantha [00:01:22]:
So, yeah, I'm Samantha. Cofounder of, the Business Officer alongside Stephanie. I've come from more of a fashion background, so I was working in fashion buying when we set up the brand. And kind of, yeah, that that was kind of more my skill set, the more the creative, the product side of things. And then let Stephanie kinda talk about her background.

Stephanie [00:01:42]:
Yes. I'm Steph. Obviously, we're sisters, and we set up a business in 02/2013. My background, as Sami mentioned, is finance. So completely different to fashion, but, obviously, between the two of us, creates quite a nice partnership in terms of setting up a business. So it works really well on our side. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:01:58]:
Since.

Richard Hill [00:01:59]:
So we've got fashion and we've got business, and they've come together to, create a pretty lavish. So how now how did how did it sort of start? You know, I think I'm really I know that I love these sort of founder stories. Obviously, you you've grown up together, you know, and you you're both on different paths, I guess, to as as younger ladies doing your careers and and working and so forth. But then, obviously, you know, the the business started. Talk talk about that story of how it, sort of came about at the beginning.

Samantha [00:02:28]:
Yeah. So we've come from a very entrepreneurial family. So my dad's had a business with his brother, and kind of we were around that constantly growing up. So we we could see firsthand how hard he was working in the lifestyle he was able to kind of give us, as children. So I think, yeah, from very early on that kind of entrepreneurial spirit has been in us. My mom worked for business as well, so it's very much kind of a a family fair. And, yeah, so I feel like we're always kinda wanted to have our own business. My dad just say to us, like, what do you wanna do? You can do anything you put your mind to as long as, yeah, you believe in yourself.

Samantha [00:03:03]:
So having that mindset from a very early age, definitely helped. And then, yeah, obviously, like we said earlier, I was kind of working in fashion buying. Stephanie was working, in finance. And at the time that we started the business in 02/2013, there was so much kind of going for people to just kinda start something at a very low cost. So Instagram was just kind of getting going, and, obviously, that was a massive kind of free marketing tool where it was a lot less saturated than it is now. And Shopify was kind of really growing, so able to kind of, yeah, launch website at very low cost. And, yeah, with kind of both our skill sets combined, we thought let's why not try it alongside our full time jobs and just see what happens? So, yeah, that was kind of, yeah, kind of how we got going. I think growing up, for me, like, in my teenage years, I lost a lot of confidence, and fashion was a big part of me getting that back and kind of, yeah, feeling like myself again.

Samantha [00:03:53]:
So we wanted to build something that just allowed them to kind of feel their best selves and and, yeah, feel as confident as they could. So, yeah, I guess that's kind of, yeah, why we started the brand and how we started, and it's very much kind of grown organically since then. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:04:09]:
I think you kind of fell into the kind of econ world. It wasn't something that we had, like, a biz big business strategy to set up the brand. It's almost a hobby at the side, and we just evolved it from there. It was very slow organic growth to start with. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:04:22]:
So in the early days then, where we where were you selling? Was it, like, like, locally in sort of, markets and things like that? Or

Stephanie [00:04:29]:
We had our well, we set up our our first digital website was a big failure. So it's probably to, set set up this website. This is, I I think, maybe before Shopify days or it was very early in in that sense. But we had a company set up a website, and it just didn't work. Like, we had we're driving traffic there. It kept crashing, so we learned very quickly that that we needed to have a strong infrastructure. And that's where we kinda moved out of Shopify. And we've been with them since, and it's just such a great tool, for any kind of small businesses starting out and to maintain that actually growing scale as a business, moving forward as well.

Richard Hill [00:05:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think, obviously, yeah, Shopify. You know, we've had the various leadership team on, over the over the years. Obviously, fantastic platform. Probably half of our clients are on on Shopify. So we've gone from probably, you know, as you as young ladies, watching your parents run run their business and your father's business and, you know, and obviously inspired by that and thinking, you know, no doubt in the back of your mind, how what what are we gonna do or what am I gonna do? And then coming together as sisters, you know, with the sort of fashion fashion experience, business experience, putting those together, getting started. But I guess, you know, while you were doing that, maybe, I'm putting words in your mouth.

Richard Hill [00:05:41]:
You're obviously working full time jobs maybe, doing, you know, doing your working your careers, working your jobs. At what point did you think, do you know what? This is a goer. This is a proper you know, we're gonna we're gonna give it everything. Or what what was it? Was it sort of pivotal moment when you said, right. Let's or did you work to a certain point where a certain income was there so you could then stop your other jobs?

Stephanie [00:06:02]:
I I think we both had different experiences, with that sense. Sammy, I don't know if you wanna talk through your your side of things, but for me, mine was a very gradual exit for my for my job. But Sammy actually exited first. I'll let you talk through that.

Samantha [00:06:16]:
Yes. So I was, working with Fresh and Barn, and then me and my, husband, this or boyfriend at the time, but decided to go traveling. And it was a time where I was both living at home and kind of had no overheads. And I thought I either go back to work when we come back from traveling, or this is, like, the time to kinda just put all my time into the business and just see what happens because Yeah. Obviously, I was working on the business on in the evenings and on the weekends. And it was definitely kinda gained some momentum, but it was never gonna be the same ball in terms of kind of being able to pay kind of us away. So, yeah, I said to myself, I give up myself six months per all my time into it, and we definitely kind of started to see the, rewards from that. And it was definitely kind of gaining a lot more momentum

Speaker D [00:07:02]:
off the back of the more time

Samantha [00:07:03]:
that we put into it. And, yeah, I said, if I let you talk in terms of how he was able to kind of, like, grow it slowly exit out of your

Stephanie [00:07:10]:
Yeah. So Sammy was kinda made the first plant, and I think we we kinda reaped the rewards from seeing almost input you get from the output. So, like, the more time I put in, the more we were seeing, like, the rewards from that. So my exit was slightly different. I was in a more corporate job where, it was, I I was really lucky in the sense that my boss was really supportive, and he I went from working five days to four days to three days, and it was a really slow exit. And it almost made that transition feel a lot less scary. So I'm I'm always really grateful to have that opportunity. And then, actually, then once I let completely, I still do some contracted work, so I still had some financial ties there as well because I think it was a good few years before we started paying ourselves.

Stephanie [00:07:57]:
So we was almost working for free. And as Tommy mentioned, we was very lucky that in a sense that we had we was living at home, and we had support from our mom who was we didn't have high overheads. So Yeah. It was almost like we put everything into it, and we didn't have too much to lose, which was yeah.

Samantha [00:08:13]:
Yeah. I think it took, like, a good three, four years before we really kind of felt like this is this is gonna work. There were definitely times when we questioned what we were doing. So

Stephanie [00:08:24]:
Yeah. We took an off last employee and paid them before we even paid ourselves.

Richard Hill [00:08:28]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's I think yeah. I love I love listening to this because it's, you know, obviously, what one of you, you know, Sammy, you went traveling and thought and obviously went away and came back. Alright. Let's go for I'm gonna go for it sort of thing, you know. And and so that's like the probably like the traveling thing helped you to sort of get clarity maybe, you know, and and obviously seeing things and experience different things and thinking what you know, there's maybe more out there that I wanna do, I e, you know, build my own business. You know? So quite different very, very different stories.

Richard Hill [00:08:55]:
You know? And I think that'll resonate with a lot of the listeners that are either in a full time position and thinking about me.

Stephanie [00:09:00]:
Relates to our, actually characters as well. Like, Sammy's obviously more creative and probably more a risk taker, and I'm more quite fine at that. So, actually

Speaker D [00:09:09]:
the pennies more. Yeah. Yeah. Sammy's spending them.

Stephanie [00:09:13]:
Exactly. So I'm more like, hey. I'm gonna do this gradually. Sammy's like, bam, I'm gonna go straight in. So

Richard Hill [00:09:18]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. Thank you very much for sharing that. So then to to give the listeners a sort of feel for the size of the business now that, obviously, you started as just, you know, Sammy, then yourself, and then you you you went full time, and you're literally on below minimum wage or no wage for two or three years. And then, obviously, things start to get quite exciting. So where where are you now with the business then? What's the sort of size and scale of the business?

Stephanie [00:09:39]:
Yeah. So we're now a team of, I think, 47. So, a huge team from where we started. As I said, it's always been quite slow organic growth, and we've not taken investment. So we've always reinvested everything that we've earned back into the business, and that's allowed us to kinda test the loan at spit test and learn at a speed that's able to support growth at a steady rate. Yeah. The teams that we're at really pivotal point now where we're really looking to scale up, and there's lots of opportunity. So it's really exciting.

Richard Hill [00:10:10]:
Yeah. No. That's brilliant. Brilliant. Well, thank you for that. So, would you class yourself as fast fashion? And if not, why not?

Samantha [00:10:18]:
Yeah. No. Definitely not.

Stephanie [00:10:20]:
That is

Samantha [00:10:20]:
the complete opposite of what we are trying to do. I mean, firstly, our lead times are so long. So from initial kind of design concepts to to the product's launch, and it's about a year, so we can't physically kind of jump on those fast moving trends. And we've never wanted to either. I think a big part of more of the brand and what we were trying to do is that those timeless designs

Speaker D [00:10:40]:
that you can pull out

Samantha [00:10:41]:
of your wardrobe kind of year after year. And we've got products and designs that we've launched, like, four or five years ago that we're still relaunching every year because our customer loves them so much. And

Speaker D [00:10:51]:
Yeah.

Samantha [00:10:52]:
And it just shows kind of, yeah, what we're trying to do and the fact that, yeah, you you can you can pull those styles out of your wardrobe every year. And as long as the quality is there, they'll last. And, yeah, so fast fashion is the complete opposite.

Richard Hill [00:11:06]:
Is the opposite. Yeah. It's a little bit of a naughty trick question really. I apologize for that. But, yeah. I mean, before I came in came in and hit hit record, I went round the the office. We got probably about 15 ladies in today in the in the business, and, I was like, pretty lavish. Oh, god.

Richard Hill [00:11:20]:
That's fantastic. The the, my my friend's wedding, the the the bridesmaids were all wearing that, and I've got this dress, and, you know, and I've got I've got one last year. I've I've been bringing it out soon, spring summer collection on yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very Very. Yeah. It's a very Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:11:36]:
Another team are very excited to have a listen afterwards. But so so, obviously, started off, you know, obviously, no doubt we could we could talk about a lot of the, you know, war stories of ecommerce, you know, like, like you say, right at the beginning, the the challenges with, the platform, and then obviously taking the plunge and investing in a, you know, in a in a good platform. But, you know, how are you pivoting the business now to, you know, these probably, like, changes in behavioral buying and the way people are buying with social selling, you know, the rise of second hand, you know, a lot of people are buying more and more secondhand. You know, what are you guys doing to sort of, combat that or to work that to your advantage?

Stephanie [00:12:13]:
Yeah. I think we're definitely exploring rental. For us, it's a big opportunity. I think where we've been such a big occasion where brands, and it kind of that lends itself to that model. We've actually just launched on Higher Street, which is kinda testing the the rental model, which is really positive enough. We've had a great reaction for the first couple weeks or so, which is really positive. And we like to keep our buyers really tight for us. It's really important that we're kinda bringing the right level of stocks that we're hitting higher sell throughs to keep our kind of, yeah, stock management in a in a good position and keep business kind of being able to trade agilely as well.

Samantha [00:12:49]:
I think Russ as well, our, sustaining building compliance manager has just come back from a conference, that talks a lot about resale and that kind of circularity, model. So it's definitely something that we wanna explore more than, bring into, yeah, kind of our business over the next year or so. But rental's a big focus at the minute and how we can kind of, yeah, utilize kind of our product offering, to to help, that circularity. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:13:16]:
I think as well, it's kind of education piece. We use our socials to to kind of educate our customers around how they can get the wear out of their pieces, how they can style in different ways. And that's been kind of part of our eforce since the early days. They've always kind of shown the versatility in our pieces and understanding that you can reach for them year on year as well. There's pieces that I've had in the wardrobe from years and years ago that I still reach for today as well, and that just kinda cement

Richard Hill [00:13:40]:
So it's like community piece, building that awareness around, you know, that you you don't just you you buy that maybe for this particular occasion, but you could wear it for this, you could wear it for that. Have you thought about it? It's not you might have bought it for spring, but, actually, you could wear it here, here, and here throughout the year, and it's getting used again and again. Yeah. Yeah. So what around social selling then? Yeah. Obviously, I had a obviously had a little look at, your socials before we jumped on. Is there anything there that you're doing that's sort of exciting you at the moment or anything you could share with our listeners that are maybe, you know, they're experimenting with or they're, you know, they're using, you know, TikTok, for example. What's working well for you at the moment or anything that you're really going in fairly deep into at the moment?

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Samantha [00:15:02]:
Yeah. I think for us, our socials, are more about kind of, yeah, building that awareness and and, yeah, like, kind of building the community and getting people invested in the brand, not just about kinda, like, selling product. So that's kind of how we utilize our our socials. And, yeah, I think there are things that we're exploring, like TikTok shop and how can we kinda tap into that, which I know is kind of growing exceptionally far. So, that's definitely something that we're exploring at the minute. But as in yeah. At this stage, kind of we're just using our socials to to to really bring our community together and kind of get them invested in the brands and, yeah, tell our stories.

Richard Hill [00:15:39]:
I think So our customer insights. Sorry, Steph.

Stephanie [00:15:42]:
No. As I said, I just think we use the different platform. Like, Instagram for us is kind of showcasing, like Sammy said, the brand and our story and understand, like, almost Yeah. Yeah. It's teasing products that way, whereas TikTok is more about, like, the behind the scenes and, like, actually being more, like, loose with our content. Instagram's a little bit more creative, and, TikTok is more fun and kinda give you more insights into the brand behind the scenes, which I think people are really enjoying. I think that's a big part of what customers wanna see at the moment. It's more that kind of storytelling behind the scenes and that raw kind of footage.

Richard Hill [00:16:16]:
I think as founders, you obviously, you know, had a look at you you do obviously, use LinkedIn. You know, how how important do you think that's been as sort of, like, brand positioning you guys? Just thinking to, you know, as the the founders that are listening to this episode, is there any sort of opportunities that have come from that for the for the brand for yourself?

Stephanie [00:16:36]:
Yeah. Definitely. I think LinkedIn is a huge opportunity. I actually don't probably use it enough. We both probably don't use it enough, but I do try to kinda keep updates on there. We've got the team that focus on, like, the business page on LinkedIn. And, again, it's kind of building that community, showcasing what we're doing from a cultural perspective, and, like, making our online presence on LinkedIn feel like it's an attractive place to work, which we feel really passionate about building culture in, internal, internally. So and just shouting about, like, what we're doing as well aside from just sales and business metrics, but, like, what else we're doing as a team Yeah.

Stephanie [00:17:10]:
People wanna hear more about that as well. And I think LinkedIn has so much opportunity, and it's a good place to be. That. And voice awareness.

Richard Hill [00:17:16]:
Yeah. I mean, I I was looking at your post, Steph, and I think it was probably a week ago, a week, maybe a few days ago, and you talked about the brand the brand day or the off-site brand day. Yeah. You know, and then you shared a few different things, you know, around that brand day. I think I think that's a really good you know, when talking about culture, you know, team. You know, I think it'd be good if if you're okay sharing sort of sort of how important that's been and maybe at the start of the brand days for the for the team and the sort of things that you do on those brand days. Because I think there'll be a lot of listeners that are maybe at a point where, you know, they're trying to get everyone on the same page, trying to get everybody on this, you know, on the vision of the company. Mhmm.

Richard Hill [00:17:56]:
And, you know, I just love what you were doing now. I've watched a few of the the videos that your team have produced, and obviously great team days, but, obviously, underlying, they're really important. You know, what what would, what would you say about those brand days?

Stephanie [00:18:08]:
Yeah. I think that's so important. Being a hybrid team, like, the team worked two days in the office and three days outside, so it's important to have those days where we all come together. We have our brand days twice a year after each season ends, just to kinda reflect on kind of past performance and, like, what went well, what didn't go as well, what we can take away, what we can learn. I just think it's really important. So, as a kind of cohesive to bring the opportunity to bring everyone together, it's also about that team building, the they're off-site as well. So I'm so we usually usually do one off-site and one in the office. So the one we had this time was off-site, but I think we're looking to maybe push more off-site because it was just such a positive day.

Stephanie [00:18:49]:
Yeah. It's just sort

Samantha [00:18:50]:
of changing environment, I think, kind of really helps kind of inspire the team and and kind of helps the motivation as well. So

Stephanie [00:18:57]:
Yeah. And it gives them all the team an opportunity, to kinda talk about what what they're doing at the moment. Like, we're showcasing their products. We've got, like, a culture champions team that talks around kind of everything they're doing to maintain culture maintain a culture as we grow, which is really important to us.

Richard Hill [00:19:12]:
So different departments do a do a little set segment sort of thing potentially. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:19:16]:
Yeah. And we take feedback each time, and so it's very important that after those days, we're getting a feedback from team. Like, what do you enjoy? What do you wanna see more of? What could we be doing differently? And we're evolving them each time we we launch a brand day.

Samantha [00:19:28]:
Yeah. And we go through kind of our our company objectives and kind of our future goals as well. So Yeah. I think that really helps kind of get everyone focused on what we're working on this year and make sure kind of that's really cemented in terms of, yeah, everyone's focuses, for the year. So just bringing everyone together on that vision is really important too. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:19:48]:
I I love that. I absolutely love that. I think that's just, just the best way to run a business personally. Do you I'm curious. Now you might not allow this question. I'm curious. Do you how transparent are you with the sort of financials of the business? Do you do you share? Because no doubt I I know the answer to the question, but to to one of the questions, but, obviously, you're forecasting, predicting, and then, obviously, you're buying ahead a lot of stock and material and so forth. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:20:14]:
Obviously, you've got your financial targets, and that season then passes. Do you then share? Yeah. We hit target. We're off target. And what how transparent are you with the sort of financials with the with the team?

Stephanie [00:20:25]:
I'd say we're very transparent. We Yeah. Have our weekly trades, which we have, a lot of people join to understand kind of the shape of last week's performance. We have monthly with these teams that are part of. And in terms of, like, a whole company wide, as as I mentioned, in those brand days, we go over performance, like, where we're we targeted to hit sales. Did we meet them? Did we not? The reasons why we are where we are. And there's also the opportunity to ask questions as well. So we try to be as transparent as possible.

Stephanie [00:20:52]:
We also the whole company receives a daily, update in terms of sales performance. So they're just even doing that every day to say, like, you know, this is what we did yesterday. This is where we're tracking. Are we meeting forecast? Are we not? So Yeah. Yeah. We try to do as much as we can, in terms of being transparent, and that that is a value of us in terms of not just with financials, but across everything, like Yeah. Our relationship building our partners, ensuring that we're transparent, and and our, our whole model as well online, making sure this is transparent as possible.

Richard Hill [00:21:22]:
No. That is brilliant. Thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate that. So change of direction for a little bit. So what's one piece of advice that's really helped you with your business journey? And that can be sort of personal, professional, maybe, one from each of you.

Samantha [00:21:38]:
Yeah. I think, I mean, there's been so much that has helped us along the way. I think the one that maybe sticks out for me is, the fact that you don't always have to follow the conventional route. And I think growing kind of the fashion business, although I come from a bit more of a fashion background, kind of I was only in it for a few years, and we've kinda just figured out figured things out ourselves. And in the early days, we were definitely not following the conventional route, of how kind of brands would normally, work and and operate and scale. So I think that was actually a real benefit for us, but we definitely went through a period of kinda trying to do things how we felt like kind of the industry was doing things and, like, trying to do things and how we felt like everyone else was, yeah, doing it. And I think we learned a lot of lessons there that don't always feel like you've got to kind of Yeah. Operate in the same ways that things have been done kind of, historically.

Samantha [00:22:30]:
So, yeah, I think that's the the biggest thing for me, the kind of trust I've got, know your business, and know what works for you, and don't feel like you've just got to do things how everyone else is. It's ultimately how what sets you apart.

Stephanie [00:22:41]:
Yeah. No. Definitely. I think for me, I think the biggest learning in the last couple of years is how we maintain to be agile as a business. So, like, as a small growing business, your advantage is that you can make decisions a lot quicker than bigger corporations, and, it's how we maintain that as we grow that that is such an advantage to get kind of things across the line, test and learn quickly. For so for for me, it's like how we maintain that as we grow. I think that's really important.

Richard Hill [00:23:08]:
Very nimble, very agile. Yeah. Trying things. Great advice. Great advice. I think that's the the problem. When certain businesses maybe get to a certain size, it might take a month to make a decision where, obviously, when you can maintain that agility, you can move quick with the market. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:23:25]:
Especially, how thinking like The UK weather, very unpredictable, isn't it? And, obviously, that probably, on your mind quite a lot, and you gotta just make decisions where, you know, like, now it's beautiful weather. We're sitting here at the April. So I'm guess, you know, you're certain obviously, you know that. I think you've launched recently your spring summer collection. Obviously, that that the weather's even better than probably predicted. It's like out outselling. Now you gotta maybe make some decisions on what to do. Do we order more of this? What

Stephanie [00:23:54]:
Yeah. It's actually strange how weather comes in to kind of cost your behavior. We do try to track it as well. Like, we've got a marketing calendar where we try to plot what the weather is. So when we're looking at last year, like, did we see a spike because the weather was really hot that day, or, like, was it a change in, Yeah. Seasonality? So, yeah, we try to look at weather in alignment. And, you know, sometimes being in The UK, the weather isn't has good plans. So you might bring out a kind of spring collection, but you have to be reactive.

Stephanie [00:24:20]:
So we do try to chop and change as as we feel like the ever changing as well.

Samantha [00:24:25]:
It's really tricky kind of in those transitional periods. So, like, when you just kinda got into a season. I remember last year, we launched coats in September, and it's, like, the hottest week. Yeah. Ever. So, yeah, we try and

Speaker D [00:24:37]:
be a bit more nimble now and kind

Samantha [00:24:38]:
of flex our launches depending on whether and, yeah, have that flexibility internally to be able to make based on the weather as well.

Stephanie [00:24:45]:
So even around our shoots, I was looking to shoot in Lake Comer, I think, in March. And the weather was just looking terrible, and we had to, like, reflect that because it's like there's just no point of trying to do a campaign where Yeah. Yeah, the weather's not great. It's just, yeah.

Richard Hill [00:24:57]:
I know the ad that we obviously, behind the podcast, we've got the agency and the ads, team, you know, they've got scripts that basically will adjust bids based on weather. So if weather hits below x, you know, it will bid more on. So for example, we have clients that sell batteries, you know, that add, you know, if if the weather's minus whatever, it's likelihood of your car not starting is a lot higher than but in the other side, obviously, certain fashion, etcetera. If the weather hits x, then bid more on, you know, another 5% on the bids and so forth.

Samantha [00:25:24]:
Yeah. I know.

Richard Hill [00:25:25]:
Yeah. Obviously, you know, a what's that? A twelve year plus journey to date, you know, and, obviously, some very exciting, stories there. But I'm sure along the way, there's been a few challenges. So I think it'd be great if you don't mind sharing maybe, you know, one of your biggest challenges, you know, and how you face that and how you dealt with that.

Stephanie [00:25:47]:
Yeah. I think as a as a business changes over time, the challenges are different, but you're always facing challenges. And I think we kind of say to our team, you have to be solution driven. So, like, getting in that mindset, okay, we're facing a problem. How do we overcome this? What is the answer? And I think that's how we attack most of most of the challenges that we come across. In the early days, we had challenges in the sense that where we were just learning, we our first collection that we designed with, a manufacturer, we actually saw launch on a different site before we'd even receive the stock. We understood that they had produced a larger production run, sold off the designs, and then this other bigger brand, well named brand, had had our designs before us. So we knew at that point, point, okay, we didn't have the right contracts in place.

Stephanie [00:26:29]:
We didn't have the right terms. And that was a big learning thing for us in in that mind.

Richard Hill [00:26:33]:
Yeah. It didn't happen again.

Stephanie [00:26:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. So we haven't let that happen again. Yeah. Now we've kind of it's really important that we're building kind of a relationship with our manufacturers as well, and it's a real partnership. But, yeah, that was a big lesson. I think challenges now, as we as I touched on earlier, is that agility piece that we have a bigger team. We have more process in place, and it's like, how do we stay agile as a business? We wanna still be making decisions quickly and reacting quickly.

Stephanie [00:26:57]:
So, we kinda we bought in a management team last year to help support kind of that decision making piece and kind of communication across the business as well. So, yeah, that's kinda what we're working on currently.

Richard Hill [00:27:09]:
Yeah. No. I love that. It goes back to that mindset, agility. You know, the reality is things are gonna happen, aren't they? You know? And we could get off this podcast, and we could have rain for the next thirty days. Exactly. Well, I

Stephanie [00:27:20]:
think it's how you tap problems, and I think it's all about that mindset. You've gotta be positive in the situations. And as I don't know what you think, Sammy, but as leaders, you're constantly problem solving. It's almost like I said in I did a link LinkedIn post the other day about kind of being touched with it, like, the firefighter. You're fighting fires every day, and it's a job that you don't sign up for. But, essentially, yeah, it's

Richard Hill [00:27:41]:
Where where do you think that? Do you think I mean, obviously, you referred to your your father. Again, do you think that sort of seeing your dad dealing with partly comes from, you know, now, obviously, you know, it's just part it's part of the game. It's part of the process. You know, it's you know, every everything's solvable, resolvable sort of thing. You've seen him do x, y, zed, so you've you're tough tough and resilient. And yeah.

Stephanie [00:28:02]:
Yeah. I think yeah. Definitely. I think resilience is such a huge part of being a business owner. And, like, there's so many challenges, and you have to be resilient. I think we sadly lost our dad in 02/2016, so that kinda kinda grew grief and that kinda thing. That teaches you so much in terms of Yeah.

Samantha [00:28:19]:
Being

Stephanie [00:28:19]:
resilient. So I think we've applied a lot of our kind of grief in that sense and and put into the business and, that sort of a lot. And it also makes you look at kind of the family in in an inspiring way. Like, we saw how how hard our dad worked and how what he did and, like, how hard he lived life as well. He worked hard and he enjoyed life to the full, and I think that's what it's all about as well.

Richard Hill [00:28:42]:
Well, he's gonna be very, very proud of you you ladies. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That is one yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. So I know also of your LinkedIn, Steph, that you talked about automation, you know, and and and, so I think, you know, we can't really do an episode now without sort of bringing in sort of AI and the sort of things that you're willing to share? You know, obviously, maybe what what your stance is on AI and the automation in the business, and maybe share some of the things that you're actually doing in the business around AI and automation?

Samantha [00:29:11]:
So, I mean, for us, it's a massive focus this year. It's one of our twenty twenty five objectives that we shared with the team, in our last brand day. So everyone across the business is working on how we can become more efficient, how can we streamline processes, automate, through tech and software and AI. And, Gerry, it's an objective that we've set for this year to become a lot more kind of, yeah, efficient as a business, whether it be through through AI or just by automating processes. So, yeah, we're leaning into things like kind of advanced commerce, which is a tool, that will put the right products in front of the right customers. So I think AI? Using AI. So at the minute, we've got thousands of SKUs and that kind of task of manually kind of moving products around to depending on whether or depending on, yeah, kind of what's launched is is very time consuming. So using AI to kind of help streamline, that process, is a big one for us.

Samantha [00:30:07]:
Inventory tools, to support with kind of analyzing data and looking at how much we need to buy our products. So, yeah, there's a lot of kind of different softwares that we're leaning leaning into. Obviously, ChatGPT is one that all the team are using. But, yeah, there there's so much that we're doing to basically automate as much as we can so we can become more efficient business to help us scale, yeah, over the coming years.

Richard Hill [00:30:32]:
Mhmm. So do you when you have your brand days then, at least that part of the itinerary on the day, right, where are we with our sort of AI? And do you have, like, like, advocates within the business that have sort of been given the reins? Right. Go and explore this. Go and yeah. Here's here's 20 subscriptions to the often, maybe not 20, but here's a budget to go and try this, try this, try this, sort of testing, trialing, but you're making making the team aware the, attitude towards it is right. We've gotta explore this for the betterment of the business and to to make us more lean, but, ultimately, to be able to move faster and progress the business. Yeah.

Samantha [00:31:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. We tasked the, each department to kinda come back to us in from brand's end kind of in the next month, sort of the next few weeks. So, hopefully, we'll have every department's kind of feedback on what processes, what three processes within their team they feel like can be either Yeah. Automated through AI or made more efficient. So we've kind of, yeah, kind of tasking everyone within

Richard Hill [00:31:30]:
the Like a competition maybe, is it?

Speaker D [00:31:31]:
Or is there gonna be prizes? Or

Samantha [00:31:34]:
No. I don't think I mean, it's just having everyone adopt that mindset that we can we can, lean into AI to help. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:31:42]:
I think

Samantha [00:31:42]:
a lot of people are scared of being scared of it. And I think it's, yeah, trying to make sure everyone adopts that mindset where it's going to make our lives easier. It's gonna make us more efficient. It's gonna help us to grow. So, yeah, kind of looking at what their feedback is and then what do we feel like is going to be the priorities for this year.

Richard Hill [00:32:01]:
I'd love to do maybe another episode with you with you ladies, maybe in a year's time to talk more about that because I think, you know, people we we talk about, on the podcast quite a lot. You know, what are the things that keep you up at night, you know, and obviously a lot of people is maybe, you know, finance and things like that, but it's AI for me. AI is literally in my brain twenty hours a day. It's just like and some of the things we're doing is just mind blowing, just mind blowing, the sort of the advancements we're getting, the time we're saving to then enable, you know, our team to do more, you know, strategy work and more implementation with AI, and that's just yeah. It's it's amazing.

Stephanie [00:32:38]:
So much opportunity there, definitely. Yeah.

Samantha [00:32:40]:
We work with an ecom consultant in the minute as well that is kind of focusing on all that side of things. So Yeah. Yeah. Being an ecommerce brand, you can't shy away from it. We need to be, leaning to as much as we can.

Richard Hill [00:32:52]:
Yeah. Because there's so many areas, isn't there? I mean, you you covered them there. But, you know, obviously, the you go to the marketing piece, but then you're thinking about that operational piece, the ordering, you know, the upside on the cross selling, the, you know, the, images that just, you know, the obviously, the content, you know, thousands of SKUs, hundred millions of words on the website that can be automatically adjusted based on what's ranking on page one now by scanning Search Console, GA, page one, Google automatically making more recommending changes, and, oh, it's just incredible. Yeah. The the advantage that you can get if you're, like, semi first mover where a lot of people are sleeping on it. Yeah. And, yeah, some of the things we're seeing are with some of our clients is just like, wow. It's good.

Richard Hill [00:33:35]:
Love it. Yeah. So being sisters, I think that's the the the question I wanna ask next. Obviously, working together, you know, how do you balance working together, sort of professional, personal, obviously, grow grow up together, but there must be some challenges every now and there where, you know, where you've got one idea, you've got the other you know, Steph, you've got slightly different opinion on something. How do you how do you deal with that?

Stephanie [00:33:58]:
Yeah. I mean, for us, I feel really lucky. Like, we've got such a great relationship, and we love what we do. So it doesn't feel like we're having to separate business and kind of personal life, but we're so close as a family. And, yeah, it kind of works really well for us. We're generally very aligned. As Sammy and I always say, like, we co lead as a business. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:34:18]:
And, yeah, it just works really well. I take my hat off to anyone who runs a business on their own. It's, like, difficult. And it always it's nice that we've got each other to lean on. You know, like, if one of us is having a tough day or finding things a little bit more challenging, then you're always there to kinda pick up and and support. So for us, it works really well. And, you know, outside of, like, personal, we have the same group of friends. We actually live next door to each other as well.

Richard Hill [00:34:39]:
Oh, do you?

Stephanie [00:34:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. Literally around each other's

Speaker D [00:34:42]:
You're that you're where you're next door and you got the same friends ish. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:34:46]:
So

Richard Hill [00:34:47]:
Have you got a door between the houses then inside? No. And

Samantha [00:34:50]:
I was down in the garden where they kiss me.

Speaker D [00:34:51]:
Have you? Like a drop panel? It's like on those adverts where they have a panel that they talk to their neighbors. You actually have a panel

Richard Hill [00:35:00]:
at where you can go. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:35:02]:
That's Yeah. Our our husband partners.

Speaker D [00:35:03]:
Who's who's doing the barbecue today? Is it you doing it? How about it?

Stephanie [00:35:06]:
Yeah. Our husband and partners are joking around making the fence, like, flippable to make almost like a kind of table tennis fence. I don't know.

Speaker D [00:35:13]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, that would be brilliant. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:35:16]:
Yeah. I mean, for us, if we obviously, it works really well, and so we wouldn't be able to have all those things in our life if it didn't work. And it just Yeah. Just clicks, so we just get each other.

Samantha [00:35:25]:
And I think, obviously, even before the business, like, the bond that we've got, like, is I don't know. It sounds cheesy, but it's unbreakable. Like, we've been through so much together in life that

Stephanie [00:35:34]:
Yeah.

Samantha [00:35:34]:
It's always family first, and I think that that value as well is is felt within the business as well. So, yeah, no matter what happens, kind of it would never kind of have an impact on my and Seth's relationship. And

Speaker D [00:35:48]:
Yeah.

Samantha [00:35:48]:
Thankfully, we are generally normally aligned. And if we have different opinions, we work for it. And I think we respect each other's skill set as well and we each other's, strengths. So Steph is obviously more kind of business minded, financial, kind of operational. I'm more product creative. And as much as we both kind of cover all areas, we respect to each other's kind of strengths and skill sets lies and trust each other impeccably. So yeah. Although we are, kind of generally aligned, and we do have differences, we kind of lean into kind of each other's strengths to to make this.

Richard Hill [00:36:19]:
That is lovely. I really appreciate you sharing that. That was really lovely. So if you were to play table tennis, then who would win?

Stephanie [00:36:26]:
You're very competitive. Well, I actually don't know.

Speaker D [00:36:29]:
It could be, like, one out of three or one out of five. I'd keep going. I'd keep going. Keep going. Yeah. Twenty two, twenty two, twenty four.

Stephanie [00:36:36]:
Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:36:37]:
So, Sammy, Steph, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Last couple of questions. So a crystal ball, obviously, you know what you're likely to be, you know, obviously, the the vision and the and, you know, the things that you share with the the team and the brand days, etcetera. But, you know, maybe if you could share a couple of your future goals with the listeners, that would be lovely.

Samantha [00:36:58]:
Yeah. I think, obviously, we touched on one of the biggest ones is automation and and doing to kind of AI this year. That is a big focus for us. So kinda covered that quite a lot. I think the other thing is is kind of community and and building kinda those in real life experiences for our customer and just getting in front of our customer a bit more. I think this is probably one that we've probably been a bit little bit behind the curve on. And, actually, being an online business, you can get so kind of stuck in that habit of just trading digitally. But for us, kind of getting in front of that customer is so important.

Samantha [00:37:27]:
So just doing more community events, and getting them kind of immersed in in the brand as well. I think that's so important being an online business that we're that bring, yeah, bringing those in real offense, to them and, yeah, just building that community. So that's a massive focus. I think international expansion is is one we can't shy away from. We're 95% still UK based in terms of our customer. So, yeah, I think for us, it's about setting those foundations, in place, kind of getting all that automation done and all the kind of tech stack and and software that we wanna invest in, that will then allow us to kind of really scale the business over coming years. And, yeah, international expansion is so exciting because

Richard Hill [00:38:06]:
Mhmm.

Samantha [00:38:07]:
Whereas I worry, sir, I'm still very much kinda UK, based. So

Richard Hill [00:38:12]:
Yeah. No. Very, very exciting. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. I look forward to, keeping an eye on things from a distance, and I know my team will be like, have you seen what they're doing now? And, but yes. No. I really appreciate you coming on the show and and sharing everything there. Now I like to finish every episode with a book recommendation.

Richard Hill [00:38:27]:
Do you have a book each to recommend?

Samantha [00:38:29]:
Yep. I think we both read one recently. I mean, I read the book, Steph used AI to summarize the book, which

Speaker D [00:38:37]:
I love it.

Samantha [00:38:39]:
Right. It's just yeah. A lot of the conversation today, but, yeah, it was called Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martel. And Yeah. It come at a great time because I feel like last year, we was both just drowning, in workloads, and it was all about kind of how entrepreneurs all so a lot of time build business businesses that they kind of grow to hate and how it can you can stop that from happening. It's how you system systematically buy back your time so that you can focus on the things that really matter and and still enjoy your life as well. And Yeah. Love it.

Samantha [00:39:10]:
Yeah. Kind of, yeah, offloading things to to people that have kind of a lower chargeable rate and Yeah. Yeah. Basically, yeah, buying back your time so that you can

Richard Hill [00:39:20]:
I love the fact that you read a book about saving time, and Steph didn't even read the book?

Speaker D [00:39:24]:
She used to stay high to to the It's like double win.

Stephanie [00:39:29]:
Yeah. I mean, no. I did actually sit because I actually prefer listening on podcasts rather than reading books. I just find it from from my efficiency and time perspective.

Richard Hill [00:39:36]:
Yeah. I know what you're saying. You just sat there for five hours. It's tricky, isn't it? Or two hours.

Stephanie [00:39:39]:
Listen to my pals. I do enjoy reading a book, but day to day, it's just easier just to put put cost on when you're driving to work or when you're often doing Yeah. Out doing stuff. So Yeah. All the tasks.

Richard Hill [00:39:50]:
Especially like that that that book's like my brain at the moment. How can we not do that? You know, it's like I we built we built a little bot, last week that basically every single email that comes into the business now, there's an automated draft of a reply written, and it's quite straightforward. But we spend about a hundred and twenty hours a month replying to emails. So now that's down to probably thirty hours. We just saved a hundred hours. That's probably a hundred and $50 a year saved. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:40:14]:
There's efficiency pay isn't it, ensuring that as a business, you're, yeah, efficient and automated as much as possible.

Richard Hill [00:40:20]:
Well, ladies, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. For those that wanna find out more about you guys, more about Pretty Lavish, what's the best way to do that?

Samantha [00:40:29]:
Yes. So our socials, obviously, Pretty Lavish UK on Instagram TikTok, and they're our main platforms, and then also LinkedIn, to find them about the team and kind of what we're doing, behind the scenes of the business, and, obviously, our website as well.

Stephanie [00:40:46]:
Yep. Yeah. See all the product.

Richard Hill [00:40:48]:
Lovely. And, obviously, you guys, post regularly on LinkedIn, so, obviously, you can follow you on that as well and follow the the journey on there. Yeah. Well, thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you

Speaker D [00:40:58]:
very much. Oh, no. I'll catch you. If

Richard Hill [00:41:04]:
If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Have a fantastic day, and I'll see you on the next one.