Episode Description:
Mike sits down with Kelly Jamieson, the co- founder, and MD of Edible Blooms for a chat about their 18 yearlong success story alongside her sister Abbey. Their online gifting business that delivers delicious bouquets of chocolate, among other things to homes and offices (every 2 minutes) is the #1 gift delivery business in Australia.
Points of Interest:
When your business partner is your sister 1:30
Country girl at heart-lessons from your mum! 2:40
An online business in 2005! 4:15
Start a business or buy a house? 6:00
Raising money as a startup 9:14
Making mistakes is gold! 10:42
Fast paced business world-trial and error 12:45
The Blackberry, iPhone, and Google 15:24
The Telstra Business Awards-there’s no way a little start up, 4 years in can win it? 18:00
Female entrepreneurs-the ups and downs of navigating business 19:30
Edible Blooms and Sustainability 24:00
The future of Edible Blooms 27:50
About Kelly
Kelly is the co-founder and Managing Director of Edible Blooms. She started the company with her sister in 2005 and they have won numerous awards including, 2022 Canstar #1 Online Gift Delivery Company for Australia, Telstra Business of the Year for Australia and SA Businesswoman of the Year!
Connect with Kelly:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-jamieson-871aa73/
Website: www.edibleblooms.com.au
Transcript
Note: This has been automatically transcribed so is likely to have errors! It may however help you navigate the points of interests for you.
Mike: Welcome to the Troubleshooter’s podcast with me your host Mike McGrath. My guest today is Kelly Jamerson, the founder and the co owner of Edible Blooms the wonderful online gifting business that delivers delicious bouquets of chocolate, among other things to homes and offices. Now Kelly and her sister Abby founded their business back in 2005. So an 18 year long overnight success. Sit back and listen to my conversation with Kelly, whose business was recently voted the number one gift delivery business in Australia, as she recounts how she decided to start a business rather than buy herself a home. Kelly, welcome to the troubleshooter podcast.
Kelly Jamieson Thank you for having me, Mike. It’s great to be here.
Mike: Well, it’s a pleasure, actually. And you’re another amazing entrepreneurial success story that that took 18 years, rather than the popular myth that it happens overnight. One day you pop up and you’re super successful. So you’ve actually been in business since 2005.
Kelly Jamieson
Yeah, that’s right. So it’s an 18th this year. So I think it’s the time for some champagne.
Mike: I think so I think you should send yourself one of your own Edible Blooms, right? You founded the business with Abbey, your sister?
Kelly Jamieson I did? Yes. Yeah, we’re pretty lucky actually, we get to work together. We really love that.
Mike: And that sounds like it’s been very successful.
Kelly Jamieson Yeah look all businesses have their ups and downs and sodas, working with siblings. But look, on the whole, I think one of the reasons it’s worked well for us as sisters is we were pretty straight shooting. So we’re pretty open about our communication. And likewise, we actually have different strengths in the business, Abby’s more operations, and she came from a teaching background. So she’s really involved in staff training, and, you know, working with that team to upskill them all of the time. Because as business needs change, you know, the needs of our team change. So she’s really involved in that side of the business, and my sides more that business development and the business management, I guess. So we’ve played each other’s strengths.
Mike: Yeah, no, that’s a great point, Kelly, and we see this often is that where you get a great partnership together, that the, it can really be very valuable. And, you know, you’ve got to kind of sanity check on each other. But what we do here is a lot of people saying, Oh, don’t work with family, or we hear people going, partnerships will never work. But you’re right. When they do work, they can work incredibly well. Yeah. I did read that. You. You guys were brought up in South Australia actually on a farm. Is that right? Yeah, we are. Yeah, with country girls. Great & that’s probably where your straight shooting comes from right? Here? Possibly, yeah. Your first foray into sort of business or entrepreneurship was baking biscuits and then selling them in the local shop? Is that right?
Kelly Jamieson : That’s right. So the farm that we grew up on, we literally had 20 minutes of dirt roads all around us. So we just couldn’t be one of those kids that had a job in the local town or anything like that. So the first thing we did to make a bit of extra pocket money was mother who’s a school teacher, had our farm kitchen, approved to bake in, you know, like it was all checked by the council and all those sorts of things. And we used to make these melting moment biscuits for local bakery. And that was our first lesson of cost of business that you don’t every dollar you make is not profit. So we used to have the cost of ingredients deducted from what we would make at the bakery. So it was that learning of, you know, the cost of ingredients comes out of your profit, etc. So it was very clever of our mother, I think to be that innovative herself to think of something that would keep us occupied to it’s quite clever. I’ve got my own children. Now. Any activity that keeps them occupied is a great thing. Even better if they make a bit of pocket money out of it.
Mike: So fast forward to 2005 sets in a very interesting period. So we’re pre the iPhone now. 2005. And you decide that you’re going to develop an online gift, business gift and confectionery business effectively, right? So where did the genesis of the idea come from? And why online because it was still very early then. There wasn’t very many successful online businesses in that.
Kelly Jamieson: Look, if I look back, I think I always wanted to be a business owner. There was no such thing as being an entrepreneur because back then the only entrepreneur I knew of was Richard Branson. And I didn’t know him personally, I have met him personally now, but you know, like that was you’re a business owner, or you work for somebody else. It was pretty simple. Back at that time, and I just always wanted to create something I had a real desire to create. And so I looked at franchises buying a franchise I was 26 at the time, but I’ve been consulting for a big firm and I was able to work four days a week and have a bit of flexible So at 26, I had one day a week that I could use. And I use that to research business ideas, I actually went into a process quite a detailed process of buying an existing business, which I wasn’t successful at purchasing. Thankfully, that didn’t work out, because I don’t know if I’d still be in business in that particular operation now. And then I just had this idea. I also had a book idea as well, actually at the time that I was keen to explore. And I still think that would make a great book actually the idea I had at the time. But anyhow, I had this idea of really colliding two things I loved and that was fresh flowers, and great food. So I wanted to collect that. And that’s really the genesis of Edible Blooms. And it started very simply, it started with nine products, we had all fresh fruit bouquets. From the very beginning, we’ve used incredible chocolate when we dip our strawberries, so it’s all black quality presentation. And I was living in Brisbane at the time. So edible blends actually started in Brisbane in Queensland. And I was using my money that I’d saved for my first house to start this business idea. And it was a bit of a roll of the dice. But I did think Better the devil you know, and I didn’t want to look back on life with regrets at that stage. So I put all of my savings into start the business. And when I was looking at premises because we were working with food, we really couldn’t do the typical garage or home, start if I had to have a commercial kitchen. So that required taking a lease. And when I started looking at leases in Brisbane City, if I wanted to be near my customers, it was very expensive. And that was quite high risk, because I had to sign a long term lease on this really quite conceptual idea. And so I decided that if I wasn’t going to be near my customers, I’d be near my suppliers. So my first premise was actually I found a premise near the Rockley markets, which is the fruit markets in Brisbane. So Edible Blooms started there. And because I’ve worked I’d actually been in London in 2000 and the.com. Boom, which is a pretty interesting time. And I actually worked at timeout magazine on their.com rollout, my early 20s, which was a really amazing experience. So I’d had a bit of involvement in online. I started with an online store from the word go because I had to be named customers because of cost base. But I had my first franchise Inquire within six weeks of opening the doors from Tasmania, I was advised fairly carefully not to go down the franchise model at that point, because I could have grown very quickly and very fast as a franchise model, but we actually bootstrapped it. And we actually within the first year managed to open production locations in Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.
Mike: Just go back to 2005 then. So you sounds like you have some good advice. You know, franchising in Australia. It’s quite a regulated market. You know, I’ve done some franchising myself back in the UK. But when it got to Australia, I was surprised how regulated the franchise market and in fact, in to some extent how dysfunctional it is here, in terms of unit B, he can get very litigious. We’ve seen the whole 711 thing.
Kelly Jamieson : Thats exactly right. And that was the advice I was given those early days, they said, Look, if you want to franchise, you have to prepare prepared to spend a lot of money on lawyers, and that’s in creating really robust agreements. But also if things go wrong, protecting those agreements. So come from a legal, I’ve been working for a big law firm, and, you know, you don’t want to be spending all your profits on lawyers. That’s not a, that’s not a way to grow. So that’s, that was, you know, one of our decisions to push, it was probably a harder way to grow a slow way to grow.
Mike: So let’s talk about that, Kelly. So you decided not to do franchising and franchising ostensibly, is you’re kind of using other people’s capital, and then you’re sharing some of the fruits with them, as they effectively borrow the use of your system. So you have to fund it in another way. So you obviously using some of your new resources, what were the banks, like, in those days very difficult, raising money as a startup? So tell us a bit about that?
Kelly Jamieson: Oh, gosh, you know, I look now at what’s available to startups, you know, the, the, you know, different channels for capital. And, you know, there’s a lot a lot of options for people starting up now that just didn’t exist back in those early days. I remember, I had one of the banks, Oh, we love your idea, we’d love to chat to you about your business, but they said that you need two or three years of training, you know, we can’t, you know, bank you until you know, so in those very early days, when you really you’ve pretty scrappy, and you know, you’re really trying to make every dollar count, you know that funding would be really helpful. But in some ways, I think, you know, sometimes when things are a little when you’ve got a really tight budget, you make it go a long way. We didn’t pay ourselves a lot in the early days, either. That’s the other thing. You compromise, your own salaries and all of those sorts of things. But, you know, hopefully in the long term, it becomes worthwhile.
Mike: Yes. I mean, and that’s a very good point. Is that whole, you know, they say necessity is the mother of invention. So, yeah, totally. Having adequate capital is great. Having too much capital is not a great idea at all because we generally will end of spending on the wrong things because we’re, we’ve kind of, we don’t know what we don’t know, do we in the beginning, and you’ve mentioned that in some of the stuff, I’ve read that you’ve, you’re very much. We’re learning by mistakes. And you were using a feedback loop. And then you were making adjustments. And it’s, it’s difficult to get those lessons if you’ve got plenty of capital to go
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it is. It is an interesting challenge. But I do agree, I think he can have too much capital. And I think that’s, you know, it can be as detrimental because he can burn through cash very quickly.
Mike: And I love this quote, where you say making mistakes is gold. What do you mean by that?
Kelly Jamieson: Well, we have a, we’ve had it in our company policy from the beginning, because I really wanted to try and foster a real culture of entrepreneurship through the business, because we were very scrappy when we were starting up. And I certainly learnt that I wasn’t perfect. And I’d be learning the same as well. And so I think the key thing with mistakes is learning from them. So one of the things we like to do here is when we do make a mistake is we actually talk about it, and we talk about what we can learn. And sometimes making mistakes can actually be a good thing, because it means you’re trying new things, and you’re not afraid to do something a little bit different. And, look, one of the great examples is us going back about eight or nine years ago, we were sending out our Christmas campaign to our corporate database, we do a lot of corporate gifting. And we were supposed I think it was supposed to go out to a database of you know, a few 1000 people, one of our smaller databases, and we accidentally sent out the corporate email to our entire customer base. So this is like 10s of 1000s. So we had the most amazing sales period afterwards, because our customers who are consumer customers work in offices or work in businesses, and they saw our Christmas range. And so we got a lot of early corporate inquiry. So now every year since then, we send our corporate range to everybody we say this is this is what’s available this year, because we do recognize that you might be a consumer customer of ours, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t be a business customer as well. So. So some of those words, same mistakes are gold, because sometimes when you make a mistake, really good things can happen. And you can learn some great things too. So it’s not all about making a mistake, or that being a bad thing.
Mike: Yeah, no, I certainly we hear this a lot, that that feedback loop that you can you try something, you get some feedback, you adjust, you get some more feedback, you adjust again, and then isn’t that the definition of continuous improvement? Really, isn’t it?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, it totally is. And, you know, also we have to move very fast in today’s business environment. No, we don’t have the time to perfect every single thing before it goes to market. So one of the things we’ve recently just innovated is we have an checkout option on our website called instant gift it. And it’s a really great process, because sometimes when you’re sending a gift, we really analyze what are our friction points in the customer journey? And when the friction points is people want to send something beautiful, or congratulate somebody or say thank you for that referral. But you don’t always know, especially now post COVID. Are they at home? Are they working in the office? What’s the best address to send it to them? What’s the best day of the week to send it to them. So we created a new checkout option, which we’ve got a trademark on the Insert gifted and it basically allows you to personalize the gift process by choosing so I might say, Oh, look, I know Mike loves chocolate dip strawberries, I’m going to choose that box. And then I can write the gift card to you. And instead of having to then work out where you are and where it needs to go, I can send it to you by email. And then you can choose when you receive it. And when it gets delivered. When we came up with that idea, the whole idea of perfecting everything, we had the process working perfectly, but we knew there were some extra bells and whistles we could add to it as we went. We said let’s get the basic service out, get some feedback, get the feedback loop, what are we missing what we need to add. And so actually one of the feedback loops that’s come back is, gee, we love that. But we’d love to do that for our employees. We don’t know everybody’s home address now. So we want to send their Christmas gifts out by email, and then they can choose when they want to have it delivered and where so you know, so that’s what we’re working on at the moment for Christmas this year, so that we can actually do this bulk uploads and make it really easy for people to bulk send gifts. So there’s some you know, I think there’s some real benefits in you know, moving quickly, getting the prototypes up and then keeping that customer loop going to keep improving.
Mike: Yes, I mean extensively that, that ability to problem solve to kind of look at the friction points and say, Okay, how can we do this better? I suppose that that’s the you know, you’ve clearly been good at that you are on that subject, right. So you know, took 2005 I think we started to get the iPhone. I think it’s seven. Right? And then I mean, the reason I mentioned that is because up until that point, there’s been a lot of talk about commerce, you know, you mentioned books and flowers, sort of pioneering that online, it was a sort of acceptance that we’d buy a book online, we might buy some flowers online. But did you see a step change? And was it around the iPhone? Or was it later?
Kelly Jamieson: Look, I started with a Blackberry. So that was the device I was using. And I used to get an email alert every time an order came through. So that was really nice to get so excited, every time I’d get an an order alert that would come through, it was just so exciting. So but yeah, when the iPhone evolved, that was pretty exciting. I remember when Google became a thing. And I think I would have been about two years in so maybe around 2007, that’s when you know, you could start buying traffic from Google with AdWords. So Google was a search engine, and then it became an ad platform. So that was a pretty exciting time in our business growth, because we just I remember, I think I stayed up nearly 24 hours straight on the Google ad platform when it first came out, because I was just so fascinated by the ability to click here and see data and see things coming in. And then, of course, has been the evolution of social, we were early adopters of social. And actually, I then became an early detractor of social as a way to acquire customers, because I just wasn’t seeing their conversion coming through, everyone was still sort of using it as an information and a social platform. And like, there’s no true social platform. And I’ve really seen that change in the last sort of probably five years where you can see it as a business, it’s really, it’s a great way to grow brand stories, it’s a great way to communicate with customers. So you know, all of these things, sometimes it can actually be too early going on these things to make, like, sometimes you can try something I love learning. So I just, I find it all fascinating, I love seeing new things. So I guess that probably covers a few of those, you know, milestones. And not COVID was a really interesting period for our business, we were particularly busy, because people couldn’t be with their family and friends. So they gifted even more. And then coming out of that it’s been a big readjustment process to throughout business. And that’s been a really big learning for us too. So, you know, it never stops, there’s always something new to learn, I’ve always got my old plates on.
Mike: Many, many businesses trying to move online didn’t failed. The revenues always seem to follow on from the costs that were much more, I was supposed to be a very cheap way of getting to market. But in fact, what you were saving on bricks and mortar you’re often having to spend in other areas, but you clearly manage that ebb and flow quite well around your revenue and your costs. And when did you get to a scale where you were able to turn around to Abby and say, Okay, this really is a business.
Kelly Jamieson: I don’t know if I’ve ever thought that Mike No. Look, I do remember, I think we’re in our fourth year of business, a friend of ours that worked at Telstra nominated us for the Telstra Business Awards. And I thought, let’s do this for practice. Let’s see how we go because it’d be really nice to win this one day. So we did that. We went through the process of applying and then we found that we were a finalist, and we were like, Wow, that’s pretty awesome. And I remember turning up to the awards night in South Australia for the Telstra Business Awards. And my husband, my now husband said to me, I think you’re going to do really well. And I said, Oh, no, we’re just you know, we’ll just have a good night, it’ll be fine. Anyhow, we ended up winning the Small Business category, and then sat in the back of the room drinking champagne was so excited and high fiving ourselves, we couldn’t believe it. And then my, my now husband said to me, and he said, Look, I think he might I think he might win the overall award tonight. And I was like, No, there’s no way Cooper’s brewery won that last year, there’s no way a little startup that’s four years in is going to win it. And we did, actually. And I was mortified, because I had nothing prepared. And I, I’ve always been over prepared at anything I go to ever since because that was not a great experience. Because it’s funny when you’re so busy in a startup space. And I’m sure there’s lots of listeners that really relate to this, you really don’t know how you’re going. You don’t know how you’re benchmarking. You don’t know if what you’re doing compares well to others, you really got no terms of reference. So that’s where I think that those awards programs are very good, because it just does give you a chance to get some benchmarking. And I do believe now that because I’ve been a judge since in some of those awards programs, and I believe that Telstra best business, you actually get a report back and it’s due for benchmarking. So you can enter these programs now. And actually, even if you’re not a finalist, you get tools to help improve your business. So those journeys are Take a time to invest in but I think they’re really worthwhile. I think they do give you that Terms of Reference. Yeah. And
Mike: so tell us what it was like you for you and your sister being female entrepreneurs, what were the barriers and the issues for you that you bumped into?
Kelly Jamieson: Well, this is a this is a topic that’s very close to my heart so actually so I, in my early days, I actually found in many ways, being a female was quite advantageous because we bashed above our weight from a PR perspective, because media love reporting on female business owners. So for any female business owners who are listening to this, get yourself out, talk to the media, they love talking to women in business, because you are a minority. And so I didn’t really realize it at the time, but I, you know, certainly any opportunity to promote our brand to grow our brand and our story, we took that with two hands and ran with it. So that was probably something which I found to be an advantage. But interestingly, as our business has grown, that’s probably where I’ve seen the challenges of being a female in business. I don’t think necessarily, we have a seat at the table that we should have in the funding. And you probably be really across this, you know, the number of women that are getting capital into their businesses compared to businesses that are run by men. This statistics are absolutely dreadful. There’s not enough women, both seeking capital, but also winning their capital. And at the same, the same level that men are winning capital. And there’s some really great articles by Boston Consulting Group by Ernst and Young, some really great work papers that really validate what I’m saying. And it’s a gap that I’m really quite passionate about, how do we close that gap? And how do we actually encourage women to put themselves forward. And I’m lucky, I met on the Premier’s Women’s Council here in South Australia, which I really enjoy being part of, and being part of that voice to government hear about women in business and women in the community. But equally, I’ve also started up another group with a group of business women that I have as my own network called Phyllis females. And we have a closed Facebook group of either over 500 women. And one of the things that I think is very powerful for women to do to support one another is to help one another with warm leads to help each other to grow our businesses and help with introductions that are needed to grow businesses. So that’s something that I think men really naturally do. And they do it really well. And we need to learn from that. So it’s about how do we actually support the sisterhood? How do we actually all grow our businesses together? There’s a heap of work to do on it. But I forget every little bit that even I can achieve, and that I can achieve with the women around me to help close that gap makes such a difference.
Mike: Yes. So in a way you think it’s partly a confidence issue, maybe? And also partly a support issue, just getting encouragement and support from others who have Yeah, well, that road? Yeah,
Kelly Jamieson
yeah. And the statistics show that women never asked for as much capital as a man does. You know, like, we’re, it’s, and that comes back to the confidence piece. So look, there’s, we could talk for hours on this, but I but I think it’s just important that it is talked about, and I think it’s really important that everybody’s proud of that solution that and every little bit counts, because, you know, I never would have thought growing up, that was still be a novelty to have a female prime minister that would still be a novelty to have females in leading roles or, you know, that are ASX listed companies would have so few female chairs. So, you know, given how far we should have come in the last 20 or 30 years, the pace of change is actually slower than it needs to be.
Mike: Yes. Yes. And it’s gonna be this current generation and the following generations that are going to break those glass ceilings, I think, and
Kelly Jamieson : I think they will. Yeah, and you only have to look at countries like Denmark, who I think have made incredible progress in the way family structures work and the way that women and men both go back to the workforce after having families, because that’s obviously something that’s cultural. So there are countries doing it really well. And there’s, you know, great case studies for us to look at.
Mike: You mentioned a few times now your suppliers, right. And I know that you you guys really price quality and presentation. And you know, that was one of the founding principles of the business, really. So tell us about your suppliers and the quality of the produce that you’re that you’re securing and your sort of attitude to sustainability. I was reading somewhere that you’ve got. You guys are very keen on sustainability.
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, absolutely. So we firstly use a lot of Australian made product, as our New Zealand office does for New Zealand made products and we really pride ourselves on that. So it’s, and we’ve worked with a lot of our business, their business partners that we’ve had for a very long time are great examples. chocolatier in Melbourne, which is a great family owned business, and they’ve been a key supplier of ours for more than 16 years, which is fabulous. So they’re a great, great family business to work with. But equally on the ESG front, environmental and social responsibilities becoming incredibly important for Australian business. And particularly actually, if you want to work with bigger business, they really look at that whole piece. And it’s a cost for small business to keep up with all of these things to you know, like the complexity of all these different things we need to do as business owners. It keeps us on our toes. So we’ve been working for the last five years on the reusable and the recycling content. about product. So traditionally, florists will use a lot of foams and things like that to create arrangements. And we did to an early days, and we went on a, quite a lengthy process to gosh, we looked at so many different types of materials to actually solve the issue. So like we looked at, you know, the molded cardboard that you get coffee carriers from, we looked at those sorts of products, we looked at the mushroom, you know, how you can get mushroom that’s like a Styrofoam type product. We looked at all these different things. And it was really interesting, and part of the industry leaders forum group in South Australia, and I’ve managed to work with the Detmold group here who are really in a video family business in South Australia. And we actually managed to come up with a recyclable cardboard base for all of our products. So when people now receive an edible bloom spray, Kay, it literally has a recyclable cardboard base. And that was quite the gosh, the number of shapes and trials and tribulations we went through to get to that endpoint was huge. But it was a really exciting project. And the impact that’s had on the environment is just tremendous. And it’s unique to our business, we have improved our production processes. So it’s really interesting when you delve into these products to solve one solution actually has other positive impacts on the business. And so now if you get an edible blooms , you literally take off the outer wrapper, which can be reused for wrapping paper or anything like that. And the entire thing, once you’ve eaten that goes in a domestic Recycle Bin.
Mike: And it’s not without a lot of effort. And it’s costly as well, I’m one of my interests is that I’m the chairman of loving Earth, which is a plant based chocolate business. And we gone through that same area around packaging, and we’re happy to say that all our packages is fully compostable. And even down to the inks, we make sure that the inks are, you know, all completely biodegradable. So, but again, there’s a cost to that. And we’re in a, we’re in a free market. So we’ve got pressure on us to, to be able to, you know, keep the lights on, I guess and you do have to put your money where your mouth is sometimes and it can be difficult. But I’m very pleased to hear that you persisted with that even in spite of the initial challenges at the beginning.
Kelly Jamieson
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a it was a pretty lengthy project, I have to say, but it was definitely worth it in the end.
Mike: Yeah. And one of the benefits of running your own business as you can. You can persist when it doesn’t look very economically viable. But you persist anyway, because it’s part of it is one of your values. So what’s the future for Edible Blooms? And what’s the future for your part of the market? Really?
Kelly Jamieson: Well, look, it’s an interesting thing. Because category, definitely the gifting category had a massive boom over COVID. And things have settled to a new normal coming out of that. And so we’ve certainly been looking outside of the box at what’s next for us. And we’ve got some pretty exciting times ahead, actually. So we’ve just launched this month. Actually, we did it in July, actually late July, we’ve got a trial program with Terry White chemists. So we’re actually in nearly 40 of their stores testing out a new in store florists concept because our product has such great shelf life products considered to have up to six months shelf life often more. So we’ve created like a concession that sits in other retail stores. So it’s a convenience price point. And we’ve developed a price point that’s a $29 price point. And it’s pretty exciting. So actually every brand we’ve presented to has signed up so we’ll be rolling out with another big retailer this month. Some of the Lindt retail stores, which are one of our suppliers. That’s a great supplier mutual customer relationship, which is awesome. My goal is to be in 1000 retail stores by this time next year. And I think we’ll be on track to achieve that. So we’ve got some pretty exciting times ahead for Edible Blooms.
Mike: Excellent. So I mean, that’s beautiful, isn’t it? So that’s a that’s an online business that’s gone through all those evolutions since 2005. And now, now you see part of your future through a bricks and mortar, traditional image channel isn’t that great?
Kelly Jamieson : Well, that’s actually looking at where your customers are and what your customers needs are. And I think there’s that people want that convenience of an amazing bouquet of flowers that something that lasts and something that has the value that they can eat it. So by testing that price point, that convenient sort of break a price point of $29 and coming up with something really innovative. It’s certainly heating them up pretty well.
Mike: Great. And how are you donuts? I was looking on your website.
Kelly Jamieson: They’re pretty great. They’re one of my favorites, Mike. They’re about to get all refreshed. Actually. We’ve just been doing photography this week. So they’re all only on the site next week, which is exciting.
Mike: Those interesting I am. I mean I’m pretty old. As you’ve probably guessed, but I, I was in the pizza and delivery back in the mid 80s in the UK and one of the things that we had a bakery in central commerce and stuff, and we developed donuts, but they never went great. They were fantastic, but they just, they just didn’t fly. We were too early, but it sounds like
Kelly Jamieson : there you were a early adopter, but they’re all doughnuts are in hot demand these days.
Mike: Good stuff. I mean, delivery has gone through such a change since COVID. I mean, you can literally to get anything delivered now. Right? I mean, if I look at my kid, I got five kids. But my youngest, Emma is only sixteen. It’s so natural to her to order stuff and get it delivered in a in a way that I still can’t fathom, you know, the idea of getting McDonald’s delivered or getting a bacon and egg roll with a coffee delivered. It’s just beyond the pale for me. But this is the future, isn’t it?
Kelly Jamieson: Yeah, it is. And the West End evolutions when we first started, we started with Australian Air Express doing regional deliveries. So we would pack Edible Blooms or chocolate bouquets into cartons and send them and they were really unsure about taking our freight, but we’ve been working with them now they’ve evolved into StarTrack. So we’ve been working with them for 15 years now. So yeah, it’s amazing how and now Australia Post that’s the most profitable part of their business is doing e commerce freight. So the amount of products that are moved around the country every day, it’s enormous. But I think there’s also I think, I’ll be really interested because I’m really interested in our impact as a business on the environment, I think it’s something we’re really mindful of. And one of the things I love about our businesses, because we have distribution points in each capital city, their mileage, our products, travel is a lot less. So if you’re in regional Victoria, you’re only traveling from that capital city, you know, it’s much closer the freight, so it means we can be faster, it’s the quality we can maintain as well. So, you know, I think there’s a there’s a lot of freight moving around now, it’ll be interesting to see. Because that same generation that aren’t afraid to order the bacon and egg roll. You know, it’s there’s a lot more knowledge, it’s going to come out about the cost of moving parcels longer distances, because there is a big cost of that. So on the environment. So anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how things evolve. And whether we go back in, there’ll be a trend of going really local, who knows. But everything evolves and trends keep coming.
Mike: Yeah, I agree that I think there’s a growing consciousness amongst younger consumers, they want to know where it’s come from, what’s the impact? You know, what, you know, how can we do it better? Is it is it you know, is there is this ethical, you know, should I be supporting it? I know that you’re throughout Australia, same day delivery, and you’re in New Zealand, but what about the UK did a little birdie told me that you’re in the UK, or you’re going to the EU, we
Kelly Jamieson : were we went to the UK and we had honestly, it was pretty rocky period we got there, just before Brexit? Okay, that’s pretty interesting. And we had, we had GDPR, we had a lot of things, we had a lot of curveballs thrown our way. And so late last year, we decided to pause that market, but, we were actually already engineering reentry strategy, which will be really interesting. And so, you know, it’s not all smooth sailing for business, you know, you don’t just sort of hit a new market, and it works like a dream. And so what was great about that, we had lots of incredible learnings. And I know, we’ve got a very clear path of how we’re going to be going to international markets moving forward.
Mike: But it’s interesting, I mean, talking about challenging markets in the UK to tell Bunnings that as well, because they, you know, sometimes it’s good to be a kind of early retreat and then regroup. I know, loving Earth has done that we’re now looking at our international markets afresh. Because, you know, seven years ago, we really didn’t know what we were doing. And I think.
Kelly Jamieson: it’s actually a lot more common, I think, going to international markets as some people are lucky and they just strike it first time. And it’s brilliant. But you know, I think there generally is a lot of learnings and it generally costs a lot more than you think to enter an international market. So, we certainly learned a lot and I think we’re in a really good position for when we reenter.
Mike: Yes, I’ve been the user of Moon pig over the years. So, I have such a lot of family in the UK. It just digs me out of trouble because I can ring him today to get it all sorted and yeah, and whether it’s Father’s Day or Mother’s Day or whether it’s people’s birthdays, so that’s been good. So, I look forward to the day that I can send my family an edible bloom!
Kelly Jamieson : Yep. Perfect. We’ll keep you posted.
Mike: Fascinating story and what a really, really interesting chat, Kelly, so more power to you and Abby, go the women, right. We want to see more success and more growth for you.
Kelly Jamieson: Oh, thank you, Mike. appreciate it and thanks for the time. Appreciate it.
Mike: Wow, such great insight into what it takes to conceive your idea and start a business. great courage to put it all on the line and put yourself out there. More power to Kelly and Edible Blooms as they continue to blaze a trail in Australia and elsewhere. Shout out to our sponsors, Oasis partners, great corporate advice, without the waffle and the jargon. If you want to sell a business or buy a business or need some strategic input in your business, give the guys at Oasis a call. Finally, if you like this sort of content, be sure to tell your friends and colleagues and leaving a like review would also be very nice. Only good ones, please, because we’re very sensitive. So, until next time, stay safe.
Link to previous episodes: https://www.oasispartners.com.au/troubleshooters-podcast/