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From eBay to Medical Marketplace: How Phil Leahy is Shaking Up Healthcare E-Commerce with MedCart | #456

In this episode of Add To Cart, we chat with Phil Leahy, founder of MedCart and the brains behind Retail Global, one of the world’s leading e-commerce event platforms. Phil shares his journey from being eBay’s top seller to building a thriving medical marketplace. He reflects on the challenges of managing a marketplace, the importance of customer service, and the lessons learned from vetting sellers. Phil also discusses the evolving role of marketplaces in Australia and the impact of global giants like Amazon and Temu on the local e-com landscape.

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About your guest:

Phil Leahy’s journey began in 2007 when he became eBay Australia’s #1 seller with his business, Entertainment House. From there, Phil went on to shape the industry by founding Retail Global Events, bringing retailers together to spark innovative conversations and drive growth. After selling Retail Global to Maropost in 2022, Phil made a bold return to eCommerce with MedCart Marketplace, now Australia’s leading medical marketplace, providing crucial medical supplies to businesses, consumers, and government bodies. Beyond business, Phil’s passion for giving back has been evident through his Frontliners initiative, which has raised over $1 million for charities and delivered $3 million in products and services to support 140,000 healthcare workers across Australia.

About your host:

Nathan Bush is the host of the Add To Cart podcast and a leading eCommerce transformation consultant. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.

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Duration:: 47m
Broadcast on:: 20 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

your face when I said the word team who I thought you were going to form it on the floor a little bit there. It's my life mate. It's been one accident after another. Let me tell you. You know that's going to be your headline for this episode now. Because everyone doesn't want to talk to they just want the sale they want to move on. I want a connection with the customer. Welcome to Add to Cart. Australia's leading e-commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast-moving world of online retail. Here's your host, Bushy. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Add to Cart. My name is Bushy and I'm joining you from the land of the terrible people here in Brisbane, Australia. Today we are chatting to a true legend in the Australian e-commerce space, Phil Lay, founder of retail global and CEO of Medcart. If you've been to retail fest on the Gold Coast, that is Phil's baby. So you probably already have a connection with him. Now, Phil has an e-commerce career spanning over two decades and he's played a massive role in shaping the e-commerce landscape from running one of the first top performing eBay stores in Australia to founding one of the world's premier retail conferences, retail global. Now, he has turned his sights to Medcart, a fast growing marketplace for health products. In this episode, Phil shares his incredible journey from selling signed silver chair albums on eBay to pioneering Australia's e-commerce conference scene and how he is transforming his brand Medcart into the leading platform for health care supplies. He opens up about the lessons that he's learnt along the way, his approach to customer service, which he got through a really tough time with Medcart and what it takes to run a successful marketplace in today's environment. Personally, after attending a number of Phil's retail global conferences on the Gold Coast, I'm just excited to sit down with him and understand the backstory as to how it all came about and his motivation behind it all. As always, a really big shout out to our amazing partners, Deliver in Person and Shopify for making today's podcast possible. Now, let's get into it. Here's our chat with Phil Lay. Phil, welcome to Add to Cart. Great to be here. Pleasure to be here. Been a long time coming. Thank you for joining us. Where are you? You're up. You're up sunny North, aren't you? I'm in Far North Queensland, about 10 minutes out of Port Douglas in a place called Moebre Valley. On the side of a hill, 10 acres in the rainforest, surrounded by a national park. It's a beautiful spot. That's where all good e-commerce happens. It does now. It does now. I love it. I can't wait to get into your story because obviously we met when you were running Founding Retail Global. You're at Super Retail Group? I was at Super Retail Group, and you ran a brilliant conference, but you're still going today and left a huge legacy there. We're going to dive into that. Then you've got your new venture, probably not so new now, probably doesn't feel new, Med Cart. But before we get into that, I want to go back because as well as researching your story, I came across something fascinating. I didn't realize how deep your roots in radio and music were before the retail game, but I understand there was a moment that you had with Silver Chair that kind of let you into the e-commerce world. Is that right? Yeah, but the story goes back further to my Sony Music Days. I worked at Sony as a care account executive, just an A&R, and we launched a FrogStop album with Silver Chair, and I was blessed to be in the room as they played their first gigs, and I actually went to America that the company sent me to America, and I got the chant in the album in stores over there, which was a lot of fun. So, great memories, but the Silver Chair story was actually the first album. I had a signed copy for my Sony Days, and I had a radio station. I went broke with my partner, and I'm like, "Wow, what am I going to do?" I didn't want to go and work for anybody, and someone told me about eBay and said, "You've got 2000 CDs. Why don't you go and sell some and get some money so you can pay your rent?" So, the first thing I listed was a signed copy of Silver Chair FrogStop, and I've got a zero next to my name on eBay, and it sold them. It sold for $100 a year, and I went, "Wow, this is good," but the best part was, a week later in the mail, I got a $100 US note for this for this album, so an American had bought it, paid, you know, the Australian dollars and 60 cents or something. So, I went, "How was this?" So, I started listing some of my CDs, and then I started buying stock, and then I went into the movie side of things. No one wanted the suppliers, because eBay was a dirty word selling online was dirty. I had to go out to all the independents and get them on first. One by one word got out that we were doing great business, and then finally, BMG, Sony, Warner Brothers, they all came on board, and then we ended up having around 50,000 listings of CDs and DVDs in stock in South Melbourne, and where we shipped them, you know, 65% of that was shipped outside of Australia. It was great fun. That's awesome, and what did you do with that business, that eBay business? I actually sold it to deals direct in 2007. It was the end of the era of the shiny gifts, you know, CDs, movies were going, like the DVD was gone, on the way out, and I was sick of what I was doing, I really was, and I wanted a change, and Paul Greenberg bought the business from me, and not for a lot. He did pretty well. He bought the customers, I think we had a couple hundred thousand customers, and yeah, I started, I thought, you know, what I want to do, I want to stay with the focus and keep delivering these conferences. So, I got out of being a retailer around 2008. So, that's how retail global was born? Yeah, I was born a few years early, because I got to bed a number one eBay seller, not because I was smart, it was because I went overseas and met the smartest people in the room at eBay, to, you know, other retailers, other sellers, and we all shared information. There was nothing like that in Australia, there was no help support in terms of conferencing for this sector. So, I went to eBay, and I went to Australia Post and said, "I want to do this thing which is happening in America, I want you to back me, I'm your biggest customer, give me some money," and then we launched it, and it was really about, and people said, "I was mad at the time going, you're going to share it with all your competitors," and all that, and they're in the room, no doubt, but it just felt like the right thing to do. Tell us about the first retail global, how many people were there, what was the vibe? It was great, well, it was, at the time, I think we call it the professional eBay seller's alliance, and the first one was in Melbourne, and we got about 400 people to that, it was a one-day event, and then the next two days later we did one in Sydney, and we got about the same amount of people, and we did it out at Homebush at the, where the Olympics was. And that was the concept, and for the first few years, we introduced one-day event, and then we turned them into two, then three-day, we went between Melbourne and Sydney for a number of years. Until about 2010, we thought, "Okay, let's do a destination event," and we went to the Gold Coast, and one of the things we chose around the Gold Coast at the time was, you could put an event on the Melbourne, and if you weren't lucky, you could have other events on, and then hotel rooms would be 500 a night. The same in Sydney, but the Gold Coast was cheap to fly to, cheap to stay in, and you also got to your community all in one place. They didn't need to cab it to the venue, they could all stay across the road, and then it's like it stayed there. It's been a beautiful thing. Yeah, I think that's what sets it apart even today still. It almost feels like a retreat, it's like everyone is on destination, you're all stuck there together for a few days, some crazy stuff goes down, lots of learning happening, but you're all in it together, whereas you go to other events and everyone's like, "Oh, I'm going to pick and choose this event, I'll be over here, then I'll be here, then I'll go into work, and then I'll go home, and then I'll be around." But retail global is all in for a few days. That's the other reason too, and I used to sit in Melbourne, Sydney, that the locals would come in and go to their sessions, they'd miss the network and they'd go home to the wife and kids or do whatever they did, and I thought, "Well, this is sort of annoying, so I'm one of the places where we could just lock them in for three days." You know, the next iteration is going to be on a cruise line or a boat or something where you literally can't leave the boat. I've seen that happen in America, but people get helicoptered off those sort of things. That's a different level. All right, let's talk about Medkart, because I think this is really fascinating where you went with Medkart. So my understanding, looking in from the outside, was that Medkart was born almost from a COVID perspective, a need in the market. Obviously, you've got all your connections at retail global and through your career. What was the moment that you went, "I need to start Medkart. I need to get back into the retailing game?" Well, it wasn't my idea. It's a COVID theme. It was a circumstance. I just got back from New York, and mid-January 2020, we just delivered the VIP Awards at Gotham Hall, which was great, was pumped up, going great. We've really made this thing work and got back to Australia, and then this COVID thing started bubbling, and I'm like, "Oh, what's going on here?" And then, of course, we saw what happened with the lockdown started, I think in February. My mother became quite ill, and I end up spending a night with her at Frankston Emergency Hospital. And it was a time when, remember, all the press were saying that the hospitals were being overrun, and these people were under the pressure. And I saw it firsthand being in the emergency room, and I thought, "Wow, with this COVID thing, I don't know how these people are going to cope. I'd see nurses have a swig of coke, some chips run for their patient half an hour later, another swig of coke, some chips, go to another patient." And it got me thinking, I thought, "Well, I thought it was the end of the world. I really did. I thought it was the end of the world." And I thought, "Wow, I've got to do something to keep my team focused, and we're stuck at home, so why don't we build this thing called frontliners?" The idea was to go to the industry, give us pellets of drinks and chips and whole foods and creams and everything we could get our hands on. When you think of your last e-commerce experience that went wrong, how did it go wrong? Was it because there wasn't enough product images? Was it an out-of-whack mobile experience? Was it that one rogue negative review? I doubt it. I bet it was because of your last mile experience and whether your product turned up on time and undemished. That's what we remember. Delivered in full on time or die-fot for the sexy shortened version is a key metric for retailers and customers. Why? Because it's a critical indicator of reliable on-time delivery and the post-purchase customer experience. However, many Australian retailers are settling for 70 to 80% delivered in full on-time results. That's a lot of unhappy customers. That's why brands such as July, Samsonite and the party people turn to deliver in person. With an average die-fot score of 99.6%, you are delivering experiences to remember. Do not settle for less. Find out more at DeliverinPerson.com. We ended up being on a current affair for all the right reasons, which was good. We went across the press and we ended up delivering three million dollars worth of product over that program of free product to 140,000 healthcare workers. Nationally, my team did this at the same time. This incredible team launched virtual conferencing, not just in Australia, but in America as well. We put on virtual Zoom conferencing, while our competitors did nothing. We started connecting the industry as well. All this is going on. I'm like, okay, we're doing the right thing in a charitable sense where we've got this business thing going and then the government is going to start paying us. That took a load off our mind to run a bit of a high. Jason calls me. Jason Wyatt is the mate from marketplace. He said, "Look, I've been looking around and seeing you've got all these healthcare workers, etc. Looking around, there's only classified sites for medical." I jumped online and I went, "Wow, you're right. There's nothing." He said, "You should do a medical marketplace." He said, "I'll help you if you want to do one." I went, "Oh, well, there's a need. My team might be locked in their rooms for the next two years. At least we could actually pivot and do this thing." I've met her. She don't want him locked in a room for two years. No way. I was lucky he was locked in his own house. Then, look, my housemate at the time, Kate Bean. She's actually a famous actress. She was in "Chop" at the movie and a bunch of others. I said, "We need a name." She came up with a name I didn't. Then, we blindly started launching it and getting it going. Then, I think about six months afterward, it worked out that I've actually made a bit of a commitment here. I either had to make a work or shut it down because it was bleeding money. I decided to take my focus away from Redtop Global and focus on MedCART. Great. Is it always a marketplace for D2C to those frontline workers, the nurses, the doctors, and the rest? Or is it also a B2B marketplace? It was really about B2B and B2C because when we looked at it, the classified thing was very chunky. It didn't work. I'm thinking people wanted to be connected with face masks, with gloves, with sanitizer. That was the basics of the time. We set up to do those products. I think after a few months on boarding and maybe four or five months, we might have had 1,000 products, but they were the staples. There was no COVID test at the time. The start was gloves, masks, and sanitizer. Things evolved. Yeah, evolving. Coming out of COVID now seems like a distant memory. It's only a couple of years, really. Things move so quickly. We move on so quickly. How have you evolved MedCART into what it is today? We had a boom-bus cycle. We saw that COVID tests were going to be a big thing before anybody, which was great. We went on Ross Greenwood. We talked about the upcoming demand for COVID tests. We assembled the most amount of COVID tests we could on the site before. It was allowed launch to the public, which was on November 1st, 2021, I believe. Then things got real around December. People got onto these things, and then there was an explosion of orders. In that January period, we did 38,000 orders. We used to be doing 1,500, 2,000 dollars a month. We got smashed. It was great. We did 10 million bucks, but we didn't deliver about 5% of those orders. We delivered about probably 30% of those four weeks late. We really didn't know what we're doing. We had some bad actors on the platform. It was great to get all that money, but it was a really horrible time. I employed a new CEO and Dylan Booklist to help sort out our systems and our issues at the time. We went from two customer services to 20 very quickly. I was surprised then when you said that you didn't know what you were doing, because obviously the history that you gave us around being number one eBay seller for a long time, you talked retail and e-commerce all the time. We were some of the best in the business through retail global, had all the connections. What was it around that sudden surge in demand that really caught you off guard, that even you were out of your depth? Being on the seller side and doing well on eBay and did well because I was absolutely committed to customer service. If we got an order by two o'clock or was out or three o'clock or was out the door by five, all that sort of stuff. You assume that everybody's like you. One of the great learnings was when we were onboarding sellers was probably not checking them out to the full extent, that they had the same commitment to customer service we did to ethics to other things. That was a huge learning and also there's systems and there's processes and those things I'm not great on. I'm an entrepreneur, I'm not an analytical per se, so there's so much I didn't know. It's out there and we employ the right people to help us get to the knowledge. It's a great lesson isn't like identifying your strengths and then bringing in the right people to plug those gaps. You mentioned their customer service and I saw on the current version of MedCART, it feels like that is an elevated experience there. You've got the phone number, top right hand corner for anyone to see a local phone number straight away. There's lots of touch points where people can interact with your team. I'm assuming a lot of this is in response to what you've been through to make sure that customers are having a good experience. What's your approach on customer service today? We've got a wonderful team which we've spent a lot of time and effort within InSebu. They're ex-Tolstra. So, Tolstra, do you remember, I think it was around the time of COVID or something, Tolstra built wonderful teams of people in InSebu and built this out of many years and all of a sudden became politically not cool to have workers in the Philippines. So, they just sacked them all. So, we scooped up the best of them. There's the entrepreneur. Well, we were lucky. They came into our position and we're not letting these people go. They're great and then it was about training and then hearing our voice and how we wanted to treat our customer and them learning from that. And we spent a lot of money on advertising. Why wouldn't you want to talk to your customer? I don't get it and I didn't get it back then. Even when we had entertainment house, we're doing, we at our best were a thousand units at the door a week. But we had a customer service farm. Nobody did. I want to talk to the customer, especially if they've got a problem. I think that that is critical because everyone doesn't want to talk to them. They just want the sale. They want to move on. I want a connection with the customer. So, we got great people and we want to drive those conversations. So, two-edged sword sometimes and I don't mind that part. You know, you'll get an 80-year-old pensioner who wants to send you a check for a $20 sale. Let me just work it out for them. You help them and then you'll have a customer call up and drop 30K with you. So, treat them by the snow. I love that. It reminds me of Seth Godin who I saw speak at a Mailchimp event a few weeks ago. He's awesome. Exactly what you said there. He was like, "We've got companies out there spending millions of dollars on Facebook ads and all the other branding and advertising, yet when a customer is in their moment of need or they actually want to speak to the company that's been trying to reach them for months or if not years, customers are like, "Okay, I'm ready to speak. Let's go." They get a message bank or a queue for half an hour. It doesn't make any sense. Or driving them to chat, which not everyone wants. You know? Exactly. Tell us more around the tech stack that you've got there. You mentioned Marketplace as the core product to there with Chase creating the marketplace. What other tech stack have you got to power MedCART? We launched with full stack Marketplace and of course, as time went on, it became real for them that they had to get out of that front-end side of the business and concentrate on what they're good at, which is the back-end marketplace software. So, we were told the year and a half out, "Hey, we're going to make this redundant," which is, "Oh, great. Fantastic." But actually, it was fantastic because it was so limited what we could do on Marketplace. So, we ended up this time last year or on the 23rd of October last year, we launched our front-end with BigCommerce. So, we have a stack of BigCommerce. We already had Clavio, but we plugged in search spring and since we've also plugged in podium. So, that's what we sort of call our tech stack. Cool. And what was some of the use cases that drove you towards, say, BigCommerce over other platforms, especially like the Shopify's of the world? Yeah. So, we, when I say we, the CEO at the time, Dylan and myself, we went and spoke to everyone. We spoke to the shop. We spoke to Magento. We spoke to all the leading agencies who represent or really great at those platforms. There was so many different reasons for our choice. At the time, I think Shopify only had its own payment gateway and it snipped a ticket. It's site speed. There's a few things I didn't like about it. Magento was just two enterprise. Great solution. Fantastic solution. And the agency, you know, we talked with was the fantastic agency. Great insight. Overdose. But we settled with Big and it was Big risk because of we could strip it out a bit. So, we'd make it quicker. We could actually dump some of the stuff we didn't need in it. We could basically connect it to marketplace. So, it wasn't just, it was organic while we chose Big. But in the end, there were some commercial realities that came into play as well. Yeah, that makes sense. What's been some of your biggest learning around managing a marketplace? Because a lot of our listeners will either be running D2C brands or omni-channel brands, but not operating a marketplace, per se. Where you've, you know, to the pain points that you raised before is that you're kind of trying to vet other people selling on your platform, making sure they hold the same ethics and standards that you do. But at the end of the day, you are the face and the brand that the customers are interacting with. What's been some of your biggest lessons around operating a marketplace? That you have to keep dropping off your worst performing sellers. That's the only way to get to a good spot. You know, the best performing sellers give you 80% of your turnover. The worst performing sellers give you the most pain point. What we're trying to do is take out the pain point, keep it a nice customer experience and keeping that smooth. So, that's probably the biggest learning of them all. Do you have to maintain a close relationship with your sellers, or do you kind of just set up the parameters and go, as long as you stay within these parameters, go nuts? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it. But our leading partners, we tend to have weekly and to weekly meetings. Just to talk about product, what's coming up and, you know, the ones we're doing the most with, we will constantly have weekly meetings with them. Others are on autopilot, and they're doing great volumes. But, and that's the way some want it to, you know, as long as they're competitive. And as long as they don't steal from us as well, that's one of the problems or one of the issues when you talk about challenges is getting partners who won't steal from them. We're very, if you look on our marketplace, and I did this deliberately, that we don't hide our brands, we don't hide our sellers. You know, their brands are up there. So, what happens sometimes is a savvy consumer will look at the brand and go to their website or ring them up and go, "I know I can cut these guys out of the pie and get a better deal." So, we have to be keeping our best partners close. And we also monitor it too, you know. But, and then we hear great stories of honesty. You know, I had one the other day, a customer's hell bent on a $20,000 quote, to go direct. And the, the, the merchant wouldn't let them. So, we end up getting the sale, you know. You know, we work too hard to get the customer. Is that the role that you see you playing is being that front facing customer acquisition for all your sellers as a marketplace operator? Is that your main role? That's our role. And we can do it better. It's really about marketing to get customer. So, they don't have to worry about that. They can get on the job of fulfillment, product selection, whatever they do. Our job is to get the customer, give them a seamless transactional experience. So, you know, especially the API in it all just goes in. It's all simple. It's all simple. So, that's what we're trying to do. The new climate has accelerated nearly a decade of e-commerce evolution into just 90 days. And just as businesses around the world have pivoted to adapt, shopify have scrapped their normal plans to help solve the problems merchants face today. At Shopify Reunite, Shopify launched a bunch of innovative new solutions to help you keep up and stay informed on the future of commerce. To see them all, watch the recording at shopify.com.au/reunite. We have to have that point of difference. So, we have to stop customers going direct. And you see this with eBay, you know, we brand ourselves a eBay, but they still come direct. Some customers go, "I trust this marketplace. I'm staying with it. I know I can do a charge back." All that sort of stuff. So, our real people on the other end of the line, if I need them. Yeah. Our message to our customers is, "Well, look, we're your judge and jury here, too. Like, we're on your side. We will go in the back for you." And sometimes we take a bit of a hit, even personally, you know, as a company, we'll take that hit as the company to make sure that the customer is satisfied. You're always going to get customers who want to screw you and be problems. But as I said to my team, if we don't have those guys, we're not selling enough. Yes. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Is that you're not reaching enough people, if you're not reaching that portion of the population. That's right. Now that you've got that perspective, because you're in such a unique position here, because you've seen the evolution of eBay and obviously how big eBay got from that point. And we've moved through that phase of marketplace. Now, where we've got a lot of retailers like Mya, Barbecue's Galore, also having their own marketplaces within their e-commerce sites. And now it feels like we're in that next evolution where the international marketplaces of Amazon, Timoo, Sheen are really taking a toll on a stream in e-commerce. Huge toll. Yeah. How do you see the role of marketplaces in Australia evolving? Do you feel like they will be beneficial for Australian retailers? Or do you think they're a real threat? Well, they can. Look, it's weird, the ecosystem, right? I remember being in Las Vegas in 2010, and I was a catalyst at Channel Advisors Conference. And Scott Wingo was on stage. And Scott, I'd known since like 2003, 2004, Channel Advisors, a very smart guy, seen it all like a true analytical animal he is, like just one of those smart people. And he predicted in 2007, well, for next 10 years, I can't see anything else with marketplace is dominating the landscape. And that was part of the reasons too. I focused retail global on marketplaces because of that prediction and that idea of that. And it's dead, right? Now, we're in 2024 and we're seeing things evolve. Now, would I start a standalone marketplace now? Unless you've got some really good idea. I think it's great for the bunnings, for the big guys with lots of customers to plug in a marketplace. It makes sense. It's almost like another version of retail media for them. Yeah. And look, it's a little guy missing out. Not if he's plugged into that. It's part of the ecosystem. But I think that only the big guys should even venture into the marketplace is they're going to know what they're doing. They're going to have someone dedicated to it. The CEO has to be dedicated to it. But starting a niche one, unless this, and I'm sure there's plenty of ideas out there, it's a lot harder. These things take forever to get flywheel forever for a long time. Like we're about, we're getting into flywheel as we head into year five next year. Yeah, wow. And your face, when I said the word team, I thought you were going to vomit on the floor a little bit there. I spoke to, I had a call with Jane Kay the other day and others, they tell me about the effect on, certainly the clothing sector. But as you know, when you search on your social devices with it, that shit just pops up all the time. So they've obviously got direct together from getting the customer. And so for you, I could imagine that that is a very competitive space when you're talking about medical supplies. It's got to be my advantage because you're really going to buy some medical stuff from team. Really? You're going to get advice from them? No, that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. So that I'm lucky, look very lucky to be in that space where we're not in clothing per se, you're not hate to be in that one of those categories. And from a medical perspective, because that's a really interesting point is that obviously we've got Australian standards and regulations that you're in prime position to be able to make sure your suppliers meet that customers can feel safe with you. On the flip side of that, I can imagine that there are some aspects of e-commerce where selling medical supplies is actually a pain in the ass. Have you come across any limitations from a medical perspective as a category? Now, I look at this NDIS, which has sort of got some friction into it. So you've got to go back and forth and things like that. That's annoying. I actually love the category because I love seeing stuff. I don't even know what it is. The pictures of it go through the sun. What the hell is that? Oh, okay. Our job, of course, is product knowledge. We have to know the product, but the items or excuse we sell the most of, we're right across what we're selling. We really do understand. But the ones and twos, the stuff where you have no idea what we're selling, it's fun. I love seeing it. That's awesome. I love it. So good. I love that you found a focus, even though it wasn't your idea. It wasn't intended, but you're right in the middle of it now, loving it and leading the way. It's fantastic. I want to just flip back quickly to the events scene because you've made such a big impact and have a huge legacy around the e-commerce community and events scene. And obviously, international as well, but we've experienced it from an Australian perspective. As people are planning what events and conferences they might be going to in 2025. I'd love your view now. How do people make the most of those multi-day in-person conferences as an attendee? But then I'll also ask you, if you're investing money into these conferences, whether it's 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 as a sponsor, how do you make the most of it as a vendor? So we might start as an attendee. As an attendee, okay. So if you want to get this verbatim, go to Jen Gill's website. I think she's got somewhere there. But she actually, out of all the company, I've been doing the conference scene for 18 years, had different MCs. I always loved putting a retailer on the stage as the MC because why not? They actually know what they're talking about. And she, Jen would get on stage and say, give you a really good outline to your approach. Of course, before you go to the event, you study the form guide. You see what content's on, what speakers, what resonates with you and what vendors are at the event. So you have that planned out. Jen basically says, get there, create a space for yourself. And when you've, at the end of each day, get your notes out and basically get your plan of action. And then after the event, take a date out of the office, do the out of office thing and basically consolidate what you've learned over that event and prioritise what you want to go after. And don't have a big list. Be focused on your top priorities, your goals, your pain points, and go into the event with those in mind. And don't get distracted by the sun, the shiny stuff. But doing one thing, one thing 100% is better than doing lots of little things. And just post event, pick on a quick win, an idea to investigate and a person to contact and make sure you do those things. Don't let us slip. That's a great tip. And Jen's amazing. She's fantastic MC and fantastic person and all things e-commerce. The other thing that I've seen people on that same note that I've seen people do really well who get the most at least conferences is maybe right two or three problems that you are trying to solve in your business right now and bring them to the conference and be open and honest about them. Because whether it is vendors or whether it's people you run into to go, I'm here because I'm trying to solve this problem. You'll find that. Right. And I also think on that is as you get through your career, I often hear people who kind of get five years into e-comm and they're like, I've been there a few times and I don't think I've got anything more to get out of it. But it's not always about the content, right? It's like, I think when you're first getting into e-commerce, you kind of just absorb all the content. You go to every talk, you got every panel and you're just absorbing to get the language and understand who's who. But your own journey evolves that probably by the time you've been there a few times, you spend more time in the hallways catching up with people and reconnecting and keeping those relationships going than necessarily spending all your time in the conference rooms. That's right. The human connection is everything. In fact, when I was first out of going to conferences, probably some of the best stuff happened at the bar in terms of people sharing and then doing Paul Greenberg deals and then implementing straight after. In terms of vendors, what approach they should take. The biggest thing, and I've walked the floor, I don't think any Australian has done the amount of visiting competitors shows right across America going to show off the show off the show. I can't believe how many vendors don't get their basic messaging right on their boots. You've got to let people know exactly what you're doing a short sentence and have a clearly displayed or graphics or whatever on your booth as a starting point. The trick shots, in terms of vendors and engagement, great swag still works. The trick shop like a coffee machine, you go on retail or wherever, you go for the free coffee and that's where you get people in and then you can engage them there. There's plenty of other engagement tools like seeing the basketball thing and all sorts of different tricks, but my biggest tip for any vendor is to look at sponsoring the social networking sessions. I think that they can be great. A great way to get your name out there. People tend to look at you favorably when you shout in my beer or wine. I do. I love your point though around having what you do in a single sentence because I think it stands for boots, but also websites. The amount of vendors that I speak to that go, "Hey, have a look at our website, tell us what you think." I'm like, it's a lovely website, but there's a lot of buzzwords there. Just tell me what you do and how you are different to your competitors. Just spell it out for me because retailers aren't trying to solve the riddle of what you do. They just want to know how you're going to solve their problem. Sometimes I think their content is for SEO and not for the user. Yes, yes, exactly. Feel amazing. We've covered some great ground there and it's been a pleasure to sit down with you and hear your story from where to go. I feel we've had a lot of interactions, but never actually had the moment to sit down like this, so it's been great for me. Tell us about the next 12 months, especially with Medcart. What are you prioritizing? How are you shifting in market? What are your priorities going to be? The next 12 months is just continue with quality seller onboarding and curating our range as well, looking to expand. The great thing about Medcart, it can fall into a lot of other categories. We can expand out in the food, for example, pet cat. We do really well with some of the murders we've got already on pet cat. We'd like to expand out those sort of ranges as well. Expand out our dental ranges. For us in the B2B side, it's about multi-cart choice. It's about having the most amount of skews possible. At the moment, we've got 35,000, I think. We should be closer to 40 by Christmas. I want to get to 100,000, but I want to do it in a sustainable, smart fashion where we get to partners who are absolutely trustworthy, who are committed to customer service, and are going to be a great fit for Medcart. We have so many more opportunities in marketing in terms of socials. We're not doing what we should be there. We have some complications around health with that, but we'll fix that up. I'm excited about that, Chell. I've really just been focused getting our basics right. We've only been on this new platform a year. Thank goodness, because we were headed for a boy of the nation if we hadn't changed. We're going to be up 300% on last year, and he got, "Oh, how amazing must be rolling in, Cash." No, we're breaking even. We're breaking even, but I'm excited by next year about being in black. But to pull yourself back from that moment is pretty incredible, right? I'm not going to be adding too much to the overhead, not shiny stuff, keep it basic, and just concentrate on profit. Leverage the machine that you've built. Beautiful. Feel for an accidental business. It's not too bad, is it? That's my life, mate. That's big. One accident after another. Let me tell you. You know, that's going to be your headline for this episode now. One accident after another. There's no gapping lever, which, mate, there's no pull-breed boat. There's no planning here. I'm just rolling into one thing after another. Oh, Phil, I love it. I love it. So good. So people have heard this and want to get in touch, want to check out Medcard. What's the best way for them to do that? Check out Medcard.medcard.com.au or email Phil@medcard.com.au and happy to answer any questions or help or whatever you need. Brilliant. Phil, fantastic. It's great to chat and thank you for joining us on Add to Card. Thanks a lot, mate. There you go. What a chat with a legend that is Phil late. Now, for someone who has been in the industry for so long, and he knows the best of the best, the true godfathers of Australian e-commerce, and I know that most of them would drop anything to help him whenever he needs it, I found Phil an incredibly humble and honest person with what he knows and where his strengths lie. I wasn't expecting from Phil that he is so almost tough on himself, especially when it comes to establishing Medcard after everything that he has been through. It's a brilliant attribute in a leader to know exactly where your strengths lie, and I think Phil showed that today. Here are my three main takeaways from that chat. Number one, customer service is everything. Phil's dedication to customer service really shines at Medcard. By hiring ex-telstra staff for his support team, he's built a system where every customer gets personalised real-time help. That's become his differentiator. Phil's approach is all about creating customer connections and building trust and long-term loyalty. Like he said, it's taken him five years to get this machine turning. And whether that's handling an 80-year-old customer mailing in for a check on a $20 purchase or someone dropping $30,000 on a single order, to remind her that customer support can make or break your business. Number two, quality over quantity when it comes to marketplace sellers. Phil shared how Medcard had to let go of underperforming sellers to improve the marketplace. He explained that the bottom 20% of sellers often cause 80% of customer service issues. It's a rule that applies in so much of business that 80/20 rule. But by curating sellers who align with Medcard's high standards, Phil is not only improving the shopping experience, but also reducing headaches behind the scenes. The marketplace game isn't necessarily the race to who has the most sellers. It's the race who can deliver the best curation of the best products for the customers that is easily. Knowing when to cut ties with partners who don't add value is key to long-term success. And number three, adaptability is key, no matter the industry. Phil's career is a testament to adaptability. Whether shifting from selling music CDs to launching a retail global conference to building Medcard, Phil always embraces change, even if sometimes it feels like it's been forced upon him as he discussed with the idea for Medcard. His shift to big commerce as Medcard's platform after facing limitations with previous solutions and his recent move into pet care products shows that even after decades in the game, staying open to new categories and opportunities is vital for growth, both for business and personally. Now if you enjoyed today's episode, please share it, don't forget to leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts, and of course, if you can, support our amazing partners, Shopify and Deliver in person who make this podcast possible. Before you go, we'd love to invite you to join our free e-commerce learning platform at Decart campus. Meet other professionals and learn from e-commerce experts to take your business and your e-commerce career to the next level. Register to join campus and adddecart.com.au/canvas. Now if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with a friend or a colleague, or even better, leave us a review on Spotify or Apple. It really makes a difference.