From Replicas to a Unique Experience: The Life Interiors Story | #072 - a podcast by Nathan Bush
from 2021-04-18T19:00:36
In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Basil Karam, CEO and co-founder of online homewares store, Life Interiors. As with many in the homewares category, Life Interiors had a massive 2020 and are on track for an even bigger 2021 off the back of a replatforming over to Shopify Plus, a smart omnichannel set up and investment in technologies including augmented reality and artificial intelligence. In this chat, we hear the Life Interiors story, including how they started on eBay and as a replica furniture company - a far cry from today where they are now one of Australia’s leading furniture designers and retailers. The next frontier? A BHAG of doing $100m online! Basil is at heart a technologist and it is fascinating to get his view on how to build an online business that can scale but still be unique.
Links from the episode:
Augmented Reality at Life Interiors
Signet’s Honeycomb Mailers (sponsored)
Shopify & Rollie Nation (sponsored)
Questions answered:
- What have been the most significant challenges of re-platforming for Life Interiors?
- What’s the relationship between online and offline for Life Interiors and how do you measure attribution for each?
- How and why did Life Interiors migrate from selling replica furniture to creating your own designs?
This episode was brought to you by…
Like bees to the honeycomb, retailers are loving Signets new sustainable alternatives to traditional eCommerce packaging. They have recently introduced honeycomb mailers into their eco-friendly range. Made from Kraft paper the 100% recyclable padded mailers offer the same protection as plastic bubble mailers without costing the earth. Signet has over 5,500 packaging solutions to help leading eCommerce businesses step up their packaging game. Visit signet.net.au to find out more.
Australian brand Rollie Nation makes footwear that is lightweight and one of the favourites of suitcase stuffers around the globe, so when Rollie Nation wanted to put a greater focus on direct to consumer, they migrated to Shopify Plus, with integrations into Gorgeous for customer service, , Smile for loyalty, Klaviyo for direct marketing and Okendo for customer reviews, Rollie Nation were able to deliver a site that was as lightweight as their shoes. They immediately achieved a 62% improvement in page speed, which contributed to a 3.5% increase in conversion. As Limp Bizkit would say they’re now rollin’ rollin’ rollin’. To read more of Rollie Nation’s story and see other case studies visit the customers sections on shopify.com.au/plus.
About your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGH
Nathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. 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.
About your co-host: Basil Karam from Life Interiors
Basil is an entrepreneur with a track record of starting, growing and scaling high-growth technology enabled businesses. With more than 20 years experience delivering complex technology solutions in the cloud his expertise branches the fields of retail, technology and digital marketing. Basil is CEO of Life Interiors, a leading design-focused, technology-led vertically integrated furniture and homewares retailer on a mission to offer great design at an attainable price across several channels including retail, e-commerce and some of Australia's largest furniture and homewares marketplaces including Temple and Webster, Zanui.
Prior to Life Interiors, Basil worked at IBM implementing WebSphere e-business solutions across Telstra before moving to pureprofile a venture backed start-up to be part of the founding technical team and eventually heading up innovation in the CTO / CIO roles. Pureprofile launched its revolutionary SaaS platform internationally from Australia into the United Kingdom and the US and eventually listed on the ASX.
You can contact Basil at LinkedIn
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