Henry opened his store, The Six convenience at the start of the pandemic. While Uber Eats takes a big cut, they also bring lots of orders.

In this episode we talk about the inspiration that Kim's Convenience had, the challenges of selling ice cream, and making sure that your customers are happy.

We also talk about

• Rivalries with other Uber-Eats sellers
• Challenges of getting started, including competing against Wal-Mart
• The more honest you are, the more they buy
• Building relationships with your reps
• Pitting suppliers like Red Bull and Monster against each other.

Colin Davidson, partner at Omnium CPG joins me to take it home.

• Talking about CPG 
• What it means for be Omni-channel 
• We tease up Bricks and Clicks

Cannabis is much more than just flower. In this episode, Colin Landforce joins me to talk about the industry, products, and how he's grown his business to be on track to do $69M in sales this year.

Specifically, we talk about.

• Different styles of cannabis, including deli-style and pre-roll
• Differences in legality across states 
• Issues and challenges with packaging requirements 
• The process of making a consistently good pre-roll using a hop milling machine
• What the processing process looks like to get different products for different products 
• Making sure dosage is safe for consumers
• Creating different brands and  products for different budgets
• Differences between indoor and outdoor grown cannabis, including regional growing opportunities.

Jamie Sutton  from Omnisend joins as well to take us home. Thank you to our 420 friendly sponsors, Shipbob and Gorgias

This episode of Rolled Up is all about Bananas. From wild ads in the 1970s to online grocery in the roaring 20s. Kim Chackal knows everything there is to know about the produce aisle, good and bad. In this episode we talk about.

• The history of bananas
• Hidden things about the industry, including the role of the ripener
• Trends toward more sustainable and equitable products

Finally, Jamie Sutton, GM of Omnisend joins me to talk about sustainability and trends he's seeing.

Special thank you to this season's sponsors. Omnisend, Shipbob, and Gorgias.

Ian Leslie, CMO of Industry West furniture swings by to talk about how the pandemic shifted their entire business model. 

Colin and Lucas  open this episode talking about the CPG industry, and some of the nuances.  Colin is a new voice to you, but best friends with Lucas Walker. He's a mathematician at Omnium CPG, working with large grocery brands like Love Good Fats.

Then Lucas is joined by this week's guest Suzie York.

Suzie Yorke, CEO and founder of Love Good Fats is on a mission to bring healthy fats back.

A mom, eleven-time Ironman competitor and yoga enthusiast, Suzie spent years adhering to a low-fat diet only to hit a wall in her mid-40s. After reading Nina Teicholz’s best seller, Big Fat Surprise, she immediately shifted to a high-fat, low-carb diet, and felt better right away. While she loved the benefits of her new lifestyle, Suzie found it challenging to find convenient, good-fat snacks. Seeing a gap in the marketplace and a huge opportunity to help others through food, Suzie developed Love Good Fats, a company that produces high-fat, low-carb, and low-sugar products.

Today, Suzie leads Love Good Fats’ expansion as it quickly becomes one of the fastest-growing bar brands in North America. As a 30-year veteran of the CPG industry, Suzie has worked at high-profile companies such as Proctor & Gamble, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Weight Watchers, and Zag. Utilizing her accomplished marketing background, personal journey, and deep devotion and passion for health, Suzie is on a mission to spread the word that fat is back, and sugar is out!

Suzie has been recognized several times since launching Love Good Fats, including the 2019 Mompreneur® Start Up Award, 2019 WXN Top 100 BMO Entrepreneur Award and 2020 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards Ones to Watch Award.

Thank you to Omnisend for making this season possible. Increase your sales, not your workload.

Want to stress test your operations? Get started with $500 in free credits from Shipbob

Rolled Up is produced on partnership with Shogun, if you want to explore Headless Commerce, you can learn how Nomad Goods increased conversions and revenue per session 25%.

Enjoy this bonus episode of Omnisend, one of Europe's fastest growing companies. In this free flowing conversation, we talk about our philosophies to viewing customers, being a founder.

• The mindset to be a founder, especially during the roller coaster ride of 2020.
• What it means to be truly customer centric
• Marketing to customers who want to be sold
• Philosophy to bootstrapping vs raising large amounts of capital
• Vices and ways to relax while unplugging.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks for Rolled Up Season 2, highlighting six different industries.

When building enterprise software for HR departments didn’t satisfy young programmer Jeremy Cai’s ambition, he returned to the decades old family manufacturing business, but with a new twist to ignite his passion. Now just 25 years old, Cai is the founder and CEO of the international online retailer Italic, bringing high end luxury consumer goods straight from the manufacturer to the customer at a fraction of the cost, while still retaining high quality products and services. With a subscription-based membership style, asking $10 a month or $120 a year, Italic provides consumers with access to exclusive deals and low-cost products, that will save them countless dollars in the end.

The high middle ground

For Cai and Italic, the secret to success is tapping into the consumers that the other big online retailers miss. There are numerous stores that sell direct-to-consumer goods at a cut rate from in-store brands, such as Ali Baba and Wish, but with little to no quality control or assurance, making every purchase a gamble for the consumer. Likewise, on the other side are name-brands, known for their quality and service, who carry an enormous markup by the time the product hits the shelves. That middle ground, where the consumer gets the quality they pay for without breaking the bank on brand names, is where Italic excels.

Bypass the brand, build it yourself

To a manufacturer, it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day who they are selling their products to, only that there is a satisfied client and a completed sale, high or low end. They have their manufacturing costs to build an item, and a relatively low markup that they pass along to whatever company is next down the line, who pass that cost on to their clients, and so on until you reach the frontline consumer, who pays a ridiculous mark up. Remove the brand name from the product they make, be it athletic wear, kitchen accessories, or tech, and it’s still the same highend, high selling goods, but now at a dramatic fraction of the cost.

Mutually beneficial business

Selling high-quality products to a consumer is the easy part of online retail. The real challenge is selling services like Italic to retailers, and for Cai that means empowering those manufacturers to become merchants themselves, to make the factory itself the brand. While these companies have been around for years, few if any own the product they manufacture, building a set number of products for a contract, and shipping them out. By choosing a selection of products they could manufacture for their own inventory, they can sell directly to customers, with all profit flowing directly back to that manufacturer.

Seize the means of consumption

With no brand names to interfere with direct sales, the manufacturer themselves become the brand, and Italic capitalizes on this by selling the factories themselves to the consumer as businesses they want to buy from. With details of ISO certifications, environmental profiles, product or labour histories, consumers feel more engaged in the mercantile process on a personal level, choosing to buy from manufacturers who meet their own personal standards.

Passing costs, savings and information onto the consumer

The key to that level of involvement, explains Cai, is honest transparency with savvy, well educated customers about the products. While price comparisons are old hate for any market, Italic provides not only the price a consumer would pay at another retailer, fully marked up, but also the actual factory cost to build the product, along side the asking price. This empowers consumer to make an informed choice of who to support, and gives them a more realistic idea of the entire factory economy. Italic is likewise upfront with members that the subscriber fee covers their operating costs, allowing them to interact with the...