Break Into an Established Market With These Retail Strategies

0:00It's really important to cold email. Like we talk about eight to 10 touch points to convert a retailer. That's what I like to tell my team so that they don't get discouraged. It's like, okay, you've only reached out five times. You still got to keep going. Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Shuang Esther Shan, your host here at Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and scaling your business. My guest turned her rainy day frustration into a multi-million dollar company that keeps people dry and our planet cleaner. Meet Morgan Cross. She's the founder of Original Duckhead, an innovative umbrella company creating long-lasting designs made from recycled plastics.

0:42Morgan has mastered product design and customer conversion, hitting 100 % year-over-year growth in 2024 and selling around 1 ,000 units a day. all without having to sacrifice on style or sustainability. Morgan, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I am so honored to talk to you because I have loved the design for over 10 years now. Remember seeing the first duckhead umbrella from a friend. The design is so unique. So talk to us what inspires you to create this umbrella. Yeah, so this umbrella actually was the original one, belonged to my mom. And growing up, I remember seeing this umbrella and absolutely loving it.

1:31And when it came time to start my entrepreneurial journey, I was thinking about what I could do next. And it sort of clicked that I could do umbrellas after moving to the UK. And it was raining so much here. but I really wanted to stand out in the market and so I remembered that duck umbrella and I thought oh yeah that's it let's take that design but modernize it and make it much more eco-friendly and I think this is such a unique story as well you are not the typical direct-to-consumer brand journey you actually started reaching out to retailers why did you make that decision So when I started Original Duckhead in 2012, my thought process was, because I was self-funded, I didn't have a lot of money for customer acquisition.

2:20And I knew that retailers already had a built-in audience. So I thought, let me tap into that first and then prove product market fit. And after that, scale into D2C. and you know at the time there was sort of your low grade umbrella that is disposable and that usually ends up in landfill and on the other side of the the spectrum there was those really expensive umbrellas that hadn't really evolved and they didn't have a strong brand around them so I really identified this white space to create a design-led you know affordably priced umbrella but that really tapped into that eco-conscious movement that was really taking on and that consumers really craved.

3:08Yeah and you actually was working on this project as a side hustle when you were still in your corporate job. What was your approach to actually reach out to retailers as a one-woman show and being able to convince them to take a chance and place an order with you? Yes. So I made it as easy for them as possible. So the barrier to entry was very low. So very low minimums, but still giving them great margins. And of course, it's product first. So we had a compelling, well, we at the time was just I. I had a compelling umbrella that really connected with the retailers emotionally. So they would see it at trade shows when we did our first trade shows and it would make them smile.

3:50So they knew that it would make their customers smile.

3:55And then also I sort of solved a few problems that they might have. If it didn't sell, I would do sell a return for them. So it made it really risk-free for them or even consignment. And also a lot of them didn't know how to display the product in store. So I made sure that very early on we had point-of-sale displays so that for them it was a one-stop solution. You have low minimums. You know how to display it in the store. And if it doesn't sell, we'll take it back. Yeah, that's, I think, the perfect advice, because if you make it easy for the retailers, they're more likely to take a chance on you.

4:33And even before that idea of approaching retailers first, you actually had to approach manufacturers to help you bring this idea to life. Where were you looking for when you were looking for production partners? I was looking for a production partner that was, A, willing to take a chance on me. So willing to do small runs, maybe even do a sample for free, but also someone that would share my values. So I looked for a family run business. Ideally, I wanted it to be woman led, which our factory is. I'd love to say that the first factory we worked with was amazing, but it wasn't. And so we had to change a couple times before finding the right factory, which we now have.

5:21And we've been partnering with them for over seven years now. Wow. Yeah. And if you're talking to a new founder who's entering into their first production run or just looking for possible partners, what are some tips you will give them today? I would say do your homework. Try and go visit the factory. You learn a lot when you have boots on the ground and you actually see how the product is made, how people are treated, just the condition. Is it clean? You know, like do they have respect for the material? So that would be number one. Look at their accreditations if that's important to you. And then lastly, I would say, can you scale with them?

6:07Do they have capacity to maybe do small runs now, but in the future to grow with you? And also, can they innovate? Yeah, these are all really great things to keep in mind. And I also want to highlight that not just the materials you use are sustainable. I believe every umbrella equals like nine plastic bottles, but every aspect of packaging, fulfillment, logistics, you actually think about it through a sustainability lens. So how do you carry that value through every aspect of the business? So we have a set of values that we live by. So we hire by those values. We operate by those values. And they're very clear and the team is aware of them.

6:52And for us, sustainability comes first. We don't want to put something out in the world that wasn't made as best as we can make it. But also that's not going to last. So the best part about being sustainable is making something that's going to stand the test of time. So we love it when we hear people say, oh, we've had your umbrellas for a decade. Because that's what makes a product truly sustainable. Yeah, because you're really working against this throwaway culture that kind of exists within the umbrella space as well. Yes. Every year there's one billion umbrellas that are discarded worldwide.

7:30So crazy to think about. Staggering number. Yeah. Yeah. And then after a few years of operating, you have retailer partnerships and then you were ready to go online. What were you thinking about when prepping to launch in e-commerce? Oh, that was a big decision for us. It was time for us to tell our story and to be able to showcase our story through the words, through our website, but also through beautiful imagery. And we wanted to have a direct rapport with our end consumer. So up until then, we really looked at our consumers as being the retailers. We were working for the retailers and we were doing everything we could to make them a success.

8:10But I just had the desire to speak to, she's mainly a woman who buys from us. And I wanted to know more about her shopping habits. And so Shopify really helped us get that analytics that we weren't getting before. And where were you learning from the analytics that might have been a little surprising as you're scaling up e-commerce? We learned that she likes to shop all year round, which is great. Because people think that, oh, Umbrella must be such a seasonal business, but it actually isn't because it rains somewhere at some point year round. Maybe year round in the UK. In the UK, exactly. But we also work with Australia and, you know, like Southern Hemisphere.

8:56And we even find that in sunny countries, they still like a good umbrella and that she will buy more than one. And a lot of times if she likes a product, she will then buy one to gift. So that's something that we learned. We also discovered that our main markets in Europe are, for example, France and Germany. We're also very present in the U.S. and like I said, Australia. So that really helped us pinpoint exactly where most of our customers are.

9:32Yeah, because I think as an outsider, they might have raised questions about seasonality. And they also raised this question about being a sustainable business. They feel like if your products last forever, then how do you get customers coming back? And to your point, by building this great product, people are happy to gift and share the word of Duckhead as well. Yeah, absolutely. So once you're online, you also were able to scale this direct-to-consumer channel, making up 20 % of the business now. I guess, talk to us about some of the things you did to really scale that new channel. Yeah, so Shopify really helped us get to that 20%.

10:12we were able to use the backend to get more analytics. And what's great is that we use a theme. So we were able to do everything in-house. We're not coders. It was quite simple for us to figure it out. So we didn't have to spend too much money on getting our website to look beautiful. I think it looks beautiful and professional. It does. And yeah, and just to use all these apps that are available to be able to change the cart and make sure that we were cross-selling and getting people's emails. So we have grown our emails list so much. And that's a great way for us to market directly to the consumer as opposed to going through social.

10:50So Shopify has been very instrumental in helping us grow our overall business. Because another thing is it's also a tool that we use for wholesale to attract leads. So we have our wholesale page where our retailers can come to the website and learn more about us. This is also a way for us to recruit people because we have a career page. So we really see our website now as our home. You know, this is where the brand lives. A great place to not only be a point for marketing, transactions, but also those retail and career relationships as well. So because you had great success with retailers and it made up majority of the business, when you went online, there was less pressure for you to perfect the store.

11:37So yeah, how were you experimenting and building up this online presence? We started slow. We learned from our mistakes. We quickly realized that we needed to have a better user experience and that we needed to be mobile first. So that was one of the big learning curves. We used to design our website from the standpoint of, you know, looking at it from a computer screen. But that's not how people shop anymore. And so that change made a big difference in our revenue and our conversion rate. But also, how do you make people stay longer on the website? How do you make sure that they actually finalize the transaction?

12:17Because we were getting a lot of people to the website, but then they were dropping off. So it was constantly, and we still do that, we're constantly refining our website to make sure that it's more usable. And I think there's also a great additive of being online is you take in feedback. You also learn from customers' ideas and incorporate them into new product designs. Yeah, absolutely. We have learned so much from our customers. One of the big changes that we've made besides introducing new products was, for example, customers were telling us we need to see the product in use. and all of our imagery online was still life.

13:00And so a couple of years ago, we did our first photo shoot with models. And so that was, you know, something that seems so obvious that we just hadn't addressed because things were working without it. What's been great about having more of a connection with the end consumer is how many emails we get of people that used to have a duck umbrella growing up or that had, you know, their mother or grandmother had one and they always wanted one. And so there's a true connection to the product and a nostalgia that comes from it. We have a lot of people who give their products their umbrellas a name. Oh, wow.

13:33Yeah. So it's very sweet. We get a lot of lovely emails from our customers.

13:43and the other really fascinating point I want to raise is you actually had this business running as a side hustle for such a long time until a handful of years into the business where you were comfortable to be a full-time entrepreneur what were some milestones that made you feel comfortable with that decision and why did you keep the business as a side hustle for such a long time So some of the key milestones were signing up some of our retail partners, some key accounts that are very influential in the gifting industry. I think that really gave me a sense that I was onto something. And then after that, a lot more retailers came to us.

14:25So once I saw the traction, I felt comfortable sort of letting go of what I was doing. And also because I was a one-woman show for so long, I just didn't have enough time. I just needed to dedicate more time to the business for it to grow and for it to fulfill its potential. Yeah, I think it's worthy to note that you have some iconic museums like MoMA, Kew Gardens here in the UK, so many iconic landmarks that are known for its gift shops partnering with you. What's your advice for solidifying those relationships and growing it over the years as well? I would say it's really important to cold email, to not be afraid to just call email.

15:10Like we talk about eight to 10 touch points to get to convert a retailer. That's what I like to tell my team so that they don't get discouraged. It's like, okay, you've only reached out five times. You still got to, you know, you still got to keep going. And so we have, you know, top of funnel. We do our trade shows. We do our cold emailing. And then we send samples if we need to. And then we have brochures. So we really try and nurture the relationship. But once they become a customer, then, you know, it doesn't just end there. We don't just fulfill the order and then they don't hear from us.

15:44We make sure that their sell-through is the way they want it. We switch product if they didn't pick the right SKU, perhaps. We support them with in-store displays, with beautiful imagery for their online stores. So their success is our success, and they know that. And we make sure that, you know, if they post on Instagram, we'll feature them. So we don't see them as competitors. I know certain brands will look at retailers as competitors to their online store, but we see it all as, you know, it's just one. We're all working together. So we feature them on our website as well, in our directory.

16:20Yeah. Because all of it is also additional marketing. And then when you decided to take that plunge, I feel like, you know, your full time corporate career was also kind of enabling you with the skills as well because you were working in fashion. And I guess what were some of the things you took from your corporate career that really helped with building up this brand as well? I think attention to detail, a great respect for customers because I worked in retail a lot on the sales floor, but also managing a team. That was a very, very good experience. Just that, you know, you need a team to build something big.

17:03And the way you treat people really permeates the whole brand. And so I think that's the biggest take I took from corporate, the corporate world. Yeah. That transition into full-time entrepreneurship happened around COVID and you're also building up your own team. So what were you thinking about as you were hiring staff and kind of creating a culture of your own now? It was about bringing on the right talent, but sometimes the role that you want to fulfill is not necessarily the person you're going to come across. And what I mean by that is you come across someone that has a great talent and maybe you weren't thinking of that role, but you know, there would be a great addition to the team.

17:46And so when I started hiring a team, I hired a lot of people at once and they're still with me today and their roles have changed. So it was all about hiring for attitude and willingness more so than skillset per se. I needed people who were, who could see the vision and who were full of enthusiasm and energy and wanted to grow. they were looking for their next you know the next place where they were going to stay for a while yeah yeah because i think like scaling up a business things change so much over the years and yeah the skill set would have to evolve with that as well um one thing that has stayed true is that you actually remain self-funded and you build your own runway not sustainable just in the design but also the business model as well.

18:38So yeah, what's your advice for building a great financial foundation and one that you're able to achieve 100 % year over year growth, but this is something you build on your own? My advice would be to make sure that you have product market fit as soon as possible, that you find your customers, whether it's wholesale or D2C, and that you focus on making the sale and not get caught up in the noise. I think in the beginning, you have to make that sell. You have to make that phone call in order to see if people really want what you're selling. And if they're not, pivot as quickly as possible. And I think we teased a little bit in the beginning of developing those retail relationships, but a step back or a step before that is you picked out some trade shows that you invested in.

19:32And that was a great kind of opening of doors for you to start reaching out to retailers. So for new founders who are thinking about investing in a trade show, what should they look for and what should they think about when attending one? I would say look at what your competition is doing, what trade shows they're attending. And if you have the funds and the time, go to the trade shows, see the lay of the land, where you would like to be positioned. and start small. Like one of the trade shows we did back in 2019, Shop Object, one of our first trade shows, we only had a small table. We didn't even have a booth, but we met one of our biggest customers then.

20:17So just being there makes a huge difference. Yeah. And I like your advice of going there as an attendee first. Yes. Kind of sussing out the situation before you actually invest in a booth and things like that. And then I think what's fun for me, I love going on the website and looking at new collections and designers that you're working with. So there's a great balance, right? You have prints that have stayed with you throughout the years. There's also limited drops. So yeah, talk to us about working with different designers and managing the different prints you have? So we have some evergreen prints that we keep throughout, some colors that are still our top sellers.

21:03So, you know, your yellow duck, your black duck umbrella, those are always the top selling products on our website. But we regularly work with independent brands or designers just to inject that newness and that excitement for the brand. And it's just great fun just to see our brand interpreted with their codes and just coming together to create something new. Yeah. And I'm sure like that also brings hopefully a new audience into the brand that have followed the artists who are interested to see their work on an umbrella. Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's a great way to share audiences, to share market.

21:42We just did a collaboration with a brand called Nanga, which is an outdoor brand from Japan. And they came up with such a great concept. You know, the little duck umbrella is in a sleeping bag. Yeah, I saw that. It looks very cozy. It's very cozy. But it was good for us because it was a new audience. Like we, you know, it was more of a masculine audience, maybe an audience that was slightly younger than what we're used to. So it was a very good experience for us.

22:18and of course like for the brand you also think very consciously about expanding into new product categories there's are the reusable bags you also launched a new design for the umbrella one without the duck head so yeah it talks to us about the concepts and the ideas you have before considering expanding into new product lines? So our goal is to become the market leader in design-led umbrellas. And for a long time, we were very, very focused on our one product, which I think was good because it made us very disciplined about making sure that we were actively selling because we had this one product.

22:58And to grow a brand, there's a few avenues you can explore. You can add more SKUs. You can raise the price, right, if you want to grow your margin. or you can acquire new customers. And so for us, it was very much intentional to make sure that we were maxing out what we could do with this one product before we allowed ourselves to go to new products. That being said, we also really listened to our customers. And this came from one of our customers who wanted us to design an umbrella for them without a duck handle, but still incorporating all of our sustainability credentials. So that's how the daily our new umbrella came to be.

23:36and we are accelerating the rate at which we're going to launch new umbrellas. Again, our customers have been asking us for a long time to make a mini umbrella. So that's going to be coming out this year and also a children's umbrella with a mini duck handle. Okay, so exciting. Very cute. And I do love the fact that, you know, customers are giving feedback and they truly love the core of sustainability. And I think some founders might struggle with that, thinking about sustainability and maybe the cost or the additional complexity associated. I guess, what's your advice there when someone's building something new?

24:17How can they actually keep the idea of sustainability and thread that through every decision they make? I would say if you're building something new, bring it from the start and bake it into your price structure because it is more expensive. but if it's always been there and if you account for it then it'll make it that much more easier than trying to backtrack I think for us it's a non-negotiable negotiable all of our fabrics are recycled plastic bottles our wood is FSC certified we now are a member of one percent for the planet so we donate one percent of our revenue to charity and we are on track to become a B Corp hopefully will be certified this year.

25:02And all those things, including the packaging, are just things that are really core to who we are. And while you're growing for all of your channels, the retailer relationships, as well as online now, how are you balancing these different channels as you're growing, expanding, and keeping the values close to heart as well? So once we launched our website, with Shopify, our D2C part of the business grew from 10 % to 20%. So it became a lot more intense. So we've had to hire more people, but also move to fulfillment centers. So we were doing all of our fulfillment ourselves from the UK. And then, you know, Brexit and all those things came, making it a bit more difficult for us to ship to Europe.

25:53So we decided to partner up with distribution center. So we have one in the UK, one in Europe, and one in the US. But we also work with a lot of distributors around the world. Yeah. So it sounds like having all those partnerships makes it really easy to kind of manage all of those different fulfillment areas and also pass on the value to customers because you're not fulfilling from one location, but a location closer to them. Exactly. So it's more professional. That's what they do, you know, 3PLs. They have an army of people so they can react to demand and the shipping costs go down because we're local now as opposed to shipping internationally.

26:36And also for a carbon footprint, it just made much more sense. Yeah, yeah. And one thing about growing so much year over year is that, you know, the job that you had a year ago is very different from what you're doing today. how do you set up a business model that you know can grow and pivot and be flexible while still remaining very true to the values that you've set as well? I think it's important to be clear on your targets so we're a target focused company we know exactly what revenue we want to achieve by the end of the year we know the profitability we want to maintain. And we work towards that every single day.