How This Online Store Took a Page From Magazines

0:00This is going to be insane, and it is not for the faint of heart for those Shopify entrepreneurs out there. This is something that we do every three months. And when I say refresh, we're not talking refresh with a little bit. The site is 100 % changed over. Hey, Shuang Esther Shan here. Welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. Brand partnerships aren't the only way to monetize content. For Diane O 'Connor, she turned her blog about lifestyle, travel, and food into a Shopify store. Her brand, Westin Table, is now an online destination for buying homeware, furniture, antiques, and more.

0:44And Diane is still doing all of the sourcing herself, often finding artisans abroad to bring their goods to the North American market. Diane is here today to talk about the digital strategies behind creating a seven-figure business that merges e-commerce with entertainment. Thank you so much for joining us, Diane. Well, thank you, Shuang. I'm so excited to be here. It's really a big moment for Weston Table to be invited to be on your show. We're very grateful to have you here because when I look at Weston Table, I think any shopper can see the clear vision and the brand story, which is your point of view.

1:24It's all about your love for travel, food, entertaining. So let's start with you telling us about those passions, how you turned a blog into an actual online retailer? Well, I have five children. I have 250 ,000 bees. I have 20 chickens, two dogs, a husband, and I used to have a career in money management. And my kids grew up and I decided I needed to do something. And I wanted to do something in business, but something that I nurtured and something that really reflected who I had become over several decades with all of this wealth of experience and traveling and feeding a family of seven daily, multiple meals a day.

2:08I started out with just a small little blog because people kept asking me when they came for dinner, oh, how did you make that? It's so delicious. And I was self-taught and a self-taught chef who had a passion for getting friends and going to cooking classes in the Boston area and then coming home and trying out my new skills on my family. and then on my friends. And after that, people would say, wow, you really know how to entertain. And I didn't know exactly what they were alluding to, but they said, you make it feel so special. When we come and sit down at your table, everything is so perfect.

2:47So I thought, well, I'm going to do a blog. And so I started blogging with some travel inspiration. My family travels extensively, all of us in tow. I took babies back and forth to Australia. I took children to China. We've gone to every continent on the planet and really enjoyed those travels. And then people were asking me about it. So I just decided, okay, hey, how can I monetize this blogging that I'm doing and turn it into a business? And in true fashion, and very much like Weston Table across the board, we don't do anything small. Everything is big. So I had nothing. And some people might think that as an entrepreneur, I was a little bit crazy in the sense that I invested in Shopify Plus when we only had$250 ,000 in revenue, which is kind of surprising and certainly not the normal route.

3:45But what we decided to do was to really do what Kevin Costner did in Field of Dreams and say, if we build it, they will come. And we looked for a partner in the marketplace to customize a website for us. And we really needed an e-commerce website that could handle sort of what we dreamed would eventually be a super robust Western table that it is today managing millions of transactions and millions of dollars. And it took a little bit of ingenuity at the beginning because Shopify's customization wasn't what it is today. in 2020. It has really been such a great journey to be with Shopify and see how explosive the toolkit is once they see what we're doing and what we need and how we want to use it.

4:34We've been really creative and our site doesn't look like any other Shopify site. Well, it sounds like you are offering your dinner guests an experience and by that, you're also taking that experience online with Weston Table, with the store. So let's get into it a little bit because you mentioned this is not the traditional route that most businesses take. You were not the typical Shopify Plus merchant, but you wanted to invest and build that foundation. So where were you trying to build with Shopify Plus that was able to showcase that experience with Westin Table online? Well, initially, and this might surprise you too, Schwang, is when we first started our conversations with the people at Shopify, they were saying, well, most people do what you're asking to do by adding WordPress on top of Shopify.

5:25And we said, wow, we really only want to manage one big tech tool. So how can we make it work? We are a creative team, and I think our entire site reflects that sort of creativity. And the Shopify customizable themes, we decided to just go for it. So we started customizing the blocks. I think we had 12 blocks to work with. and we really wanted to build a site that wasn't blocky, that wasn't your traditional computer screen grid where things had to be laid out perfectly within boundaries. And if you look at our site today, our boundaries are not on a grid. We've managed to manipulate the tools in a really creative way and get the most out of them.

6:11And I think Weston Table is that perfect intersection of e-commerce and entertainment. You're literally inviting someone into your universe, onto your table. So talk to us about building that online shopping experience into almost an entertainment destination that is editorialized. How were you able to actually make that idea a reality? Well, we had already been working on a food blog and travel information. And so our first opportunity came when we tried to say, okay, what do people look for and who is the competition? Turns out magazine and magazine articles are really the competition for online retailers in that space of talking about travel and food.

7:02So we said, okay, what are the really cool things that they're doing? And which of these magazines do it the way that we really think we can do it long term and be successful? And so we started looking at typefaces and how you would integrate that into Shopify without slowing the site down too much, but also having it read like a magazine so it would feel less like a screen and more like something tangible and dimensional. And so we started looking at tools that we could either app or build ourselves within Shopify that would allow us to turn the page for people, that would allow us to let the audience or the person visiting Westin Table online to sit back and enjoy a really cool experience where things started moving by themselves, started traveling from one side of the screen to the other.

7:57And we've been really committed to the technology to do those types of enhancements on our site. So I also think, you know, tech aside, obviously, we're giving you some features and also some tools that you can implement to customize to the way that you want. Tell us about some of the features that you really enjoyed or some of the tools that you were surprised about. So the tools that I really have enjoyed lately are the ability to do color transitions and to take a retail e-commerce experience that for generally has been led by Amazon. I did not want to build Amazon. I wanted to build a entertainment platform, not a transactional platform.

8:39And in order to build that entertainment piece into it, we really felt like we had to take all of those really good things and then enhance them with color and life and a vividness that you don't generally see. You see mostly commodities shown on white backgrounds, pretty consistent across the internet in the e-commerce space. You know, they might have a few lifestyles, but then every single product is shown on a white background. And so there's good and bad that goes with that, right? It's not super entertaining, but most of the time you can find exactly what you want to get. We said, you know what?

9:18We want to give up a little bit of that and give people an imagination and give them some inspiration how they might think differently about how that product might be used or how it might function? For us, we're providing you the platform, but I think a big part of the success is actually your editorial eye. And for a lot of founders who are starting out, they might be struggling with photography and actually creating images that can speak to an audience. So what are your advice there in terms of finding your style within product photography and lifestyle photography? Well, I think the first thing you have to do is decide what kind of mood you want to deliver.

10:00Are you a happy-go-lucky brand? Like I was listening to one of your other Shopify master podcasts, and I loved it. And they were talking about how their packaging is bright yellow and how they've embraced sort of these simple ideas about the characters that they've been able to partner with in order to make their brand successful. Oh, yeah, you're talking about Starface episode. Yes, and I loved it because I felt like they really knew who they were. And that is such an important lesson for any new founder. So getting back to your question about how would you give advice to other founders who are struggling with photography.

10:44Number one, you need to be consistent. And in order to be consistent, you have to know what you like. So I think that the first thing would be to look at what you see in the marketplace. Imitation is always flattery and see what really makes sense to you. When we were building, it was 80 pages of 8.5 by 11 paper that I drew, each frame on Shopify out one piece at a time. And then Tess would come in behind me and say, look, we talked to SEO. no, I've worked with the tech people. This isn't going to work. How about this? And we would rework it, but the vision was there from the beginning and right down to the photographs because every single eight and a half by 11 piece of paper, I had written out what was going to be on that page and how it was going to function.

11:38And we only had 12 modules to work with, but it took us 80 pages of work to get there. And for our listeners, tell us who Tess is. I am really fortunate to work with a super talented team of women that includes Tess Richman and Michaela O 'Connor. Michaela O 'Connor is the creative right-hand person to me. Tess is the person who really is responsible for helping build Weston Table behind the scenes. She's responsible for making sure that we have a good product to sell. She works with our outside tech vendors because another piece of advice to anyone starting a platform is to make sure that you've thought out what tech pieces you're going to need.

12:25You know, what does that tech stack need to look like? Shopify Plus was our very first and most important piece of the puzzle. Then we started layering on that marketing tools and sales tools and SEO tools. And each one of those has played a part in our success. and moving us from where we were in 2020 to today. I love the team that you've built. And I think that is so important because so much of your creativity, the creative team is all in-house. You yourself, you're writing product descriptions, you're drawing out how you want these pages to be. For founders who are trying to decide, do I go externally, look for an agency to help me with creatives or do they hire creatives in-house?

13:14What are some of the advantages and disadvantages you thought of when you were at that position making that decision? Well, that's a really good question, Schweng. I think that I always knew that if I was not in charge of my creative vision, it could never reflect me exactly the way that I wanted it to online. But I also understand that most people have either the business or the creative, and it's really unusual to get both the business side and the creative in the same person. If you are not that creative person, absolutely go out and find somebody who you can work with, but somebody who will listen.

13:54There's nothing worse than, say you're going to go build your dream house, and the architect is building his dream house, but he's not building your dream house. So you really need to find a relationship where you get to be in the driver's seat of what that's going to look and feel at it. It's got to be someone who will listen and kind of parent back to you what they think you're saying. And yes, there'll be a moment in this conversation we'll say, yes, that's exactly what I'm looking for. Amazing. And I think because you have that in-house team, you are able to be nimble and fast and also actually update your Shopify store multiple times a year.

14:37So tell us how frequently do you actually refresh the site and rebuild that shopping experience? This is going to be insane and it is not for the faint of heart for those Shopify entrepreneurs out there. This is something that we do every three months. And when I say refresh, we're not talking refresh with a little bit. The site is 100 % changed over. The modules that we use in Shopify change every single site changeover. It's a seasonal changeover, the colors, the mood, and this is part of being an entertainment website. It's not much of an entertainment platform if people come back and there's nothing new.

15:20It would be like watching the same episode of Law & Order over and over and over again, but not getting anything new and refreshing or no new storylines. So we try to tell all new storylines every three months. I kind of equate that to a physical department store who changes their window displays every season and there's new installations and new clothing in the windows. I feel like that's essentially what you're doing, but for an online store. And even better because the advantage we have working online and e-commerce is that we can change out the carpet. We can change the wall color. We can change absolutely anything we want to, whereas in a physical brick-and-mortar space, you're sort of stuck with the foundation and the walls and the floors, and you can't move things around.

16:13We can move our walls around any way we want to, and they can morph into something super spectacular in minutes, really. And I think a big part of that is also the beautiful items that you've curated and sourced. And I'm so excited to chat more about all of those unique listings. I'm speaking with Diane O 'Connor, founder and CEO of Westin Table. I hope you're enjoying our conversation. And by the way, please subscribe to Shopify Masters wherever you get your podcasts. and let us know what topics you'd like to hear by leaving us a review. Thank you. So you actually have an astounding number of SKUs, thousands of different products, and you hold all this inventory on your own.

17:01What is the key to keep track of all those items and building all of those relationships with different makers and artisans? Well, keeping track of things isn't really difficult because we have technology to help us with that. So that's the easy part. I think building the relationships is something that I didn't even know that I was doing that. When I was traveling around the world, I was meeting people and I was buying things. I don't want to bring home the same thing that everyone else is bringing home. So I do intentionally seek out different things. I've had the fortune of living in Mexico, living in Australia, living in multiple parts of the United States.

17:43I grew up in Montana. I went to college in Texas, and then I moved to Massachusetts. So I've been able to see a lot of different things. I don't box myself into any one style or any one look. I find that there's beauty in just about everything. And one thing that has just been consistent from all of the travels from when I was married in the mid-90s and raised my family over the next few decades is that I have been a curator of vintage and antique items that tell stories.

18:23They have stories behind them, and I generally won't buy it unless they give me a little nugget about why it's special or, you know, where it came from. And I've been lucky enough to have a bucket that was a champagne bucket that I eventually sold it, but I had it for a long time. It was a Marilyn Monroe piece that was delivered to her when she was working on a movie set in New York City and had been custom engraved for her. And anyway, I ended up selling that at auction. But, you know, that's a story. That's a really fun story to tell. That sounds like such a special piece. And I'm sure it might have been really hard to let go of that champagne bucket.

19:11I think another special item that you really have a sentimental connection to is some of the oyster plays you've sourced from France. Tell us more about that. I grew up in Montana. We didn't eat oysters growing up. And when I came to New England, I'd never had a lobster. I'd never eaten an oyster. Those were pretty out there foods for me. But when I went to France and visited the coast of Normandy, I met a gentleman who sold oyster plates and their very traditional European dinnerware. And I started talking to this guy. He must have been 80 at the time. And he said, you know, they tell stories.

19:55And then all of a sudden I was hooked. And he said, you know, this plate is from Austria and it's porcelain. And these plates are from England. And they're really the Mentone plates are the standard by which all other oyster plates are measured. Because they brought from the Silk Road how to fire clay and how to fire colored clay. And all of a sudden there were all these stories and I fell in love with oyster plates for no good reason other than the fact that I met this guy and he had something cool that he wanted to sell me and I listened and I fell in love with the story. And so now I pass those stories on to others.

20:36Yeah. I think it's so beautiful what you just described with the oyster plates. I imagine that is just the heart of the storytelling. So how do you instill that story into your product descriptions and then also parlay that into different pieces of content on different social media channels to make sure that wherever you're interacting with Weston Table, you get a taste of that story. I think it just sort of happens now easily because I know the stories well and I love the stories. And if you're passionate about something, it doesn't matter if it's oyster plates or fly fishing equipment or some really cool piece of technology, if you're passionate about it, people really get energized by others and the way they feel about things and respect.

21:29I think respect that energy. Yeah. And I want to circle back a little bit about those unique, vintage, antique, rare finds. I imagine it takes a lot of energy to source. And then you probably have a one-of-one piece similar to that champagne bucket with Marilyn Monroe. It just feels like there's a lot of effort, but you only have one of those items. So what is your strategy to make those one-of-a-kind pieces make sense economics-wise and also making sure that it makes sense for the business because you are putting so much energy in sourcing, in writing the descriptions, and taking the photos, and yet there's only one of them to sell?

22:12I really try not to get just one. They might look slightly different, but I have a collection of cutting boards, for example, from Europe. And these French and English cutting boards are super thick, super heavy, have wounds and kitchen scars on them that I love. And they have that common thread that they are old, that they are beautiful, that they are heavy, that they are handmade. And they share the artisanal quality and that sort of just wow, when you look at them, that kind of ties them all together. So when we sell a cutting board, we will link it to a collection of a bunch of different cutting boards so that if one sells, people can be inspired by everything behind it.

23:00When we go on buying trips, generally speaking, I point, point, point, get as many of the quantity as I possibly can. Tess and Michaela, my handy dandy team, follow me and make sure that those things get boxed up and either back to the United States or shipped from another state. We just got back from a buying trip last week and it was super fun. Yeah, it sounds like one of those dream trips I would love to take just to look at the beautiful pieces and get to know the artisans. I think one of the questions I think of, especially in your business model, and I'm sure a lot of founders in similar positions with vintage and sourcing is there is a big financial commitment when you are on those buying trips you need to make to make sure that you actually have the inventory.

23:52And then you have to make sure that these items are desired by your customers. What is your advice for founders who are in that position who need to make sense of their cash flow and make sure that they're making a healthy financial runway for themselves when they do have a pretty heavy financial investment for their inventory? We don't drop ship anything. So we own 100 % of our inventory. And I think that goes back to the very beginning of our conversation is when you start a business, you have to know exactly who you are and you have to know who your customer is. I know my customers. I know which magazines use my eye and give them first dibs on promoting something that we're selling.

24:36And I'm talking big national magazines. So it's pretty important, I think, that when you're thinking about cash flow and you're thinking about investment, it used to be I had a little bit of a fear of spending too much on any one item. But if that one item is super unique, and we sort of laugh about it around here, but if I hang it in my house, if I take the time to get out a nail and a hammer and put that whatever it is up, or I place it in my house, it's going to sell. The more expensive pieces for us do really, really well. So I've gotten braver and braver instead of only having five of those really, really expensive pieces.

25:22I'll now have 25 of those really expensive pieces. So I do think it's a journey where you get braver and braver and you get to know your customers better and better. And the more you know, the better you get at your own job. And you say, wow, that sold, that took three months to sell. Why? Okay, if it took three months to sell and I really needed to be turning over a little bit more quickly, what do I do? First of all, we're a growing business. So that's just part of the growing pains is you're not exactly sure what people want and when they're going to want it, but you have to have belief in what you're doing.

25:59And then I think what we do is we allocate only a specific percentage of our budget to things like that. So we keep it at about 10 % of our selection for a vintage and antique because they are one of a kind, because it's harder to know. And then we buy lots and hundreds of items of other things that people are buying all the time. Makes sense. And I like that structure you have breaking down what kind of budget to allocate for what kind of inventory. The other side I think is you talk about these really fun buying trips. It's very different from the typical Shopify merchant who are perhaps working with production and manufacturers at mass skill.

26:43They can easily go to a trade show. They can meet a production partner. For you, you have to actually connect with makers and artisans locally. So what is your advice there for the best places or the best ways to make those connections individually? Well, unlike some of the people who work in my company and some of the millennials and younger people, I really believe the telephone is my best friend. So So when we travel, I'll keep notes. I keep a little notebook and I'll write down, wow, I really thought that sushi board in Arizona was super cool. Is it something that they could produce for me?

27:22Could they do it wholesale? Because lots of times I'll just wander through arts and crafts places and then meet artisans and they're used to making a few items for the Vermont Country Fair or for the Arizona Craft Show on Tuesdays from four to 12. well, that's very different than me asking them to ship me 200 of these items because it takes them usually 200, you know, they might sell in a few months. So one of our most successful pieces, it's a Myrtlewood Garden Trub. The Wall Street Journal picked it up and it has been in our lineup since basically the beginning, but it's because I met this artisan on the coast of Oregon and I really liked it.

28:05And I liked that it was a husband and wife team and they were working together and they were building this really utilitarian but functional art. Like it was like just functionally artful and beautiful. And I said to them, look, what would it take for you to be able to make these for Weston Table? And she was really honest. She said, really, there's only two of us. I said, well, what if we start? Like I start with an order, six every month for the next year. Well, I've been doing this since 2020, and now we get enough made every year that I can sell this at Weston Table. So I invested in them, so they were willing to invest in me.

28:47Yeah, all about that relationship building that we were talking about. So Weston Table is all about showcasing and working with artisans all over the world. You're essentially uplifting so many different economies. Talk to us about corporate social responsibility and how you're injecting social impact into everyday business. We might not be enterprise right now, but we hope to be enterprise in the future. And in doing so, we have a responsibility to people on the planet that is far bigger than our company. And to that end, we've invested, and this is a huge investment for a small company like Weston table to give 1 % of our gross revenues to 1 % for the planet and give back to climate change.

29:35And in a way, every consumer has a responsibility on both ends, the corporate side and the consumer side, to really think deeply about the effects of climate change in our daily lives and what we can do to buy and support companies who have that at the top of their mind in every single thing they do every single day. To close off the show, I cannot not ask you about the alpaca farm and how exciting and cute that is and how you're going to start making your own cashmere. Tell us more about that. So like anything, we built up a relationship with a European vendor and that vendor decided they were going to retire and move to Australia and that they no longer had a place for this piece of their business.