SEO, AI & e-commerce strategy: the example of Ocarat with Grégory Pairin

00:00:00 [Speaker 1] Test because today, with social media, LinkedIn, etc., we have the impression that there are miracle solutions that you can buy or learn or watch and then it will work. 00:00:10 [Speaker 1] But that's not what life is like for an e-merchant. 00:00:14 [Speaker 2] Hello, you're listening to the podcast that's all about e-commerce. 00:00:18 [Speaker 2] Once a month, I welcome an inspiring figure from the French e-commerce ecosystem for an informal discussion among friends about the topics they're passionate about. 00:00: 28 [Speaker 2]The goal is to decipher e-commerce trends and share practical tips to make your e-shop a success. 00:00:34 [Speaker 2] I'm Joseph Aubry, co-founder of Loyoly, the loyalty and referral platform that allows you to engage your customers through more than 50 mechanisms.00:00:43 [Speaker 2] Sharing, user content, customer reviews, and much more to increase your LTV and reduce your CAC. 00:00:49 [Speaker 2] If you like Loyoly Talks, subscribe and feel free to leave us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to support us. 00:00:56 [Speaker 2] Enjoy the podcast. 00:00:58 [Speaker 2]Hi, Gregory.00:00:59 [Speaker 2]Hi.00:01:00 [Speaker 2] Great to have you on the podcast. 00:01:02 [Speaker 2] Listen, I'm really happy. 00:01:04 [Speaker 2] So listen, we're going to talk about lots and lots of topics today, obviously e-commerce, but also a lot about SE0 and Ocarat. 00:01:25 [Speaker 1] is an e-commerce site for watches and jewelry. 00:01:28 [Speaker 1]We call ourselves a player, but that's not entirely true because we have a store in Paris, but 96% of our revenue comes directly from online sales, and we distribute brands. 00:01:40 [Speaker 1]So we're really a distributor. we buy and resell watch brands and jewelry brands. 00:01:44 [Speaker 1] We only do 9. 00:01:45 [Speaker 2]What kind of watch are you wearing today, for example? 00:01:48 [Speaker 1]I wasn't expecting that question today. 00:01:51 [Speaker 1]Today, it's a bronze walk. 00:01:54 [Speaker 1] So it's a brand, a French brand. 00:01:58 [Speaker 1] To simplify, let's say that the inside of the watch is 95% made in France with a French-Swiss movement. 00:02:05 [Speaker 1]So it's a brand we've been distributing for a few years now, and we're very proud of it. 00:02:08 [Speaker 1]Plus, right now it's French Day, as you know, so it's perfect timing. 00:02:12 [Speaker 1] We're very proud to have a few French brands like this that are doing so well on our website. 00:02:16 [Speaker 2] That's great. 00:02:16 [Speaker 2]Honestly, the watches you have are really high quality, so feel free to check them out while you listen to the podcast.00:02:23 [Speaker 2] Let's start with a little true or false. 00:02:25 [Speaker 2] So, first of all, in SEO, technique is more important than content. 00:02:30 [Speaker 2] That's false. 00:02:33 [Speaker 1] It's false. it's false depending on the volume of a site, it's debatable, but overall there are the famous three pillars that we read about everywhere on LinkedIn and so on, where technique must be as important as the words used in the text and the popularity of your site.00:02:53 [Speaker 1]And in fact, if one of them is lacking, ultimately, the whole thing doesn't work very well.00:02:58 [Speaker 2]Okay.00:02:59 [Speaker 2]The more pages there are on a site, the better it is for SEO.00:03:03 [Speaker 1]It depends on the sector.00:03:04 [Speaker 1]I would say that's generally true.00:03:06 [Speaker 1]It's still easier to get SEO when you have a 6,000-page website, if it's well done, than a website with a single product and three pages, you see, it's easier.00:03:14 [Speaker 1]But be careful, because the more pages you have, the more you get what's called page cannibalization, and that can be problematic.00:03:21 [Speaker 1]So in that case, it's important to use the right technique.00:03:23 [Speaker 2]Okay.00:03:25 [Speaker 2] A well-optimized product page can be more valuable than a blog article.00:03:30 [Speaker 1] You could have sent me the questions beforehand.00:03:33 [Speaker 1]Actually, it's not the same thing as what we call search attention, you see.00:03:36 [Speaker 1]What I mean is that when you're looking for information, a blog post is more likely to come up.00:03:40 [Speaker 1] When you're looking to buy a product, it's more the product page.00:03:43 [Speaker 1]Again, there may be counterexamples, but I would say that's generally not true.00:03:49 [Speaker 2]Okay. 00:03:59 [Speaker 1]I would say that it's still true for the most part, because for an e-merchant, people want to buy, they're quick to click on paid ads because they think, “Here it is.” 00:04: 08 [Speaker 1]Afterwards, you still get natural traffic. 00:04:10 [Speaker 1]You see, I have positions where I'm number one in SEO and I still have ads on them. 00:04:16 [Speaker 1]In fact, the clicks are distributed. 00:04:17 [Speaker 1]If I ever remove the ads, well, there are times when I still get a little less traffic.00:04:22 [Speaker 1]It's hard to measure because it's Google, it adapts to visitor behavior, your history, seasonality, and competitors on ads.00:04:30 [Speaker 1]That's it, there's no, it's not exact, but in any case, you have to play both, that's for sure.00:04:37 [Speaker 2]Okay. 00:04:38 [Speaker 2]SEO is more profitable than SEA in the long run. 00:04:41 [Speaker 1]Oh yes, I'm living proof of that.00:04:44 [Speaker 1]Clearly, it's more profitable, but you can't really do without SEA, it's a combination of factors, but anyway.00:04:51 [Speaker 2] Building customer loyalty in jewelry is mission impossible. 00:04:54 [Speaker 1] Well, I think you're in a good position to know, it's a challenge in itself. 00:05:00 [Speaker 1] What's complicated for me is that the lifetime value of a visitor is extremely long. 00:05:04 [Speaker 1] I mean, you don't change your watch like you change your socks. 00:05:07 [Speaker 3] And 00:05:09 [Speaker 1]once you're engaged, married, and you've baptized your children, you see it in the important and mandatory events of life,00:05:16 [Speaker 3]there aren't00:05:17 [Speaker 1]many others.00:05:18 [Speaker 1] So you see, that really spreads out repeat purchases, and I sell products that we have in stock, at least I'm at my average order value, which is around three hundred and twenty to four hundred dollars, including tax, let's simplify.00:05: 33 [Speaker 1]So right now, people have a little less money, so building loyalty is clearly a challenge for us.00:05:39 [Speaker 1]I wouldn't say it's any harder in jewelry than anywhere else.00:05:42 [Speaker 2]Okay.00:05:42 [Speaker 2]That sounds wrong. 00:05:43 [Speaker 2]OK. 00:05:45 [Speaker 2]Branding is secondary when you're doing e-commerce. Oh no, that's not true. 00:05:48 [Speaker 1]That's not true. 00:05:49 [Speaker 1]So when you're a distributor like me, it's debatable again because we ultimately rely on the branding of each of the brands we distribute.00:05:56 [Speaker 1]But branding, the brand platform, is still important for a distributor.00:06:03 [Speaker 1]So no, no, that's totally wrong. 00:06:06 [Speaker 1]In jewelry, the brand name matters 00:06:08 [Speaker 2]more than the product. 00:06:10 [Speaker 1]So when you're really into jewelry, yes, it's true that there are people who will go to Dean Van because it's Dean Van, or Cartier because it's Cartier, even though Dean Van makes very nice bracelets that cost five times less than if you found them elsewhere, and they are exactly the same mechanically, materially the same thing, except that you're paying for the brand's social association.00:06:33 [Speaker 1]So clearly, that's where I stand, that's true.00:06:36 [Speaker 2]Interesting.00:06:37 [Speaker 2]The design of an e-commerce site directly influences perceived positioning.00:06:41 [Speaker 1]Yes, I think it's part of the whole, but, but it's true, yes, yes, it's true.00:06:48 [Speaker 2]A brand can't be both accessible and high-end.00:06:53 [Speaker 1]Complicated, yes.00:06:56 [Speaker 1]Exactly, so when you're, again, when you're a distributor, it's a little different because brands have a price range and then you list several brands, and so on, but you have to have a positioning, and I think that when you're a distributor, you don't necessarily always have to have a positioning that is chosen precisely to try to get as close as possible to the average order value you want to achieve.00:07:19 [Speaker 1]So it's not, yeah, it's a problem. 00:07:21 [Speaker 2]Okay. 00:07:23 [Speaker 2]Promo codes devalue the brand. 00:07:28 [Speaker 1]I think that's highly debatable. 00:07:31 [Speaker 1]I would say that's not true, I don't think it devalues the brand.00:07:33 [Speaker 1]Again, if you have 50 running at the same time and you go through couponing sites, etc., yeah, it's not it's not crazy because people will automatically look for a promo code. They already do it naturally, but if it leaks on top of that, there you go. 00:07:48 [Speaker 1] That's why we do very little of that on our OPs, but we don't do couponing, you know, we don't do affiliate marketing via promo codes because it's true that it doesn't have the best image. 00:07:58 [Speaker 2]Yeah, totally. 00:07:59 [Speaker 2]Great. 00:08:00 [Speaker 2]So now, I suggest we focus a little on your personal journey. 00:08: 05 [Speaker 2]You weren't keen on your first attempt at e-commerce. 00:08:08 [Speaker 2]What were the main stages of your journey to where you are today? 00:08:13 [Speaker 1]It's the part of my life, my life's work.00:08:15 [Speaker 2]Yes, that's right.00:08:16 [Speaker 1]So, I wasn't at all destined to do this. I'll keep this part short, but I wasn't at all destined to do e-commerce. 00:08:24 [Speaker 1]I wasn't a very good student. I didn't like doing anything in class, not my teachers, but I wasn't a very good student, and since my mother didn't want me to end up doing just anything, she did what was necessary so that I could study despite my low academic level. She got me into a vocational training program, a CAP in optics and eyewear, so I'm actually an optician by trade. And then after that CAP, I did a vocational baccalaureate, then the vocational baccalaureate, and then a BTS (advanced vocational training certificate) in IT, and that's where I started a work-study program at Grobby Micro.00:08: 59 [Speaker 1]So I started as a salesperson and then I quickly moved into the web side of things, so my first experience in web and e-commerce was at Gros Bill Micro, where I was doing web marketing at the time, product pages, banners, newsletters, and so on. 00:09:16 [Speaker 1] And it's really been from that day until our conversation today, and I imagine it's not over yet. I've only ever worked in e-commerce, which is quite funny because I've worked for distributors and almost exclusively for pure players.00:09:29 [Speaker 1]So I have a very, very strong web background and only e-commerce.00:09:34 [Speaker 1]And so, Big Bill, after Big Bill, I asked a question.00:09:37 [Speaker 1]You00:09:37 [Speaker 2]can you explain a little bit about Big Bill for those who00:09:39 [Speaker 1]Yeah, for those who don't know.00:09:40 [Speaker 1] It's true that the younger ones among us won't necessarily know, it was one of the biggest websites for selling computer equipment, it was first a physical store in the thirteenth arrondissement of Paris, at the time when Montgalet was the stronghold for all computer purchases, and it was one of the biggest, there was him, there was Grobin, there was00:09:59 [Speaker 3]there was00:09:59 [Speaker 1]LDLC, there was Matérial point net, so there were very few online stores and it was one of the biggest computer retailers, so a distributor.00:10: 09 [Speaker 1]That's right, and I did all the web marketing until I left to start my own company.00:10:14 [Speaker 1]My first experience was working with brands to communicate on e-commerce sites. And then I worked for a while in the online gaming industry at Partouche.00: 10:26 [Speaker 1] That's where I met Laurence Tapie, Bernard Tapie's son, who asked me to join him in creating Bernard Tapie point com, which was an affiliate or e-commerce site, depending on how you look at it, in his father's name. 00:10:43 [Speaker 1] And then after that, well, it was cool for over a year, a great experience.00:10:47 [Speaker 1]Then I was headhunted to go into marketing management at Bazarchic, and at the same time as I was joining Basarchic, my former boss at Robin called me and said, "Listen, I want to launch something on the internet about jewelry. Do you want to And me, at the time, I was in a job, so I told them I was interested. 00:11:10 [Speaker 1] To be honest, I didn't really believe in the venture at first, I'm not going to lie to you. It was just the dawn of online shoe sales, you know, Sarenza and so on, it was really when it was starting to take off, and I thought selling jewelry online was a bit unusual, so I wasn't in a hurry to join them. I said yes, but I wanted one day a week, and after a year, after a year of responsibility at Maseric, at the end of the year, I realized that there was incredible potential, that I had put up a barrier to online sales myself, even though I had a strong background in e-commerce, so I left Mazars chic to join my partners who were fully committed to the adventure at that time. 00:11:52 [Speaker 2]Great. 00:11:53 [Speaker 2]So that was kind of the starting point, it was... 00:11:55 [Speaker 1]How long ago was that? Well, we're about to celebrate our 14th anniversary, and then our 15th. 00:12:02 [Speaker 2]Oh, yeah. 00:12:02 [Speaker 1]Yeah, in June, we'll be celebrating 15 years, 15 years of business. 00:12:04 [Speaker 2]That's quite a milestone. 00:12:06 [Speaker 1]Yeah, definitely. 00:12:07 [Speaker 2]That's great. 00:12:08 [Speaker 2]And how many people work at Ocarat today? 00:12:10 [Speaker 1] Forty-six. 00:12:14 [Speaker 2] Okay. 00:12:14 [Speaker 2] Yeah, 00:12:14 [Speaker 1] there you go, I hope HR doesn't get mad at me. 00:12:17 [Speaker 1] But that must be it, forty-six. 00:12:19 [Speaker 2]And how did you experience this scale-up to the number of employees you have today, and the turnover you are generating? 00:12:29 [Speaker 1]Actually, it happened very naturally. 00:12:32 [Speaker 1]We had perfect timing.00:12:36 [Speaker 1]As I was saying, there had already been there had been a big boom in Cdiscount and companies like that, La Redoute's transformation from mail order to online, which really benefited the e-commerce market, and when we launched, there had already been initiatives in online jewelry that were different from distribution, but rather brands that had spent a lot of money to democratize a sector and that hadn't worked at all, and there was a bit of Place Vendôme that was somewhat present on the internet, and in fact, there was a real niche in the middle, which was family jewelry stores, the kind where you go, the ones in the city center, you know, not the kind you find in shopping malls, but the kind that's really in the city center, which is gradually disappearing because it's targeted by burglars, because it's a profession that's a bit aging, children don't want to have a jewelry store, and yet there's a need to replace them, so it's true that the internet was a good solution for that, and we arrived at that moment where everything was converging on us with our hyper-heroic DNA, so it was a good fit, and so we scanned naturally, doing more than 20, more than 25 for 100 each year, and in fact, we don't have a miracle recipe, really, there's a need, we hired an employee, we grew, there was a need to hire another employee, and so on and so forth. 00:13:52 [Speaker 1] So you see, there's no to-do list, no checklist, just naturally according to needs. 00:13:59 [Speaker 2]Great. 00:14:00 [Speaker 2]So you talked a little bit about your background. 00:14:04 [Speaker 2]I imagine that Ocarat hasn't been easy over the last 15 years and that you've had some tougher times than others. 00:14:12 [Speaker 2] Can you tell us about your most difficult moment? 00:14:17 [Speaker 1] If you like, there was a moment that was both difficult and incredible at the same time, so I think that might answer the next question, which is about Covid. 00:14:30 [Speaker 1] Yes. 00:14:31 [Speaker 2] incredible, so I think it might answer the next question: Covid. 00:14:30 [Speaker 1] Yes. 00:14:31 [Speaker 1]You know, Covid has been a bit complicated, well, it's been very complicated actually, I don't know why I say a bit, I'm minimizing it, but no, it's been very complicated from a human point of view for everyone.00:14:43 [Speaker 1] We didn't know if we were going to be able to work, we didn't know how we were going to work, whether we would be allowed to go to work, whether we were taking risks and breaking the rules, and so on. 00:14:53 [Speaker 1] And then in reality, we got moving very quickly, got organized, and for us it was the worst moment because in terms of organization, it was chaos, the teams couldn't come in. 00:15:06 [Speaker 1]We, the entire customer service department, had to find a solution so that people could call them at home. 00:15:13 [Speaker 1]So we had to bounce back very quickly in terms of, you know, tech, I mean, to send computers to people's homes. 00:15:19 [Speaker 1] At the time, we weren't really open to remote working. 00:15:23 [Speaker 1] Everyone was working five days, well, almost six days a week on site. 00:15:28 [Speaker 1]So we had to get organized really quickly. 00:15:30 [Speaker 1]So that was the tricky part. 00:15:33 [Speaker 1]And then there was the positive period, which was that, luckily or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, but luckily for me in any case, all the physical jewelry stores were closed.00:15:44 [Speaker 1]Yeah.00:15:44 [Speaker 1]And in fact, most of our competitors didn't have the same responsiveness that we did. Everyone cut their budgets, but I, on the contrary, left mine the same. I even increased them at that time because that's always been my strategy. When the economy is down and everyone else is cutting back, I go for it because it allows me to gain a dominant position. And ultimately, I play my card, which is the democratization of my brand. 00:16:11 [Speaker 1] And so there you have it, we rocked, rocked, rocked. 00:16:13 [Speaker 1]So that was the big news, followed by the slightly worse news, which was that we didn't expect to do so well. 00:16:20 [Speaker 1]You know, you're on your own, so you say it's going to work. 00:16:24 [Speaker 1]But you forget that the whole of France is in lockdown and that you're one of the only retailers in your sector that's still open. 00:16:32 [Speaker 1]So it was all hands on deck. 00:16:35 [Speaker 1] My office turned into a logistics center, the meeting rooms into storage rooms, preparation rooms... I mean, the whole place was turned upside down. so it was both difficult in terms of organization and incredible in terms of experience, resourcefulness, and human relations between us, between the employees who understood that this was not a normal situation and that they too had to adapt.00:16:58 [Speaker 1]So, yes, it was a crazy time.00:17:02 [Speaker 2]To create00:17:05 [Speaker 3]good00:17:05 [Speaker 1]relationships too.00:17:06 [Speaker 1]Definitely with the teams.00:17:07 [Speaker 2]Good memories. 00:17:08 [Speaker 2]Yeah, exactly. 00:17:09 [Speaker 2]And so, you were explaining a little bit earlier how you got started, the market context at the beginning, wanting to capture this upper slash myth market, which was a little bit taken over by late weekenders, and you positioned yourselves on that. 00:17:25 [Speaker 2] However, you said that your average order value was around three hundred and twenty euros. 00:17:29 [Speaker 2]It's not easy to get someone to buy a watch or jewelry online. 00:17:34 [Speaker 2]Often, you need to try it on, hold it in your hands, see how heavy it is, and so on. 00:17:39 [Speaker 2]So how did you actually manage to build trust in these products as a newcomer? How did that happen over time? 00:17:52 [Speaker 1]We quickly realized that we had to focus on providing incredible customer service.00:17:59 [Speaker 1]And for the first eight years, that's right, eight years, all the partners answered the phone, as well as a good number of the employees.00:18:07 [Speaker 1]That means that Jérôme, if you're watching this podcast, thank you again, but he's our IT manager, you see, he was developing at Cara, he was creating new features every day, and at the same time, part of his job was answering the phone.00:18:20 [Speaker 1]And I think that was because we were the only ones who could sell our products better than anyone else, because we were the ones buying them. We knew what we were buying, we know who we're buying from, we know the deadlines, and in fact, when we answered the phone for eight years, it was also to start a conversation with customers, to get their opinions. You see, at the time, there were very few review platforms on the website.00:18:42 [Speaker 1] At that time, the very first one we used, which is still a solution we use today, because we're pretty loyal to our partners, was ecomi. 00:18:50 [Speaker 1] Today, I don't think anyone knows about it anymore, because everyone knows about Avis Vérifié and the like. 00:18:56 [Speaker 3]I don't know if we're allowed to mention brands. 00:19:00 [Speaker 1]And it was a commission. 00:19:03 [Speaker 1]For me. 00:19:05 [Speaker 1]And you see, we capitalized on that a lot because we knew we were unknown, that it was a niche market, it wasn't a pair of sneakers that cost seventy bucks that you couldn't try on.00:19:17 [Speaker 1]The photos had to be nice.00:19:20 [Speaker 1]The description was also very important to us.00:19:24 [Speaker 1] In e-commerce, you usually have four lines. 00:19:26 [Speaker 1] We have long descriptions that explain the whole product. 00:19:30 [Speaker 1] And that's it, I think that's what made it work. 00:19: 36 [Speaker 1]We can't do anything out of the ordinary because, as a distributor, you're subject to sales price and purchase price obligations.00:19:45 [Speaker 1]You don't have the same margin as a brand, so you can't do things like, you can't do VR. You see, back then, we weren't talking about video, it was impossible. If you put a video on the internet, the site would crash.00:19:56 [Speaker 1]So things have evolved a lot, but with quality customer service, customer reviews, and affiliate marketing, we quickly built up our affiliate network so that people who were well known in our industry would talk about us, which created a lot of credibility for Ocara.00:20:12 [Speaker 2] Okay, that's really interesting. 00:20:14 [Speaker 2] It's true that getting feedback directly as the founder in the beginning is, frankly, the best thing there is. 00:20:20 [Speaker 2] I think it's extremely important to do this for any type of business. 00:20:24 [Speaker 2]And then,00:20:26 [Speaker 1]it's true that you let your teams create the processes because it's their job, it's their work, and so on.00:20:33 [Speaker 1] But sometimes, things aren't necessarily as they should be.00:20:37 [Speaker 1]And in fact, if you answer the phone and you realize there's a problem, and then the problem recurs after 2, 3, 4, 5 calls, you can see that there's something wrong in the production chain,00:20:46 [Speaker 3]there's something wrong, or when you know that people are asking you 50 times what the width of a chain is because they don't understand what it is, you can see that there's something wrong with your files. 00:20:55 [Speaker 1]So it also allows you to redistribute the information fairly quickly 00:20:59 [Speaker 3]to 00:21:01 [Speaker 1]below, you see, to the teams so that they can ensure that this call is reduced. 00:21:06 [Speaker 1] So it's true that when you go through a call center or when you have a real team dedicated to customer service, it's up to you to maintain that relationship between customer service and the teams, which isn't naturally easy, since customer service wants to satisfy the customer, but they're going to respond to them, they're caught in a time loop00:21:22 [Speaker 3]and there are00:21:22 [Speaker 1]things to do.00:21:23 [Speaker 1] Whereas it's true that when you have that perspective, it allows you to take action more quickly. 00:21:26 [Speaker 2] That's clear, that's clear. 00:21:28 [Speaker 2]And so yeah, you were talking a little bit about the purchasing journey. 00:21:31 [Speaker 2]Do you have this information today? I imagine you do. 00:21:35 [Speaker 2]How long does it take one of your buyers on average to purchase a product, from the moment they visit your site for the first time or visit a particular product page to the moment they purchase it? 00:21:46 [Speaker 1]Well, today, before, I could have answered that question quite easily. 00:21:50 [Speaker 1]It was around twenty days.00:21:53 [Speaker 1]Okay.00:21:53 [Speaker 1]That was really in the early years of Ocarat.00:21:57 [Speaker 1]In fact, tracking at the time was very open.00:22:00 [Speaker 1]So we could really tell that there were no, or very few, mobile sales, so people were using desktop computers exclusively.00:22:05 [Speaker 1]So there you go, there wasn't all the hassle and protections that there are today.00:22:09 [Speaker 1]Today, with GDPR, cross-device tracking, and what's called the middle missile, meaning that if you've been seen on TikTok, you're done once you're on Ocarat, then you go back to Instagram, and then you make your purchase, it's difficult, but I estimate it to be between four and a week. 00:22:23 [Speaker 2] Okay, so it's still reduced a little bit in the end. 00:22:26 [Speaker 1] Yeah, yeah, it reduces it, it also reduces it because brand awareness is stronger. 00:22:30 [Speaker 2]Okay. 00:22:32 [Speaker 2]And do you offer remote consulting? So you were saying that customers could be called if they had questions about the products. 00:22:40 [Speaker 1]Yes, to us, you see, there's a phone number on the website, there are chats, there's WhatsApp. 00:22:46 [Speaker 1] We don't have a chatbot, you... 00:22:47 [Speaker 3]see, 00:22:47 [Speaker 1]because when we tested it, we realized that it was time-consuming. 00:22:52 [Speaker 1]So we tested it five years ago, so we'd have to do it again. 00:22:56 [Speaker 1]Today, with AI, you can do a few things automatically, even if it's just saying hello, please hold, and other polite phrases.00:23:05 [Speaker 1]But back then, yes, there were a lot of people, so we tended to emphasize a more human side with the telephone service.00:23:13 [Speaker 1]Yeah, that's true, when you00:23:15 [Speaker 2]go to buy a product in that price range, it's nice to talk to a real person.00:23:20 [Speaker 1]Yeah, and it reassures you that the company really exists because today, it's00:23:23 [Speaker 3]true that00:23:23 [Speaker 1]you and I know Ocarat.00:23:25 [Speaker 1]Is it in our e-commerce ecosystem -commerce ecosystem, we're well known, but in reality, if I go out on the street and ask people if they know Ocarat, and that's also the problem with a distributor, because what we do is we promote the brands a lot, but ultimately, we don't promote ourselves very much.00:23:41 [Speaker 1]That's something we've been working on for the last few years.00:23:44 [Speaker 1]But our brands are well known, we're less well known than our brands.00:23:47 [Speaker 1]So if I bump into someone here on the street, I don't think they know Ocarat.00:23:51 [Speaker 1]So we still have work to do.00:23:52 [Speaker 1]And for that, it's good to have people who will answer the phone and say, yes, this is a real company.00:23:56 [Speaker 2]Yeah, totally, we'll test it out later, we'll go ask people on the street. So you were saying that the buying cycle has shortened, that people are taking less time to buy on your site, linked to your increased brand awareness. 00:24:13 [Speaker 2] Do you see any other factors that might be influencing purchasing behavior for your type of product? 00:24:23 [Speaker 1] Well, we're seeing some changes that aren't very positive, which are more related to... Actually, what you have to understand is that we're in the pleasure-purchase market. 00:24:34 [Speaker 3] There's 00:24:34 [Speaker 1] an element of obligation, in that when you get married, you buy wedding rings, when you have your children baptized, you have to buy a medal, a communion set, a bracelet, and so on. 00:24:41 [Speaker 1] So you have a few mandatory purchases, but we mostly buy things for pleasure.00:24:46 [Speaker 1]That is, you treat yourself, you buy a watch, when in reality you have the time on your phone, so you don't need a watch, but it's a little treat, it's a masculine thing for watches, it's the only jewelry we can have, well, one of the only pieces of jewelry we can have. 00:24:57 [Speaker 1] Women also want to change their jewelry, but it's very much linked to the social climate. 00:25:03 [Speaker 1]I mean, right now, when we're talking about going to war, taking money out of people's accounts, and so on, you immediately feel that impulse purchases are becoming less frequent.00:25:15 [Speaker 1] So the famous lifetime value is much more spread out, it's much longer.00:25:20 [Speaker 1]Purchases that could be, I don't know, before we could imagine that someone could order three watches a year, today they'll wait for their birthday and maybe Christmas, and I hope not, but if it continues like this, next year, they'll maybe wait until Christmas, etc. 00:25:34 [Speaker 1] So, we're really tied to what's happening, I wasn't going to say in the world, because, you know, but in any case in our climate, in our country, you know, when everything is going well, we sell more and we can sense when people are being careful about what they spend.00:25:49 [Speaker 2]Yeah, that's true, it makes sense, it's a good proxy in the end.00:25:51 [Speaker 1]Yeah, I'm pretty much a weak indicator. 00:25:54 [Speaker 2] Go on, not interesting. 00:25:56 [Speaker 2] And are there people who buy for investment purposes? 00:26:01 [Speaker 1]Well, my type of product isn't really an investment. 00:26:05 [Speaker 1]I don't sell what you would call A brands, like Rolex, Geiger, and so on. 00:26:11 [Speaker 1] And even among all those brands, not all of them are listed. 00:26:15 [Speaker 1] So in my case, no, it's more for enthusiasts. 00:26:18 [Speaker 1] Okay. 00:26:18 [Speaker 1] When it comes to jewelry, it's women who want to treat themselves, and very few men, because we have about 95% women and 5% men in the jewelry department.00:26:25 [Speaker 1] On the other hand, when it comes to watches, it's more like 95% men and 5% women, so it's the opposite.00:26:29 [Speaker 1]And the people who buy from me are people who are passionate about watchmaking.00:26:34 [Speaker 1]So maybe they have a Rolex, but they might have a Rolex in their collection, a Casio for forty-nine euros, and also watches like the one I told you about, the Labrador walk, which cost €1,300 to €1,600.00:26:44 [Speaker 2]Okay, got it.00:26:45 [Speaker 2]And if we talk a little bit about the acquisition channels today, what are the most profitable or effective sources for Ocarat? 00:26:54 [Speaker 1]Well, I don't think I'm telling you anything new, but for us, it's the SEO part that has always been part of Ocara's DNA from the beginning, because we didn't have a lot of money or a big marketing budget.00:27:07 [Speaker 1]So we had to find clever ways, and SEO is a clever way to acquire customers for free. No, it costs money for the tools, the texts, and so on. 00:27:17 [Speaker 1]But for me, it's still the most profitable part of the business, and then you've got affiliate marketing, which is significant, especially since a small company doesn't weigh much, but it's also extremely profitable because it's become a mix between branding and performance.00:27:34 [Speaker 1]I mean, today influencers are no longer just, before, they were just classic blogs.00:27:39 [Speaker 1]So back then, you were doing a little bit of branding, but it didn't have much impact.00:27:42 [Speaker 1]Now, with social media, it gives a different dimension to the brand and our products.00:27:47 [Speaker 1]And then, we pay influencers when they make transactions, and some of them earn a very good living. It's still very profitable, it's still profitable, it's00:27:55 [Speaker 2]still.00:27:57 [Speaker 1]It's less profitable than SEO, but it's still profitable.00:27:59 [Speaker 2]Very interesting. 00:28:00 [Speaker 2]And do you use a particular solution for affiliate marketing today? 00:28:04 [Speaker 1]Yeah, there are lots of platforms out there.00:28:06 [Speaker 1]We use a technical solution.00:28:08 [Speaker 1]We don't use human resources to have an account manager.00:28:13 [Speaker 1]That means that00:28:13 [Speaker 3]we00:28:13 [Speaker 2]have a lot of00:28:14 [Speaker 1]affiliates who come directly to us because they know us, and we also identify a few that we're going to look at, that we're going to approach, but we do this job ourselves.00:28:23 [Speaker 1]The technical solution is provided by Aphilae, which has two major advantages: its cost, and the fact that I'm known in the industry for being very heroic. I didn't mention that this time because my teams complained about the podcasts, saying, “Don't say ‘heroic’ every time, it's not good for the company.” So I didn't say “pinch,” I said “very heroic.” And above all, it creates SEO-friendly links, unlike other solutions that use redirect links and don't contribute anything from an SEO perspective. The links created by Afilae are compliant. 00:28:59 [Speaker 1] So that's cool, I also gain a little on the SEO side. 00:29:02 [Speaker 2] Interesting. 00:29:03 [Speaker 2] And how many affiliates do you have today, roughly? I have about twenty. 00:29:06 [Speaker 1] About twenty.00:29:07 [Speaker 1]And it's mainly in the watchmaking sector.00:29:11 [Speaker 1]It's very00:29:11 [Speaker 3]very00:29:11 [Speaker 1]hard.00:29:13 [Speaker 1]It's very, very hard to find female influencers.00:29:18 [Speaker 1]First of all, the costs are not the same.00:29:20 [Speaker 1]Affiliation, isn't something that's... In fact, women in this industry are oversolicited, you know, by skincare, clothes, things, travel, everywhere.00:29:30 [Speaker 1]So jewelry, of course, they like it, but they get crazy offers.00:29:35 [Speaker 1]And so we can hardly compete on that front.00:29:39 [Speaker 1]And then they're often approached directly by brands, not by distributors.00:29:44 [Speaker 1]Whereas we have really well-known influencers, and when it comes to watches, they're really happy to come to us because they can try out a Casio, or a Nivada, or a Michel Rolin, for example. For them, as enthusiasts, it's really cool.00:29:58 [Speaker 1] Whereas on the more feminine side, you don't have as much appeal for the products.00:30:02 [Speaker 1]And so, as the brands have higher margins, they also have much higher commissions, so it's more interesting for a woman, or rather, it's less interesting for a woman to work on Ok.00:30:10 [Speaker 2] OK, very clear. 00:30:18 [Speaker 2] Are affiliates often influencers too, or is it more like you said before, people who have blog articles? Can we find the social media platforms where they are most active? 00:30:31 [Speaker 1] That's exactly right, you've got it, I think the answer was in your question.00:30:35 [Speaker 1]What I mean is that as things have evolved over time, it started with magazines, then the web and blogs, and now it's influencers. 00:30:44 [Speaker 1]Some have undergone a transformation, they've kept up to date and followed this social migration, so to speak. 00:30: 51 [Speaker 1]So magazines like Very Good Lord have gone from a simple blog to a private newsletter to Instagram and YouTube.00:30:59 [Speaker 1]And then you have others who haven't followed suit.00:31:02 [Speaker 1]For example, we collaborate with Monsieur Montre Point Com, which is doing very well. It remained a traditional web magazine and blog and has a lot of traffic, etc. 00:31:12 [Speaker 1]So that's good for us. 00:31:13 [Speaker 1] But today, it's true that we have more Instagrammers and YouTubers than people who start blogs.00:31:21 [Speaker 1]Blogs are a bit old school.00:31:24 [Speaker 2]Is GMK an influencer?00:31:27 [Speaker 1] Not here, he loves Rolex too much. 00:31:29 [Speaker 3] He loves Rolex too much. 00:31:29 [Speaker 3] Yeah, but 00:31:29 [Speaker 1]if you look at them, you're welcome. 00:31:31 [Speaker 2]We'll send him the video. 00:31:34 [Speaker 2]What about SEO, that's kind of your thing. 00:31:36 [Speaker 2]So I'd like us to talk about that a little bit. 00:31:39 [Speaker 2]How do you currently manage the technical SEO issues on a site as rich as Ocarat, with all the brands you sell? It's a bit like those challenges. 00:31:49 [Speaker 1] Well, we have a big advantage on the technical side, which is that we're not going to get into the e-commerce CMS war, but we're on Prestashop, and one of the big advantages is that structurally you can really do what you want, you can customize it 100%, which also allows you to test things. 00:32:11 [Speaker 1] So we do a lot of testing, a lot of which doesn't pay off, but a lot of which does, and on the technical side, it allows us to check what we're doing as we do it, to do it in one area and then roll it out across the site when we see that it works in one area. 00:32:26 [Speaker 1] Because the whole difficulty with SEO, as I was saying earlier, is that today Google adapts to visitors, there are updates, when you have links, that changes the game, when you buy traffic, that changes the game, one universe on my site doesn't necessarily behave the same way for Google as another universe on my site.00:32:43 [Speaker 1]So testing is complicated.00:32:45 [Speaker 1]That's why we're lucky to have this free CMS that allows us to isolate parts of sites, test them, and then generalize, which we couldn't necessarily do with proprietary solutions because when you make a rule, it applies to the entire site, and so on. 00:32:58 [Speaker 2]Okay, interesting.00:33:00 [Speaker 1]And then we also train ourselves on the technical side. We don't have 30,000 products, we have 2,500 categories, plus all the CMS, so let's say we have 50,000 to 60,000 indexed pages.00:33:15 [Speaker 1]In the eyes of e-commerce giants, it's still a small site.00:33:18 [Speaker 1]So we also look at what the bigger players are doing.00:33:23 [Speaker 1]And then we also train ourselves, you see, we do a lot of R&D, but we also take training courses here and there, and we get one-on-one coaching from certain experts who have access to much larger sites and who see things that allow us to stay in the game.00:33:40 [Speaker 2] Okay, very interesting. 00:33:41 [Speaker 2] And I had Camille from Nostaud on the podcast last week, and we talked a lot about AI, since that's kind of their position with Nosto on the personalization side. 00:33:54 [Speaker 2]And so one of the types of AI that we're all a little familiar with now with ChatGPT is generative AI.00:33:59 [Speaker 2]What's your relationship with this type of AI for producing SEO content?00:34:08 [Speaker 1]Well, I was against using it for a long time.00:34:13 [Speaker 1] It must be said that the quality has improved a lot, but you can never completely dismiss it.00:34:19 [Speaker 1] First of all, we did a lot of testing and found that, for us at least, in the way we were doing it, there were ranking issues.00:34:25 [Speaker 1]The thing to understand is that it's a training source based on existing content.00:34:34 [Speaker 1]Ultimately, if you produce a text, it's going to be based on existing content, and another thing is that the goal of chat JPT or LLLM is to appeal to as many people as possible.00:34:44 [Speaker 1]And so it's about having language and responses that are average.00:34:51 [Speaker 1]You see, it has to appeal to everyone.00:34:53 [Speaker 1] That's really the goal, that's the reward for GPDR chat, that's how it works.00:34:58 [Speaker 1]When we're happy, we give it a thumbs up, we train it, we give it a carrot.00:35:03 [Speaker 1]So the answer has to be as pleasing as possible.00:35:05 [Speaker 1]And an average answer, based on content that's already online, didn't give us anything that would allow us to rank.00:35:12 [Speaker 1] Today, what works is generating content, but adding things that others don't have or enriching it with your own databases, your own customer questions, and so on.00:35:25 [Speaker 1]So that works.00:35:26 [Speaker 1]That doesn't answer your question about whether we use it or not. And in fact, today, I have people internally who are passionate about it and will always respond much better than any AI. A quick hello to Olivier here with us, and there you go.00:35:43 [Speaker 1]And in fact, enthusiasts convey technical information, which is factual, but also emotion. 00:35:49 [Speaker 1] And it's true that for now, emotion on the AI side isn't crazy. 00:35:56 [Speaker 1] So we're not there yet. 00:35:57 [Speaker 1] On the other hand, of course, it helps us, in the sense that it helps us write plans, structure content, create product pages, and lots of other things, but we use it a little less for high value-added content. 00:36:11 [Speaker 2] Okay, that makes sense. 00:36:12 [Speaker 2] It's interesting what you said about the reward aspect of the ultimately mathematical model of AI, especially with the latest updates we're seeing today, where you have screenshots on Twitter of people saying “I am God,” and so on. 00:36: 28 [Speaker 2]And then you have Lea who says, “Yes, of course, Gregory, it's you, you're the chosen one and everything you want to be.” 00:36:34 [Speaker 2] So it's true that it can quickly turn into something less authentic, depending on how it's set up on their end.00:36:44 [Speaker 1]Yes, that's right.00:36:45 [Speaker 1]And it's content that you can generally find.00:36: 47 [Speaker 1]If you make a fairly basic request and your neighbor makes a fairly basic request, you'll end up with content that's very, very similar.00:36:55 [Speaker 1]And I find that, well, not relevant.00:36:58 [Speaker 1]You have to add your own touch, and only a human can really do that, or at least a good writer or someone who is passionate about the subject.00:37:04 [Speaker 2]Yeah, definitely.00:37:05 [Speaker 2] And today, you have traffic coming from Chat GPT. 00:37:09 [Speaker 1] Well, it's funny because we recorded yesterday with Laurent, whom you know well, Dupanier, to whom we also say hello, by the way. 00:37:18 [Speaker 1] And we were talking about that whole part, and I said that I installed a little thing, you can check if you have any traffic coming in with Google Analytics. 00:37:28 [Speaker 1] We use Google Analytics on Plausible and, at the same time, we've linked it to another tool called Perriple, which checks the crawl.00:37:37 [Speaker 1]So it's the bot and Google Analytics together that give us the real number of visits.00:37:43 [Speaker 1]This allows us to make a correlation, I mean correlation, it's is very frowned upon scientifically because in fact there aren't that many links, but it allows us to see whether the LLM is working well for us in recording information and whether it is generating visitors on the Google Analytics side.00:37:59 [Speaker 1] Today, there's a lot of hype around it, but in reality, it's one in 100 for me.00:38:06 [Speaker 1]Okay, got it.00:38:06 [Speaker 1]On the other hand, we definitely need to keep an eye on it.00:38:09 [Speaker 3]Yeah. 00:38:09 [Speaker 1]We've got our hands on something. 00:38:12 [Speaker 1] It took Google years to go from 1% to 40% at my place. 00:38:20 [Speaker 1] LLM will definitely send more traffic. 00:38:23 [Speaker 1]But is this the revolution that everyone is waiting for and talking about? I think we're a bit caught up in the hype right now. 00:38:30 [Speaker 1]I'm talking about traffic generation, ALM optimization, and so on. 00:38:35 [Speaker 1]In any case, we're making a lot of noise about nothing for now.00:38:37 [Speaker 2]Yeah, you think that the day people are going to buy in Chat GPT isn't going to be anytime soon.00:38:43 [Speaker 1]Yeah, that's right.00: 38:44 [Speaker 1]I mean, the more the engine improves, the more relevant the response will be, and ultimately, will the person go further to get more information? No, if she gets the answer right away, she gets the answer right away.00:38:55 [Speaker 1]They'll close the tab and move on to something else. 00:38:57 [Speaker 1]I doubt they'll click on the little result above, you know? 00:39:01 [Speaker 1]Well, let's see how it goes. 00:39:03 [Speaker 1]On the other hand, on the purchasing side, yes, we need to keep a close eye on that because it was one of the advantages of having an e-commerce site, being able to control customer loyalty from start to finish, and so on.00:39:13 [Speaker 1]That's a good question for you too.00:39:14 [Speaker 1]That is, if the purchase is made on the LLM or if the purchase is made on the marketplace and if the purchase is made in the TikTok shop, ultimately the feed is harder to understand.00:39:27 [Speaker 1]So it will have to evolve in any case.00:39:29 [Speaker 1]So I'm not in a hurry for that to happen, but it's clear that e-commerce is evolving and we're going to move towards this type of purchase, I mean, delocalized, that is, you have to become a rapim and you're going to have to feed several sources that can sell directly, you see, your products. 00:39:49 [Speaker 2] Yeah, totally. 00:39:50 [Speaker 2] And still with this SE0 perspective, can you see a little bit what JI0JS0 might be called? 00:39:58 [Speaker 1] Yeah, there are lots of terms. 00:40:00 [Speaker 1] SE0AIAISE0. 00:40:03 [Speaker 1] And du00:40:03 [Speaker 2]coup, can you understand how they analyze your site? It's LLM.00:40:08 [Speaker 1]So, there are the main rules.00:40:10 [Speaker 1]Basically, when LLM needs information, it crawls a search engine.00:40:18 [Speaker 1]So, for example, Bing for OpenAI will take a certain number of results from the first and second pages.00:40:26 [Speaker 1] Generally, to come up with an answer, let's say that to get 100% of your answer, it will pick from all the sites it visits to reconstruct a complete answer.00:40:36 [Speaker 1]Okay.00:40:36 [Speaker 1]So it will take 20% of the first result, 5% from the second, and so on and so forth. 00:40:41 [Speaker 1] So first of all, you need to work hard on your SEO to be on the first page, at least. You see? So that's important. 00:40:48 [Speaker 1] And then finally, since it feeds off content it finds on the web, if we say that the best jewelry store is Ocarat, the more often we say that, the more my competitors will say that, and when you search for “what is the best online jewelry store,” Ocarat will come up. 00:41:06 [Speaker 1] So there's a notion of popularity which is unlike SEO, where popularity is links, you see, it's the number of links that point to you. 00:41:15 [Speaker 1] Here, popularity translates into the number of mentions of your brand. 00:41:20 [Speaker 1] That means you also have to think about your content. 00:41:22 [Speaker 1] Generally, when you're at home, you're not going to say “Ocarat is the best online jewelry store” at the top of your content, so you'll have to think of some nice ways to do it. 00:41:30 [Speaker 1] Instead of saying “at our store,” you want to say “at Ocarat,” “at your Ocarat jewelry store.” you may need to modify your content a little so that your brand appears a little more, shines through a little more in your content.00:41:40 [Speaker 1]You see, whereas before you would have said on our shop or on our website in our categories, you see, you would have stopped there.00:41:45 [Speaker 1]Now, you're going to have to focus it a little more, more often than your competitors. 00:41:50 [Speaker 1]And then you have to be, in fact, it doesn't read, the LLM doesn't read content like Google. 00:41:58 [Speaker 1] Google needs content that is quite long, very comprehensive, and so on. 00:42:01 [Speaker 1] What we've seen is that LLM likes content that is short and concise, with small paragraphs. 00:42:08 [Speaker 3] There's 00:42:08 [Speaker 2]unless it's already been ingested. 00:42:10 [Speaker 1]Yeah, that's right, and it's easier for her to condense sentences that are already condensed. 00:42:15 [Speaker 1]And so, the FAQ sections that you might have on products, all that stuff, is a godsend, so that's what we're going to have to focus on. 00:42:24 [Speaker 1]Right now, I'm giving you rules that are valid at this moment in time, but things change00:42:26 [Speaker 3]every week, but if you work hard on your SEO and you're well established on Bing, etc., and you get yourself on the first page, you've got a good chance. Then you can modify those little quotes, build your reputation, be on trusted sites. It doesn't vary that much from SEO, there are just a few small nuances to keep in mind. 00:42:45 [Speaker 2] Very interesting as a first step, in any case, I think it will be of great interest to those who are listening. 00:42:51 [Speaker 2] Now, if we take this a little further, particularly on the loyalty side, I was wondering if you have developed specific CRM scenarios to bring customers back. You mentioned life events. 00:43:03 [Speaker 2]I don't know if someone buys a watch for their wedding, are you going to contact them again x number of years later for their divorce or for their child? 00:43:13 [Speaker 1]Well, you see, I could tell you that we're really good at that because you're interviewing me on the podcast, but that would be a lie. 00:43:20 [Speaker 1] We actually only started doing that very recently. 00:43:24 [Speaker 1] Okay. 00:43:24 [Speaker 1]It's funny, but as I was saying earlier, we grew 20-25% during the first 10 years, and you're consolidating your acquisition, and it's true that you put customer loyalty a little bit on the back burner, and I think that's kind of the scenario you're facing, which you see with a lot of e-commerce businesses, and when the economy gets a little more complicated, that's when you say, "Oh, it's true that acquisition costs, over the last five years, have skyrocketed by more than 20% on average, you see that 00:43:54 [Speaker 3] has a 00:43:54 [Speaker 1] better job, so you say to yourself, maybe it's not a bad idea to build up customer loyalty a little better, and that's the case at Ocarat. 00:44:01 [Speaker 1]So we've put things in place, yeah, but it's only been five years for me, so it's still very recent. You see, we don't have that DNA. We're very good at acquisition, but we're not as good at CRM and so on. 00:44: 13 [Speaker 1]Of course, today we have all the standard follow-ups.00:44:18 [Speaker 1] What makes it even more complicated for me is that when I started, we were pretty much alone in our mid-range segment because you had the Place Vendôme, which was inaccessible to some, and then you had retail coming onto the internet with products made in Asia and India, cheap with an average order value of seventy euros.00:44:37 [Speaker 1]So we had a place all to ourselves. 00:44:38 [Speaker 1]Today, that's no longer the case. 00:44:40 [Speaker 1]So there are specialists in wedding rings, specialists in baptism rings, specialists in watches.00:44:45 [Speaker 1] So we're more competitive. Someone who buys an engagement ring from us doesn't naturally think to come to Ocarat. 00:44:52 [Speaker 1 Ocarat Even if you treated them well, given that it might be a year, two years, three years, you see, and people can easily unsubscribe from newsletters, forget your communication, and so on.00:45:04 [Speaker 1]So yes, we've put things in place to relaunch it.00:45:07 [Speaker 1]So is it working? Would I say yes, it's working well if I looked at it, are there conversions afterwards? Yes, there are conversions.00:45:15 [Speaker 1] And what we're seeing is that often, these conversions don't necessarily have anything to do with our scenario. 00:45:20 [Speaker 1] In other words, our vague scenario of engagements and wedding rings doesn't necessarily mean that wedding rings are what's selling in the end. 00:45:25 [Speaker 1]That's great because that's our focus, we're entering at a good time, and so on.00:45:32 [Speaker 1] But this time, we're focusing more on being present in the media that talk about wedding rings, so when people search for them, because naturally they will, we're there.00:45:44 [Speaker 3]And that00:45:44 [Speaker 1]isn't our automatic scenario that goes out and finds them.00:45:46 [Speaker 1] As I mentioned earlier, when we started out, we were very strong in hyper-segmentation.00:45:53 [Speaker 1]In fact, we realized that it didn't work as well as when we segmented, that is, when I targeted automatic watches for men for all people who bought automatic watches, sometimes there are women who want gifts for their men.00:46:07 [Speaker 1]And in fact, if you don't target them at all because you're hyper-segmenting, you might lose them. 00:46:11 [Speaker 1] So, should we use hyper-segmentation? Yes, but perhaps with a slightly more general communication strategy, you see. 00:46: 18 [Speaker 1]That means you can send out the same hyper-segmented newsletter, but have a slightly more general message in your newsletter, for example, that talks about your world in general so that people say, yes, that's right, they do that too.00:46:28 [Speaker 1]And it's important to me that they sell watches and jewelry.00:46:31 [Speaker 1]And then in watches, a very broad range that goes from life events to jewelry for pleasure.00:46:37 [Speaker 2] Very interesting. 00:46:39 [Speaker 2] But now, the products you sell are still quite delicate. 00:46:43 [Speaker 2] You can't send a watch in the mail like you send a pair of socks. 00:46:47 [Speaker 2]How do you manage the logistics to ensure security and speed? 00:46:54 [Speaker 1]Well, we decided to do everything in-house. 00:46:59 [Speaker 1] We're very skilled, which in e-commerce means we're the people who internalize the most. 00:47:04 [Speaker 1] So from development to platform management, brand platform, communications, marketing, everything except SEEA, but mainly we do everything. 00:47:14 [Speaker 1] And logistics is no exception to this rule.00:47:17 [Speaker 1]From the beginning, one of my partners took responsibility for this department, and in fact, that allowed us to see some of the constraints.00:47:25 [Speaker 1]There's inventory and just-in-time delivery, sorry.00:47:29 [Speaker 1]So it's easier for us to be the central hub for all information and products rather than going through a logistics center.00:47:36 [Speaker 1]It also allows us, with our professional skills, to check that what we have received is what the customer ordered, because you can't see the difference between a 0.10-carat stone and a 0.20-carat stone. which is very little, just a few thousandths of a millimeter between 9-carat gold and 18-carat gold. You can't see it with the naked eye, so we have to check the hallmarks and certificates when we send a quartz watch to make sure the battery is there and working.00:48:06 [Speaker 1]All that little work that a logistics company would charge you a fortune for if they billed you, but most of them aren't that flexible.00:48:14 [Speaker 1]So it's easier for us with products, you know, Toshi, to receive them, check them, protect them, and send them back. 00:48:21 [Speaker 2] Yeah, if you've mastered the whole process at the point 00:48:23 [Speaker 1] where it's not just a question of cost. 00:48:25 [Speaker 1]Of course, there's a cost issue too, but.00:48:29 [Speaker 2]A question of ROI, sorry.00:48:31 [Speaker 1]A question of ROI, that's right, you were right to correct me.00:48:35 [Speaker 1]But I think it goes beyond that. It's really for our peace of mind and to make sure that the customer doesn't have any problems.00:48:43 [Speaker 1]Sometimes customers even check the weight of the jewelry, and that's normal.00:48:47 [Speaker 1]You know, with the materials. 00:48:49 [Speaker 1]First, gold can explode, and so on, and sometimes it's a big purchase. 00:48:52 [Speaker 1]They want to make sure everything is okay, and it's up to us to make sure everything is okay. 00:48:56 [Speaker 2] Okay. 00:48:58 [Speaker 2] If we talk a little bit now about what's next, based on everything you've told me, if there was one thing you wanted to do again, what would it be? Do you already have something in mind, or not necessarily? 00:49:12 [Speaker 1] What do you mean by “do again”? Is there anything? 00:49:15 [Speaker 2] For example, is there a decision you made at some point that you now think, yeah, maybe if I had done it differently, it would have been better? 00:49:24 [Speaker 1] So it's always a bit complicated, isn't it? 00:49:28 [Speaker 2]you see. 00:49:29 [Speaker 1]Ultimately, it's a bit like asking what you would say to Gregory 10 years ago. 00:49:35 [Speaker 1]I'm not really a fan of that question.00:49:37 [Speaker 1]I'll tell you why, because00:49:38 [Speaker 3]in00:49:38 [Speaker 1] fact, if we were meeting today, if I were to play the butterfly effect and say something or do something differently and that changed the whole future, we wouldn't be seeing each other today. 00:49:47 [Speaker 1] The whole past, rather, we wouldn't be seeing each other today. 00:49:49 [Speaker 1]So, I think what we did was good. 00:49:51 [Speaker 1]Were there things that could have been improved? I think that, like any professional adventure, we didn't particularly mess up on certain things. 00:50:05 [Speaker 1]Yeah, there might have been some small technical changes I would have made, things like that, but there aren't any real structural decisions in terms of marketing or business management that we could have done differently. 00:50:22 [Speaker 1]No, yeah, I don't have any, I wouldn't know how to answer that question. 00:50:24 [Speaker 2] Yeah, I'm a bit like you, you know, I always tell myself that whatever mistakes you made in the end, I'm glad you made them because it saved you from having a lot of problems later on, for example. 00:50:35 [Speaker 1] There were some situations that were more difficult than others. 00:50:37 [Speaker 1] When we first started Ocarat, we had a difficult period where we had to let some employees go. 00:50:45 [Speaker 1] You know, that was a big deal. 00:50:47 [Speaker 1] If I had to say, I wish I hadn't done it. 00:50:50 [Speaker 1]But in reality, if I hadn't done it, would Cara be here today? We might be dead. 00:50:53 [Speaker 1]So it's difficult. 00:50:55 [Speaker 1]Of course, I regret that period, it was difficult. 00:50:58 [Speaker 1]I would have had some tough nights. 00:51:01 [Speaker 1]But today it's part of the DNA and history that has led Cara to where it is today, and ultimately changing that could change the whole adventure too. 00:51:08 [Speaker 2]Yeah, absolutely. 00:51:10 [Speaker 2]And you, if you had one piece of advice to give, you know, to a founder who wants to get into e-commerce today, what would it be? 00:51:19 [Speaker 1]Well, that's not a question either. 00:51:20 [Speaker 1]You must have sent me that before. 00:51:23 [Speaker 1]That's hard, that's hard, that's hard because it depends on a lot of things. 00:51:27 [Speaker 1] Now, you see, I think you have to try things out, try, try, because today, with social media, LinkedIn, etc., we have the impression that there are miracle solutions that you can buy or learn or watch and then it will work. 00:51:46 [Speaker 1] But that's not what life is like for an e-merchant. 00:51:48 [Speaker 1] What I'm telling you about Ocarat isn't the same as what I'm telling you about my friend at Vates Sécurité or Anatole at Ma Coque. We have different businesses, they work differently, The three of us are wired pretty much the same, we have the same brain, and yet we don't do the same things, and yet we're successful because, in the end, it depends on our customers. 00:52:06 [Speaker 1]So testing, not believing everything you see, really means doubting everything, which is important, questioning things.00:52:15 [Speaker 1]Even internally, sometimes we're sure about things, and then when we dig deeper, we realize that it's not true. 00:52:22 [Speaker 1]So I would say test to see where it works, where your audience is, and so on. 00:52:29 [Speaker 1]And I think there's a piece of advice I gave not long ago that I'd like to repeat: be bold.00:52:34 [Speaker 1]Because if you stay very standard, you won't stand out from the crowd.00:52:39 [Speaker 1] Once again, we see this with personalities who emerge on the internet. I'm not talking about e-commerce, I'm talking about personal branding.00:52:46 [Speaker 1]You see, these are people who are bold, divisive or not, overly kind, and they're people who take risks.00:52:54 [Speaker 1]And today, I think there's no such thing as success without risk.00:52:58 [Speaker 2]Absolutely. 00:52:58 [Speaker 2]That's so cool. 00:53:00 [Speaker 2]And one last question to finish up, from your point of view, what is your vision for Ocarat for the next few years? 00:53:10 [Speaker 1]You see, that's the question. 00:53:13 [Speaker 1]Internally, I don't tell them. 00:53:14 [Speaker 1]No, there are two things to consider for me. 00:53:23 [Speaker 1] If we look at China, why am I talking about China? Because China is generally three or four years ahead of the United States, and we are two or three years behind the United States. 00:53:30 [Speaker 1] That's about it for those who are way ahead. 00:53:33 [Speaker 2]That's important, we don't hear that very often. 00:53:35 [Speaker 1]Yeah, and if you look at China, we do a lot of monitoring of what we're allowed to see in China. 00:53:42 [Speaker 1]And in fact, 8 out of 10 purchases in China are made on a marketplace.00:53:45 [Speaker 1]In the United States, it's a little over 5, or 1 in 2 purchases.00:53:50 [Speaker 1]In France, we're below that threshold.00:53:52 [Speaker 3]So, we00:53:52 [Speaker 1]can easily imagine that in the future, marketplaces will grow stronger in France.00:53:58 [Speaker 1]And when I say marketplaces, I'm actually thinking of just one, which we won't name, but I'm thinking of just one.00:54:04 [Speaker 1]So the first thing is, as I was saying, you have to test it, because once again, you see, I'm against marketplaces in principle. I want customers to come to me, I want them to buy from me, I don't want to create my own competition in the form of a monster that will be much stronger than me, with much higher marketing costs and, sometimes, somewhat dubious practices.00:54:27 [Speaker 1]But I want them to come to me.00:54:28 [Speaker 1]But on the other hand, if we follow a model like that, at some point I'm going to have to think about, you know, opening my eyes.00:54:35 [Speaker 1]So that's the first point, which is already cool for some people, less so for others.00:54:40 [Speaker 1]When you're disruptive, for me, it's already less appealing.00:54:43 [Speaker 1]And then on the other hand, you have what we were talking about earlier, which is that now you have TikTok shop, you can buy Inap, you have Amazon By Me, you see, so Amazon comes directly to your home to buy from you and deliver to the customer who comes to their home, and I think you have a Shopify chat JPT deal where you can have a chat GPT shopping experience.00:55:09 [Speaker 1]So does that send the customer back to you or not? For now, everyone is talking about it, but we don't really know much, so we'll wait and see.00:55:14 [Speaker 1]But if the future is like TikTok, which makes sense, we can imagine that the person doesn't leave GPT chat and everything is done via the00:55:25 [Speaker 3]LLM and00:55:26 [Speaker 1] In that case, you see, it means, what do you do with your e-commerce? Is it just a PIM that distributes these products left and right? Or, on the contrary, do I need to open stores to ultimately become a pure player? I have a target audience that is already online, but I also have all the people around me who are returning to stores even though online shopping is struggling.00:55:47 [Speaker 1] I think you have to find the right formula, but I think there may be something to be done, so I can't answer that question precisely. 00:55:54 [Speaker 1] All I know is that we're going through something over the next five years, e-commerce is going to change, and that's it. Even if it's not on our doorstep today, we still have to, as I was saying, we have to look at what's happening, take an interest in things, and follow what's being done in other countries so we can adapt in France.00:56:11 [Speaker 2]Great.00:56:12 [Speaker 2]Listen, right and time.00:56:14 [Speaker 2] Thanks a lot, Gregory, that was really important. 00:56:16 [Speaker 1] Thanks a lot. 00:56:17 [Speaker 1] Bye. 00:56:18 [Speaker 2] Thanks for listening to this episode of Loyoly Talks. 00:56:22 [Speaker 2]I hope you enjoyed it and found lots of tips to try out for your brand.00:56:26 [Speaker 2]If so, subscribe so you don't miss the next one.00:56:29 [Speaker 2]Tell your friends about it and leave us a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It really helps us.00:56:33 [Speaker 2]Finally, if you need to increase your LTV, feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or on our website, point I o.00:56:41 [Speaker 2]See you soon.