Is physical retail dead—or just getting smarter? In this 190th episode, Andrew Maff sits down with Samantha Cross, curly hair care enthusiast and founder of Curl Warehouse, to talk about how she’s built a thriving eCommerce brand by leaning into retail, not away from it.
While most brands are chasing clicks, Samantha’s mixing it up: local events, brick-and-mortar, and yes, radio ads. Why? Because Curl Warehouse is all about meeting customers where they are. Whether that’s helping someone choose the right curl cream over live chat, or running a product swap event IRL, this is next-level omnichannel done the community-first way. Forget what you thought you knew about ROI… this isn’t an episode you want to miss.
What You’ll Learn:
- How opening a retail store can fuel your online sales: Discover how Shopify POS, in-store reward syncing, and real-world events can create a seamless brand experience across every touchpoint.
- Tracking brand awareness: Why Curl Warehouse still invests in radio ads, and how they’ve seen real-world results despite limited attribution.
- Letting your customers make the decisions: Using feedback to determine everything from what products stay or go, to which new categories they explore next.
- Segmenting your product category correctly: Learn how to segment on needs and benefits, while offering live chat and dedicated email support to guide overwhelmed shoppers.
Watch the full episode below, or visit TheEcommShow.com for more.
Tune in and enjoy today's episode of The E-Comm Show!
If you enjoyed the show, please be sure to rate, review, and of course, SUBSCRIBE!
LEAVE SOME FEEDBACK:
If you enjoyed the show, please be sure to rate and review!...and of course, SUBSCRIBE!
Have an e-commerce marketing question you'd like Andrew to cover in an upcoming episode?
Email: theecommshow@bluetuskr.com
If you'd like to catch up on past episodes, visit www.theecommshow.com
The E-Comm Show is a production of BlueTuskr.
CONNECT WITH US!
🌐 Website: https://www.bluetuskr.com/
📱 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlueTuskr
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bluetuskr/
📻 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bluetuskr/
𝕏 X: https://twitter.com/bluetuskr
📧 Email: info@bluetuskr.com
CONNECT WITH THE GUEST!
🌐 Website: www.curlwarehouse.com
📱 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/curlwarehouse
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curlwarehouse/
Leave a review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Samantha Cross (00:03):
I think why the retail part works, especially
for our kind of business, is theinternet has made purchasing
online so easy that if you'renot offering your customers
something that would encouragethem to get in the car and come
(01:02):
visit you in person, they'rejust going to order online.
Andrew Maff (01:07):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
the Ecomm show. As usual, I amyour host, Andrew Maff, and
today I am joined by the amazingSamantha Cross, who is the owner
over at Curl Warehouse.
Samantha, how you doing? Youready for good show?
Samantha Cross (01:20):
Yeah. I'm great.
Thanks so much for having me.
Andrew Maff (01:22):
Yeah, super excited to have you on the show.
Obviously, been doing a ton ofdigging into your business. Got
to know a lot and veryinterested to learn a lot about
it. Today, I always like to dokind of the stereotypical thing,
give you the floor for a secondand tell us a little bit about
your background, how you gotstarted with Curl Warehouse, and
then we will take it from there.
Samantha Cross (01:40):
All right, sounds good. I started Curl
Warehouse in my house in 2019and we took the risk and moved
into our retail space andwarehouse in 2020 the summer of
2020 Right kind of in the heightof the pandemic. But the
decision paid off, and I'm happywe made it. We've got a team of
six at the moment, including me.
And yeah, we're in Calgary,Alberta, and we've got over 1000
(02:02):
curly hair products specificallyfor curly and textured hair.
Unknown (02:08):
That is amazing. So what made you start business in
2019?
Samantha Cross (02:12):
Well, you can tell I am my own customer. I
have curly hair, and I couldn'tfind specifically what I was
looking for in the Calgary area,Canada doesn't have a lot of
great options for curly andtextured hair care, so I was
ordering things from the Statesfor myself. Most of our products
do come from the US, or at leastmost of our popular products do,
(02:34):
and I just it was easier for meto bring in more and more
products and sell them to peoplein our local area. And that kind
of snowballed and took off, andnow we're here.
Unknown (02:44):
Interesting. Now, is a majority of the business retail,
or is it e commerce? Is it likewhat? Tell me about some of that
element.
Samantha Cross (02:53):
We do about 80% of our sales online. So we are
an E commerce forward business,but we run the Shopify system
throughout the store as well. Soour POS system is Shopify too,
and it's all the same inventory,which makes it really simple for
us to keep track of. Our storeand our warehouse are in the
same building, so it's nice andsimple to pull and pack orders
(03:15):
and help customers at the sametime.
Unknown (03:16):
Yeah, it's always very interesting when I could speak
with like an E commerce sellerthat, like the that also has the
retail brick and mortar side,because it does make a ton of
sense, right? Like you've got itall sitting in a warehouse, so
why not showcase it and allowsome people that are at least in
a local area to be able to comeby? How do you kind of cross
pollinate the two of them?
Samantha Cross (03:37):
I think why the retail part works, especially
for our kind of business, is theinternet has made purchasing
online so easy that if you'renot offering your customers
something that would encouragethem to get in the car and come
visit you in person, they'rejust going to order online. But
because we have such a widerange of products, and curly
hair care is its own kind ofbeast, we have really
(03:57):
knowledgeable staff that cananswer questions in person, see
people's hair provide them withpersonalized advice and
recommendations for products.
And it just makes sense. It'sthe type of thing people want to
talk about, and they and thebest way for them to talk about
it is for us to be able to seewhat they're working with, right
to see their hair, and so doingit in person and having the
online aspect to support it. Youknow, maybe once a customer has
(04:19):
gotten comfortable with us, orthey know what products they
want to buy, they don'tobviously have to come make the
trip. But I think if you're notoffering that additional step,
or the additional excellentcustomer service, or some reason
for someone to come purchasefrom you in person, it doesn't
work for an Ecomm Business toalso have the retail store, even
if you have the inventorysitting there because there's,
(04:41):
there's no reason for people tocome visit you when they can
just buy online.
Unknown (04:47):
Yeah, it's a very good point. Do you have, like, people
traveling from like, all overthe place to come visit you?
Samantha Cross (04:53):
We do, yeah. It makes my day when customers come
in and say, Oh, I'm visitingfrom Edmonton, or I'm just here
for the weekend from Toronto,and I had to come to Curl
Warehouse. And see you. Yeah,it's it's an amazing feeling
Unknown (05:03):
That's crazy. Are you is for, I know you mentioned
you're getting a lot of theproduct from the States, but are
when you're selling it yourself?
Is it just in Canada, or are youalso selling back to the States,
or or what's that?
Samantha Cross (05:16):
We ship across North America. So oftentimes we
import products from the statesand then we send it back to the
States.
Andrew Maff (05:22):
Nice, okay, how's, I know it's most of it's cleared
up for the most part now. Buthow are the tariffs end up
becoming like a problem withthat back and forth?
Samantha Cross (05:33):
Yeah, and not cleared up for our HS codes,
we're still paying tariffs onthem, so no difference for us.
Unknown (05:40):
Yeah, like, what'd you do to pivot for that? I know a
lot of people had kind ofdifferent approaches to how to
deal with it.
Samantha Cross (05:46):
We were actually really lucky. So many of our
American brands offered to helpus with the tariff costs so that
we didn't have to raise pricesso significantly on their
customers in Canada, ourcustomers in Canada as well. So
of course, we had to raise someprices. It was unavoidable. You
can't as a business, justsuddenly absorb a 25% increase
on your wholesale price withoutsending your business into the
(06:07):
ground. But I'm really gratefulthat we had those amazing
relationships alreadyestablished. So when I went to
them and said, Look, here's ourproblem, I can't afford this
without raising prices, it wasadding $4 a bottle, or it is
adding $4 a bottle to ouraverage product price and and,
you know, that's not somethingthat I'm really excited about
(06:27):
passing on to my customers, butnot something that we can just
absorb. So the fact that that wehad those relationships already,
and they were very receptive tohelping split the burden made a
huge difference in how well sofar we've weathered the storm.
Unknown (06:42):
Yeah, good. How are you marketing it like? Is it? Is it?
Obviously, it's mostly online.
How are you kind of connectingwith that audience? And is it, I
guess, just completely blanketedacross North America? Are you
mainly focused on marketingwithin Canada?
Samantha Cross (06:58):
I'm not a marketing whiz, so I hire people
who are good at it, but we doGoogle ads, Instagram, Facebook,
we've got Pinterest ads running.
We've started running radio inthe last year, actually, in our
cabinet, and that has been goingreally well. So I really enjoyed
working on the radio ads. Yeah,it's been awesome to to have
people come in the store andsay, I heard you guys on the
(07:19):
radio, because I incorrectlydidn't think people listen to
the radio anymore.
Unknown (07:25):
Yeah, I didn't really.
Either I assumed it was mostlylike podcasts like this, or like
Sirius XM, or some type of,like, just streaming thing.
That's very interesting. Sothat's working well for you. So
is it all just directed togetting people into the retail
store I imagine.
Samantha Cross (07:42):
The biggest goal for the radio ads was to send
people into the store, but ithas, I believe, helped our
online traffic as well. BecauseCalgary is a big area, we've got
lots of people who listen to theradio station that we advertise
on outside the city, and theyobviously then could take
advantage of the convenience ofhaving stuff shipped to them. So
they're on our website too.
Unknown (08:02):
Very interesting. So, you know, when I'm sure we have
a lot of listeners right nowthat are, like, what? Like, I
never thought about doing that,because everyone's very data
driven, right? It's very I'mrunning this ad. Here's what
this cost me. Here's the clicksI got. Like, it's so specific.
Whereas you do something likeradio, it's like brand
awareness, and fingers crossed,it works. So how are you how do
(08:26):
you kind of paint the picture ofthe ROI there, and whether it's
justifiable for you to keepdoing it or not?
Samantha Cross (08:32):
I was surprised actually, the cost of
advertising on the radio is notsuper expensive compared to what
I expected to be. So for anexposure purpose. It's not a bad
place to put a little bit ofmoney every month, but the fact
that people come into the storeand say to us more often than
they say they saw Google ads orFacebook ads or Instagram ads,
they say, I heard you on theradio, and they actually lead
(08:54):
with that part of theconversation, that, to me, means
it's working. We run Local LeadGeneration ads now on Google and
Facebook specifically targetingthe same audience that the radio
ads are targeting. It's sort ofto try and figure out more of
that ROI data that we can't getjust from the radio ads
themselves. But as far as I'mconcerned, it's it's working and
(09:17):
it's positive. So as long asthat continues, we'll keep doing
Andrew Maff (09:20):
That's pretty cool.
It was very interesting. Yeah,it.
the the product line. Tell meabout that. How do you How are
you sourcing product? How areyou figuring out which brands to
offer? You know what? What'sthat approach been?
Samantha Cross (09:32):
We bring in so many products based on customer
requests and recommendations,but we also bring in products
that are really popular onsocial media that you can't get
anywhere else in Canada. So partof the reason customers shop
with us and continue to shopwith us is because we're the
only place you can get them inCanada, if not in Western
Canada, in the whole country.
And so it's it's really a caseof seeing what the demand is,
(09:55):
what the activity is online forthese. New brands and new
products, and then sometimesbrands will approach us. Now
we're at a point where brandswill come to us and say, We want
to break into the Canadianmarket. We want to have our
products carried at CurlWarehouse. How do we do that?
And as far as I'm concerned,that means we I've made it.
People are coming to me tryingto sell their product in my
(10:16):
store, and that makes me happy.
Unknown (10:19):
That's pretty cool. For a lot of brands, like, they
dream about opening up a store,and they kind of always hesitate
with it a little bit like, whendo you know, or when did you
know that it was the right moveto open up the retail element of
it?
Samantha Cross (10:32):
We were needing a warehouse space anyways, and
so I specifically looked forwarehouse space that was zoned
so that I could have a smallretail store in the same
building, financially, that madesense for us, but it also makes
sense from an inventorymanagement perspective. It's all
under the same roof. And I thinkif a business needs the
warehouse space anyway, and theythink there's a demand, they're
(10:53):
either seeing it or hearing itfrom customers that they want to
come in and see you in person,or they have a bazillion
questions, and it'd be easierjust to deal with them in person
and discuss, you know, theirneeds, face to face, rather than
online. I think it's a it'sthat's the time to figure out if
you can make it work with yourexisting warehouse space to open
a store,
Unknown (11:13):
Yeah. And so you have the retail establishment, then
you have your D2C website. Areyou selling anywhere else, like,
are you reselling on anymarketplaces, anything like
that, just just the two.
Samantha Cross (11:23):
We have three things on Amazon, mostly our own
branded and stuff, but we, weput all of our effort into our
own channels.
Unknown (11:32):
Yeah. How? How do you differentiate where to focus on
your own branded stuff versusthe other brands?
Samantha Cross (11:40):
Based on customer needs, customer demand,
they really dictate the brandswe bring in, the products that
we carry, the amount ofinventory we order, all those
things. And so the stuff that wehave branded as our own is
mostly accessories. So it's justthings to complement the
products that we carry.
Unknown (11:59):
Nice that's interesting. So you, you
mentioned you opened up thewarehouse and the retail
establishment in summer of 2020?
Samantha Cross (12:08):
Yep, that's correct.
Andrew Maff (12:09):
So when you opened up, I would imagine initially,
were you thinking, like, oh,this was a bad idea because,
like, no one was coming into thestore. Or was it, how were
things there were people able tocome in?
Samantha Cross (12:22):
Yeah, people, people came in. Um, the nice
thing about our location iswe're in a industrial park, and
so it's not the type of placewhere people are wandering
through the mall and they justsort of stop in to have a have a
peek. You have to make theeffort to come and see us. So
generally, our store is not thatbusy, um, which, you know, at
that time was a good thing, butas the pandemic situation eased
(12:44):
off and restrictions werelifted, people were so, I think,
starved for face to face contactand communication and social
interaction that we did, almostimmediately see an increase in
customers in the store whowanted to talk to someone about
their hair concerns.
Unknown (12:58):
Yeah. Where are you trying to take the brand? Like,
so you, you've you've got the Ecommerce side. You've gotten
into a lot of brands thatalready sell in your product
line. You've got your ownaccessories. You have a retail
establishment, marketplaces, Icould agree, not exactly, always
the best place. So like, how areyou focused on continuing to
scale it?
Samantha Cross (13:19):
We're just doubling down on what's working.
I'm not interested at the momentin expanding or franchising or
opening new locations. I justwant to be doing what we're
doing the best we possibly can,be doing it, and then just
growing the business from therewith the property we already
have.
Unknown (13:36):
Yeah, is most of your business in Canada, or is it in
the states?
Samantha Cross (13:40):
The majority is in in Canada, obviously, with
with selling a majority USproducts, we have a lot of
European and British products aswell, but with the majority US
products, there's not a ton ofincentive for American
purchasers to buy from us,except for the fact that we have
everything under one roof. So ifyou want this product from this
brand, and this product fromthis brand, rather than ordering
(14:04):
from them individually, youcould just order individually,
you could just order from us andpay one shipping cost.
Andrew Maff (14:05):
Yeah, that's a good point. Your you know your
comment of someone being able tocome in store and get all the
answers, it makes a ton ofsense. But if you're not near
you and you're coming online toyour your website, it's a huge
product line of everything,curly hair. So it obviously
(14:25):
like, if I'm a first timevisitor, it can be daunting. How
do you what things do you havein place to like help people
that are just shopping onlinefigure out kind of the best
things to be looking for?
Samantha Cross (14:37):
We've split our inventory into collections or
categories based on a lot of thebiggest needs that we see. So
for instance, people come inthey're having scalp issues, or
they come in and their hair isdamaged, or they're coming in
and their goal is X, Y or Z. Andso we try and split up what we
have to make it easy for them tofind what they're looking for.
We also have an online chat, andwe have a dedicated email. Inbox
(15:00):
for product suggestions andrecommendations, so people can
email us or chat with us to helpthem narrow down the selection
that we have. Because, yeah, itis overwhelming. There's a lot
to choose from, and a lot of ourcustomers, especially our first
time customers, don't knowexactly what they're looking
for, and so we do try and makethe purchasing journey as much
(15:21):
online as it is in store aspossible. So in the store, you
can talk to someone who can say,Okay, well, what are you looking
for? What are your goals? Howwould you describe your hair? Is
your hair damaged? And then wecan narrow it down from there.
And so we try and do the samething online.
Unknown (15:36):
Yeah. Are you just drop shipping, or are you, I'm sorry,
are you taking in all inventory?
Are you drop shipping anything?
Samantha Cross (15:43):
We have all of it. We do all fulfillment.
Andrew Maff (15:46):
Okay. I mean, that's great, because then you
get to, you know, control themessaging, control the shipping,
all that fun stuff. What do youhow do you control, you know,
product quality, obviously thatpart, it's still you're getting
in product and then shipping itto them. So even as a reseller,
I know sometimes that can be abit of a challenge every now and
then, what how do you kind ofcombat that?
Samantha Cross (16:08):
We don't bring in anything we haven't tried or
tested out ourselves. So itmakes a big difference. Either
we may not have tried the brandevery one of their products, but
we have tried something fromtheir line. Sometimes they'll
send us products to try, orwe'll order a small amount first
and try it out before we put onthe shelves. So from a quality
control perspective, we have avery good idea of what we're
(16:29):
selling. That's not to say thatoccasionally there's a bad
batch, or, you know, somethinggoes wrong, or stuff gets
damaged, it happens. It'sbusiness. We do the best we can
to look after our customers, andthen, thankfully, for the
majority of the brands we dealwith, they then look after us to
make sure that we're not out forsomething that we have no
control over.
Yeah, I know you mentionedmarketing is not entirely in
(16:50):
your in your wheelhouse, but thethe do you know between your
advertising channels youmentioned, you know you're doing
Facebook and Instagram, Google,all those like is, I would
assume Google is probably theone outperforming, because
you're kind of piggybacking offof these brands, like pre
existing brand awareness for themost part, right?
Yeah, exactly. And honestly, asa reseller of those brands, the
fact that some of those brandsare so well known and spend so
much money on marketing hasreally benefited us, especially
because we might be the onlyplace in Canada you can get
them. So if your alternative isordering from the States,
especially with tariffs andinternational and international
(17:13):
shipping, you're going to cometo us or you're going to look
for a Canadian seller of thosebrands, right? So Google is our
top channel for sure everymonth, without fail. And then
(17:34):
behind that, Instagram andFacebook, we don't do a lot on
Pinterest, it's kind of more ofan awareness channel. And then
obviously, now with radio,that's more of an awareness
thing as well.
Unknown (17:46):
Yeah, you say Pinterest, I've always found
it's great for top of funnel,but getting people to convert on
that thing is a challenge. Yeah,with Google doing so well, have
you ventured into doing likeMicrosoft or Bing Ads at all?
Samantha Cross (18:00):
We tried Bing.
We did it for about three orfour months, had zero return and
stopped.
Unknown (18:05):
Really interesting, huh? Usually I find that, like,
typically we find Microsoft hasa really nice return. It's just
the volumes, like, super low onit, but it's also a very
different audience, so that verywell could be the case. And then
then the Pinterest sideobviously doesn't shock me. Do
you do anything in terms of,like, reward programs or
(18:26):
anything like that, just like,from a retention perspective, to
keep people coming back?
Samantha Cross (18:30):
We do have a reward program that a lot of our
customers love. The nice thingabout having Shopify POS running
our store is that it connects,and so customers in the store
can spend their loyalty pointsas well, even if they've gained
those points from shoppingonline, we also have a very
active community of people inour immediate area that I think
(18:50):
helps with bringing in newcustomers and helps with
customer retention. So we dolocal events. So we do product
swaps. We don't take returns onused products because we just
have to throw them away fromlike, a health perspective. So
what we do is, twice a year wehave a swap. You can bring in
something that didn't work outfor you, whether it's from Curl
Warehouse or not, and you swapit with other people who bring
(19:11):
in stuff that didn't work outfor them. And the last one we
had one a couple weeks ago, andwe had hundreds of products, and
then we donated them at the endto a local nonprofit so that
they could use them.
Unknown (19:22):
Yeah, interesting, huh?
Okay, and so, so in thatscenario, you have people come
in to swap products with eachother based off of stuff that's
not working for them, and sojust kind of a big conversation
of, hey, this didn't work forme, maybe it'll work for you,
and they're just trading, moreor less.
Samantha Cross (19:41):
Pretty much. We have the products dropped off in
advance so we can assign, wecall it curl box. We assign a
value to it based on how much isleft and what your original
purchase price would have likelybeen at regular price, and then
you have that same value tospend on other products. So you
don't necessarily know whodonated the product, but because
we're getting everyone in oneroom at once. Yeah, the
conversations are fantastic,like that didn't work for me,
(20:05):
but it'll probably work for you,because your hair is completely
different from mine, andeveryone's trading tips and
suggestions and, yeah, ourcommunity is amazing. I'm so
happy we have the store, becauseotherwise I wouldn't get to see
that.
Andrew Maff (20:13):
That's so interesting. I would imagine
that's probably some greatcontent for social media too.
Just the amount of curly haireverywhere that whole day.
Samantha Cross (20:22):
Yes, honestly, we we have big open houses once
a year for our anniversary aswell. And to get that many, our
store is only 400 square feet,to get that many beautiful curls
in one store is amazing, andit's it's one of my favorite
days of the year. I absolutelylove it.
Andrew Maff (20:39):
That is pretty cool. Samantha, this was
awesome. I don't wanna take upmore your time. I know you're
super busy, but I reallyappreciate all of that
information. It sounds reallycool. I would love to give you
the floor. Please let everyoneknow where they can find out
more about you, and, of course,more about Curl Warehouse.
Samantha Cross (20:54):
Curl Warehouse, we're in Calgary, Alberta, so if
you wanna come visit us inperson, we're not far from
Chinook Mall. If you wanna findus online, we're at
curlwarehouse.com and ourInstagram. Com, and our
Instagram is Curlwarehouse.
Andrew Maff (21:05):
Easy enough.
Samantha, thank you so much foryour time. Thank you everyone
who tuned Yeah, everyone whotuned in, thank you as well.
Please make sure you do theusual, rate, review, subscribe
all that fun stuff on whicheverpodcast platform you prefer, or
head over to Ecommshow.com tocheck out all of our previous
episodes. But as usual, thankyou all for joining us, and
we'll see you all next time.
Have a good one!
Narrator (21:25):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to Ecommshow.com to subscribe onyour favorite podcast platform
or on the BlueTusker YouTubechannel. The Ecomm show is
brought to you by BlueTusker, afull service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce, sellers looking to
accelerate their growth, go tobluetuskr.com now for more
(21:47):
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the Ecomm show!
I think why the retail part works, especially
for our kind of business, is theinternet has made purchasing
online so easy that if you'renot offering your customers
something that would encouragethem to get in the car and come
(01:02):
visit you in person, they'rejust going to order online.
Andrew Maff (01:07):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
the Ecomm show. As usual, I amyour host, Andrew Maff, and
today I am joined by the amazingSamantha Cross, who is the owner
over at Curl Warehouse.
Samantha, how you doing? Youready for good show?
Samantha Cross (01:20):
Yeah. I'm great.
Thanks so much for having me.
Andrew Maff (01:22):
Yeah, super excited to have you on the show.
Obviously, been doing a ton ofdigging into your business. Got
to know a lot and veryinterested to learn a lot about
it. Today, I always like to dokind of the stereotypical thing,
give you the floor for a secondand tell us a little bit about
your background, how you gotstarted with Curl Warehouse, and
then we will take it from there.
Samantha Cross (01:40):
All right, sounds good. I started Curl
Warehouse in my house in 2019and we took the risk and moved
into our retail space andwarehouse in 2020 the summer of
2020 Right kind of in the heightof the pandemic. But the
decision paid off, and I'm happywe made it. We've got a team of
six at the moment, including me.
And yeah, we're in Calgary,Alberta, and we've got over 1000
(02:02):
curly hair products specificallyfor curly and textured hair.
Unknown (02:08):
That is amazing. So what made you start business in
2019?
Samantha Cross (02:12):
Well, you can tell I am my own customer. I
have curly hair, and I couldn'tfind specifically what I was
looking for in the Calgary area,Canada doesn't have a lot of
great options for curly andtextured hair care, so I was
ordering things from the Statesfor myself. Most of our products
do come from the US, or at leastmost of our popular products do,
(02:34):
and I just it was easier for meto bring in more and more
products and sell them to peoplein our local area. And that kind
of snowballed and took off, andnow we're here.
Unknown (02:44):
Interesting. Now, is a majority of the business retail,
or is it e commerce? Is it likewhat? Tell me about some of that
element.
Samantha Cross (02:53):
We do about 80% of our sales online. So we are
an E commerce forward business,but we run the Shopify system
throughout the store as well. Soour POS system is Shopify too,
and it's all the same inventory,which makes it really simple for
us to keep track of. Our storeand our warehouse are in the
same building, so it's nice andsimple to pull and pack orders
(03:15):
and help customers at the sametime.
Unknown (03:16):
Yeah, it's always very interesting when I could speak
with like an E commerce sellerthat, like the that also has the
retail brick and mortar side,because it does make a ton of
sense, right? Like you've got itall sitting in a warehouse, so
why not showcase it and allowsome people that are at least in
a local area to be able to comeby? How do you kind of cross
pollinate the two of them?
Samantha Cross (03:37):
I think why the retail part works, especially
for our kind of business, is theinternet has made purchasing
online so easy that if you'renot offering your customers
something that would encouragethem to get in the car and come
visit you in person, they'rejust going to order online. But
because we have such a widerange of products, and curly
hair care is its own kind ofbeast, we have really
(03:57):
knowledgeable staff that cananswer questions in person, see
people's hair provide them withpersonalized advice and
recommendations for products.
And it just makes sense. It'sthe type of thing people want to
talk about, and they and thebest way for them to talk about
it is for us to be able to seewhat they're working with, right
to see their hair, and so doingit in person and having the
online aspect to support it. Youknow, maybe once a customer has
(04:19):
gotten comfortable with us, orthey know what products they
want to buy, they don'tobviously have to come make the
trip. But I think if you're notoffering that additional step,
or the additional excellentcustomer service, or some reason
for someone to come purchasefrom you in person, it doesn't
work for an Ecomm Business toalso have the retail store, even
if you have the inventorysitting there because there's,
(04:41):
there's no reason for people tocome visit you when they can
just buy online.
Unknown (04:47):
Yeah, it's a very good point. Do you have, like, people
traveling from like, all overthe place to come visit you?
Samantha Cross (04:53):
We do, yeah. It makes my day when customers come
in and say, Oh, I'm visitingfrom Edmonton, or I'm just here
for the weekend from Toronto,and I had to come to Curl
Warehouse. And see you. Yeah,it's it's an amazing feeling
Unknown (05:03):
That's crazy. Are you is for, I know you mentioned
you're getting a lot of theproduct from the States, but are
when you're selling it yourself?
Is it just in Canada, or are youalso selling back to the States,
or or what's that?
Samantha Cross (05:16):
We ship across North America. So oftentimes we
import products from the statesand then we send it back to the
States.
Andrew Maff (05:22):
Nice, okay, how's, I know it's most of it's cleared
up for the most part now. Buthow are the tariffs end up
becoming like a problem withthat back and forth?
Samantha Cross (05:33):
Yeah, and not cleared up for our HS codes,
we're still paying tariffs onthem, so no difference for us.
Unknown (05:40):
Yeah, like, what'd you do to pivot for that? I know a
lot of people had kind ofdifferent approaches to how to
deal with it.
Samantha Cross (05:46):
We were actually really lucky. So many of our
American brands offered to helpus with the tariff costs so that
we didn't have to raise pricesso significantly on their
customers in Canada, ourcustomers in Canada as well. So
of course, we had to raise someprices. It was unavoidable. You
can't as a business, justsuddenly absorb a 25% increase
on your wholesale price withoutsending your business into the
(06:07):
ground. But I'm really gratefulthat we had those amazing
relationships alreadyestablished. So when I went to
them and said, Look, here's ourproblem, I can't afford this
without raising prices, it wasadding $4 a bottle, or it is
adding $4 a bottle to ouraverage product price and and,
you know, that's not somethingthat I'm really excited about
(06:27):
passing on to my customers, butnot something that we can just
absorb. So the fact that that wehad those relationships already,
and they were very receptive tohelping split the burden made a
huge difference in how well sofar we've weathered the storm.
Unknown (06:42):
Yeah, good. How are you marketing it like? Is it? Is it?
Obviously, it's mostly online.
How are you kind of connectingwith that audience? And is it, I
guess, just completely blanketedacross North America? Are you
mainly focused on marketingwithin Canada?
Samantha Cross (06:58):
I'm not a marketing whiz, so I hire people
who are good at it, but we doGoogle ads, Instagram, Facebook,
we've got Pinterest ads running.
We've started running radio inthe last year, actually, in our
cabinet, and that has been goingreally well. So I really enjoyed
working on the radio ads. Yeah,it's been awesome to to have
people come in the store andsay, I heard you guys on the
(07:19):
radio, because I incorrectlydidn't think people listen to
the radio anymore.
Unknown (07:25):
Yeah, I didn't really.
Either I assumed it was mostlylike podcasts like this, or like
Sirius XM, or some type of,like, just streaming thing.
That's very interesting. Sothat's working well for you. So
is it all just directed togetting people into the retail
store I imagine.
Samantha Cross (07:42):
The biggest goal for the radio ads was to send
people into the store, but ithas, I believe, helped our
online traffic as well. BecauseCalgary is a big area, we've got
lots of people who listen to theradio station that we advertise
on outside the city, and theyobviously then could take
advantage of the convenience ofhaving stuff shipped to them. So
they're on our website too.
Unknown (08:02):
Very interesting. So, you know, when I'm sure we have
a lot of listeners right nowthat are, like, what? Like, I
never thought about doing that,because everyone's very data
driven, right? It's very I'mrunning this ad. Here's what
this cost me. Here's the clicksI got. Like, it's so specific.
Whereas you do something likeradio, it's like brand
awareness, and fingers crossed,it works. So how are you how do
(08:26):
you kind of paint the picture ofthe ROI there, and whether it's
justifiable for you to keepdoing it or not?
Samantha Cross (08:32):
I was surprised actually, the cost of
advertising on the radio is notsuper expensive compared to what
I expected to be. So for anexposure purpose. It's not a bad
place to put a little bit ofmoney every month, but the fact
that people come into the storeand say to us more often than
they say they saw Google ads orFacebook ads or Instagram ads,
they say, I heard you on theradio, and they actually lead
(08:54):
with that part of theconversation, that, to me, means
it's working. We run Local LeadGeneration ads now on Google and
Facebook specifically targetingthe same audience that the radio
ads are targeting. It's sort ofto try and figure out more of
that ROI data that we can't getjust from the radio ads
themselves. But as far as I'mconcerned, it's it's working and
(09:17):
it's positive. So as long asthat continues, we'll keep doing
Andrew Maff (09:20):
That's pretty cool.
It was very interesting. Yeah,it.
the the product line. Tell meabout that. How do you How are
you sourcing product? How areyou figuring out which brands to
offer? You know what? What'sthat approach been?
Samantha Cross (09:32):
We bring in so many products based on customer
requests and recommendations,but we also bring in products
that are really popular onsocial media that you can't get
anywhere else in Canada. So partof the reason customers shop
with us and continue to shopwith us is because we're the
only place you can get them inCanada, if not in Western
Canada, in the whole country.
And so it's it's really a caseof seeing what the demand is,
(09:55):
what the activity is online forthese. New brands and new
products, and then sometimesbrands will approach us. Now
we're at a point where brandswill come to us and say, We want
to break into the Canadianmarket. We want to have our
products carried at CurlWarehouse. How do we do that?
And as far as I'm concerned,that means we I've made it.
People are coming to me tryingto sell their product in my
(10:16):
store, and that makes me happy.
Unknown (10:19):
That's pretty cool. For a lot of brands, like, they
dream about opening up a store,and they kind of always hesitate
with it a little bit like, whendo you know, or when did you
know that it was the right moveto open up the retail element of
it?
Samantha Cross (10:32):
We were needing a warehouse space anyways, and
so I specifically looked forwarehouse space that was zoned
so that I could have a smallretail store in the same
building, financially, that madesense for us, but it also makes
sense from an inventorymanagement perspective. It's all
under the same roof. And I thinkif a business needs the
warehouse space anyway, and theythink there's a demand, they're
(10:53):
either seeing it or hearing itfrom customers that they want to
come in and see you in person,or they have a bazillion
questions, and it'd be easierjust to deal with them in person
and discuss, you know, theirneeds, face to face, rather than
online. I think it's a it'sthat's the time to figure out if
you can make it work with yourexisting warehouse space to open
a store,
Unknown (11:13):
Yeah. And so you have the retail establishment, then
you have your D2C website. Areyou selling anywhere else, like,
are you reselling on anymarketplaces, anything like
that, just just the two.
Samantha Cross (11:23):
We have three things on Amazon, mostly our own
branded and stuff, but we, weput all of our effort into our
own channels.
Unknown (11:32):
Yeah. How? How do you differentiate where to focus on
your own branded stuff versusthe other brands?
Samantha Cross (11:40):
Based on customer needs, customer demand,
they really dictate the brandswe bring in, the products that
we carry, the amount ofinventory we order, all those
things. And so the stuff that wehave branded as our own is
mostly accessories. So it's justthings to complement the
products that we carry.
Unknown (11:59):
Nice that's interesting. So you, you
mentioned you opened up thewarehouse and the retail
establishment in summer of 2020?
Samantha Cross (12:08):
Yep, that's correct.
Andrew Maff (12:09):
So when you opened up, I would imagine initially,
were you thinking, like, oh,this was a bad idea because,
like, no one was coming into thestore. Or was it, how were
things there were people able tocome in?
Samantha Cross (12:22):
Yeah, people, people came in. Um, the nice
thing about our location iswe're in a industrial park, and
so it's not the type of placewhere people are wandering
through the mall and they justsort of stop in to have a have a
peek. You have to make theeffort to come and see us. So
generally, our store is not thatbusy, um, which, you know, at
that time was a good thing, butas the pandemic situation eased
(12:44):
off and restrictions werelifted, people were so, I think,
starved for face to face contactand communication and social
interaction that we did, almostimmediately see an increase in
customers in the store whowanted to talk to someone about
their hair concerns.
Unknown (12:58):
Yeah. Where are you trying to take the brand? Like,
so you, you've you've got the Ecommerce side. You've gotten
into a lot of brands thatalready sell in your product
line. You've got your ownaccessories. You have a retail
establishment, marketplaces, Icould agree, not exactly, always
the best place. So like, how areyou focused on continuing to
scale it?
Samantha Cross (13:19):
We're just doubling down on what's working.
I'm not interested at the momentin expanding or franchising or
opening new locations. I justwant to be doing what we're
doing the best we possibly can,be doing it, and then just
growing the business from therewith the property we already
have.
Unknown (13:36):
Yeah, is most of your business in Canada, or is it in
the states?
Samantha Cross (13:40):
The majority is in in Canada, obviously, with
with selling a majority USproducts, we have a lot of
European and British products aswell, but with the majority US
products, there's not a ton ofincentive for American
purchasers to buy from us,except for the fact that we have
everything under one roof. So ifyou want this product from this
brand, and this product fromthis brand, rather than ordering
(14:04):
from them individually, youcould just order individually,
you could just order from us andpay one shipping cost.
Andrew Maff (14:05):
Yeah, that's a good point. Your you know your
comment of someone being able tocome in store and get all the
answers, it makes a ton ofsense. But if you're not near
you and you're coming online toyour your website, it's a huge
product line of everything,curly hair. So it obviously
(14:25):
like, if I'm a first timevisitor, it can be daunting. How
do you what things do you havein place to like help people
that are just shopping onlinefigure out kind of the best
things to be looking for?
Samantha Cross (14:37):
We've split our inventory into collections or
categories based on a lot of thebiggest needs that we see. So
for instance, people come inthey're having scalp issues, or
they come in and their hair isdamaged, or they're coming in
and their goal is X, Y or Z. Andso we try and split up what we
have to make it easy for them tofind what they're looking for.
We also have an online chat, andwe have a dedicated email. Inbox
(15:00):
for product suggestions andrecommendations, so people can
email us or chat with us to helpthem narrow down the selection
that we have. Because, yeah, itis overwhelming. There's a lot
to choose from, and a lot of ourcustomers, especially our first
time customers, don't knowexactly what they're looking
for, and so we do try and makethe purchasing journey as much
(15:21):
online as it is in store aspossible. So in the store, you
can talk to someone who can say,Okay, well, what are you looking
for? What are your goals? Howwould you describe your hair? Is
your hair damaged? And then wecan narrow it down from there.
And so we try and do the samething online.
Unknown (15:36):
Yeah. Are you just drop shipping, or are you, I'm sorry,
are you taking in all inventory?
Are you drop shipping anything?
Samantha Cross (15:43):
We have all of it. We do all fulfillment.
Andrew Maff (15:46):
Okay. I mean, that's great, because then you
get to, you know, control themessaging, control the shipping,
all that fun stuff. What do youhow do you control, you know,
product quality, obviously thatpart, it's still you're getting
in product and then shipping itto them. So even as a reseller,
I know sometimes that can be abit of a challenge every now and
then, what how do you kind ofcombat that?
Samantha Cross (16:08):
We don't bring in anything we haven't tried or
tested out ourselves. So itmakes a big difference. Either
we may not have tried the brandevery one of their products, but
we have tried something fromtheir line. Sometimes they'll
send us products to try, orwe'll order a small amount first
and try it out before we put onthe shelves. So from a quality
control perspective, we have avery good idea of what we're
(16:29):
selling. That's not to say thatoccasionally there's a bad
batch, or, you know, somethinggoes wrong, or stuff gets
damaged, it happens. It'sbusiness. We do the best we can
to look after our customers, andthen, thankfully, for the
majority of the brands we dealwith, they then look after us to
make sure that we're not out forsomething that we have no
control over.
Yeah, I know you mentionedmarketing is not entirely in
(16:50):
your in your wheelhouse, but thethe do you know between your
advertising channels youmentioned, you know you're doing
Facebook and Instagram, Google,all those like is, I would
assume Google is probably theone outperforming, because
you're kind of piggybacking offof these brands, like pre
existing brand awareness for themost part, right?
Yeah, exactly. And honestly, asa reseller of those brands, the
fact that some of those brandsare so well known and spend so
much money on marketing hasreally benefited us, especially
because we might be the onlyplace in Canada you can get
them. So if your alternative isordering from the States,
especially with tariffs andinternational and international
(17:13):
shipping, you're going to cometo us or you're going to look
for a Canadian seller of thosebrands, right? So Google is our
top channel for sure everymonth, without fail. And then
(17:34):
behind that, Instagram andFacebook, we don't do a lot on
Pinterest, it's kind of more ofan awareness channel. And then
obviously, now with radio,that's more of an awareness
thing as well.
Unknown (17:46):
Yeah, you say Pinterest, I've always found
it's great for top of funnel,but getting people to convert on
that thing is a challenge. Yeah,with Google doing so well, have
you ventured into doing likeMicrosoft or Bing Ads at all?
Samantha Cross (18:00):
We tried Bing.
We did it for about three orfour months, had zero return and
stopped.
Unknown (18:05):
Really interesting, huh? Usually I find that, like,
typically we find Microsoft hasa really nice return. It's just
the volumes, like, super low onit, but it's also a very
different audience, so that verywell could be the case. And then
then the Pinterest sideobviously doesn't shock me. Do
you do anything in terms of,like, reward programs or
(18:26):
anything like that, just like,from a retention perspective, to
keep people coming back?
Samantha Cross (18:30):
We do have a reward program that a lot of our
customers love. The nice thingabout having Shopify POS running
our store is that it connects,and so customers in the store
can spend their loyalty pointsas well, even if they've gained
those points from shoppingonline, we also have a very
active community of people inour immediate area that I think
(18:50):
helps with bringing in newcustomers and helps with
customer retention. So we dolocal events. So we do product
swaps. We don't take returns onused products because we just
have to throw them away fromlike, a health perspective. So
what we do is, twice a year wehave a swap. You can bring in
something that didn't work outfor you, whether it's from Curl
Warehouse or not, and you swapit with other people who bring
(19:11):
in stuff that didn't work outfor them. And the last one we
had one a couple weeks ago, andwe had hundreds of products, and
then we donated them at the endto a local nonprofit so that
they could use them.
Unknown (19:22):
Yeah, interesting, huh?
Okay, and so, so in thatscenario, you have people come
in to swap products with eachother based off of stuff that's
not working for them, and sojust kind of a big conversation
of, hey, this didn't work forme, maybe it'll work for you,
and they're just trading, moreor less.
Samantha Cross (19:41):
Pretty much. We have the products dropped off in
advance so we can assign, wecall it curl box. We assign a
value to it based on how much isleft and what your original
purchase price would have likelybeen at regular price, and then
you have that same value tospend on other products. So you
don't necessarily know whodonated the product, but because
we're getting everyone in oneroom at once. Yeah, the
conversations are fantastic,like that didn't work for me,
(20:05):
but it'll probably work for you,because your hair is completely
different from mine, andeveryone's trading tips and
suggestions and, yeah, ourcommunity is amazing. I'm so
happy we have the store, becauseotherwise I wouldn't get to see
that.
Andrew Maff (20:13):
That's so interesting. I would imagine
that's probably some greatcontent for social media too.
Just the amount of curly haireverywhere that whole day.
Samantha Cross (20:22):
Yes, honestly, we we have big open houses once
a year for our anniversary aswell. And to get that many, our
store is only 400 square feet,to get that many beautiful curls
in one store is amazing, andit's it's one of my favorite
days of the year. I absolutelylove it.
Andrew Maff (20:39):
That is pretty cool. Samantha, this was
awesome. I don't wanna take upmore your time. I know you're
super busy, but I reallyappreciate all of that
information. It sounds reallycool. I would love to give you
the floor. Please let everyoneknow where they can find out
more about you, and, of course,more about Curl Warehouse.
Samantha Cross (20:54):
Curl Warehouse, we're in Calgary, Alberta, so if
you wanna come visit us inperson, we're not far from
Chinook Mall. If you wanna findus online, we're at
curlwarehouse.com and ourInstagram. Com, and our
Instagram is Curlwarehouse.
Andrew Maff (21:05):
Easy enough.
Samantha, thank you so much foryour time. Thank you everyone
who tuned Yeah, everyone whotuned in, thank you as well.
Please make sure you do theusual, rate, review, subscribe
all that fun stuff on whicheverpodcast platform you prefer, or
head over to Ecommshow.com tocheck out all of our previous
episodes. But as usual, thankyou all for joining us, and
we'll see you all next time.
Have a good one!
Narrator (21:25):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to Ecommshow.com to subscribe onyour favorite podcast platform
or on the BlueTusker YouTubechannel. The Ecomm show is
brought to you by BlueTusker, afull service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce, sellers looking to
accelerate their growth, go tobluetuskr.com now for more
(21:47):
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the Ecomm show!
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.