The BIG, commerce Podcast
The podcast for BigCommerce merchants, agencies and anyone with an interest in e-commerce. We talk about the latest features, updates and stories from BigCommerce, as well as e-commerce industry news and trends.
The BIG, commerce Podcast
Exploring the Power of Integration in e-commerce, with Dave Malda from Jitterbit
Imagine a realm where data flows seamlessly, customer experience soars and merchants run efficient, profitable businesses. This isn't a utopia, but a reality when the power of integration in e-commerce is harnessed.
Join us as we explore this fascinating world with our guest, Dave Malda from Jitterbit, who brings a wealth of 15 years of experience in the e-commerce and EDI space. He lays bare the significance of relationships and the rewarding aspect of helping others in business, reminding us that our ecosystem thrives on personal branding and mutual upliftment.
We all love a streamlined process, don't we?
Now, imagine if businesses could offer this flawless experience to their customers by just connecting different systems and allowing data to flow as required. Sounds like a dream, right?
Dave helps us unravel how this is possible and further expounds on the importance of centralizing data, eliminating disruptions from manual processes, and meeting the growing expectations of customers for near-instant gratification.
But that's not all.
We take a deep look at the shifting demands of customers.
No longer are they content to line up for products; convenience is the new king. As we venture into real-world examples of how data flow and automation can enhance customer experience, we also touch upon the concept of omnichannel and the critical need for merchants to adapt or risk obsolescence.
Finally, Dave offers insights into project phasing, data compliance, and the critical need to break down e-commerce projects into manageable chunks.
Tune in, it's a conversation you wouldn't want to miss!
Hi, welcome to the Big Commerce Podcast. Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Big Commerce Podcast. I'm your host, Luigi, and on today's episode, I'm joined by Dave Mulder from Jitibit. Jitibit is an IPass, an integration platform as a service, a global company with offices in Asia, North America and Europe, and today we talk about the importance of making sure various systems talk to each other, how the data flow can improve customer experience and, fundamentally, how it can help merchants run a more efficient and profitable business. Enjoy the show, Hi, Dave. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks, luigi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I've been looking forward to this. We had to reschedule.
Speaker 2:Likewise, likewise. I knew we were going to get here at some point.
Speaker 1:But we were just saying how we kind of know each other for years and kind of interacted over the years but not actually met face to face. So this is the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. You know what? It's funny I met Ivan oh, it's probably going back two years now at a big commerce partner summit. There was an event the first day after hours and I met him. He was kind enough to meet up with me and we kind of got to know each other and I had known you, I would say, probably from LinkedIn, twitter and a couple of other social sort of networks, right, and had followed CallaShock quite actively. So it's good again to just meet in person. It's kind of funny how those things happen, right, you can feel like you know somebody even though you've never really met them face to face right, yeah, so it's going to be.
Speaker 1:Our circles are quite small and for sure, next time I mean Canada, I'll be country, but I'll make a concert there for anyway, to come and see you?
Speaker 2:Oh, let me know I'll be in Toronto. We'll roll out the red carpet for you Consider it done.
Speaker 1:So, Dave, you're from one of our partners, Jitibit. Like you said, you're based out in Toronto. Why don't you tell our listeners a bit about yourself, your background, and then a bit about Jitibit and what it does?
Speaker 2:Yeah, happily. So. I've been in the e-commerce slash EDI space, I would say, for about a little more than 15 years. I cut my teeth on the EDI side of the world, learning all the different EDI documents and trading partners and all the different integrations into, I would say, primarily the SMB and mid-market ERPs. Luigi, that was maybe two years and then as e-commerce started to pick up steam, it started with Magento and then Volusion and then BigCommerce and then Shopify, and obviously there's been a lot of shift and movements over the last decade, but EDI stayed fairly prominent and steady and it just got overlaid with e-commerce.
Speaker 2:And so myself, 15 plus years in the ecosystem, just really my goal is to wake up in the morning and help businesses in North America with all the different integration requests that are going to come in, and it's a unique problem and it's something that in good times and bad times, it never really goes away. I mean, when things are booming, you need integration and when things are maybe a little more tight, you need efficiency and so, and every day is different. So that's what I've really enjoyed is having a team that I'm surrounded with that is up for this challenge of helping businesses, and I think 15 years in software is probably four lifetimes. But when it's different every day, truly different every day, today's not the same as yesterday. That's what I like. It doesn't have a box put around it and it truly is helping partners, helping businesses, helping people with all the different disparate systems that they're going to run into in their day to day.
Speaker 1:So I've learned that over the years it comes down to purpose as well, but it's about helping people. I mean, for anyone who doesn't know or follow Dave on social media which you should there's always some motivation, inspiration that he puts out there at the weekends, during the week, and it really, I guess it gives you something to connect with when you're saying what we do, we do because we want to help people. I mean, yes, we have businesses, we have shareholders, but at the end of the day, we're not commoditizing. The product is actually how we go about solving that problem for you so that, like you say, you can either continue your growth in good times or work efficiencies when things are a bit tighter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've noticed, luigi. This is maybe going six or eight months. I've really paid attention to this and I think the relationships can be transactions or transactional, or it can truly be a relationship where you truly are giving. Someone said to me years ago give, give, give before you take, and you will get more in return than you've ever given.
Speaker 2:And I do truly believe it A lot of people will say to me ah, it's kind of corny and it's like it really isn't. Though If you yes, we are all running businesses, we all have targets and quotas and things we need to move towards right for budgeting purposes, and that all makes sense. But if you go into it with how can I help Luigi, how can I help Kalashok, it's so much more of a pleasant experience than if it's the other way around. What can I take right? That just really can make for some tough days, and I just don't think it's the right way to go about life in anything right.
Speaker 1:So and, as we just said a bit, you know, some time ago, our ecosystem is fairly small and, you know, in an age where we talk about personal branding, where we talk about and fundamentally people buy from people and if you, once your kind of reputation is out, there is somebody that you know genuinely cares and genuinely wants to help and there is no hidden agenda. It's not just some you know marketing scheme to kind of come across as something that's really helpful, but actually there's a hidden agenda. I think that then trickles down.
Speaker 1:And it's not for everyone, but I think what that I mean this particular episode started off kind of a bit more of a tangent rather than just a bit, but the point being that you started to connect with people that actually share the same purpose and values as you do, which then makes that relationship and I've said this before, kind of when I've been on pitches, where so one of the things that makes one of the things that makes us different is that we make an effort to meet our merchants face to face, wherever they're based, interesting so we. That's why we do a lot of traveling, and the reason for that is that, invariably, when a problem rears its head or when there's some difficult conversations to have, if you've met that person, if you've, if you've sounded them out, you know what they're like, you've got that relationship, then you can much easier kind of traverse those you know tough times. Then somebody that's just at the other end of a zoom call there's no emotive kind of relationship, it's just vendor, client and you're done. And so it does go, you know down, say, look, this person you know through their values or through their, through their purpose, is going to be, he's gonna work with integrity, is going to help us. He's gonna have our best interests at heart. Now, best interest at heart.
Speaker 1:I once Was listening to a podcast episode. It's two bobs and is the podcast podcast okay to two Bob's? Two Bob's, yeah, blair, yeah, blair ends and they basically, but Baker, basically One of the things that I think then again going completely no tangent.
Speaker 1:Basically that sometimes we over deliver, without an expectation from the merchant of receiving that, that level, like they're happy with 80%. But sometimes if our purpose and Values are to help out as much as possible and to make that experience better, we start going into 85, 90, 95%, and that then leads to its own complications way by saying well, you know, you kind of, you know you got the, the scope creep because actually you're delivering stuff that was out of scope.
Speaker 1:Right and what so, but fundamentally is just like you say it's can I go to sleep at night, said I've done, I'm happy with what I've achieved today. I've done what I, you know, live up to do.
Speaker 2:What did it vanish? Actually, what an advantage to go and meet In person. That's really cool, because it yeah, it's. Sometimes it's maybe not, let's say, cost-effective, but it is, it's an investment from our perspective. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, like anyone that knows me will know the amount. I mean I spent three months away from home last year. We worked it out Just travel for work. So you know, quantify that into how many trips and and how many days away. But it is meeting clients, it is forming those relationships and, you know, going from there. So it's yeah, yeah, because it's quite easy to get commoditized as a Like an agency that says, well, we do a BCD, but actually when you go there, when you're walking around the clients business, when you start to see things that you wouldn't necessarily see On a zoom call and you, you know you speak to somebody as you walk in past man warehouse or or whatever, yeah, all those things add value and the end of the day, like you say, is it is about helping people.
Speaker 1:So it's saying, yeah, you know you've engaged us to be an agency to you know, to run this digital transformation project, to get you Online with this website, to redesign whatever. But we don't want to kind of do this. You know Vertical kind of development. We want to make sure that you go broad as well and you start capitalizing on the opportunities that are out there and you know the integrations that we can, we can plug into that. Maybe you know if we weren't there to see those problems occurring.
Speaker 2:You know, you would know right, yeah, yeah I made it to the radar love it.
Speaker 1:So come back to jitter bit.
Speaker 2:That was a David Luigi show. I.
Speaker 1:Really enjoyed that. Actually, again, it just kind of reaffirms the point of it. Sometimes you just connect with people that have the same value and purposes as you and we yeah, you know I think we can talk about value and purpose and you know, kind of consider them a bit buzzwords, but actually you do, you do find that people just From how they come across, or whether they're you know, somebody that you want to work with or not, whether it's, like you say, gonna be purely transactional, you know, you give me money, I'll give you a website and it's done there. Or whether you know, once you start kind of forming those relationships and the emotion kind of sets into set. I want to help, I want them to start, you know, growing at this rate. I want them to start, you know, you know, dethrone in there their closest competitor. All these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for me anyway, it gives purpose to what yeah, it's interesting, you say this right.
Speaker 2:So we one of the Account executives at jitter bit and myself went for lunch it's going back two weeks now to a client that we just signed in In Toronto or in the GTA and so During. So this lunch was just. You know, we were, we were sort of celebrating, we're gonna be working with them. They're just down the road right there, kind of a block away. We have this lunch and it was just. It was just so cool to like get to know these two gentlemen One was like an IT director, the other was the e-commerce Manager to get them to know them on a different level, but then also to like understand a lot of their day-to-day pain in In these.
Speaker 2:So one example of this, luigi, is they have so we were doing an integration from their Amazon and, I think, ebay sites Into their ERP and but in talking with them, they also have this B2B challenge where, in their words, they're pushing paper around a lot, right. So you said we have reps out in the field that are, you know, selling their product to all sorts of different partners and they're printing things off, they're writing things down there. We only found out about this pain because we went for lunch together and we were just getting to know them and we were talking about their day-to-day and what does it look like, and they mentioned these stacks of paper very separate from what we were, what problem we were solving earlier, and just it was like wow, we were. We were kind of like we spent a good 30 minutes of the lunch just talking about how these disparate systems Can just generate so much paperwork and inefficiency, right, and I don't think we would have had that kind of fun nice discussion If we were just on a zoom call Talking about the current project, right.
Speaker 2:So again to your point like you going to their place of business or sitting down in a casual spot and maybe just having lunch or a dinner and talking about so, guys, what, what does your day look like? And when they describe it to you like wow, like that's a pretty chaotic Existence, right, and and they're trying to like Make their lives more efficient so they can spend time on promoting, or right, maybe they are managing all the extra paper.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he's like we're busy running around chasing this paper going into filing cabinets when really there are B2B solutions out there that could Help us right and help sales reps that are out in the field to right. So just like Really meaty, good conversations but out of like getting to know the folks right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that that's exactly it, because you don't know what you don't know. Like if we're only being told 50% of the problems because there may be, you know those 50% cause 80% of the issues. Yeah, you know what's to say, that you know spending an extra, you know Bit of time doesn't then move that needle to kind of. You know Be able to get 60%, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1:So it just come back kind of Get a bit basically an I pass so integration platform as a service and basically connect data between different systems so you can platforms, erp, um, edi systems, yeah anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. When, when people ask me for the like what's the calls notes version of what you do? Right, a lot of times I'll default to when we're like a middleware, right, so we sit in between Production systems that need their data to move back and forth, right, and it kind of.
Speaker 2:It's that simple. That might even be a little too long winded, but it really is connecting different systems and there is many, many, many different ways that we can help businesses that have Different files, databases, systems In their infrastructure, where having those Brought together or having information shared is is a massive advantage to them right gives them a lot of visibility. I personally Am I team personally focus on the EDI trading partners and the e-commerce integrations, but jitter bit as a whole, which is a we're a global Company. You know we support all sorts of other systems like work day and ADP and Really, if it has an API or if there's a way we can connect to it, we can. We can push and pull data.
Speaker 1:So we're spoken about the benefits to a merchant. So you've got efficiencies, you've got different data points being pulled in, and how does Kind of centralizing this date or kind of running this data flow actually improve the customer experience for when it comes to e-commerce?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question, I so I always kind of describe it this way, luigi. So when we engage with with a business and they have some some integration challenges, right, often will have them walk us through what is currently happening today, right? So let's just use a, an e-commerce platform, as an example. So we have a site that is selling a product. A customer finds your site and places their order. What happens now? Right, and they'll walk us through the different business processes and handoffs that that happened, from order placed all the way to order shipped, order received, right, and then I would say, like upselling and other things that happen after the fact, and a lot of times what you'll notice is like there's either a file being generated or there is some paperwork that's being printed off and perhaps scan.
Speaker 2:There's these Manual processes that can can really impact the customer journey and I think you probably know, and your team knows, that Online, when that journey is like slightly interrupted so it could be, I've placed my order, I do this, I place my order, and then I've waited for maybe eight or ten hours and I don't have a tracking number yet, right, and then sometimes maybe a day, two days, goes by. Me personally, I'm like, okay, this doesn't feel right. I, I I haven't gotten an email yet with my tracking number or it's pending. And I just get uncomfortable, right, because today it's like you place an order, you get a tracking number a couple hours later, kind of thing. Right, so that Experience can get interrupted on the customer side very easily, where where we can help is okay, this order gets placed, we can send that. You know what we work on a you know we can, within a very fairly small interval, take that order, send it down to, let's say, net sweep, for example, or whatever your either using, and then Capture that order. So everything's automated, right, there's no, no one's keying anything in.
Speaker 2:We send that order to the three P L or the warehouse to get picked, packed and shipped. Right now it gets shipped. We get the tracking information, we send that back to net suite and update the order, which then goes back up to the e-commerce platform, updates the order, and you know that's going to trigger an email that you get to say, hey, you know it's been shipped, here's your tracking number. And then, of course, there's so many other processes there, luigi, that that are going to be automated, where, if you have a person that is Doing this manual entry, or even if you have maybe a home grown Integration, sometimes those can be maybe not as robust or they can have some challenges right where maybe they go down and things stop and you're going to lose a customer right. So that journey is something where I think we pride ourselves on it's in the background, you don't need to know about us, but we certainly do help with all the different Movement of data to two things I want to touch on.
Speaker 1:The first one is that nowadays we are conditioned by Amazon. So you know whether you're buying a Ten dollar book or you're buying a five thousand dollar TV. You get the communication to say thanks for your order, we've received it. So it doesn't matter. It's not say what. You only get it for the big ticket items or you only get it for small ones. And like you say, then right, the order shipped the orders out for delivery. It's you know, the driver is going to be with you between X time and Y time and the order been delivered, so no-transcript when it comes to Amazon. Fine, amazon also has a brand that 99.99% of times will deliver. They might deliver something that's not yours. I've had that before. I've opened one envelope that's empty and I've opened one envelope that had basically two labels on it.
Speaker 1:So you peel off one envelope, so they basically sent someone else. But apart from that, and also conversely, you can get that sorted but you know at every step of the way where that order is, like you say. So you haven't got to wait two days for a tracking Number two so that's their conditioning. And the number two, like you say, the importance of having this infrastructure that's processing and you don't need to sing and dance about it, but just know that it's working in the background Is we've got a merchant in America.
Speaker 1:At the moment they don't actually use the native transactional emails out of big commerce. Ok, it's a complicated infrastructure but, long story short, whenever there's any downtime with the web hooks, that order doesn't get fired into their system. So that turnkey solution doesn't go because the order's not come in, so the transaction lead, the email confirming the order can't go out, the email confirming the credentials can't go out, so like and they say we lose orders, Like people then will realize that's then right, you've taken my money out because I've checked my card but I haven't had an IOTA confirmation, no correspondence to say thanks for your order, don't trust you, I'm off and you're never going to get that chance again. And add that all up, and how many thousands of dollars tens of thousands can you lose potentially? And that's, I guess, the thing that you need to consider when you're kind of saying, yeah, but all these systems cost money.
Speaker 1:No, they don't. It costs me thousands to travel to visit clients on the West Coast of the US or Canada, but it's an investment because then I get that client understands me and we have a stronger relationship and the lifetime value increases. Same with what you're doing. You're saying look, if you've got all these systems talking to each other, you're going to offer a better experience. That customer, unless you mess it up tangibly by literally not sending out the order or it being damaged, is going to come back to you because, whether it's B2C or B2B, maybe they get those transactional emails, they get those tracking numbers, they get their online and offline orders in their online portal. Like you're just offering such a good system and just a bit is there in the background, 24-7, pushing this data.
Speaker 1:And if they speak with you, they get that kind of enhanced integration, but that's fundamentally what it's down to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think probably, and that's a really great point. I think a couple of other examples that scare clients off or have clients just not do repeat business are things like, let's say, inventory quantities. So I go to sites I use today no, I'm excited to buy this product, I buy it and then actually the inventory online is kind of out of sync with what's in the warehouse and you get a back order.
Speaker 1:Or even in store. Sorry to interrupt you there, but now that we're kind of looking at the channel first, they're right, I can check store stock in store. Now, fine, if there's one and you leave it two days, fair enough. But if you're kind of saying this product is available in this store and you make an effort to go down there, you kind of want to make sure that you leave with that product.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just, actually we just had this the other night with my daughter. She reads a lot of books and she was like, oh, dad, there's this book at Indigo this is maybe 25 minutes from our place we live a little in the country and I said, oh yeah, no problem, did you check the store? Did they have it there in the kitchen? Oh yeah, yeah, they got one copy left. Awesome, ok, so we have supper, we get in the car, we go down there Well, of course they don't have it right. And then the associates as well. You know what. The inventory sometimes is a couple of days off, right, and that can show maybe something that's maybe out of stock, right. And I was like, oh, shoot, ok, well, not the end of the world. But at the same time, it was like you know what? We should have just bought it online and got it delivered in a day or two, right, and not a knock on that business. But it's just an example of like.
Speaker 1:I think she went on Amazon and bought it after that, right, Because it's like OK, well, now I know I'm going to get it.
Speaker 2:You know that's so. Inventory is an example. There are other examples of maybe it's a little more complex, but as you get returns right, which can impact the ERP and the financials right, that in an automated fashion can be. You know, especially during the holiday season, luigi right, where you know perhaps I'll buy something for my wife and maybe it's not exactly what she wanted, she's going to send it back, right, and so you have these seasons where returns can really overload your business. Well, if that's automated and you're doing checks right, as opposed to entering all this information, you know that's another area where you know having this system in place and just having automation in general, regardless if it should have it or you know someone else, it's just very, very helpful because you can really lose your shirt by just not being prepared for those things right.
Speaker 2:That's another one, and probably I'll say a fourth one is what we're seeing more and more of is I'm a customer service associate. I might be using Salesforcecom and I need to know. So. This customer maybe did something on big commerce. They had a bunch of questions that information needs to be available for the associate and maybe they're using, you know, salesforce for their help desk or some other type of platform and they don't want to train that same associate or representative on, like now, another system. So you got to go in here and take a look. They want to have one central spot for that. When I pull up Luigi, I see all of the things that have happened with him and I'm able to very quickly, on the phone or in chat, relay the right information and solve the problem right, and you can't do that with disparate systems. It's just almost impossible, right? So 100%.
Speaker 1:And again, going back to that Omni channel, you know what, if I bought in store and I bought online, you want to have that Cause. We get that as well with kind of. You know, brick and mortar stores and online it's kind of. We want a single source of truth. If that customer is earning points online, they want to spend them in store. Let them do that. If they're vice versa, if they're buying a voucher or they've been given a voucher for 100 pounds and they've spent 50 on online, they want to be able to spend 50 on store. And we, you know they don't want to kind of say, oh well, this is an online voucher, this is an offline voucher, oh, you bought this online, you've got to return it by post, and you know you bought this in a store.
Speaker 1:So all that kind of thing and it, like you say, it's just data and it's just connecting them all up so that you can offer just the best Cause. It's not even got to be the best solution. Like you say, we, you know, kind of where your daughter had to to buy, you know, ended up buying lambchains. I don't know if this merchant is in talks now with just a bit to solve their inventory issue. But the problem with that is that you're playing in.
Speaker 1:You know I make no secrets of the fact that I'm a hypocrite and I buy from Amazon, but I would rather I didn't. But the convenience comes in, Like you say, you've got that, that surety, but at the same time when those merchants aren't investing in making sure that the customer experience is seamless as possible and most people will not make a comparison and say, well, this one's Amazon, so they've got everything right. And you know this is a small independent bookstore, they will cut you some slack and as long as people are communicated to, but otherwise you're playing into the hands of that merchant having to go on Amazon because like, do you know what? I can't be bothered, I'll order it today and it will come tomorrow, Thursday, Friday, whatever day it is.
Speaker 2:I think you hit on two really key things. Like the points thing is really interesting because I've had that experience where you like maybe you build up some points and then you go into the same business but it's a, it's a, it's a brexit mortar store and you're unable to use them. It's so frustrating, right, because you're like, well, wait a minute, like you're the same entity, like kind of, get, get your stuff together, like I. That's frustrating. And then returns can be very frustrating. So, okay, bring it. You know you bought it at this store. Like you, you know we've had it before.
Speaker 2:Where we go, we travel a little bit. It won't go up north or maybe go to a cottage or near B&B. You buy something up there. It's a fairly well-known brand. You come back here. Your four hours away, so you're never gonna go back to that store, right, and you, there's a store here locally you'd like to bring it back.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry, you didn't buy it here, right? That to me as well is like super frustrating, because it's like, well, just a second, guys like get, get it together. Right, because if I bought a t-shirt or pair pants or shorts or be there up there up north in Muskoka, and I'm allowed to bring it back here in the GTA. I mean, what a wonderful experience. Oh, you accept, I've had that too, actually, where people are like, oh no, no, no, no, it's okay, you bought it over there. No big deal, man, we can help you here, you can exchange it, get your money back, it's all good, that is just like. Oh, like awesome, I, I drove here, you're helping me. It compels me to like, go back and often to like, just okay, well, you don't need to browse the store here and, you know, buy something else, right, as opposed to sorry, you can't do that here and everyone's apologetic, right, but at the end of the day, nothing's gonna right and it's not a great experience. So, yeah, you're, you're right.
Speaker 2:I'm always fascinated by the amount of data that that moves back and forth or is maybe siloed, right in certain cases, and the dysfunction that it can cause, right, when it is siloed or when it's brought together, kind of the Like, the harmony it can bring, which is like, wow, that was a really great experience, right? And that's why that question we ask, which is walk me through today, what happens in the current process? You often uncover all sorts of really interesting things because you know they're. Sometimes it's like what do you call that? Like a Sort of hamster wheels and stuff going on in the background, right, it's like it's incredible. But when it is tied together and sort of works in sync, it's like it can be pretty wonderful. And the customer is not the wiser, right, they don't have to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, but when they need that particular functionality where they buy online and return it store, or buying one store and return another, you know that those kind of things, because it would go. You know we go into the realms of like peak and theory, where it's like that you base your entire experience on that last piece of the puzzle. So you may have had the nicer store, the friendliest shop assistant, the products, great, but then when you want to go return it in another province or another town, it's kind of like, yeah, can't be done. You can let you know what don't buy from them because it's just, it's aggro. So forget about the product, forget about this, the store, forget about the sales assistant. Is the fact that the last interaction I had with your brand, with your, you know, with your company, was a negative one.
Speaker 1:Yeah and anyway that that can.
Speaker 2:I think to the the, the customer is More demanding, right. It used to be like when I was growing up. I remember like lining up at the video store, right like blockbuster, getting you know, getting the movie right, there was a product it was available.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like a, like a video game. I remember having a Nintendo and then you know, nintendo would release these games and they would get certain gaming stores, but you had to line up to get it right and some people that were pretty hardcore would line up a day or two prior, right. So there was really not a chance you were gonna get that product. It was gonna be sold out unless you went to those lengths. But the business demanded where you would be To get that product. And then that whole thing the last couple years has has flipped right. Like you need to be where I'm going to, be right. And if that means I'm at a marketplace and you have a pop-up, great. If that means I'm online searching and you're on Instagram, great. If that, right. There's so many different ways to buy and you need to be there. And if you're not, people will go looking elsewhere where it's convenient, right. And I think that's like a really, really big shift.
Speaker 2:People call it, you know, sort of omni-channel, but I think it was. Harley from Shopify said it's maybe going back a year or two, but he basically said, like talking about omni-channel is gonna be kind of like talking about a colored TV. You know, nowadays you don't, you don't say colored TV, all TVs are colored right, and omni-channel is like it's kind of the same thing. It's like, well, yeah, you have to have all these systems connected or you're just gonna be Sations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the customer is more demanding, right.
Speaker 1:Which is just a bad thing, I think you know stops the merchants become complacent, and the ones that do become complacent, you know, either have to up their game or Disappear. Just quickly how you doing for time.
Speaker 2:Dave, I've got about 10 more minutes, if that's okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'd love to go for another hour, because we just I Right. Well, this is us kind of thing, because I looked and I didn't have a meeting and I was. I wonder if Dave doesn't either, because then If we just split this up into two, but we'll, we'll arrange in a second, 100% will arrange a second, a second if we don't do it off today, let's do it sooner rather than later too, I'm happy to.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to do it tonight. Um, just going back, I I love Muskoka. I was there Um years ago but my my god parents had a lake house on Lake Muskoka. Oh beautiful world, there's the places well, weber, I think it's gone downhill now.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's. It's interesting like Airbnb has all. I mean you can just sort of plug in what you would like and the Region and you know we've we've had some just really wonderful experiences where you can say, okay, I would like like a little beach on this lake, you know, where you can bring a dog and whatever right, three kids, and Off you go and it's like, oh, here you go and it is just like fishing, kayaking, hiking. Yeah, even that little town, vibe right, where you maybe go to the little diner, or you go to you know Upper supper, to a local barbecue spot or something. It's like nothing beats it, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my wife is Finnish and Finland's very similar to Canada. Okay and so it's again. They're kind of outdoorsy, you've got that kind of nature and and just to be there, that non-commercial scene.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I digress, I just you mentioned Muskoka and it's Part of sorry, a couple of hours north of Toronto if anyone wants to visit, and so we kind of you said about kind of Having that kind of unified data Point, but also if your customers, you know, look, expect a pop-up, for you to have a pop-up, so how can something like just a bit help a merchant who is who is kind of considering Either Omni channel or multi-channel, rita, and and all those various touch points about kind of to bring them all together To offer, you know, like a tailored slash, personalized experience their customers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, often so, that this is sort of the way it typically works for us. Um, luigi is, you know, the, the merchant you know may come with we call them like workflows or flows, right. They may come with like four systems and maybe 12 flows, right? So here are all the systems. Here's you know what data needs to be connected. Here's the current challenges and how can you help, right, in my experience, what I found is, if you dial down those flows to what's the most critical one, what's the one right now that is costing you a lot of money, that is causing the most pain, either in a warehouse or on the website, or maybe causing the most frustration for your customer, right, or your customers, and we'll narrow that down to say, okay, let's solve this, and that a lot of times will solve 80% of the issues, and then the other 20%, let's work on those. So let's get this resolved. And then this little like sort of nice to have, or these couple nice to have, let's work on those next right, but let's phase it out. And I have found that when you bite off enough that you can chew and you can see some efficiencies and get that time to value quickly and then work on, let's say, a phase two, sometimes a phase three and so on. That has always worked very, very well, as opposed to here's the whole kitchen sink and let's bite this all off at once, right? That sometimes can present challenges that like, maybe there's certain systems that are not in production yet or they're right, they're being deployed. So I'm standing up a big commerce site but it's not fully deployed yet.
Speaker 2:But I would like that to be part of this phase one that I'm just using big commerce as an example. It could be an ERP, you know, it could be your implementing Dynamics 365 or NetSuite. That is a bit of a moving target, right? And you want it to be in phase one. A lot of times it's get these button down. Once they're buttoned down, let's map out what we need to do, let's scope it properly and let's phase it.
Speaker 2:If we need to, let's knock out phase one, go to phase two, go to phase three, right? So I don't know if that helps answer the question, luigi, but that has been, like you know, a very so not a lot of moving targets get a good scope and then phase it out, and you know, and having someone on the other end that is very knowledgeable about what's happening. That's always pretty key to the process as well. If there's, you know, if it's you're the integration experts, jitavit, you know, you guys figure it out. That often cannot end well because we don't know their business the way they do, right. So when you have a champ over there that says, dave, I got it, you ask a question, we're gonna give answers right and let's work together. You can always see success at the end.
Speaker 1:Occasionally, internally kind of when we get a project that maybe someone feels overwhelmed, or even a task, it's you know, the analogy to use is how do we? An elephant and it's kind of one bite at a time and you need to break that down. So you're saying, yeah, this is where we want to achieve with everything, but actually to work back instead. Right, phase one is ERP, talks to you know, econ platform, and then we start bringing in maybe our, you know CRM and pushing the data into that. Yeah, so 100%. And so we've spoken a lot about kind of the client facing side, the client experience, but maybe a bit more of the kind of boring side which is, at the end of the day, we're moving data around. We are, you know, as a merchant. You have a responsibility to make sure that data is secure, that also you're not creating problems for yourself. So how does, how does it kind of an integration platform, such as just a bit, help the merchant from that perspective?
Speaker 2:On the, so on the data security, Security and privacy.
Speaker 1:yeah, to kind of, you know, make sure that, because you know the merchants can build out their own systems. They can run off CSVs, they can, you know, but fundamentally they come with their own dangers as well. So how does kind of work with just a bit help alleviate all those issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's an area on our site really that speaks to just like data security, compliance, different regulations and I by no means am an expert, luigi, but things like HIPAA compliance, right, when you're dealing with you know medical records and you know sensitive information for individuals, you know we're compliant in that area, gdpr compliant in that area.
Speaker 2:There's the caliph, I think it's the CCPA, which is like the California Consumer Privacy Act. These are all things that Jiribet takes very seriously and we have, you know, technical folks and teams of folks that make sure that you know, as we move data, we are adhering to all of these different compliance rules. And you know, not just in North America, but across all the regions where we work in, which is Latin Amia and APAC, right, and, of course, north America. So we're pretty strict with all that stuff. You know. Again, there is an area on the website that speaks specifically to it, but it's pretty critical, you know, in this day and age, to make sure that the data that is moving back and forth is compliant with you know, all the different regulations, because I think that can sometimes be left to the side just there's an assumption maybe, that things go go.
Speaker 1:Yeah people get so focused on just making sure the data moves properly and in a timely fashion.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, there are all these compliance regulations and rules that you need to follow as well. Right, to make sure that you're sure you're moving it, but what happens to it? Right, and are you compliant in the region? Dave, I've really enjoyed talking to you today. Oh, likewise man, it's been really fun and we're going to have to do it again.
Speaker 1:I think we'll leave the product side of things and we'll just talk, but I've really enjoyed our conversation. If merchants want to learn more about GITibit and obviously, where can they follow you personally as well?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, so on Twitter, and I do sort of sprinkling integration in what I talk about on Twitter. Some of it's motivational and just life in general right, but that's on Twitter. It's at Dave Mulder MA-LDA is last name and on LinkedIn it's Dutch, which is like a French name. Yeah, it's Dutch, which is, like I was saying earlier, is like there's no Vander and there's no Smud at the end of it, so you'd never guess it, but it is Dutch. And then LinkedIn is just Dave Mulder and you'll see GITibit is obviously the company name that I'm representing, and those are probably the two active channels that I'm on. But then also you can go to GITibitcom and there's various ways you can ask for information there as well.
Speaker 1:We'll put links in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Perfect and I'm always happy to help. So people can DM me or even just reach out and connect and I'm happy to help them find their way in their journey. It can be complex sometimes and talking with someone that maybe has experience in it can just help sort of alleviate some of the gaps in knowledge and expedite the search. So happy to help.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Final question yes, have you read a book or what podcast you listened to that you'd recommend to our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was looking forward to this question. So I'm reading right now. It's a book called Playing to Win and I'll send you a link to it as well, but I'm listening to it actually on Audible, luigi. It's called Playing to Win and it's written by Roger Martin and AG Lafley those are both of the authors and really it's all about strategy. It's not winning at all costs, but it's how to make sure that your strategy and your tactics are sort of helping you help your customers the best, and then how do you align your team with that. So I'm halfway through the book, so I can only speak about half of the book. I got another half to go Probably another four or five hours. But fantastic book. I'll share the link with you in the cover and I happen to be listening to it on Audible and it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:We'll put that in the links as well. Perfect, so we'll look forward to reading that. Well, dave, thank you very much for your time. As I said, it's been really enjoyable talking to you.
Speaker 2:Likewise Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I look forward to speaking to you again, likewise.
Speaker 2:Part two. I'm looking forward to it 100%.
Speaker 1:All right, sorry, stave, take care.
Speaker 2:Luigi, see you, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the BigCommerce Podcast. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and if you haven't already, please subscribe To learn more about our podcast, listen to previous episodes or get in contact. Please visit our website at thebigcommercepodcastcom and make sure you're following us on our social media, on Instagram and Twitter Until next week. Thank you very much. How was it?
