In this episode of Skip the Queue, recorded live at the VAC Conference 2025, industry experts Stephen Spencer from Stephen Spencer and Associates and Simon Jones from Navigate Agency join Paul Marden and Andy Povey to talk about the first Visitor Attraction Playbook, focused on building successful e-commerce gift shops, with special participation from Skip the Queue’s founding host, Kelly Molson. The conversation marks the launch of the Skip the Queue Playbook: The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop — a practical resource designed to help attractions reimagine their retail strategies and create meaningful online experiences. They discuss how attractions can extend their visitor experience online using Stephen’s STARS model (Story, Team, Ambience, Recipients and Sustainability), while integrating systems, improving fulfilment and creating authentic, seamless shopping journeys. The episode highlights how e-commerce can become a natural extension of an attraction’s brand, offering new ways to engage audiences and generate revenue sustainably.
Paul Marden and Andy Povey head to the VAC 2025 Conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, London, to explore the evolving world of attraction retail and e-commerce.
With special participation from Skip the Queue’s founding host, Kelly Molson, the conversation delves into practical steps for creating seamless, authentic and profitable online experiences.
Joining him are industry experts Stephen Spencer, Director of Stephen Spencer and Associates, and Simon Jones, Managing Director of Navigate Agency, to discuss how attractions can create e-commerce gift shops that truly enhance the visitor experience.
They discuss the Visitor Attraction Playbook and explore how storytelling, sustainability and smart integration can transform your retail offer from an afterthought into a powerful brand extension.
This episode also marks the launch of our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
Download your FREE copy here: https://pages.crowdconvert.co.uk/skip-the-queue-playbook
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your hosts are Paul Marden and Andy Povey.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn.
Show references:
Stephen Spencer, Ambience Director of Stephen Spencer and Associates
Simon Jones, Managing Director of Navigate Agency
Kelly Molson, Skip the Queue’s founding host, Agency Advisor, Kelly Molson Consulting
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast telling the story of the world's best attractions and the amazing people that work at them. I'm your host, Paul Marden, and today I'm at the VAC Conference, the National Visitor Attraction Conference. And I'm here with good friends Simon Jones from Navigate and Stephen Spencer from Stephen Spencer & Associates. Last week, we launched the first in a series of Skip the Q playbooks, white papers bringing together the best of the sector to share their stories in writing to complement the podcast. So in today's episode, I'm talking about the first playbook, which focuses on gift shop e-commerce. But before all that, let's talk VAC. We've heard from Bernard Donoghue with his annual review of the 2025 season and his look forward to 2026. A brilliant presentation by Sarah Roots from Warner Brothers and a market insight briefing from Visit Britain. So let's hear from our guests and one very special guest you may recognise— on what they've heard that's got their brains whirring.
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: You mean welcome back to your podcast, Kelly. Is that what you meant to say?
Paul Marden: That is exactly what I meant to say. So, you're back.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I've had a great day. Have you? VAC is one of my favourite conferences because it's just like a really, it's a big catch-up, big reunion for me. I love it.
Paul Marden: It's been really weird because this is my third one and I remember coming to my first one knowing nobody.
Kelly Molson: Yes, I remember that. Yeah, I introduced you to people.
Paul Marden: Everybody. And now I'm here and I know loads of people. It's such a lovely community, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I've missed everybody. I miss everyone a lot, actually. I'm really lucky that with what I'm doing now, I work with a couple of agencies that operate within this sector. So I'm very grateful that I still kind of get to keep my foot in the door. Vicariously. Yeah, yeah. You know me. I love the sector so much. It's just... I couldn't figure out where I fitted in it once I wasn't part of Rubber Cheese anymore. So I'm very grateful that I can still fit in it through my clients. Yes. So yay me. Yay me. Yay me, yay them.
Paul Marden: So the room's getting noisy. I think the last talk has just kicked out. So what's been your highlight of the day?
Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, if I do not get to cuddle a cow at some point in the next, like, three to six months, that is going to be a massive disappointment to myself.
Paul Marden: Booze and coos. Booze and coos.
Kelly Molson: Booze and coos was the line of the morning for me. That was, yeah, Dumble Farm, I mean, what? Wow.
Paul Marden: I mean, I love a cow anyway, but a Highland cow, a Highland coo.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I feel like that gift shop would rinse me of all of my monies for my daughter. Loved that. I actually really loved Wentworth Woodhouse and Sarah McLeod. And I just was so engaged with how creative they've been from a commercial perspective.
Paul Marden: Laser etching the tiles on the roof. Yes.
Kelly Molson: Bloody genius. Bloody genius. I love the fact that they reuse the things and their volunteers are helping them make all of those really cool things with all the stuff that they just can't do anymore with.
Paul Marden: She said something like, 'We don't get rid of anything.' We reuse it, we reuse it, we reuse it, and then we sell it.
Kelly Molson: And then we sell it, yeah. I just love it. I just loved it. You know, that was such an engaging... That whole panel, actually, was super, super engaging.
Paul Marden: Do you know, I love the unashamed commerciality of the way that they all talked.
Kelly Molson: Own that, right? That's what this sector needs more of. Absolutely, the fact that profit does need to come first and it's the only way we continue to run these brilliant attractions that we have if our funding is being slashed.
Kelly Molson: And can I just give also a shout-out to Danielle Nicholls, who, from Tricross Zoo, who just did...
Paul Marden: Once of this podcast as well.
Kelly Molson: Once of this podcast. I adore her. But she just gave such an insightful talk about YouTube, which has blown my mind a little bit. I find video very uncomfortable. It gives me the massive ick. but I feel like she's just defrightened it for me.
Paul Marden: I'm fairly sure that was just a made-up word, but OK.
Kelly Molson: You know what I mean? But I think there's so many attractions that could do so much more with that channel, and it's opened my eyes up.
Paul Marden: So that whole YouTube Shorts thing is crucial. It's really easy to be able to put out material. It doesn't have to be high quality. It doesn't need to be curated within an inch of its life. It needs to be an authentic story that you pump out over and over and over again.
Kelly Molson: And I think, yeah, absolutely. The thing that I took from that was, 'done is better than perfect.' We've always said, 'done is better than perfect.' And actually, they engage with that BTS stuff. They engage with the point of view stuff. And it doesn't have to be overly curated and overly stylised. It's just do it.
Paul Marden: You just said BTS stuff and on my head went to a boy band.
Kelly Molson: No, behind the scenes. Get with the programme.
Paul Marden: Simon, it's been a great day, hasn't it?
Simon Jones: Do you know what? This is absolutely one of my favourite events of the year. I think it's about my 16th.
Paul Marden: Oh, really?
Simon Jones: Yeah, of the year. So, obviously, I'm a lot older, so it's a bit too many of them. But, you know, it's actually lots of great conversations, lots of great presentations, meeting up with industry friends and colleagues that, you know, we've known over the years, and it becomes a real focal point. So, yeah, I absolutely always look forward to this.
Paul Marden: Lots of great talks.
Simon Jones: There was a lot of great talks, but the one that really stood out for me was improving the bottom line and monetising traction further, which is something which is close to our hearts. But actually, you know, Bernard chaired it. It was great. And then you had Kate Logan from English Heritage. Sarah McLeod from the Wentworth Woodhouse and Jane Richardson from the National Museums of Wales. And just the ideas and the creativity that they'd come up with in looking at new ways to create revenue and new opportunities. I just thought it was fantastic.
Stephen Spencer: That's the thing that is different this time. The whole tenor of the conference is about being entrepreneurial, being commercial, isn't it?
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Stephen Spencer: Which it hasn't been. And obviously Sarah Root was great. Warner Bros. Oh, yes. OK, people don't have Warner Bros. or Harry Potter, but... Couple of things that really stood out calling team members into actors. And giving them content or products to approach visitors with, and I love that because everyone can do that.
Paul Marden: And there is... There's something about the idea that the job title is a little bit... You could be really cynical about it. It's a naff move. But... When we came up in our team with the idea that everybody in our team is an experience engineer, it is all about setting that expectation. It doesn't matter which role you've got within our team. Your job is to think really hard about how you engineer amazing experiences for our guests.
Stephen Spencer: Yeah. Well, that's why I'm ambience director. That's why Lauren's ambience architect. We've really kind of worked out what being an ambience architect is all about now. It's partly about annoying architects. Because, you know, normally you're kind of hopefully adding value to what they're doing or pointing out what they admitted to do or what they've done wrong, you know, which historically has been their...
Stephen Spencer: You know the expect norm is that, oh we've got £10,000,000 for new wing or whatever it is and this architect design, big name architect for the shops there but it's in the wrong place. It's too small. It hasn't got any windows. The flow is wrong. Well, that's what you've got. That's what you've got to work with.
Paul Marden: I had a brilliant conversation. So I was at the AVEA conference, and I was with Michael, the chief exec of Shadnock Gift Company. And he was talking exactly about that. Yes. How they will end up in this unloved corner just over there that you can easily walk past that doesn't have the potential to have the feeling that you have in the rest of the attraction. Yeah. And how these two things then become so disjointed.
Stephen Spencer: Well, you know, when I went from Hamleys to Historic Royal Palaces right at the beginning of HRP, because I'm incredibly old.
Paul Marden: Experienced.
Stephen Spencer: Experienced, that's right. Well-aged, well-matured. I couldn't believe that the shop was so dull, it was so bland, and also it was full of really naff products. Yes. Because I'd just assumed it would be amazing, because the Tower of London is amazing. And so I just brought the theatre of retail, you know, starting with a six-foot yeoman wardrobe. Yep. Teddy bear standing outside the door, which I got a lot of stick for from the Yeoman Waters, but you know, and then just reflecting the experience in retail. Yeah, and you know, first year, I think the sales went up by 40 percent.
Stephen Spencer: The Same with the Royal Collection, you know, they just thought we'd have a tent in the garden, sell guidebooks and postcards at Buckingham Palace. And I said, no, we've got to reflect the experience. And it was just off the chart, you know, successful.
Stephen Spencer: And I think showed how to do it in a way, not wanting to sound arrogant, but just showed that you can actually make a load of money if you actually put passion, authenticity, and focus on what the customer's going to be expecting and then a bit of wow factor.
Paul Marden: I think that bit's crucial. So the idea that retail is just a bolt-on to the end of the experience is daft, because people expect the retail to be an integral part of what they're doing and it's so much easier to free up their money in their pocket, isn't it? Yes. Where there's a seamless transition from one to the other and it feels authentic and it feels like it's part of the place.
Stephen Spencer: Yes. Well, I mean, we're here at VAC and we've been talking about listening to Sarah Root from Warner Brothers, you know, the Harry Potter New York shop, now the Tokyo store. are examples of that, where it's an immersive experience in retail, not just the whole thing. But, I mean, it's not new. Disney have been doing that forever and Universal.
Stephen Spencer: But we haven't really done it in the UK, and I think the Big Pit is an exciting example. It's certainly something we believe in, you know, thinking about all of the senses and how do you extend the experience into retail and really make it almost a necessity for people to buy something, whereas at the moment, I think... We're seeing a lot of shops in attractions struggling because we've heard, you know, it's an expensive day out. Yes. Even if you remember, it's still an expensive day out. What's the one thing you don't have to spend money on? It's retail. You know, you've got to get there, you've got to eat, drink. You don't have to buy anything in retail. And if retail's not inspirational, why would you?
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Paul Marden: It's been a really good conference. Let's talk a little bit about our playbook that we've been working on together. It's really hard for many attractions. They may have tried e-commerce gift stores before.
Paul Marden: Not had some success. So in the playbook, we talk a lot about what's the point of the shop, who's the audience, what's the product, that's your bit. We talk about the mechanics of how you put it together, and then the guys at Navigate talk a lot about how do you get bums on seats, how do you get people to come to this shop. But from your perspective, that curating the product online, figuring out who the audience is, that's crucial. And you've got a model around that that you call the STARS model. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Stephen Spencer: We have, yes. So STARS is really the five elements that every world-class visitor experience should contain and also keep in balance. And it starts with story, S for story. The story is, you know, it can contain a lot of words that attractions and other organisations use, whether it's purpose, mission, vision, values, behaviours, you know, why we exist. But the important thing is this: it is a story that everyone in the organisation understands and is working to deliver day in, day out. That's where culture comes from.
Stephen Spencer: But also it's the story that you have to tell your customers and visitors that differentiates you in the marketplace. So it could also be called your value proposition or your USP. Anyway, we call it 'story' because it's the story you need to tell and you need to tell it throughout the whole experience. We also know storytelling is another buzzword at the moment, but fundamentally stories engage people emotionally, on a deeper level, psychologically.
Stephen Spencer: Put them in the right frame of mind to engage with your content and ultimately your product. So, S for story, T for team. Everyone who delivers your story— the new hire on the front desk, the sort of 16-year-olds, on day one— should have a good idea of the story because they should have seen it in the recruitment ad, they should have heard about it in the interview, it should have been confirmed in their induction, it should also be something everyone around them is talking about. Slightly deviating from just e-commerce, here this is this is good practice.
Paul Marden: The STARS model works beyond e-commerce, doesn't it? So, if we take that example of the team, if you're thinking about potentially the agency that you work with, the team that are working on fulfillment. All of these people that you're working with on the delivery of the project have to buy into the story and understand it to authentically sell it online?
Stephen Spencer: 100%. If you have the story clear, then you can translate that. For the team you're going to deliver. And as you say, whoever's working with you includes not just obviously what you see in terms of designing the website or the delivery of it, but also the fulfilment, the customer service. It has to feed through the whole thing.
Paul Marden: Yes, so as part of the story, if the narrative of what you're delivering through this website is about a premium experience, if it's chucked in bubble wrap and thrown into an envelope, that's completely different to a high-end experience where you open it up and you feel like you're having an unboxing experience with products. And so, that it does permeate through all of the people that are touching the service doesn't it all the way through to the fulfillment people so that they understand what it is you're selling the way you're selling it and why you're selling it doesn't it.
Stephen Spencer: Totally. And that brings us nicely, actually, on to ambience, because ambience, in our definition, is how you deliver the experience through all of the senses, if possible, to reinforce the overall story. So obviously, with e-commerce, superficially, there's only one sense of play, which is visual, but actually, what can you do with video, for example?
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Stephen Spencer: Then also there's this really interesting part of the process between the decision to buy and receiving the product, and you touched on it with the unboxing. I always use this example. I bought a Mini. In fact, I've bought several Minis because I'm very loyal to the brand. And when you buy a Mini, they send you a series of videos of your Mini being built.
Paul Marden: Oh, really?
Stephen Spencer: Now, the reality is it only takes 57 minutes to build a Mini because I've been to the Mini plant, I've seen it done.
Stephen Spencer: But that's not the point. It obviously doesn't take, you know, it takes several weeks for you to get your mini. And during that time, the anticipation is building, building, building.
Stephen Spencer: So you get series of videos telling that your mini's coming. When you go to collect your mini, by the way, again, that's slightly off the topic, you go into a small room, just a little bigger than the mini.
Stephen Spencer: Where theatrical lighting will come on, and there is your Mini, with the big red bow on the widescreen, just confirming that you have made the right decision. This is one of the most exciting days of your life, so you will feel good about having made one of the best investment decisions of your life.
Paul Marden: It's a big spend of money.
Stephen Spencer: But again, if people are ordering products from your e-commerce site, could you be telling them ways that they can use the product when they get it? Could you be telling them about more background to the product? I don't just mean... saying if you like that, you might like this, which obviously Amazon do, but it's a good thing to do, but give more value, build the anticipation, than when they receive the product, however many senses you can build into the unwrapping, you've actually created the completion of that part of the process, which reinforces the brand, it makes it stand out, and it plays on those neurological pathways that make people feel really good about spending money with you.
Paul Marden: So this morning we had the chief exec of Museums Wales. She was talking about the importance of commercial. And she was talking about being able to buy coal at Big Pit, but she also talked about being able to buy fabrics at the Wool Museum. I could imagine, and this is me extrapolating what you've just said there— with what she talked about this morning— wouldn't there be a great story to be able to tell online, if in between you getting your beautifully crafted scarf... the process by which the wool was made, the process by which the scarf was woven, in little videos that have been sent to you to remind you that this is on its way to heighten your anticipation of it coming.
Stephen Spencer: Totally. I mean, one of the sort of northern lights in our industry, as far as I'm concerned, is Joe Pine. Who co-wrote the book The Experienced Economy in the late 90s, really coined the phrase, showed how there's a progression of value from commodities to services to experiences. He's writing his latest book, which is about transformation.
Paul Marden: Oh, really?
Stephen Spencer: Transformation is about people wanting... to literally learn something, be changed in some way, do something that they've never done before. But also, for example, could you engage with the indigenous tribe that's growing cocoa beans where your chocolate is coming from? Could you support that tribe? We heard also from, I think, both National Museums Wales and Wentworth Woodhouse about traditional skills.
Paul Marden: Yes.
Stephen Spencer: And supporting apprenticeships, by the way, which is another great thing. Absolutely. But again, how do you use all of that content to really add value? If I go and buy something from John Lewis, let alone Amazon, I don't get any of that, do I? I just get the product. What I get from a cultural institution or a visitor attraction is experience that could even be transformational.
Paul Marden: We're going way off the stars topic, but...
Stephen Spencer: Way into the stars.
Paul Marden: Very good dad joke. Well done. Yes, there's some value to that engagement in the anticipation of the item arriving because you're reinforcing that person's feeling for the brand as well. This is not just about the product that they're going to receive. This is about their whole relationship with the attraction itself, isn't it?
Stephen Spencer: It's a brand that cares. And also is authentic, it really delivers what it stands for. And also because I've probably bought into it because in some way, shape or form, it shares my values. Those values need to be demonstrated throughout the process. And that's why coming back to team, it's so important that you choose your partners very carefully because they need to reflect your values as well.
Paul Marden: Absolutely. So let's move on then. What's the R?
Stephen Spencer: R is recipients, which is really everyone on the receiving end of your experience. Obviously, we had to call it that because it has to spell stars.
Stephen Spencer: I'll say that because you'll have noticed that. But it's your customer, it's your visitor, it's really understanding. So if we go back to story, we do an exercise, OK, you've defined your story, you've defined what makes you unique.
Stephen Spencer: Who are the audiences for whom that resonates the most strongly, it's the most relevant, and for whom you can really deliver something that will make them, as we've said, loyal and engaged, believe in you, promote you, and be your sort of life partner, if you like, in the sense of... Don't smile as I say that.
Stephen Spencer: In the sense of lifetime value maximised. And that is about not sort of just having an e-commerce site and putting it out there. It's about understanding, first of all, e-commerce is a different business. You're not just putting your shop online. It's a new business.
Stephen Spencer: For a start, you might well be reaching an international audience that you couldn't reach with your physical shop or who would be one-time visitors and then no more. But it's really understanding— if this is my story, if this is my concept, who is going to most respond to that? What's my gap in the market? And again, I think it was National Museums Wales who said... really using data to understand as much as you can about those segments so that you can really target the offer. When you start to build your range, it's crucial because you've got to have that audience in mind and then all of your marketing— your seasonality, your range extensions— all has to have the audience in mind. And, of course, you're continually learning as well as you get the response from real people.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's so much that you're going into here, and I think it's really important for listeners to remember that they can go and download the report. There is so much more than you, me, and Simon can say in one episode, because this playbook that we've put together is really comprehensive, isn't it? It's got... It's got input from about 10 or 15 different people into it, loads of tips and tricks, and a lot more depth about your STARS model and other parts of this whole mix to putting together an amazing e-commerce site for an attraction. So, we're at the end stages of the STARS model, aren't we?
Stephen Spencer: Yes. So we now come on to the final S, which we used to call systems, because I have a real bee in my bonnet, having worked in attractions, as most of the team at SSA have, that it's great to have a vision, it's great to have a concept.
Stephen Spencer: It's great to even have a model, but it's actually whether it's implemented day in, day out.
Paul Marden: By everybody.
Stephen Spencer: By everybody. And so, we work with partners called Flow Associates, who are a consultancy that focus on almost the bit that we traditionally haven't focused on, which is the core mission.
Stephen Spencer: And it so happens that one of the co-directors of Flow and I worked together at the O2, and she now lectures in experience design at Central Saint Martins, and we found that our approaches were... Very similar, just coming at it— one from an operational end, one from an academic end. So we brought them together.
Paul Marden: That's interesting.
Stephen Spencer: And one of the key elements in that is measuring the emotional journey, because at the end of the day... That's the thing that we're driving, isn't it? We've heard a lot today about making memories and joy and all the rest of it, the value of joy. So this is about, well, you can't be full on having joy the whole time. I always used to annoy me, I used to say... Who gets up in the morning and says, 'I hope I have a satisfactory day?' And yet we measure visitor satisfaction. It's such a low bar. You know, might as well call it mediocrity. Oh, yeah, we're doing quite well. We've got up to mediocre plus today. Doing really well. But what we really want is... not just a mindless rah, rah, rah, full-on experience, because also that is actually very tiring.
Stephen Spencer: It tires the mind, tires the brain, also tires the body, and means that, again, by the time people get to the gift shop... they're likely to be less receptive because they're tired, they just want to go home. And so we look at how you curate the ebb and flow of that journey so that people leave in the right emotional state that you feel that they should, which is, hopefully, saying... brilliant day. I spent more money than I intended to, but it's great and actually going away to write a fantastic TripAdvisor review or tell all their friends or whatever it is. Anyway, we've gone off the point of systems again to a certain extent.
Paul Marden: We have, but I do think that part of what you're talking about, that importance of the ebb and the flow of the day, the online e-commerce experience, contributes to that. Because oftentimes people are tired when they get to the gift shop. If you can give them confidence that the website will deliver them the magical experience that they would have in the physical shop. Then they're more likely to feel less stressed about buying in the moment because they know that they can still pick things up afterwards.
Stephen Spencer: Yes, and by the way, I'm a great believer in a specific, why don't attraction shops who have e-commerce sites have a screen or a tablet in the shop? To make that very point, not necessarily saying people will order there and then, but they might, but certainly conveying the message that this is available online. Yes. So, the reason for talking about systems is because this is about making your experience sustainable in the sense that it can be delivered operationally, it can be delivered commercially, so it makes you money, and it delivers the right emotional response from the customer. And we've now changed systems to sustainability because I've always said it's about sustainability as in not going bust. And we've heard a lot today about attractions at risk. But also we now include environmental sustainability in that because we're on a journey ourselves, which we want to share with our clients.
Stephen Spencer: It's the right thing to do, obviously, but it's also what consumers are increasingly looking for.
Paul Marden: It's a buying factor. factor, isn't it, for so many people now?
Stephen Spencer: It is. And funders as well. Funders are also increasingly looking to see what your environmental credentials are before they're going to give you public money. And I think that's another sort of key consideration.
Stephen Spencer: How does this apply to e-commerce? It's about— and we cover in the playbook, and our colleague, Associate Carly, has covered how to find the right supplier. Yes. which includes, you know, does it needs to work together with your onsite retails, staff controls, sales, etc., but how does that link also to fulfillment? How does it delivering the right users and customer journey as well?
Stephen Spencer: Even building the range so that it ticks the right boxes, hits the right marks, which Katrina talks about. That's part of it as well. But then all that— back office stuff, you know, the logistics, the customer service, the stuff we've been talking about, you know, what information we provide the customer. That's all part of it. And without that— you will end up with a product and a service that disappoints. And, of course, within systems is, well, what do you do when something goes wrong?
Stephen Spencer: Because it will go wrong. It absolutely will go wrong. I never forget the first year we opened Buckingham Palace, against my internal recommendations were made because we couldn't keep in stock of the product, as it was all handmade and hand-decorated, and all throughout the UK. We were... coerced by senior management into operating a mail order service so people could order the products that they couldn't get. It took about six months to finally deliver the final product. We had so many challenges with fulfillment. We had the great stories around the customers to whom everything went wrong. Not just once, but several times. And funnily enough, because we really cared and were really mortified when things went wrong and really bent over backwards to put them right, we made, I think, loyal customers, raving fans from some of those people who'd had the worst experience.
Paul Marden: I totally believe that being prepared, because it will always go wrong, and accepting that and being prepared for that and understanding what you're going to do when that does happen, because when it happens, it will set you apart. It's because people will forgive many things if they are dealt with in an empathetic... Understanding way and not treated like they're the ones at fault for having complained about it.
Stephen Spencer: Yeah, well, we always teach when we do customer experience training or we talk to clients, we talk about the fact that. Almost inevitably, the reason for a complaint is because an expectation wasn't met. And, of course, it may have been a wrong expectation.
Paul Marden: Absolutely.
Stephen Spencer: They may have misunderstood what was on the website. And, your answer should be, in this result, we need to look and see how we can do that right, not, oh, you're wrong, because you're wrong. Yes, absolutely. And the second thing is.. What do they want? What is going to make them happy? Because it's different for different people, isn't it? Some want an official response. Others just want an explanation. Others want compensation. And if you can quickly get to what is... the thing that we can do that's going to make you feel happy, you're going to create potentially a more loyal customer than you would otherwise have had.
Paul Marden: But to get to that point, it's all about the system, isn't it?
Stephen Spencer: It is. You know, system sounds boring in a way. That's probably why we've now changed the name to sustainability because it sounds a bit more sexy. But it is about sustainability. Yeah, completely. Because without it, you just have an idea. What is it? A vision without a plan is just a dream. And, you know, an e-commerce site without really robust systems is a disaster waiting to happen, frankly.
Paul Marden: It's just going to be the dusty corner, isn't it, that nobody uses and everyone is disappointed with and blames the technology. It's not the technology, it was the proposition and the plan.
Paul Marden: So Andy, our bit of the playbook focuses on the mechanics of putting the shop together, doesn't it?
Andy Povey: Yes. Absolutely.
Paul Marden: So I know we can't have favourite children, but can we have favourite e-commerce platforms?
Andy Povey: Well, I think we can, as long as the children aren't listening. But it was in the attractions website survey, wasn't it? The massively most popular retail e-commerce platform out there is in the attractions world is Shopify.
Paul Marden: Yeah. And it's hard to argue, isn't it? Because it's so easy to put together.
Andy Povey: The world of the internet is changing so rapidly at the moment. If you're trying to do this yourself, you're trying to build it yourself, or you're using a bespoke solution, you're just not going to keep up. You can't afford to. No one can.
Paul Marden: So you're going to build it in Shopify, but you don't want to really build it as an island, do you? This thing needs to be plumbed in, doesn't it?
Andy Povey: Absolutely. I mean, you don't want anything that you're doing in your attraction to be an island. It all needs to be together because... Mr. Marden, when you're going to an attraction, you're still Mr. Marden, whether you're buying a cup of tea, a ticket, or buying a cuddly teddy bear online. You're the same person. So we should know everything about you and just put all of that data together. You take your Shopify site, you integrate it very tightly to your website. It's got to look and feel like the same place. Your customer cannot go off to another shopping experience you don't want to be sending them out to Amazon. It's your customer you're curating that. They're buying that thing from you because they want to support your mission. So it's got to look and feel like you. And then on the other side of the transaction, you've got to get it into your retail system, into your pod system, into your back office system, because you don't want to be managing inventory in two places if you've got a limited number of that product. You want to be able to sell it through whatever channel it is. And when you've sold the last one, you take it off sale straight away from every channel. Otherwise, you're just going to upset people.
Paul Marden: What about after the sale? So not just the inventory side of things, but the fulfillment side of it. Integrations there are important, isn't it?
Andy Povey: It touches every department that would deal with that transaction. So your finance team doesn't want to be reconciling two different sets of reports. Your inventory management or your warehouse team doesn't want to be looking for two different places to go and deliver their thing. Your ordering team doesn't want to go and have to put... two different pieces of paper together or two different reports together to understand how many of these items they've sold. So it's all got to be integrated across the whole piece because you need to give that customer that single journey. And then, when you get back to the customer, you need to take all of that data and put it together. So I want to know how much Tom Jones has spent at my attraction. Has he bought tickets? Has he bought memberships? Does he like Cuddly Tigers? Because if he does, I'm going to do something different or I have the potential to do something different.
Paul Marden: Absolutely. How important is the guest experience in this? I know that within the Merac system and Gulliver, one of the goals is around trying to shorten the checkout cycle. Does that hold here in your e-commerce experience with gift shops as well?
Andy Povey: Absolutely. We keep using the Amazon one-click checkout as a model or an aspiration for us to get to. Why would you want an experience that is any worse than the experience I have shopping online anywhere else in the world? You do not want to be associated with that poor experience.
Paul Marden: So how do you get to that point where you've got the one-click or two-click experience? How do you avoid it being a 20-click checkout?
Andy Povey: Well, try it yourself. Go and eat your own dog food and see what it's like. Go and have a look at what other venues are doing that is good. So find the best practice, find what other people are doing, talk to the suppliers and the users of those platforms. And then really look and understand what you can take out of the process. Do you really need to know where I live? If you're going to post me something, absolutely. But if all I'm buying is an electronic gift voucher... It doesn't matter where I live, because you're just going to send that, fulfill that electronically.
Paul Marden: The good thing about this, like all of this advice that we're giving, all of it is in the playbook, so everybody can go and download this and loads more in the playbook.
Andy Povey: And remember, this is the first of many. Our aspiration with the playbook is for us to really take what we understand, the partners, the friends, the associates that we work with, and share some of that knowledge. And make it available for everybody in the sector. Because by lifting everybody's experience, we improve the whole industry for our guests.
Paul Marden: So Stephen has talked about how you curate the online shop, his stars model. I've talked a little bit about how you build the shop. Simon. There's no point in having an online gift shop if nobody's going to come shopping. There are two real key points that I pulled from your sections of the report. One was...
Paul Marden: For listeners, you can hear the conferences tidying up around us. The idea in the report was that you can attract brand new audiences to your shop or you can engage existing audiences. So let's talk about the piece about the engaging the existing audiences. So for people that know you, what can you do to get more of them shopping in your online shop?
Simon Jones: I think people who know you come to you for a reason. They like you. They're engaged in your products. They're engaged in everything that you offer. So what better way to extend that and to get them to show a little bit more commitment by... buying part of what they've enjoyed, part of the experience they've had with you. And I think for us it's those unusual products, the unique things. We're very lucky in this sector that we provide great experiences to the public, which gives us the opportunity to let them have fantastic experiences themselves. And I think that opportunity for them to take something different home, it could be, you know, something very unique— an interest that you just wouldn't get on a normal high street, or right through to something that, you know, you can just come and get home and have fun and play with your kids. So it's what we do and it's extending it into the home. And if people like you... If people are coming to you and engaging with you, they are the perfect audience to be able to sell products and make sure that they're purchasing from you, even if they're not coming physically.
Paul Marden: So I guess there's two ways that you could do that. One is exploiting your CRM, email marketing out to all of those audiences, all those people that have contacted you before, and remarketing. Is there a place for both of those in the mix?
Simon Jones: Yes, absolutely. And I think the word 'exploiting' I love to call it 'utilising' or 'maximising', just so you know.
Paul Marden: Yes, yes. That's a much better word.
Simon Jones: And I think it's a combination of all of it. Most people who come through these days, if they book online, if they come through, you have their data, you have their email address. So first thing is make sure you're including your online offerings and retail offerings within emails. It's a free communication channel. And the beauty with that is, with CRM capability, you should be able then to track what they're clicking on, what they're looking at, what they're coming through. And so from that point of view, it gives you great data about the types of things they're interested in and then send them more of the right things. Don't give them something they're not looking at, but if they've clicked on the same thing a little while, and they've bought something before, and there's a lot of interest in a particular area, you can then fulfill those opportunities and come through from that. The other side of it is visitors to your website. If people are looking, they know you, they're often going to your site anyway.
Simon Jones: Track them, see what they're going to, see what they're doing, and look at that interest that they have, and then obviously you can retarget from people visiting the site, coming off maybe. your online shop page, and you can start retargeting with the right messages and the right products they've been looking at. It's all in the tracking in the back end. So it's basically about making sure that you've got the right tags in place, the right tracking in place, so that you can see people's user journey. And, I mean, to be honest, it goes beyond online retail. It's about, you know, how people are purchasing tickets as well. Recognising the good opportunities that people give through, the good parts of the sites, but also the not so parts of the sites. You can see where you get points that people convert a lot, and then look at how you can improve the way of use, but also follow people who may have shown interest but not included that with the topics. What about trying to attract new audiences to the online shop? How would you go about doing that? There's two routes. One is if someone has an interest in a subject matter, they may not know you, but they might be looking for something.
Simon Jones: Obviously, search is the best way to do that. So paid search, targeted around certain things that you have that people are searching for. And you can do a lot of research to look at the type of things, the words that people are using in their searches. So that's the kind of like the low hanging fruit. That's the ones that you can convert easily. The other side is social, and social is great for us to be able to put inspiration of product in front of people that have the right interests. You know, social channels give us the ability to target. Right demographics, right interest groups, right locations, etc. So you can get really tight on looking at where you're advertising so that you're not wasting a lot of budget as well, because we know budgets are always tight within the sector. And then very much about using that as an inspirational channel. Getting people to come through from the site. And again, then it falls into that cycle. If they don't purchase first time, you can go into that remarketing mold and make sure that you're capturing them somewhere at that point.
Paul Marden: All of this and more is in the written report. And I think that we've all, ourselves at Rubber Cheese, you at Navigate, Stephen Spencer and his associates, we've all put a lot of effort into distilling this knowledge down. But out of everything that we've talked about and what's written down...
Paul Marden: I get the feeling that there's not a lot of difference between the unsuccessful e-commerce gift shops and the successful ones in terms of the shop itself. Because putting a shop out there is not that hard. Anyone could go onto Shopify and just knock a shop together, can't they, and stick some product on there. But what I get from you, from Steve, and what sets all of this apart is the planning that you go through, the effort you go through to choose the right products, target the right audiences, and get bums on seats. You can't go into this expecting to just be able to knock together a quick shop and have success of the levels that some of the big guys that everybody talks about.
Simon Jones: No, and I think a lot of it comes back to the authenticity of your offering. I think if you're going to try and go head-to-head with Amazon or whichever of the big retailers... It's a product which you can buy, which everybody stocks. You're not going to win that battle. Where you are going to win is that storytelling. It's using storytelling around the experiences that people offer and linking your retail experience to that and then making sure you're putting that in front of the right people. Go back to what we were talking about earlier, Paul. We are in such a fantastic industry, which is all about people's experience and having enjoyment. So making sure that you think your products that you offer, both obviously in the shops and online. Fits in with that story, it was all part of that journey. People are much more likely to pick up product, go online, and purchase that. So it's just that extension of what you do. Right through from brand, all the way through to the retail experience that you have.
Paul Marden: Brilliant. Have we got any really good examples of where this is happening at the moment in real life?
Stephen Spencer: Well, this is a question, as you know, Paul. I hate being asked.
Paul Marden: And yet here we are.
Stephen Spencer: And here we are. I think it's really important to stress: e-commerce is not a silver bullet. There are very few, and they're probably the obvious suspects. Larger organisations, on the whole.
Stephen Spencer: Although the Tank Museum obviously is a shining example of, I think, doing it their way. And also we heard today from Wentworth Woodhouse about the power of their YouTube channel. Yes, absolutely. So I think, you know, as an aside, people really need to think about if my e-commerce site is really good, but I'm not bringing people to it in imaginative and creative ways. If I'm not, you know, if it's not in almost a... a virtual visitor attraction that's providing entertainment and content and stimulation and reaffirming my brand loyalty, then it's just... a shop possibly sitting on a dusty high street.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Stephen Spencer: With that said, I think people need to really reflect on the fact that this is a new business. It needs a totally fresh approach. You know, a fresh approach to your brand, because your online brand may be subtly different to your physical brand, because apart from anything else, you can't deliver the same experience.
Paul Marden: Yes. Yes.
Stephen Spencer: So what is the distillation of that? That is going to reach potentially internationally, and how do you animate it? And I'm going to leave it to others to say what they think are good examples of that, because I just think it's invidious to sort of... because no one is doing as well as they would have you believe. That's the other thing I would say. And it's about you deciding why you're doing it, what impact do you want to have, both externally and internally, potentially on your bottom line. And what is the strategy that is robust and also flexible enough when it hits reality to deliver that, and then have a go. If you follow the advice in the playbook, dare I say, if you speak to any of the team that's put the playbook together, you probably have the best chance of de-risking it but also making it as good as it can be as an extension of your brand, and if you do that, then you'll be the example that I'll be talking about in a year's time.
Paul Marden: So Simon, from your point of view, can you think of any great examples of who's doing this and having lots of success in the real world?
Simon Jones: So I think, you know, there are a lot of good examples out there. One that speaks to my mind is actually the... Sometimes the conservation charities are actually really good. Yeah, they have visitor experiences, but they're actually really good at some of the online shops and the way that they encourage people to purchase as well. And a lot of people purchase from them, never visit. So it might be about the subject matter of... The Conservation Project, for example, and I think the RSPB do this really, really well. One of their best sellers is birdseed. A lot of people probably never go to an RSPB site, but they know that the birdseed that they offer is really high quality. It's fantastic for the wildlife. And it's one of their best sellers. And I actually think that the layout they have is really simple to use. It's really intuitive to go through. They make it easy to purchase. So, yeah, for me, it's one example that stands out for me.
Paul Marden: Yeah, that's a brilliant example. I hadn't thought about them. But I guess there's a thread running through a lot of the successes that I guess the conservation charities are all going to have a very committed audience of people that really buy into what that charity does. I think the people that I know of that have had the successful online shops really understand their audience, what fires them, and they're giving something to their very committed audience that that audience wants.
Simon Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And look, we know it's a tough market for visitor attractions out there right across the board. Visitor numbers have been a struggle.
Simon Jones: Reality is it's not going to get easier in the short term. So people need to think very intuitively, very cleverly about how they diversify their revenue streams. And all attractions, not all, most attractions have shops. As you exit, the traditional model is you walk out through that shop. You were looking at how many people will spend to the front, so you can get it from the retail side of it.
Simon Jones: Going online with your offering shop just opens up the opportunity to generate revenue from people who've never thought of you, never visited, but there is an interest in your product. And it just opens up so many opportunities and potential revenue streams for you as well.
Paul Marden: But you have to think about it just like the exit through the gift shop model. When you build a museum or any sort of attraction, and you stick the gift shop in a dusty corner that nobody goes past, you're not going to get many people buying from you. And if you stick an online gift shop up on the web and then you don't signpost anybody to it, you don't integrate it into the rest of the experience that's going on, and then you're disappointed that you haven't achieved the sales that you were looking for, maybe you don't need to worry too much about the shop. You need to be thinking about how the whole infrastructure builds together into this joined-up experience.
Simon Jones: Yeah absolutely, and I think it, you know, we think very very closely, and then about people's experiences when they come into our attractions and our venues, because that's the memory makers, that's the points that they go away. And it has to be treated exactly the same way. And you have to be telling consistently the right message to the right people. Again, most of the attractions that we know will have a membership scheme or a friends of scheme. Those people are so important to you and they will buy from you because they really like your subject matter. So not only will they come and visit regularly, they will purchase from you as well. It's about telling the right story right across the audiences, using all of those communication channels that you have. So we talked about email obviously, already, obviously the advertising that can go through paid search and paid social. There are many opportunities with the new lines that are coming through, things like the TikTok store, the Instagram store, so there are opportunities that these lines open up, where people can look again to achieve that online service.
Simon Jones: So, you know, it's just— it really is. And don't forget your organic channels as well, obviously using those at the right key times. People don't want to be sold to them all the time. But obviously, Christmas is just around the corner. You know, you've got key times in the years when people are looking for unusual ideas, unusual gifts. And we know that. Gone are the days when people just want to buy a plastic bit of tap for somebody that gets stuck in a drawer and never use. It's thinking about something really unusual, really bespoken, really different. And not only is it your product that you go through the shop, but it could be a voucher to come and visit you or a membership where you then get that visit all year round. So think about it in that sense as well.
Paul Marden: Brilliant.
Paul Marden: Thanks, of course, to Stephen, Simon and our founding host, Kelly Molson. Stephen, Simon, thank you so much as well for collaborating on our first playbook. If you'd like to get hold of a copy of the playbook, head over to skipthequeue.fm and you'll see a link in the menu. If you liked this episode, please leave a comment in your podcast app. It really does make it easier for people to find us. This episode was written by me, Paul Marden, with help from Emily and Sami from Plaster. Editing was by Steve Folland and production by Wenalyn Dionaldo. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week.