Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. For next guest
Speaker 1: gets e commerce big time. He's a co founder of
Speaker 1: jet dot com. It was then sold to Walmart for
Speaker 1: three point three billion back in twos sixteen. Earlier this year, though,
Speaker 1: Nate Fast debut a delivery service called all of that
Speaker 1: consolidates orders from fashion label So let's find out a
Speaker 1: little bit more because he's working with the likes of
Speaker 1: Michael Core's, Adidas Sacks and a lot of other very
Speaker 1: well known brands. Here with how it all works, how
Speaker 1: It's going. Is Nate Fast, founder of Olive, on the
Speaker 1: phone in New York City. Nate, how are you, Carol?
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm doing okay, Uh, feeling like the
Speaker 1: world's getting back to normal, which is always a good thing. Um,
Speaker 1: tell me what your last year has been like, especially
Speaker 1: here you are launching a company amid the midst of
Speaker 1: the pandemic and a very different economic and market environment. No, absolutely, Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we started all of a little over a
Speaker 1: year ago, in fact, just about a year ago coming
Speaker 1: up next week. And when we initially started exploring it
Speaker 1: It wasn't triggered by the triggered by the pandemic. It
Speaker 1: was triggered by just a broader desire to do something
Speaker 1: with a social environmental impact for my next adventure. And
Speaker 1: with COVID and the increase in how much people are
Speaker 1: shopping online and the number of deliveries that people are experiencing,
Speaker 1: I think the pain points and the obvious environmental impact
Speaker 1: of just the sheer amount of deliveries that we're getting,
Speaker 1: and not just in the packaging, but just the sheer
Speaker 1: number of delivery trucks that are stopping at each of
Speaker 1: our each of our houses, which I'll say that's probably
Speaker 1: the most eye opening thing over the last year, looking
Speaker 1: out my my front window and every single day seeing two, three, four,
Speaker 1: sometimes more delivery trucks stop at my home. Yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: I think about it when we're ordering Amazon and it's like,
Speaker 1: how are you about kind of putting this all into
Speaker 1: one order? And I'm like, yes, I can wait a
Speaker 1: couple of days to get something. Tell me though, how
Speaker 1: Olive works, Nate. Sure, So you sign up donland our
Speaker 1: app or on our site at shop olive dot com.
Speaker 1: It's a free service to consumers when you sign up,
Speaker 1: we create for you what we call your Olive address,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of your personal storage space at one
Speaker 1: of our consolidation centers, which we have two of them,
Speaker 1: one on the East coast, one on the one on
Speaker 1: the West coast. And then when you shop with with
Speaker 1: Olive at any of the hundred or so retailers that
Speaker 1: we have affiliate relationships with, when you're going through the
Speaker 1: checkout process, either on desktop with the help of our
Speaker 1: Chrome extension or on an iPhone through our our app,
Speaker 1: we help you in cert that all of address at checkout,
Speaker 1: and then the retailers pickpack, and ship those orders like
Speaker 1: they normally would. They shipped to our consolidation centers. We
Speaker 1: hold on to them for a couple of days until
Speaker 1: it's time for what we call your Olive day, which
Speaker 1: is the one day, or in the case of New
Speaker 1: York City, you have two days per week that all
Speaker 1: of your orders come together delivered in one single, reusable, secure,
Speaker 1: two way, two way shipper. And there's one thing to
Speaker 1: call out there. You're very transparently at this initial outset,
Speaker 1: we're not eliminating the box from the source. The retailers
Speaker 1: are still picking and packing into the boxes shipping them
Speaker 1: to us. But we are getting what, in the long
Speaker 1: run is actually the bigger environmental impact, which is the
Speaker 1: consolidation of multiple deliveries into a single delivery, which we're
Speaker 1: getting about it what we call our sort of consolidations
Speaker 1: about consolidation factor in terms of delivering more to a
Speaker 1: consumers store step than would have previously been delivered in
Speaker 1: the in the status quo. You know, I like to
Speaker 1: understand the impact, especially since you're concerned about the environment
Speaker 1: sustainability that by using your service, How do we cut
Speaker 1: down on our carbon footprint by all of the you know,
Speaker 1: e commerce that we're doing and all the delivery that
Speaker 1: goes along with that. Yeah, No, absolutely so. When you
Speaker 1: look at the carbon footprint of the sort of post
Speaker 1: purchase e commerce supply chain, which is the piece that
Speaker 1: we're focused on, you know, the biggest chunk of that,
Speaker 1: somewhere in the range comes from that sort of proverbial
Speaker 1: last mile of the truck stopping at consumers homes, and
Speaker 1: the remaining half, you know, is split roughly evenly between
Speaker 1: packaging and then what's called sort of the first and
Speaker 1: middle mile of getting that thing from the fulfillment center
Speaker 1: or store that it's coming from to the to the
Speaker 1: point of the final last mile delivery. And what we're
Speaker 1: tackling initially through this this concept of consolidation is that
Speaker 1: largest chunk, which is the which is the last mile delivery.
Speaker 1: And I know, as you pointed out, obviously those things
Speaker 1: are being delivered to us, but they're being delivered in bulk.
Speaker 1: So we get one delivery per day from each of
Speaker 1: FedEx and UPS and other potential carriers at each of
Speaker 1: our facilities with all of the all of the various orders,
Speaker 1: and then when we deliver them two consumers, we're getting
Speaker 1: on average about one point to five shipment into every
Speaker 1: delivery that that we make, So that would be roughly
Speaker 1: a reduction on that sort of last mile for those
Speaker 1: packages to that consumers home. But obviously two pieces there.
Speaker 1: One it's it's apparel only for right now, and so
Speaker 1: there's lots of things that you can't purchase through affiliated
Speaker 1: retailers through with with Olive, and that will enable a
Speaker 1: much greater impact in the in the long term as
Speaker 1: we're able to service broader sets of categories. And then two,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, we're not eliminating the packaging from
Speaker 1: the source, but we're actually in the midst right now
Speaker 1: of working with our our very first retailer to actually
Speaker 1: integrate directly with their supply chain where we would provide
Speaker 1: the packaging in their fulfillment centers so that they pick
Speaker 1: and pack their orders into that from the from the source.
Speaker 1: And that will be the goal over time two as
Speaker 1: volume supports it with each of the retailers on the
Speaker 1: platform to do that more direct integration, to eliminate the
Speaker 1: packaging right so, in other words, to help them to
Speaker 1: kind of be better when it comes to their environmental impact,
Speaker 1: because I'm right, Is that fair? Totally? Yeah, I'm from
Speaker 1: a customer experience perspective, because there's other benefits that come
Speaker 1: from the olive delivery experience, especially from the consumer side
Speaker 1: of things. Not only they not have to deal with
Speaker 1: the hassle of managing the waste from the delivery if
Speaker 1: they have any returns, they just put it straight back
Speaker 1: in the packaging, leave it on their doorstep and we
Speaker 1: pick it up. That's really interesting. Well, and you know
Speaker 1: part of your value is also going to be in
Speaker 1: or at least part of your attraction I guess I
Speaker 1: should say, is the retailers on your site and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch that are certainly you know in my wheelhouse,
Speaker 1: rag and bone, there's aloe. Uh, there's a lot of them,
Speaker 1: uh anthropology. So you're definitely catching my attention here. Um,
Speaker 1: how quickly are you signing up a lot more retailers?
Speaker 1: How easy is that to do? Sure? So we've we've
Speaker 1: had a ton of outreach following our launch. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: around six weeks ago or so is our sort of
Speaker 1: unveiling of the service to the to the public. So
Speaker 1: we have a sort of backlog of of of retailers
Speaker 1: that we've signed up as affiliate partners. That's probably more
Speaker 1: than what's already on the site from the from the
Speaker 1: retailer side of things, we make it very low effort,
Speaker 1: so it's easy to come on to the come onto
Speaker 1: the platform, but there is some configuration on our side
Speaker 1: to make sure that that whole all of address things
Speaker 1: that we were talking about before, that that assisted entry
Speaker 1: process for for customers is working late before we turned
Speaker 1: them live on the platform. What's the trick case part
Speaker 1: of what you're doing? Because I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that I'm thinking about is what I love about
Speaker 1: e commerce, and I definitely guide myself to places that
Speaker 1: are easy, that make the whole process for me easy
Speaker 1: if I need to return it. I like it when
Speaker 1: there's a brick and mortar that I have that flexibility. Um,
Speaker 1: what is it that you think you've got to make
Speaker 1: sure you're doing to really attract a lot of customers?
Speaker 1: I mean, how many customers right now do you have
Speaker 1: on your site? So like, I mean, we we only
Speaker 1: launched six so sorry, we have several thousand folks who
Speaker 1: have signed up, but daily order volume is still still
Speaker 1: quite modest. As we've not we've not really been turned
Speaker 1: on on marketing yet either. Okay, fair enough. So what
Speaker 1: do you think though, that you have to make sure
Speaker 1: makes sense? So consumers kind of get it and it's
Speaker 1: easy because you know, anything that makes it more difficult,
Speaker 1: people are going to find another option. No, absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: you know are what we're focused on right now is
Speaker 1: really consumers understanding what this all of address is and
Speaker 1: how it enables the service because it is something that's
Speaker 1: different from a traditional check out process. So we're working
Speaker 1: on things to make it even easier and more transparent
Speaker 1: to the customer around how the how the ALI experience works.
Speaker 1: And we've gotten tons of great feedback in our first
Speaker 1: month or so post launched on how to how to
Speaker 1: do just that for consumers, really really cool stuff, and
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back and kind of give us
Speaker 1: updates on how things are going. I've got to ask you, though,
Speaker 1: I'd be amiss by not reaching out to you. Just
Speaker 1: got about a minute or so left here. Uh, it
Speaker 1: feels like e commerce, Nate just exploded over the past year.
Speaker 1: What stands out for you over this these past twelve
Speaker 1: months and who do you think really just hit it
Speaker 1: out of the park And again, just got about a
Speaker 1: minute or so a little bit less. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: not to not to tout my former employer, but I
Speaker 1: think Walmart did a phenomenal job, especially leveraging their their
Speaker 1: their footprint of stores, and their fresh grocery offering with
Speaker 1: the simultaneous launch of the Walmart Plus offering, which I've
Speaker 1: signed up for myself as well. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a great service, all right, Good to good to know,
Speaker 1: Good to know. Hey, listen, do come back and let
Speaker 1: us know how things are going, especially as we get
Speaker 1: into the later months of the year. I love to
Speaker 1: get an update. Nate Fast, founder of Olive, co founder
Speaker 1: of Jet dot com which he was just talking about Walmart,
Speaker 1: and of course that was sold to Walmart back in
Speaker 1: two sixteen.