How THEY Turned a Campfire Idea into a Global Empire with Anna and Anika from Ringers Western

We are thrilled to bring you an exciting episode today with Anna and Anika from Ringers Western. These inspiring SHE-compreneurs have taken their love for the country and turned it into a thriving western wear brand. Join us as we delve into their journey from the Kimberleys to creating a nationwide sensation.

We chat: 
✨ The Beginnings: Growing up on a cattle station in the Kimberleys and how it shaped their entrepreneurial spirit. 
✨ Transition to Fashion: How they pivoted from cattle to creating a brand that fills a gap in the market. 
✨ Challenges and Successes: Navigating the hurdles of starting a clothing brand with no prior experience and scaling it to success. 
✨ The Power of Collaborations: From rodeo shows to major sporting teams, how strategic partnerships have boosted their brand. 
✨ Customer Connection: The importance of staying true to their roots and maintaining a personal touch with their customers. 
✨ Marketing Strategies: The role of social media, influencers, and customer service in their growth. 
✨ Future Plans: What's next for Ringers Western, including potential expansion to the US market. 

This episode is brought to you by Social Snowball - a trusted SHE-com partner for enhancing your e-commerce marketing.

If you're looking to boost your word-of-mouth marketing and drive more sales, Social Snowball is the tool you need. With Social Snowball, you can turn every customer into a brand ambassador effortlessly. Automate your affiliate program and watch your customer base grow organically. Visit Social Snowball to learn more about how they can help you supercharge your marketing strategy.

Resources and Links:

• Visit Ringers Western and explore their extensive range of Western wear.
• Follow Ringers Western on Instagram for updates and inspiration.
• Discover how Social Snowball can enhance your marketing efforts at socialsnowball.io.

Thank you for listening to this episode of SHE-talks! If you loved it be sure to click follow because the episode we have next week is one you WON’T want to miss.

WANT MORE:

• If you’re ready to scale your e-commerce business but aren’t sure where to start, book your FREE 60-Minute Quick Wins Session with our team today. Discover simple, actionable tips that will help you achieve quick wins in your e-commerce journey.
• Feeling stuck, lonely, or overwhelmed in your business? Want to triple your ROI with the support of Australia’s top e-commerce coaches? Check out The Academy - triple your ROI, or we’ll work with you until you do!
• Got an idea for an episode or just want to connect? Reach out to us on Instagram at @shecom.co.

Transcript

Lisa Jones (00:04.882)
So guys, welcome to the podcast. We have Anna and Anika from Ringers Western, and we are so excited to crush on your brand and learn everything we can about your journey today. Welcome to the podcast.

Anna (00:20.642)
Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. Nice to be here.

Lisa Jones (00:24.523)
We, and I in prepping for this podcast today could have written about 18 pages of notes of things we wanna know about your journey. And of course we only have around about 45 minutes to chat. So we're gonna go a bit rogue today and we're gonna actually try really hard to have just a really epic banter about your journey because we both personally, and I mega crush on your brand. I know I've just come out of living in Cairns and there's a Ringer's Western shop in our local shops in Cairns and I just.

stalking your brand, your website, your socials today, what you guys have done in such a short period of time is honestly astonishing. So firstly, like massive kudos, but I'm sure the journey has been quite interesting. So I want to chuck it to you to start with, like tell us a little bit about the story of how it started, what inspired you to start

Anna (01:08.428)
Okay, so firstly, we came from a background of we grew up on a cattle station in the Kimberleys. So I myself was actually born on the side of the road on the way up to the Kimberleys. I wasn't due for another four weeks and I decided that I wanted to come a bit earlier to join in. So yeah, I was born on the side of the road on the way. We grew up on a cattle station. So we lived the life of that. And then

We obviously went, we went, came back and went to school in Adelaide. Once our, my, and my siblings had grown up, we decided that we wanted to go back to the Kimberleys where our heritage was from and basically start up again and do cattle. An opportunity actually became available on the same station that we had and we grew up on in the Kimberleys, which was El Questro. So we took on my brother, one of my older brothers, James, who is now our CEO. He is

just a cattle whisperer, like that's his life, his cattle, horses. Maybe yellow, might be a bit more appropriate. On the land. he took charge of that. We got the cattle lease back on El Questro and we basically started to build our life again on the station. And we call it the Wild West because up there it's like no other. The cattle are completely different to what you would experience anywhere else in Australia.

And then I guess long story short, we were going through tons of brands, tons of clothes. A few of our favorite, one of our favorite brands was RM Williams is a household name. We grew up wearing RMs. I guess we just got to the point where we were like, you know what, we should, there were just different things like, you my brothers and I all have quite long limbs. So we wanted clothing.

that kind of fit us and did the purpose that we needed it to do. Kind of sitting around the fire, may have had a few too many beers and we sort of thought, hey, let's just create our own brand. What can possibly go wrong? So that was kind of the start.

Mel Haque (03:21.244)
mean, it's about the best ideas come from, right? It's, you know, beers, fire, done. I just, I just needed to really quickly ask. El Questro is in not far from Cananara. Is that, I, have I got my, am I, yes. Okay. Self, I was going to say, born and bred country girl over here. And my family spent a lot of time up at Cananara, but I'm from Southwest Queensland. So I do know the area, but also, know, Lisa's a, what would you call yourself Lisa? Self -proclaimed country girl. Can't get herself out of campfires and wannabe.

Anna (03:31.342)
Right, yes, about 45 minutes,

Anna (03:41.546)
Thank

Lisa Jones (03:46.556)
No, wannabe farm girl, wannabe farm girl. I even bought a camp drafting horse for a few years because I was going to be a country girl and then I realized that as you get older, when you fall off when you're camp drafting, it's fast paced and I got a little scared.

Anna (03:59.543)
Yeah, that's proper country. So you've both been to Kandunara?

Lisa Jones (04:06.64)
No, El Questro is on my list of like, we're gonna get there one day. We're gonna do the Tanami. We're gonna do the whole thing in a camper van, but I have kids, so you know.

Anna (04:13.718)
Yeah, also. El Questre itself is a very, very special part of Australia. And I would encourage everyone to go. It's just, it's a really raw part of the world. it's so, but then it has these beautiful like waterfalls, I'm not sure. Mel, if you've been to El Questre, have you?

Mel Haque (04:33.192)
Look, it's so I haven't been to El Cuesto itself, but I know where it is. But all the way up there, like it's just so beautiful and 100 % agree for all the Aussies out there who, you know, I'm an Aussie that has seen a lot of Australia, but I also spend all my holidays overseas. You know, it is really, really amazing for us to travel here and see what we have at home as well. So big fans as well. So yeah, I hadn't caught that little piece of your story. I love it. Makes sense

Anna (04:37.208)
Yeah.

Anna (04:49.57)
Yeah.

Yeah, that is where like the brand started and I think that is so much really a part of kind of our kind of the spirit of Ringers Western is from that country. I mean we're very much Queensland as well but that's where we were born. So it's that kind of raw but kind of the beauty of the Kimberley and that's also where we were when we started like you mentioned later on about the social media. Kind of we pivoted the social media platform before Ringers Western was all of

the landscape of the Kimberley, that's kind of where the growing started from. So yeah, definitely very much our origin

Lisa Jones (05:32.776)
Now, before we talk more about the business story, I have to ask you, you talked about the Cattler a bit different up there. There is a fabulous show on television. I think there was two seasons of it. Is it called The Ringer? The Ringers? Ring? my God, my husband and I were addicted to it with the women and the pearls and she had the big brace that catches the wild cattle.

Anna (05:50.402)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Very much. Yeah, yeah. Very much. Our cattle are, they're like they've never seen people. So when they see people, we specifically have to stay on horses when we're mustering them or in the choppers or the motorbikes. If you hop off the horse, completely, they either freak out and go or they freak out and come at you and...

really want to get you. They've never seen a human before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't get caught. Do not get caught one on one with them in the yards. That's no. Station that we're on. Yeah. It was a, it's a million acres and we're running about 9 ,000 head of cattle at the time. So people would often say to us, Oh, like, um, where's your, where's your, where's your front gate? we're like, Oh, two days that way.

Lisa Jones (06:21.746)
alien -like figure.

Mel Haque (06:23.282)
So run, is that what you're saying? Run. Or just don't.

Lisa Jones (06:31.23)
Sorry.

Anna (06:48.054)
It's a kind of... Yeah.

Mel Haque (06:48.904)
So, you know, we, very much established your deep country roots. so country roots growing up this way, transitioning to let's call it a fashion label, but you know, it's a country fashion label or the same. how does that happen? Like, how do you guys go like have the knowledge to go and do this? Like what's that transition been like for you

Anna (07:11.928)
So I guess that was probably one of our biggest challenges is number one, we had no experience when it came to clothing. Like obviously I had a love of fashion, but for me, I'm a country girl. I love being out on the land with the animals, but we had no experience whatsoever. we literally, everything we had to do was self -taught. We just had to ask people.

or we just do it and we fall and we get up and we learn. that's, a lot of that. but I think the brand really, like within the first month, the first month of, of launching online, the turnover, knew that we would immediately was, this was going to be scaling. Like it was just the reception that we got. knew that we had to, we were all in the Kimberly at the time. And so.

we just made the decision, a few of us had to head across to the East Coast, because obviously you can't ship from the Kimberleys to get to our customers in any decent level of time. So yeah, like a few of us then headed across to the East Coast. And then from that point, we started, know, as the business grew, found staff who had the knowledge that we didn't have, because we were just a bunch

cowboys and jilleroo's. That's what we knew. We knew how to count cattle. But yeah, that was really interesting. I think the one thing we did know is we knew what we wanted in clothing and what we wanted actually hit a gap in the market. was RM moved out, given up their sort of, I guess, Australian range of just like the basics.

And that's what we knew what we wanted. So I guess from there, and there's a gap in the market, it hit a sweet spot.

Lisa Jones (09:12.18)
that's what I want to talk about because I think like looking at it from the outside and even going all over your website this morning to see the extensive ranges that you've gone into. It might have started with say apparel, but you've clearly got boots that rival RMs and Ariat. You've got a Cobra like hats. You've got dry as a bone style jackets. you've really, I guess diversified the ranges that you offer to your customer base. But I know in what you've started, like would I be right in assuming and correct me if I'm wrong.

Like I also grew up wearing RM Williams boots and also some of their clothing, but it's not cheap. And I think that there's also, if you're going to wear apparel on a property, like you're going to catch your shirt on a barbed wire and rip it, right? Like you're going to damage your clothes a lot. So would I be right in assuming that your niche that you found was big because a lot of people had the desire to have cool Western clothes, but wanted it to be more affordable? Is that where you guys started?

Anna (10:03.086)
Yeah, so one of our main things was is we couldn't supply all, we loved RMs, but we couldn't supply all of our station hands or family or anything with those products because they were too expensive. So I guess where we came from was if we can supply something that is really good quality, but we're not going to, we're going to offer a very good price range.

then that's what we, that's our number one aim is always to not compromise on quality, but to offer a price range that everybody is comfortable to the majority of people. think the timing, think of kind of when we started as well, we were kind of caught in that slipstream of social media and e -commerce. And I guess our main customers being country that kind of really, we kind of really got that market early on like

Lisa Jones (10:40.062)
So let's talk, sorry, you go, Anna.

Anna (10:57.987)
the younger market as well. So I think that both of those things in combination were just helped and get the

Lisa Jones (11:05.406)
And I think that's a testament to finding a market that is ready for a product like yours. Like I think from what I'm hearing, and I'd love to hear more now about, so you've identified there's a niche, you've bought some product ranges out, you've started to get some success, you've recognized dispatching from the Kimberle's doesn't work, so you've relocated to the East Coast, and I know you're headquartered in Gold Coast now. Like tell us more about that next year, two years, three years, and how, like I mean, I'm assuming there's a

whole bunch of fuck ups and highs and lows and hard work. And I just want to tell me some of the pieces, because our listeners will be like nodding their heads at everything you share, I'm sure.

Anna (11:40.946)
Hopefully not everything that we're sharing. Yeah, I guess after moving across to the East Coast, you did a lot of the rodeo rounds, right? Yeah, so we came across and the first thing we did was we had to get around to all the local shows, rodeos, events. So we basically packed up a van and we just traveled. I was on the road for six weeks at a time.

with another one of our family members. And we would just go to every possible show basically just for brand recognition. So obviously in the beginning you wanna try and manage your overheads as much as possible. So a lot of our growth was we tried to get it from organic growth. So obviously we had our Instagram up and running prior which was telling people the life we live on a cattle station. And just that seemed to really expand because people have never seen anything like that before.

So yeah, so we went round to shows. Did you do Denny Yeat? Yeah, I Denny Yeat. you heard of Denny Yeat, Master? Yes, yes. That was insane. Yeah, yeah. I that was our biggest rodeo at the very start, wasn't it? That was just a complete eye -opener. I don't know where these people come from, but it was a complete eye -opener.

Mel Haque (12:45.568)
everyone's heard of Denny Ute Master, haven't they?

Anna (13:01.762)
Let's just say when we brought out our underwear that the men, yeah, men would get around in the ladies G -strings. That's the kind of rodeo we're talking about. So they, they, we do the Denny Uke master every year. I'm set to go up there again this year. So yeah, prepping, prepping my soul for

Mel Haque (13:21.97)
So you still do a lot of events and shows and the big rodeos, cetera. So that's just still something that has stuck with your distribution and I guess awareness.

Anna (13:29.716)
So yeah, yeah. So just back on. So when we were doing the shows, then had what we do now, some of the major ones that we sponsor, but we have the trucks. So we have some wholesale trucks that have come on board and basically said, we just only want to be Ringers Western. So you know how you used to see the big RMs truck travel around Australia?

So we've got about four of those on the road that are privately owned and those guys are great. They only want to sell ringers. You see ringers traveling around Australia and we help them with different events that they get sent to and set up too. So everyone knows the trucks.

Mel Haque (14:11.118)
So great. And so you've actually had a lot of partnerships and collaborations over over time. I see we've noticed that you have some amazing ones at the moment and have, what do we got? Canary Bulldogs, Titans, Hawthorne footy teams, Hawks. I'm a Hawks fans down here. So feels good. Bundy Rum, that feels right as well. So, you know, how did like bring that on? How did all of these come about? And, know, what sort

Anna (14:24.558)
So you and I failed all the way. Are you guys? No.

Mel Haque (14:38.842)
awareness has impacted, it helped you grow your customer base?

Anna (14:43.53)
Absolutely, I think our very first collaboration was I think in the first second year that we started and after coming across to the East Coast was Outback Spectacular, which is run, know, really showed shows. That was a really interesting how that all came about because my son actually went to school with a general manager's son and we went to his year six to graduation.

Mel Haque (14:57.367)
yes.

Anna (15:09.862)
And he was telling me, Aaron Williams have just pulled out of the sponsorship that day. And I was like, is this fate? Like I was, it was like, this must be something. So kind of at that point, we went back to the team and we all just kind of got together and we're like, it was a big investment for us. We really had to dig deep. and we all just kind of got together and did what we have to do to come up with

what we needed, but I think that was a sink or swim moment for us. We, we could, I, was like a, let's just do it. And we're either going to make it or break it. was pretty big. And I guess, I mean, that's the thing sometimes when you, when you're growing like that, you've got those decisions come along and they are big decisions that could, like you say, make or break. But I mean, we, we use it and just then put everything in from there. Got our

you know, the name, the brand got put on the roof about that spectacular and they all the, all of the, what do call them? Actors? They all wore our gear. And yeah, so we kind of, that was probably our very first collaboration. And then from there, I guess with all the sporting teams that, mean, that was, that's very much the essence of the brand as well. Cause I guess rugby and.

Footy is just purely Australian. So that's really kind of the spirit, just that real close, I guess, collaboration with all of those sporting teams is, I mean, there things that are not always easy to measure. And again, they are risky as well. I mean, even if there's a contra component, it's still a cash outlay from us. So it's always, they've always been a

Mel Haque (16:45.266)
Mmm.

Anna (16:59.234)
something for us to invest in and it is risky, especially when you can't measure it. Like say we'd say Facebook, which you can see that move with your sales.

Lisa Jones (17:11.45)
It's true, but there's something about authority, isn't there, about building and the building blocks. And I know a lot of our listeners will relate to this. It might not be the Canterbury Bulldogs, but we'll do a collaboration with another brand or that opportune moment in which something falls into your lap. And I'm with you. Like I've had some of those myself where you think, should I do this? Can I afford not to do this? Could it break me? But I think if you really back yourself, you've got to take

those moments and you're right, they might not always be quantifiable, but they always, in my experience anyway, they've always been a rung on the ladder that leads to the next rung and you can't jump four rungs on its own. You've got to take every rung as a next

Anna (17:51.438)
Collaborations, it's just essential for business growth. You have to do collaborations and it's finding the right collaboration so that align with your brand, with your ideals. So it's not just, yeah, let's just go collaborate with da, da, da. You have to go, is this in line with what we're doing and where we want to go? Is this our brand? Yeah, it's just our brand.

We've got to the point now, I guess, where we get a lot of people now coming to us. most of those football teams have approached us wanting us to collaborate with them. it's always that balance of saying, you know, who's your customer? Are they our customer or can they help grow our customer base and go where we want to go?

Lisa Jones (18:36.84)
think it's about the cleverness of a collaboration though too, like some examples, because I know Mel will have her own with Wildo, but my brand Shecom here, we are at the moment collaborating with say the two biggest retail e -commerce conferences in Australia, Retailfest and Online Retailer and their household brand names. And we go into their expos and we have collabs with them where

hold ladies lounges at them. And so I think my definition of a good collab is that we can go up on a couple of rungs on one slide up the snake ladder where we're partnering with much bigger brand names than we are. So we kind of use their light to amplify back to us. And what I'm hearing from you as well is that that's how the Outback Spectacular thing started because I'm sure that led to more collaborations because you were in that space.

Anna (19:21.746)
Yeah, The Outback Spectacular actually put us on the rung. Before that, we were just a startup business. When we took that on, was the aim, is we just thought, you know what? Either way, this is going to put us in the market. That's exactly what it did. I think it forced us to do that as well. I think we all went, okay, this is it. Yeah, I agree with that. I think from

Mel Haque (19:47.984)
It's such a good show and it's such a good partnership. but so many of these as well. we're talking about big kind of sponsorships and partnerships. What about when we pull that down a little bit, you know, we can see, even just from your social media that you've got a lot of content creators out there, like they're on farms across Australia and sort of even more on like that smaller scale. How have you used these smaller collaborations to really try and I guess, boost your social following, which is massive by the way.

Anna (20:14.678)
Yeah, yeah.

Mel Haque (20:15.144)
And what sort of tips do you have for other brands out there who are collaborating with others more on this smaller scale? And how are you leveraging

Anna (20:23.288)
So I think, I'm not sure what you think, but what we've found is that it's not just about collaborating with the big brands because not your everyday farmer is going to be able to relate to them. So if you have the girl next door that loves wearing the gear, they're out on the station every day or they're doing what they love doing, I can relate to that. they're the same as me. Like, fire out, that's what they're wearing.

I can wear that too, I really like that. And it's just more relatable, I guess, to a lot of our customers who like that more personable approach. So I guess you can't just do, it's not just about the big ones, it's also about the little ones. And we find that there's a lot of people who obviously really love enjoying and wear our gear. So it just helps, I guess, that market.

And I think you'll probably notice we don't use size six models. We don't use like your traditional ones. And that's, I guess that that's a part of the brand as well. It's important for us to be very relatable. And that's, we've always had that focus from the very beginning that that's kind of what the brand is. Would you agree with that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mel Haque (21:45.095)
mean, you're selling to country folk, there are no BS type of people out there. So as a brand, feels right that that's what you're building. And that's who you are as well. So, you know, we all need to be relatable and authentic. And it feels like you're, you, think the power that comes from, you know, you are your customer first and foremost, and having that awareness. And then also I feel like there's a certain almost like personality and authenticity and the values you grab if you're a country person, not to discredit anybody who's not,

Anna (21:48.654)
No, I would not.

Anna (22:02.558)
Yeah.

Mel Haque (22:13.352)
You're a different type of person. always think that and I love that about myself, particularly and I'm I'm city. I've been in Melbourne for 16 years now. So but don't you worry. I still claim country every second I can because

Anna (22:24.718)
I think that's it's good point you said that actually because I think what we have found going through this journey is that there's either the countryside who really love the city side or there's the city side who are country at heart and it constantly crosses over and I guess that's why we've had to do a much of a range.

because we've had to include everybody because it's not just country and it's not just city. It's the both want to enjoy the both. And I find that with Australians is a lot of the people that we've come across is we'll meet an everyday person who's lived in the city and all they talk about is their love of the country and how one day they want that. You know what I mean? So to them, when they wear those boots or they wear that our brand, it gives them that little bit of a feel that yeah, I can, I love this, know.

Lisa Jones (23:17.012)
It's a connection to their dream and I can relate to that. That's one of my pieces. I want to end up on a farm. So I think that's that wannabe farm girl part in all of us. And can attest to working in corporate offices where 75 % of the men are in Aaron Williams outfits nonstop, but they work in the middle of Brisbane CBD.

Anna (23:24.592)
Yeah,

Anna (23:34.574)
I think that whole, I mean, you can feel right now there's that whole country movement, know, with Beyonce and everyone's like really jumping on the country trend. I think innately, like every person, like every city or country, everyone really identifies and loves those country values. And I think that's kind of where as a brand we've like tried to hold on to those things

When you think about a country person, you think about integrity, you think about someone who the values, don't BS. And so in kind of as a business model, we've always kind of tried to keep to those values in all of our dealings, whether it be with staff, whether it be suppliers, customers, like all of our relationships, those are the values that we've really focused on.

Lisa Jones (24:08.148)
the values.

Lisa Jones (24:30.686)
So you mentioned business model and I want to touch on that because I can attest to a business model here at Shecom that's so complicated that our team are always scrambling. And I'm looking at your business model and I know that you have bricks and mortar stores. You've obviously got the trucks which go to all kinds of cool places. I know that you're doing these uniforms and possibly a lot more uniforms than we've just talked about when it comes to sporting teams, like plus e -commerce. Like we're already talking about a really complex model. Like talk us through.

how you're deciding on your model and how often it changes and then the challenges that it comes from being in multiple places as you're going through hyper growth over the last eight years.

Anna (25:08.078)
think, yeah, that's from year to year. Currently, so online, in the majority, it's kind of always at least at around 50, sometimes it go 50, 60 % of kind of our whole overall sale volume. That's always been quite steady. So it's obviously our biggest sort of revenue channel. And then the other sort of departments we call them are the stores, which...

more recently have really grown. think off the back of COVID, it looks like people are desiring that physical experience. Yeah, they want to try it on. mean, that's skill. We have five corporate -owned stores, about to be six. We're opening one in Townsville next month in August. And so they're our...

Lisa Jones (25:46.516)
trying it

Mel Haque (25:50.482)
How many swords do you have

Anna (26:03.63)
company -owned stores. And then we have stockists and stockists include some stockists who are franchise style. So they run a store that's just a ring is Western branded store. And we have over 200 stockists in Australia and stockists overseas as well. So we've got like New Caledonia, New Zealand, England. it kind of that, that's, yeah. So the stores are and expanding.

So then it's kind of breaking up between that and what we call our corporate department, which will be really big corporate customers, the likes of Nutrient, which used to be Landmark. we've got a few sort of bigger customers like that where we kind of do a full uniform service for them, where they have their own website access where all their staff will jump online.

their uniform. that's kind of another probably not really well known to the general public that we do that. But that's been a really and when you talk about collaboration, that's been a really, really good collaboration. And we've worked really closely with them. Maybe you can tell a bit of the story of how we got that gig. That's a good one. I don't think it's much of a story.

Mel Haque (27:21.052)
Definitely do

Anna (27:27.278)
Just back on what you're saying first with our business model, just to make it simple and break it down. So when you first start up our main thing, and I think with any business is watching our overheads. So we start off doing it, did everything as much as possible ourselves. We went around and did all of our, you know, to all the events and stuff like that. After that, we then had a lot of stores contacting us, asking us to

in the different states of Australia. So for us, that was an easier avenue or a much more costly effective avenue than starting up our own bricks and mortar store. They have a lot more overheads. So naturally we went from just stocking online to then going into wholesalers. So we could get the brand out there, but it wasn't much overheads to us. After that, we had built

bit more of a name for ourselves, we were more of a household name. So therefore it could justify us going into to actually solidify us as an actual brand. We then started getting our own bricks and mortar stores now so that it's an actual solidity. It's a brand that's here and we can expand into those stores.

Lisa Jones (28:46.196)
I'm just going to say that must come with a lot of headaches though. I instantly, my brain is thinking that's a lot of humanness. It's a lot, you know what? It's the resources that we all lack. It's time and money and time being people and skills. like tell it, I mean, we're talking about how incredible your brand is, but tell us some of the bits that maybe haven't worked or some of the lessons that you've learned as you've unfolded this model to where you are now.

Anna (28:56.898)
Yes.

Anna (29:09.166)
I can talk from it. I'll tell one story and then you can go with your other ones. I think one big point that I recall anyway, just because it really impacted the financial side and system side of things was we really scaled very quickly as you probably can see. We went from a really low turnover to a huge sales volume, outgrew all of our software and then found ourselves in the midst of our interfinancial year sale 2020.

and really had all these systems that we had really outgrown. So probably one what I'd call a fail, which we obviously did our best to kind of work through was we did a real huge oversell of product in our sale, which means that people were jumping on the website and they were ordering the same product, which we'd sold out of. So it was kind of after that sale where we,

We didn't expect such a volume on the sale and on the website. so the consequence of that was, know, we had to customer service was, you know, the next couple of weeks was just 24 by seven having to restitute, you know, all these customers who thought they had ordered something and couldn't grab it. you know, and we, and then all of the refunds and all of

Like it was quite a huge sellout. So I guess from that point, we saw how important it is to have like really good systems, that speak to each other. That's one of the biggest, I guess, challenges that we've found as we've scaled and grown is like, cause you can't really get a one in all system. have to have something that's integrated.

Lisa Jones (30:58.644)
let's be honest, like I've interviewed a lot of women on stages and on the podcasts over the years. And this is a really normal, unfortunately, fuck up that happens in scaling a brand. You get to a certain point, often it's around 10, 20 million a year rev, where suddenly the existing team skills as well as the software infrastructure, we have no longer copes. And I can tell you at least three or four off the top of my head who've suffered from a similar sale period, up with an inventory problem. But I'd love to know.

Anna (31:06.446)
Yeah.

Anna (31:23.874)
Wow. I hope everyone looks fun.

Lisa Jones (31:28.476)
Unfortunately, the story is too common, but you've obviously solved it now. And I think it's really important that everybody understands that whatever you choose today for your team and your systems is probably not what you need in a year's time. And it just needs constant upgrades as you go through the revenue barriers and the business model adjusts and changes. And where did you land on an ERP? Like what did you decide on software for inventory?

Anna (31:40.44)
Yeah.

Anna (31:49.752)
So we're using a product called, it's in UK software called PeopleVox that we use with NetSuite, which is an Oracle product. And then Shopify, which I think most, most big econ brands use that. know there's a lot of Shopify plus, yeah. Shopify plus. Yeah. I think our model, like we've spoken to a few other brands and they use similar. There's a lot of other brands who have

Lisa Jones (32:06.054)
Not Shopify Plus? yeah, perfect.

Anna (32:16.302)
same layout, I Culture Kings and we've got the Peoplebox, Shopify, NetSuite kind of combination. Yeah, and I mean, that whole piece about integrations and then obviously as everything evolves so quickly and one thing I think that's very hard to ascertain is do I invest now in some additional piece of software bearing in mind 50 % of the time, the software that you're using will often develop that in -house.

Lisa Jones (32:22.462)
Brilliant.

Anna (32:46.4)
in a year's time. it's that balance of what Anika was talking about overheads is really going, well, can I make do right now? Like, I know I might pay bit more in wages or I might have to spend a bit more time, but because so often things evolve so quickly software wise that I've found that happens so often. Shopify will build a connector. Whereas I might've spent, we might've spent like a hundred thousand dollars building something. So.

It's tricky to kind of navigate those. I mean, at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to. You have

Lisa Jones (33:20.616)
Can we just comment then that in business as we grow, there is always wasted money. Like I can attest to this as well, that like as you grow businesses, you look back and think, I probably shouldn't have invested that or that actually in hindsight didn't work. But this is actually just also a normal part of scaling a business. happens and you also, you don't know what you don't know. So you make the best decision at the time. And that's why we can't get shitty at ourselves later because this is actually just business, right?

Anna (33:42.477)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, exactly. Just accept it and then go, well, it's just a part of building what we are now. So try and look at it that way rather than just go having frustration of, what you could have, could have shoulda, woulda.

Mel Haque (34:02.32)
It's a journey. It's a journey. Everyone goes on and could have should have water would be really nice, but no one knows in retrospect, like what's going to happen and, just think of the lessons you've learned to get you where you are now. You can't, you can't buy that shit.

Anna (34:09.71)
You're right. You're right.

Anna (34:14.702)
No, you can't buy it. don't know what hurricane is going to hit when or when or when or why. You just deal with it as it comes. Look forward to them now. Every sale we all look at each other and we're like, okay, what's going to come up? going to hit us this? It doesn't matter how prepared we are. And every system check we do and every precaution we take, there's always something that happens and you just go afterwards.

We didn't even know that one was coming out. I think sometimes what's good though is that you do take those things in and build something out of it. Like, no, that sale might've gone wrong, but it was an opportunity where we could speak to our customers. Cause you know, the customers that always ultimately seem to build your brand are the ones who've had a problem that you've resolved and kept coming back to them. And I think what we try and do and our ethos, which is I think again,

our country ethos is we want to make sure someone who buys a $10 stubby gets the same treatment as our biggest corporate customer and feels that way. I think that's, that's kind of always, we've always hopped on about that. Like every day we have like a daily toolbox and we go over that and over that. importance of, of treating customers like they're, they're the number one at that point in

Lisa Jones (35:42.164)
Because that's culture, right? Like it's creating a culture not only for your team, but also for the way that you interact with customers. And that is what allows you to always stay connected to your grassroots reason why you started, right? So that as a business that like yours in eight years has grown unbelievably, that's how you stay true to your roots. I'm imagining that's part of

Anna (35:43.703)
See you soon.

Anna (36:01.406)
Yeah, yeah. 100 % because on that, remember when we started, we said to each other, no matter how big we get, we do not want to lose touch with our customers. And what I mean by that is we actually have a 24 hour phone line. I'm generally the one taking the 24 hour phone lines. And a funny story, I had a baby about two years ago.

and the phone was diverted through to me and it was probably about 12 a .m. I was breastfeeding and a call came through and I'm like, I'm really interested to see who's calling at 12 a .m. So I'm taking a call and it's a dear gentleman on the other line and he's working the mines and it's the only time he gets to call and he's like, I don't know how to work these computers. I just need someone to put an order through for me and I'm

Yep. No worries. Yep. Yep. Okay. One hand breastfeeding the other hand. I'm typing on the computer, putting an order through. This is 12 AM in the morning. So when you talk about staying true to our roots, we always said it doesn't matter how big we get, we will always have an owner of our business ready to go and answer any questions and we'll always be there. And that's why I guess I love having a real hand in the customer service side of things is that there's always

owner if they want to speak to them or want to get that answer straight away because I know it's very frustrating when I just need help and the poor person on the other line of the phone just doesn't have the authority to help me with that. I guess I find a lot of people who are like, I'm speaking to the owner, it's a big deal to them. They're not just speaking to a customer service representative. So I guess for us, that's one of our main things is we always want to stay in touch with our customers.

Mel Haque (37:48.924)
And I mean, I feel like for some businesses that don't have, you know, so many owners and founders involved, that's a little bit of a challenge, but also on the other hand, it's so important. feel like what I'm hearing here is it's so important that, you know, the founders and owners still need to keep involved. And even, know, if you're not that person who's always answering the phone at midnight, understanding who's calling and why they're calling and what's happening and make sure you're putting processes in place and really keeping across these details are important because that's what helps us drive drive, you know,

Anna (38:03.201)
Yes.

Anna (38:13.302)
I never said... Yeah, they are,

Mel Haque (38:17.938)
drive what we're building and how we're talking to our customers and your collections and everything. So I love that you've been able to really keep true to your roots in that way. And that's a great story. Never forget that one. I loved, I love it. Shows the power of females as well. We can do anything at all times. Just, just give it, just let us have a go. brilliant.

Anna (38:26.958)
Yeah. Exactly. We could both be childs.

Mel Haque (38:38.78)
I wanted to ask a little bit about your marketing. I've, can, it's, it's insane. I'm a marketer. I'm a marketer at heart. And I love looking at brands who, are a little bit different and doing something like really in their core. And you're talking to your customer so nicely out there, but what sort of, I, what sort of strategies or what channels out there really helping move the needle for you. And I guess more so like at the beginning verse now,

you know, where are you playing hard? is it a lot of socials? You're doing a lot of collaborations. Obviously we've heard a lot about your bigger partnerships for awareness and employing your brand and all these things end up working together. But if you, if you were going to, I'm going to ask both of you, if you're to tell me one strategy or one platform that you know is really making a difference for the business, what is

Anna (39:20.632)
Well, I mean, I think every business today has to, they have to use Facebook. They have to use Facebook and Instagram. We tried at one stage to going, okay, let's just see what happens, cut it away. But I think that's kind of where things are up to at this stage. I mean, that's inevitable that you're going to need that. Obviously at the same time, you want to make sure when what you are spending on those platforms, you're building a customer base at the moment. Cause that's obviously not going to cost you.

well, it's gonna cost you less. So that's obviously what you're trying to do. from my perspective, that's a given. mean, like there's always TikTok and those other platforms as well, which we utilize, but that's kind of your given really. I would agree with that. this Facebook is obviously a very big component of our marketing.

At the same time, it's on the bigger picture. You can't forget about doing your collaborations on Instagram and getting your influences coming in and, you know, loving the brand and then going and promoting the brand. You can't forget about those things. You can't forget about going out and doing your photo shoots on different properties or on your own property or meeting people and engaging them in what you're doing. It's a very big part of the business as well. So in essence, yes, it is Facebook,

the other avenues that we are using, we can't just stop those and just use Facebook because they're the next part of the picture. So we've found that to still be very good in our use of marketing.

Mel Haque (41:00.146)
And it sounds a little bit like, know, we're really talking about this whole funnel, right? It's the new, new, new people coming in the top, which is your ads, et cetera. But then it's pulling right down to the bottom and creating that loyalty as well. And you know, those advocates for our brands out there as well. So, and I think that's also really important. And I love that you've both mentioned the complete opposite end of the spectrum of that marketing funnel as well, because you know, you can't have people advocate for you if you're not

turning them into loyal customers and partnering with the right ones out there. But also we can't grow a brand if we don't have more people coming in the top as well. you know, the middle part there is obviously important, but I love that there's those two ends that just got focused on as well, because they are, they, know, without eat both of them, we can't run and grow a business.

Anna (41:43.192)
think too, just to touch, just to elaborate on that is you can't forget that one of your best ways of marketing is word of mouth. And that's why we focus a lot on our customer service. So you could have the best ads out there, but if you don't have good customer service, you're not going to be talked about or people aren't going to refer you. They're not going to tell your families or your friends about it. I guess for us, do do it. One of our main emphasis is making sure that our customer is always looked after no matter

Lisa Jones (42:12.68)
Yeah, and I'd love to summarize that for the listener because it's a really, really, really important part of building a scalable e -commerce brand is the balance between the funnel, right? So as a business, we have to have some cold traffic coming in constantly. And we've just had a realization here at Shecom that we got so busy in the last six months that we forgot to bring our top of funnel. We didn't turn the taps on for six months and for a while it was fine. And then suddenly we're like, shit, right? But then equally...

A lot of businesses are so focused on top of funnel Facebook ads, bringing cold traffic in, cold, cold, cold, cold. And they don't serve their audience well enough to shut the back door and keep those people buying from them constantly. And I refer to 50 -50 in my mind. 50 % repeat customer rate shows that you have 50 % of your business still coming in cold new because we always need to be doing that in order to scale revenues. But you want to

Anna (42:41.666)
Yeah.

Anna (42:48.62)
Ron.

Anna (42:58.07)
Yeah.

Lisa Jones (43:00.308)
a minimum of 50 % repeat customer rate, because if yours is only like 10 or 20%, and I do find brands that have got this, then you're not looking after your customers, or you have products that are not repeat purchasable, which occasionally happens, but that's not your problem. Your problem shouldn't be that. Your problem should be a family should become a ringers family and never leave, right? How does that work? Like what do your numbers look like? And how do you focus on making sure that the whole family, only buy Ringers Western forever?

Anna (43:08.034)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Anna (43:17.87)
Yeah, 100%.

Anna (43:27.746)
Well, what we've found is our type of customer, they're pretty, they're like myself, they're pretty simple. If I find a product that I love, I will buy all of the products and I'll, I love this jumper, I own five of these jumpers. So if I love it, I'm going to buy it. And that's what our customer is. They're not, they're not

So they'll come in and they'll be like, right, you know, I'm the mom, I'm gonna buy all my family now, you're all wearing ringers because it's good quality at last, it does this. I guess for us, it's noting what our customer is and then making sure we look after that need, especially for our returning customers. Making sure we've got the stock. Yeah. Obviously that comes along with that. Yeah, we don't, yeah, make sure we've got that and also that we don't...

Obviously we want to engage new customers as well, but we don't forget about those customers and what they want. So we always have our core range that will always supply to those ones. that's definitely been a journey. Because obviously your core range will grow and work shirts, for example, is something that is probably one of our biggest products. You get the country blokes who come in and they 10 of them because they want

they don't want to be sorted for the next year. So yeah, just making sure we've not a down like color, the colors and making sure that we've always got those in stock.

Lisa Jones (44:54.036)
And I do think like making sure that we've got a mix of paid cold traffic coming in, but also retaining our customers to keep buying from us does help with profitability. And I know that for you guys in eight years in your massive revenue growth, there will have been moments at which, you know, there will have been periods of loss and or periods in which money was tight. And I know that you've done some capital raising. So I know that it's different for every.

woman who's scaling an e -commerce brand and will have listeners on the podcast who perhaps haven't even started their brand right through to women who are scaling to exit massive revenues. There'll be everyone in between as listeners. So have you got any tips from your times during which you've run out of money and or went, fuck it, need debt, fuck it, we need to sell some equity. Like tell us, tell us what you've learned in your cap raising experience.

Anna (45:41.614)
Well, I definitely think that like we've said about when it comes to collaborations, the important piece when it comes to any equity raising is making sure that you have that same review process of the person that you're going to partner up with. Because if you're entering into a transaction like that, you've got to make sure that those people also have the same values as you.

I mean, that can cause some great issues if you're operating with people who don't have good integrity and don't have good values and openness to working together. So 100%, very, very important to make sure that you're doing your own kind of audit process on what you're looking for. If you're getting approached for that kind of thing. I mean, there's obviously a range of different options to look at.

whether you get working capital or whatever type of avenue there is, either of them, I think that's pretty fundamental to consider that from our experience.

Lisa Jones (46:57.522)
Awesome!

Mel Haque (47:00.114)
Okay. So I want to know what does the next say five years look like for you guys? You know, we've spoken a lot about, know, your big distribution here in Australia. You've got some stockists internationally. We also already spoke about Beyonce and this ain't Texas. I guess it's ringers. what, thanks for laughing. I appreciate that. but like, what does it look like? You know, is the, is the U S on the horizon? Are you there already? Like where do you see yourself going in the next sort of five years? What's the plan?

Anna (47:28.098)
With the US, that's kind of been really organic for us. We've always intended to have a big project of moving across there, but it's kind of always something else has come up in the interim. it keeps getting delayed. In the interim, we've had some real organic growth. For example, we get some musicians who, I think it's Drew Baldwin music.

who just for some reason found a hat somewhere. He's an American artist and just wears them in every single wheel. And he has this like amazing song and he's grown from like under a hundred thousand now he's got half a million followers. And we literally like have tried to like give him the hats but he just keeps buying them. So he's like organically like just wearing our products. And then obviously you see that reflected in our US that those hats will sell really

on our US website, yeah, definitely something that we want to move to next. And I guess something we're really excited about our next opportunity now that we've kind of, you know, settled the Australian market, which is still growing, but we're all like planning for that time. So hopefully it will be next year that we kind of start building more over in the US. Not sure about the current climate and we'll see what happens with the election.

Mel Haque (48:55.0)
always challenging times and something that I've learned for all aspects is sometimes it feels like there's never the right time to do these things and and sometimes you will be surprised. So when when you put full force into it, good luck. can't wait to see how it is. We yeah, everything you're doing here has been phenomenal. So I can't wait to see any more. Hey, music videos, ring it. Let's it'll happen.

Anna (49:01.964)
Hmm.

Yeah, you have to do

Anna (49:09.08)
Yeah, yeah.

Anna (49:15.512)
That's

Lisa Jones (49:18.644)
Yeah, guys, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast today. I know that we will be absolutely and utterly behind you every step of the way as you go through your next eight years of growth and cannot wait to see what unfolds. If you can do this in eight years, what can you do in 16?

Anna (49:33.112)
That's right,

Mel Haque (49:35.74)
We do need to end though with one last question that we love to ask everybody on this podcast. And I I'm really excited to see what you're going to say from it. And look, there's no right or wrong answer here. And that's why I love the question so much. So to you guys, what does success look

Anna (49:53.134)
six, I guess for success for me looks like having a very good support system and that's, family, friends, or the people you work with, guess for me that's, that's very important. think, you can never do anything on your own. you always need someone there. So it's having a very good support system that you can trust. I agree with that a hundred percent. in that being like what's been.

I really appreciate it is just being able to work with family so much in our business. Like my kids, my daughters all come in, my eldest daughter, she'll work at one of the stores and then my youngest daughter wants to be a fashion designer. So she gets to come in and spend time with the designers. So I love that we're a family business and that we've got that opportunity where it's bigger than just us. Like we can see that there's a next generation coming along and we can pass that down.

Mel Haque (50:51.644)
And how wonderful that it started out as family and now the next generation is coming into continue, you know, potentially continue it along as well. One day that I feel like I get goosebumps thinking about that. That, feels so lovely as well. I've so enjoyed talking to you ladies today. This has been just the best story ever. Lisa, how long till we're both kidded out and ring as Western's gear? Is that what's happening?

Anna (50:58.316)
Yeah, yeah, course, yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah,

Lisa Jones (51:13.147)
About a week.

Anna (51:14.318)
Getting bolo ties. I think you would rock that Lisa.

Lisa Jones (51:20.148)
It sounds great. Thank you so much, beautiful ladies. And we look forward to seeing you at other SheCom events because it's always a pleasure to get face to face as well as chatting to you on the podcast today. And I know from all of our listeners, they will be thrilled that you shared some of your story with us today on the podcast. So thank

Anna (51:29.88)
understand.

Anna (51:37.75)
Thanks, Brian, for having us. Thank you for having us. it. Thanks, Lady.

Lisa Jones (51:41.639)
Okay.