Cressida Granger is the owner of Mathmos.com, a name you might actually remember as being the original creator and inventor of the famed lava lamp. She is a more recent member of the ECF community, and I wanted to get her on to talk about her story and her business because it is so incredibly interesting.
Listen in as Cressida shares how she manufactured a back-of-the-napkin deal for the iconic lava lamp brand, what happened when people found out that her patent on the lava lamp had expired, and why the business chose to move away from wholesale. We also discuss the Brexit challenges that have become part of the territory of shipping from Britain, as well as why Mathmos is making the move to a new e-commerce platform (and which one it is).
You’ll learn:
- The deal that Cressida made to purchase Mathmos. (3:45)
- The biggest mistakes she made during those early years. (9:00)
- What it was like after people realized the lava lamp patent had expired and how that impacted the business. (10:20)
- What the process of moving away from wholesale looked like. (12:50)
- How they got the team on board with saying no to large wholesale orders. (18:20)
- Where wholesale is trending in e-commerce. (20:00)
- How Brexit has impacted the overall business. (22:40)
- The platform Mathmos currently uses and the platform they are migrating to. (29:00)
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/ecommercefuel/EP371ECOMMERCEFUELv2.mp3
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(With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Cressida Granger of Mathmos.)
What Was Mentioned
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“It’s hard when you have a sales target to say no to a large order and yes to lots of little ones.” – Cressida Granger Click To Tweet
“If retailers are going to survive, they’re going to have to become more marketplaces. It’s hard to imagine how some of these big department stores can survive in the future, apart from renting space as a physical showroom.” – Cressida… Click To Tweet
“Brexit has created a world of pain.” – Cressida Granger Click To Tweet
Image credit to Mathmos featuring one of their original Lava Lamps.
