Merry Christmas,

especially if you are listening to this on Christmas Day,

which is when it is coming out.

Yes.

Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast.

My name is Matt Edmundson, and a very, very Merry Christmas to you.

Now, you, if you are listening to this on Christmas Day, maybe you're

escaping a. The in-laws for five minutes for no reason whatsoever.

Maybe you are on a walk with the dog while the Turkey does its thing in your stomach.

Maybe you are driving somewhere and needs something in your ears other

than the standard Christmas rhetoric.

I dunno, whatever brought you here.

Can I just say very merry?

Christmas to you.

Now, full disclosure, this isn't what I would call a proper episode,

proper episode, however we define that right, whatever that means.

Uh,

there's no framework, there's no experts, there's no downloads,

there's no four steps.

Just me, a cup of tea and a huge, massive thank you to you.

Given that it is Christmas, um, and we've been going through

the season of Christmas.

I'm wearing the Christmas jumper.

Um, I have, I've got about 15, I think I've mentioned this before in

the show, about 15 Christmas jumpers.

I love it.

Me and my daughter, we wear different Christmas jumpers every day.

We've, we've maybe got a problem, I'm not gonna lie.

Um.

But I've been thinking about Advent recently, mainly 'cause of the

Christmas jumpers, but also because I'm now involved in a company that

creates advent style gift experiences.

Right.

We've just recently taken that over.

Um, it's a sort of this idea of seven gifts on over sort of seven

days leading up to a birthday or an anniversary or a special occasion,

and of course Christmas, right.

Um, and so, yeah, I've been thinking about this because we were working

on some email messaging recently.

For the company, we're like, right, let's get a hold of the email message.

It's one of the first things that we did.

And shout out to George Bryant, uh, who's a friend of the show who's been on before.

Um, we just literally copied his Apple email sequence ideas and we

were just like, how does this work for, uh, advent style gift company?

Um, and so we, we started exploring that and we looked at that and we looked

at this idea of advent and what Advent actually means, because I didn't really

know, um, and it took me back in time.

When, when I started going down this.

Memory lane if you like.

Um, to, when I was a kid, I dunno if you remember being a kid at Christmas,

for me, Christmas was magical.

You know that feeling when December finally arrives and you get the

advent calendar, which counts down the sleeps to the next, the sort of big

adventure of Christmas Day, doesn't it?

And it's brilliant.

And you can't wait to open the next door on the Advent calendar,

and it just builds this anticipation and it becomes so thick.

That as a kid you can sort of barely stand it really.

And it wasn't just about the chocolate, although obviously

the chocolate actually helped.

It was about knowing something wonderful was coming, you know, the

waiting in effect, the anticipation was the magic, wasn't it?

And I wonder, I wonder when most of us lost that feeling, that sort

of sense as we climbed through our teenage years into our early twenties.

And if you're like me, maybe you discovered it again when you

started having your own kids.

And that's just a whole new level of wonderfulness, isn't it?

Now, the word advent I have discovered comes from the Latin Adventus.

I'm not a Latin scholar.

Uh, uh, the, the internet had to tell me this, uh, but it comes

from the Latin word Adventus.

Now,

Adventus means the arrival of something wonderful

and whilst the majority of the world uses it for December, which I appreciate and

think is a good thing, I also now think.

Uh, understanding that if it's the arrival of something wonderful,

that can happen anywhere, can't it?

With a birthday, with an anniversary, um, even on random Tuesdays, you know,

where someone needs reminding that they are special and that they are loved Now.

Uh, I know that, uh, not everyone right has these sort of warm,

fuzzy Christmas memories.

Uh, for some of you, this season is complicated and possibly even painful.

And if that's you, I'm sorry.

God bless you.

This is not meant to gloss over that in any way.

But I was fortunate, um, very fortunate as a kid, I have really

good memories of Christmas growing up.

And this year, like I say, thinking about advent, those memories did

come flooding back in the best way.

So in this spirit of Christmas, and because, because I just really can't help

myself if I'm honest, uh, I, I started to think, well, how does eCommerce

connect with the nativity story now?

Listen, um, I am, uh, personally a man of faith, so this isn't me

poking fun at something sacred.

Definitely not that right?

But there are some genuinely.

Interesting parallels between the Christmas story and

running an e-commerce business.

Now stay with me 'cause this is, these interesting parallels

are, well, they're tenuous.

Let's be real.

But that's okay because it's Christmas, right?

And so, uh, I think we're allowed to be slightly tenuous on Christmas.

Uh, so let's get into it, shall we?

I thought this would just be, you know, a warm.

Sort of way to do a Christmas Day podcast.

That's a bit of fun.

That's not as long, but just brings a nice Christmas sort of feel to the

eCommerce Podcast, so bear with me.

First we have the shepherds.

Okay?

Now, the shepherds were, well, they were humble workers out in the field

watching their flocks at night.

Now, we used to sing as kids.

Uh, they washed their socks at night.

Um, because, you know, that was funny and it still is, but let's

be, you know, whether they watched their socks or watched their flocks,

they're not exactly the right target demographic for an

announcement for a royal birth.

Right.

Um, so if you are thinking about doing a big product launch, you're like, you

identify who your niche market is, who are the best people to announce that?

Who are the influencers in that sector that we could use yet you wouldn't

have picked the shepherds, right?

For this, because for.

Well, they were societies, undesirables, let's just put it that way.

Yet they were chosen and it's interesting because they became the

first evangelist to this whole affair.

They find the baby Jesus.

They see what has happened and they're so moved by it and so connected to it.

They immediately started telling everyone what they had seen and

the Bible to this Bible story.

Bible story.

Lemme get that right.

Politics aside, uh, tells us that.

All who heard marveled at what the shepherds told them, people were

marveling, uh, at both the message and the fact that shepherds were telling it.

And so I wonder if Right, your early customers are a bit like mine in the

sense that they might not be the best.

Influencers, but they're the ones who discovered you before you were polished.

Before you had fancy branding and proper email sequences.

They found something genuine, uh, about you and they

couldn't stop talking about it.

And these early adopters, your shepherds if you like, they're

not the fancy influencers with the high follow account, but the ones.

Who authentically spread your story in a way that no

marketing budget could ever buy.

I remember at Jersey we had one of these ladies who wrote blogs,

um, just about her experience.

It bought in tens of thousands of pounds worth of sales every month, and this

was just a small, little beautiful lady who was blogging in another

country and they're out there right now telling people about your business

whilst you are eating Christmas dinner.

They're not out there demanding free samples, free products, you know,

and media rights and all that sort of stuff we get with influencers.

They are genuinely connected to your brand and I think they

are worth remembering today.

Uh, and just being grateful for them, you know, now.

That's the shepherds.

What about the manger?

Again, tenuous.

I get it, but hopefully you're sticking with me.

Jesus, as we know in the story, was laid in a manger, a feeding trough,

something that fed the animals.

He was wrapped in a cloth and it's not exactly, uh, the

expected birthplace for a king.

Yeah.

You know, I'm sure we could do better than that goes.

Yeah.

What happened was.

The wise men still bought their finest gifts, didn't they?

They recognise the true worth beyond the humble circumstances.

And what's this gotta do with the story, man?

What's this gotta do with e-commerce?

Well, your e-commerce business might not look impressive compared to say you

are well funded competitors, you know?

Your tech stack might be held together with, I don't know, hope and Zapier.

Oh, I love laughing at my own jokes.

Now, your warehouse might be your garage, I don't know.

But excellence isn't about having the fanciest infrastructure.

It is about faithfully serving your mission with whatever resources you have.

Now, the manger was definitely sufficient for its purpose, right?

Held the baby.

Um, so is your scrappy, bootstrap operation.

You know, as long as you are genuinely serving your customers well.

I don't think we, I think we give too much credence to it.

Sometimes it's sufficient.

For now, let's see what the next year brings.

Right.

And third, and perhaps my favorite part of the Christmas story is in fact, Joseph.

He is probably my hero actually in the nativity.

He barely gets any lines, doesn't he, in the school play and almost

no dialogue in the Bible itself.

But watch what he does, right?

He responds to, as the story would tell us angelic direction.

He takes Mary as his wife when it would've been easier not to.

He travels to Bethlehem for the census and he flees to Egypt

when he is warned and he returns.

Is told that it is safe.

So what's this got to do with the eCommerce business?

Well, each decision, uh, with Joseph required faith

and pretty immediate action.

If I'm honest with you, there's no fanfare.

No real recognition, just quiet, faithful execution of

what was asked of him, really.

And any commerce.

I think we all need to be a bit more like Joseph because

execution trumps intention every single time.

You can have brilliant strategies and beautiful brand guidelines

and ambitious growth plans.

2026 is coming up, man.

We are gonna kill it, but without disciplined follow through.

Fulfilling orders accurately responding to customers properly, showing

up consistently, day in, day out.

I think your business stalls and Joe's reliability in doing what was asked, even

when difficult or inconvenient, I think model something that we can all learn from

A man of quiet faithfulness, just doing the work without needing the spotlight.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Partly because it's Christmas and I can, and it's just a great story, but mostly

because I just wanted to say thank you and just encourage you this Christmas.

Thank you for being part of this community here at EP.

Whether you've been listening since the beginning, as I know a lot of you have.

Or you stumbled onto this particular episode and it's your first time with

us, whether you've implemented everything we've ever talked about on all the shows.

I, if you have, I really want to hear from you.

Uh, or whether you're just like having something in your ears

while you pack your orders.

I don't know.

You are here.

That definitely means something to me.

So, you know, lemme just encourage you because running an e-commerce

business, I think can be lonely.

The algorithm changes.

Don't care that you were up at two o'clock in the morning with a sick child.

The suppliers don't know about your cashflow, stress.

The customers don't even see the 17 problems that you solved before breakfast.

But I think in this community, we all get it.

We are all digital.

Davids in our own way.

We are all running at Giants, figuring out as we go, trying

to build something meaningful with the resources that we have.

And I'm genuinely grateful you've let me be a part of your journey this year.

So as you get back to whatever your Christmas Day looks like, the food,

the family, the chaos, the quiet,

I hope today has at least has a moment of that

Adventus feeling that something wonderful is coming

and I hope for you that it is because you are building it, right?

One order, one customer, one small improvement at a time.

So keep going.

A Merry Christmas.