Two of the most respected and experienced leaders in Australia’s e-commerce industry have teamed up to fill a gap in the market for a full-service digital agency that takes a holistic approach to online growth. Paul Waddy, previously CEO of The Horse and head of operations at Showpo, and Mal Chia, previously CMO of Ryderwear and part of the launch of Uber in Australia, are co-founders of Ecom Nation, a digital agency specialising in e-commerce strategy and growth. They are both directors
ectors of the agency, along with a third co-founder, Andrew Sabatino, who also started Donor Republic, a leading marketing agency for the not-for-profit sector.
While Ecom Nation officially launched in September 2021, Waddy and Chia haven’t shared the story of their transition from working in e-commerce businesses to advising them until now.
A holistic approach
It all started at the launch party for Inside Retail’s 2021 Top 50 People in E-Commerce, in which Waddy ranked 2nd and Chia ranked 34th.
“Mal and I were seated next to each other, and we realised that Mal and Andrew had studied together. It was really serendipitous,” Waddy told Inside Retail. “We both had been knocking around in e-commerce for a while, and we both went solo at the same time.”
Besides the parallels in their personal lives and professional careers, Waddy and Chia also discovered that they felt similarly about the narrow focus of many digital agencies on marketing metrics, such as return on ad spend (ROAS).
“There’s a lot more that goes into a great marketing performance than ROAS,” said Waddy, who recently received the Industry Recognition award at the 2022 Online Retail Industry Awards. “That’s the reason we started the agency.”
Ecom Nation was designed to address all aspects of running an e-commerce business, from building a website, to CRM, to digital marketing. But unlike most digital agencies, Ecom Nation also works with clients on their overarching e-commerce strategies.
“Anyone can grow stores, we’re interested in growing businesses,” Waddy said. “We find ourselves talking to clients about 3PL, product range, gross margin, etc.”
In addition to their own e-commerce expertise, Waddy and Chia have tapped many of their former colleagues at Ryderwear, Showpo and Uber to join Ecom Nation.
“It’s the ‘A team’ that you will not generally get from an agency,” Waddy said.
$1 million run-rate
Despite never officially announcing the launch of Ecom Nation, Waddy and Chia have had a steady stream of clients and been profitable since day one. The business is self-funded and hit a $1 million revenue run-rate within six months.
“We pulled it together really quickly, and it’s just gone bananas,” Waddy said.
As Chia noted, retailers have been “banging down the door” for e-commerce advice and support over the last few years. And after pouring money into their online businesses during Covid-19, many retailers are seeing the need for a more strategic approach.
“We’re obsessed with customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, repurchase rates, average purchase frequency,” Chia told Inside Retail.
“The ‘aha’ moment for a lot of our clients is when we build these dashboards, and they’re like, ‘I’ve never seen these numbers before.’ We can’t do our jobs properly without them.”
Ecom Nation’s clients include Maison de Sabré, a multimillion-dollar online leather goods brand, EveryHuman, an online marketplace offering lifestyle products for people with disabilities, and Drummerboy, a new non-alcoholic spirits brand, among others.