How Do You Survive The Internet After 230 Years in Business?
About this episode
How do you pull a business founded in 1795 into modern eCommerce without destroying the thing that made it survive for eight generations?
That’s the slightly terrifying job facing Joe Jaques, eighth-generation leader of Jaques of London.
And despite running one of Britain’s oldest family businesses, Joe isn’t particularly interested in doing things the way they’ve always been done.
In this episode of the eCom Collab Club® Podcast, Adam Pearce talks to Joe about taking a heritage retail business online, moving towards DTC, navigating Amazon and Shopify, using AI to transform creative testing and learning when customer behaviour should overrule your own instincts.
Because having 230 years of history is lovely.
It doesn’t make CAC, cash flow or container prices disappear.
Joe talks candidly about joining a family business he originally had no intention of working for, the arguments that came with trying to modernise it and the enormous acceleration Jaques experienced during COVID.
Adam and Joe get into what happened next – and why understanding "the boring financial stuff" earlier is one of the biggest lessons Joe would pass on to other founders.
They also explore how Jaques approaches customers today, including using dozens of micro-personas, testing creative at scale with AI and recognising that what customers tell you they want and what they actually buy aren't always the same thing.
They get into:
- Taking an eighth-generation family business into eCommerce
- Moving from traditional retail towards DTC
- The realities of Amazon vs Shopify
- How Jaques is using AI to produce and test advertising creative
- Why Joe thinks brands should treat AI like a new employee
- Understanding what parents really want when buying toys
- Building advertising around 67 customer micro-personas
- Why customer behaviour can be more useful than customer opinion
- The financial consequences of rapid growth
- How rising container costs added roughly £1 million to shipping
- Why turnover isn't the same thing as building a healthy business
- And whether an eventual ninth generation will want anything to do with it...
About Joe Jaques
Joe Jaques is the eighth generation of his family to lead Jaques of London, the British toys and games business founded in 1795.
After initially having no plans to join the company, Joe eventually came into the business through sales before helping drive its move into eCommerce and DTC.
Today, he's combining more than two centuries of brand heritage with modern performance marketing, customer data and AI – while trying not to be the generation that cocks it all up.
About Adam Pearce
Adam Pearce is Co-Founder of Blend Commerce and eCom Collab Club®, the community bringing together eCommerce brands, agencies and technology providers.
On the eCom Collab Club® Podcast, Adam sits down with founders, operators and industry experts to get into the decisions, mistakes and lessons behind actually growing an eCommerce business.
Links & Resources
Joe Jaques on LinkedIn:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/joe-jaques-6b6a22a
Jaques of London:
https://www.jaqueslondon.co.uk/
Adam Pearce on LinkedIn:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shopifyexpertadampearce
eCom Collab Club® on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ecom-collab-club
More from eCom Collab Club®:
https://linktr.ee/ecomcollabclub
🎧 Follow the podcast for more conversations about eCommerce growth, DTC, customer acquisition, retention, AI, CRO and the reality of building brands online.
Because apparently even after 230 years, there are still new ways to make running a business complicated.