Marketing in the Madness

Empowering Women in E-commerce with Raman Dhaliwal-Janjua

August 13, 2024 • Street Agency, Katie Street, Raman Dhaliwal-Janjua • Episode 48

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Empowering women in e-commerce isn't just about creating businesses—it's about reshaping the future. When women lead, they bring innovation, empathy and resilience to the table transforming industries and driving true economic growth. It's time to break the barriers and unleash the full potential of women entrepreneurs in the digital age.

Welcome back to another dynamic and inspiring episode of Marketing in the Madness! This week, we're taking you inside the buzzing atmosphere of MAD//Fest London 2024 one last time as we conclude our LIVE recordings from the event. We're sitting down with the incredible Raman Dhaliwal-Janjua, a trailblazer in the e-commerce industry. Having worked with giants like Marks & Spencer, Speedo, and Toolstation, Raman is now on a mission to empower women to break barriers and lead in the world of e-commerce.

We look into the persistent gender gap in entrepreneurship, with startling stats like Forbes reporting that 90% of women never start their own businesses. Raman is determined to change this narrative, sharing her journey from feeling unfulfilled in traditional corporate roles to becoming a champion for women entrepreneurs. More than just theoretical insights; they are drawn from years of hands-on experience leading e-commerce strategies in male-dominated industries.

If that's not enough to have you tuning into the full episode, here's a little glimpse into what you can expect from this episode:

🚀 Empowering Women in E-commerce: Raman shares her mission to help women overcome imposter syndrome and mindset challenges that hold them back from launching successful online businesses.

💡 Gender Disparity in Decision-Making: We discuss the urgent shift needed in this dynamic, with the shocking stats that despite women driving 70% of household spending, men still dominate decision-making roles in e-commerce design. 

🎯 The Power of Female-Led AI: Uncover the fascinating fact that female AI is five times more likely to convert customers than male AI, underscoring the strength women bring to the table in understanding and influencing consumer behaviour.

🔧 Breaking the Mold in Male-Dominated Fields: From leading e-commerce at Toolstation to advocating for more women in trade industries, Raman shares her experiences and the importance of challenging stereotypes.

🔥 The Social Media Revolution: Uncover how platforms like TikTok are revolutionising e-commerce, especially for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who rely heavily on social media for purchasing decisions.

Raman’s story is a testament to the power of persistence, vision, and the importance of having a "fuck it" mentality when chasing your dreams. Her passion for helping women unlock their potential in the business world is palpable, making this episode a must-watch for anyone looking to break through barriers and create lasting change.

Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business leader, this conversation offers valuable lessons on how to navigate and thrive in the fast-evolving digital landscape.


Raman Dhaliwal-Janjua

Katie Street
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestreet/
https://www.instagram.com/streetmate/

Street Agency
https://street.agency/
https://www.instagram.com/street.agency/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/streetagency/


It was Forbes that said 90% of women don't start businesses. And for me, it's just like why I want to really help women start their e-commerce businesses and grow their e-commerce businesses, because there's not enough of us. We just don't put our heads above the parapet. The worst position you're going to be in is the position you're in now. You're living your worst fear by not being brave enough to make the change and stand up. What's the worst that can happen? I think you have to have it, the fuck it mentality. If you have the great beliefs of you can actually kill it. You understand your why, and you know what your customer wants. Why wouldn't you be successful? Currently, it's something like 70% of household spend. The women are the decision-makers, yet at the heart of most e-commerce, retail businesses, men are still making the decisions on how to design the online purchasing journey. The seven steps in a customer journey is now 10, because of TikTok and all these new marketplaces, female AI is five times likely more to convert a customer than a male. Why is AI, you know, fundamental bots, or wanting to be females? It's because we know our shit Toolstation in my head would be a very male dominated environment. There's not as many women trade people putting themselves out there, I would imagine, over the next few years transpire into business, because by doing that, we inspire others to do the same, and we give other women confidence. Tools, stations are probably one of the big companies that we advocate with women. Some areas are just not sexy, and that's okay. That being said, the storage work still to be done. Hi Guys, and Welcome to another amazing episode of Marketing in the Madness, which is actually not Marketing in the Madness, because today we are marketing in the Madfest, because we're live at Madfest, and I feel incredibly lucky to be well, interviewing some incredibly inspirational women in the female leaders club. So I actually have with me now the fantastic ramen. So Raman and I met at a lovely dinner that I put on at the time you were at Toolstation. But things have evolved a little bit. So tell me a little bit more about ramen. Your job, your full name, so you're going to say it better than I'm going to get your surname wrong so people can find you on LinkedIn. Well, said my name very well. So it's, it's Raman Dhaliwal-Janjua. I was very much like, I am not dropping my last name when I got married. So I dual barrels like, no. But now my name falls off the page every time I write for a form or some awesome form of application. But in a nutshell, I've been working in E-commerce for 15 years, and I've worked with the biggest brands for Marks & Spencer, Speedo, Claire's accessories, Toolstation, my latest company that I worked for and helped to kind of drive their e-commerce strategies. So I've been in the field for quite a long time, and I've learned a lot, and now I've left Toolstation, and I want to really help women start their e-commerce businesses and grow their e-commerce businesses, because there's not enough of us. So this is something I'm incredibly passionate about, because I'm a massive shopaholic. So first up, what I want to kind of delve into, I'm just going to give you guys some stats, which I'm sure you know, and you can probably get the stats even better than me, but I think currently it's something like 70% of household spend is spent, and the women are the decision makers. Absolutely, they're choosing what to buy. Yet, at the heart of most e-commerce, retail businesses, men are still making the decisions on how to design the online purchasing journey. Like this literally makes me go mental in my brain, like I don't understand how that's a thing. So tell me about well, particularly delve into what you're doing now and what it is that you're going to be focusing on helping women when it comes to e-commerce, I think the main obstacle is imposter syndrome and mindset. Women feel like they have an idea, but just don't know how to bring it to life. And they think, Oh, I would love to have freedom. I would love to have the flexibility to starting an online business, but then just don't know how to make it happen. And because we are just generally thought, let's go down the conventional nine to five and become amazing at our jobs, we don't think that we could be entrepreneurs. It's like I saw a stat the other day on I think it was Forbes that said 90% of women don't start businesses. And it's just for me, it's just like, why? And I was part and to be honest, I was one of those women too. I've always felt that if I go down nine to five route, go up the career ladder, become a director, I will be filled, and I never was filled. So I am the customer that I'm going after, because it took me so long, took me much longer than it should have to start my own online business and just to create a business that gives me the fulfillment that I've always desired. I love that, so you're basically now fulfilling that dream, whilst also helping other women to go and set up their own e-commerce businesses, apps. Absolutely like for me, it's just I'm no longer driven by just what society feels is about what really intrinsically gives me value, and I'm making a difference. So I feel like I'm so motivated because we as women, we've got so many it's such a big skill set, especially in business, are the way that our brain thinks, you know, we talked about left and right stimuli, and how we're creative, analytical, and we can, we can problem solve, but also hold and wear so many different hats. We just know how to kind of manage so many different, you know, aspects when it comes to business, which lots of people struggle. And if you have a simple structure and you have those skill sets, you absolutely won't be a part of that 90% of our businesses that fell in the first year because you have all the skills and you have the blueprint to be successful. Yeah, I think that's a huge thing for us, women, is we have often got quite limiting beliefs, like we just don't put our heads above the parapet. I mean, I do, and you and you just have so it's often about just not being scared. Like, I think someone said on stage earlier today, like, you know, the worst position you're going to be in is the position you're in now. Like that, you're living your worst fear by not being brave enough to make the change and stand up and do what it is that you actually want to do. So what are you scared of? What's the worst that can happen? You stay as you are exactly, and I think you have to have it now, my technology, the fuck it mentality. You can't just be like, you know, whatever society or even your friends or community, or say, if they see me start my business, if you think like that and you're putting that out in the world, you never go. You're going to be your worst enemy. No one really cares. Everyone is so invested in their own lives. And actually, you doing your own business, or you going down the channel of finding what is it that What's your why is the main thing that's going to drive you and make you successful? The amount of women I work with, and I keep asking them, What is your why? Oh, I just want to stop. No. What is your deep why? I want to be financially free, and I think even financial freedom, what does that mean to you? And why do you want that? So it's really understanding your why, because then you remove all those limiting beliefs, because, you know, that's the end goal that you want to reach. I fucking love that literally show the fuck up. Understand what it is that you want to achieve in life, what success is feels like, is for you. And I think if you do that, you know it's you're unstoppable, absolutely, I think. And once you understand why should What's your why, and you know your customer, and you go through the process for talking to your customers, I feel like a lot of businesses fail because they don't understand their customers. They think of a shiny product, but actually they don't have the understanding of what your customer wants. So if you have the great beliefs of you can actually kill it. You understand your why, and you know what your customer wants. Why wouldn't you be successful? Yeah, I think that's the key is, you know, as women, we're really, really good at solving problems. We're really good at navigating the difficult things, and, you know, coming up with solutions that are solving genuine problems. What we struggle with often is getting the funding, getting the support. So what you're doing by helping these e-commerce businesses go to market with all the experience that you've got from Mega brands like speedos and tools station is going to mean that, yeah, you're able to help these e-commerce businesses get off the ground and growing exactly, and you understand the fundamentals like I feel like in businesses in general, and when startups, if you don't have your fundamentals in place, and I see this with all the big billion pound businesses, if you don't have your data correct, and I'm a big conscious I'm a queen of data, king of data, because once you understand your customer and you've got that, you can go From a bigger startup to scaling up very quickly, because you put your data in forefront of your company, and females are just so good at doing that, because we are so intrinsically understanding analytically, okay, that makes sense. So we need to create a funnel for this, and that makes we do next part, and having that structure that we naturally have, and we can be quite rigid place to our advantage. Love that. I really want to kind of delve into the e-commerce side of things, like, when you've been enrolled at some of these awesome big brands, there's so many things that go into designing fantastic online experiences that encourage you, your consumers, to buy more products. What do you think have been the standout things in your career that have really helped you get ahead when it comes to designing better online journeys, I think it's buy in. I think when we create case studies, I think we are very clear in what that messaging, what that end goal, and what's that value proposition. So when you get buy in from male stakeholders, it is easier because you've thought about that journey very clearly, and you can take people on the journey. So every time I've gone to a board and said, Okay, how do we improve this customer journey? Or we see our conversion rates dip, or we want to go after a new customer, because we are very much focused on data and being creative, we're more influential because we've. We thought it through. So when they ask us questions, we've got the answer. And I think not saying that my male counterparts Don't think like that, but I think because we are able to use our left side and our right side of our stimuli, it's much more easier for us to bring back to table and actually really articulate it really well. So I think in those ways that we're really advantageous and making sure we tell the story really well. And I think that's the good thing about females. We're really good at storytelling and being, you know, a lot of retail brands, it's always the woman that's buying for the family, it's buying for the kids, it's buying for the husband, and it's buying for the kitchen. But, you know, not generalizing, but majority of the time, it's women who are buying and you know, so it's, how do we kind of manipulate and influence those customer journeys to make sure we understand that market too? And damn Are we good at manipulating it what I want exactly? I honestly do believe. I know I probably shouldn't fucking say this, but I'm gonna anyway. Like, I do think as women, we are good at getting what we want, like, we have to plan to the ninth, 10th, I don't know, 11th, 12th, whatever degree. Because when you're a mom, like, especially if you're a mum, like, you're you're having to think about so many different things. I do think we have, because we have got that, you know, left and right sided brain. We We just are able to multitask better all eventualities. We really good at planning. And I do think it helps us, you know, one sell ourselves, but you know, sell our sell our ideas in you know, guys are often better at speaking up, but I think when you get into the intricacies of the detail, no one is going to do it better than a woman. Absolutely. I think because, like you said, we wear so many different hats, we're able to manage the house more effectively. And I think even project managers, the best project managers I have seen are women. So it speaks volumes, because you know where they've thought about it a detailed manner that I'm not saying men don't, but it's just it's there. You know that that meat that you need is always there, and we do wear those hats so that we know what to expect. And it's it can be quite overwhelming as well, because sometimes your male counterparts don't have to think about looking after kids or going home and cooking. Did. I'm not saying that all men are like that, but we are always thinking about what's next. And I think that also is advantageous in E-commerce and marketing, because we're always thinking what's next? And we're so much more savvy on what technology. You know, a lot of I've just been hearing talks, and throughout the last two weeks, AI being women. And why is that? Why is AI, you know, fundamental bots or wanting to be females? It's because we know our shits anyway. And it's, you know, to put it frankly, we just know we understand it. It's just bringing that whole team together. And I honestly think that a lot of female leaders are so, like, underrepresented, but we are so fearless and we're so understanding, but we're we're still quite strong. I think that is something that needs to be promoted more. Yeah, I love that. All the bots that I can think of are female, yeah, which is amazing, yeah? Like, I hadn't even that. Hadn't even crossed my mind. Female AI is five times likely more to convert a customer than a male. So just that just speaks volumes, you know, yeah, even now I've gone into a little branding workshop where they said that the whole female AI led stream was female. Why is that? Yeah? Well, because we evoke trust, yeah, we're brilliant at all the things that we've just spoken about where, I mean, I'm not saying that guys aren't empathetic. And actually there was a talk on here earlier where it was saying, actually, you know, we can't just say, you know, females are more have more empathy, because, of course, men do too, and we need to think of it more broadly. But the reality is that actually we are thought of like that. People want to come and talk to us. We are very open. That's it like. So when it comes to designing a bot, why wouldn't you design it as a woman? Exactly my thing. To add to that as well is that we're just more accepted to change. Yeah, I think that is the, one of the things that has been spoken about. And I see that, you know, when I'm always looking around that I'm looking at, you know, what is next thing, or what can we do differently? It's a lot of the time. It's females that are able to adapt and able to answer change. So I'm not saying that men are not able to change. I'm just saying that we are more Okay, open to especially you go to a board of directors, right? Majority of them are males saying, well, we don't want to spend that money, especially if you talk to a CFO, but if you're talking to a female CFO, they'll listen to you more and be like, Okay, now tell me the projections you now. Tell me this so civic thought process that goes behind that that we're more accepting to change and negotiation as well. Can I ask? Because, of course, in my head, and I'm sure my lovely listeners and watchers I'm tools station in my head would be a very male dominated environment. Yes. Is that right? Correct? Yes. So how was it leading the E-commerce strategies for, you know, predominantly, I guess, you know, a male workforce, but also predominantly a male industry, yeah? Absolutely, yeah. I think it was the great thing about. When I was working at a tool station, was that they were really understanding of change. They were very much about creating new propositions. For example, at, you know, they were very much about how can we lead that, how can we drive that? So I think tour stations were probably one of the big companies that really advocated women and looking at women entrepreneurships in trade, you know, really championing those things. So I think it depends on the company's culture and tools. They should definitely had a female led culture of, how can we bring women to the table? That being said, there's so much work still to be done, and not a lot of women will go into trade or being a plumber or electrician, you know, it's just, how can we make that sexy? Some, some areas are just not sexy, and that's okay. It's about what is the passion and how we drive that. But from a customer journey perspective, we found there's a lot of DIY customers and trade customers, a lot of more the DIY customers are female, because they're looking at projects around the house, and how can we improve that? So it depends on your personas, and looking at the persona of your customer and how you can personalize the journey for that customer. Yeah? So true. My sister in law is definitely, you know, the handy, the handy, I'm not gonna say the word handy man, the handy person in my brother's household, because he's crap, yeah. And that actually happens a lot, yeah, like the world that we live in, and that's going to start, so I would imagine, over the next few years transpire into business. So it'd be interesting, like I actually had, so I've just had my whole house repainted, and it was done by a woman. It's a dad and a daughter combo. And the daughter, like, repainted my whole house. She's actually starting to blow up on Tiktok and Instagram, because, again, there's not as many women trades people putting themselves out there. So again, yeah, I was talking about this earlier, like we need to, you know, we as much as we don't. You know, females don't boast as much as men do. That is a fact. It's like proven. I hate to say it, but it is true. We've got to inflate our egos a little bit and put ourselves out there, because by doing that, we inspire others to do the same, and we give other women confidence to put their head above Paris, really. And I gotta say, since covid, the change what happened in covid, where everyone started doing up their houses and renovating, and how many females do you know this opportunity for me to try this has seen an influx in trends across DIY, and you know, where you know, and how we look at those journeys. So the capability, and even on Tiktok, looking at me, talk about social media, Katie, but like Tiktok, and how we kind of use that now, because even Tiktok shopping, you know, you can buy so much that I saw I went to a a chat, that sweet, 255% increase in Tiktok shopping. So you know how we use Tiktok to kind of sell DIY to females, and then shop is such a way to kind of get women to kind of champion their own businesses and their own brands as well? Yeah. I mean, it is. We live in a social first world now. I mean, there's, that's a whole other podcast, but like, will there even be websites at some point? Because I buy most things through Instagram, if I didn't have to leave Instagram, and I could just purchase it through the which you can on some, but not all. But, yeah, this is why Tiktok shop is blowing up, because you don't need to leave the platform. You don't literally make your purchases in platform. Mean, Tiktok is a very interesting one, because it is becoming an E-commerce platform rather than a social media platform. So the world, I mean, there's so much for us to keep an eye on. I love all of that stuff like and especially, you know how Gen Z and alpha? My daughter is jet, is a kind of cross on the end. She's 16, so between Gen Z and Gen alpha, she would probably identify as alpha, especially Gen Z. And she does all her shopping, she does all her research, everything she does everything she buys, everything she wants to buy she finds on Tiktok, yeah, and I think that's the point of what you're saying, from what we said earlier, about the seven steps in a customer journey, there's now 10, because of Tiktok and all these new marketplaces, vintage, you know. And then we talk about Gen Z and millennials, and, you know, Gen alpha? What? What is that? What is the journey? It's different. Because, like you said, Gen Z are the first generation to be brought up with a phone. They don't know anything different. So how they shop? They expecting things to be savvy. They're expecting speeds from day one. That's all they know. And as much as we say, Tiktok is not for millennials, it's so is, you know, any, especially the boomers as well. You know, they are the most affluent boomers and the most affluent, well, Persona things, um, out there. So, you know, and they are now looking at tick tock to find ideas and stuff. So it's about, it's really interesting, how we use social media, marketplaces, vintage, whatever it might be, to really leverage what's next, how we kind of change that customer journey? Ramen. Thank you so much. You've been an inspiration to talk to today. Yeah. I mean, I just like every time I hang out, I just feel like it's the best time ever, just such a wonderful, bubbly person that. Just brings energy to everything you do, and I know you're going to help so many businesses as you move forward. Thank you so much. Katie covid, hey guys, me again. I hope you enjoyed the episode that you've just listened to, and if you did, I'm going to do the you know, The annoying thing that all podcasters do, which is go and ask you to subscribe, because it really does make a difference to our rankings. And please do go subscribe, leave a comment, give us a five star review. If you did love it, if you want to get in touch, do check out the email address in the show notes. Most importantly, again, if you're on YouTube, please subscribe by clicking the button somewhere that is on this screen, and it'll mean you get notified when new episodes go live. You.