Neto
Talking Business With Alan Kohler
22 Mar 2018 • 5 min read
After starting off as an online retailer and experiencing first hand the challenges of trying to scale a retail business, Neto CEO, Ryan Murtagh, identified a gap in the market for a retail management solution that could handle the demands of omni-channel retailers.
Faced with a choice to continue to expand his retail business, or instead develop a product to help other retailers expand theirs, Ryan chose to utilise what he'd learned as a retailer and Neto, the first all-in-one solution for ecommerce, was born.
Ryan recently shared his story and advice for retailers on the Qantas Talking Business show with Alan Kohler; listen to the full episode below, or read on.
When Ryan was running his own online business, he noticed that when an order came in that his staff were manually entering the details into the shipping software, then manually entering them into the accounting software—taking up countless hours of the day which could be better spent elsewhere in the business.
“For every one thousand orders we would have to hire a bunch of new staff and it really wasn’t a scalable business.”
These systems weren’t talking to each other either, when a product would sell out on the website, it would still show up on their eBay store causing products to be oversold and leaving the customer experience to suffer.
After dealing with these issues firsthand, Ryan set out to develop a software product with all of these functions in-built and properly integrated, and that solution became Neto over time.
Neto is a SAAS (Software as a Service) business, with plans starting from $79 per month depending on the size of your business and the features you need.
“We have everything from Mum and Pop businesses, to some of the largest brands in Australia, like Spotlight, Anaconda and Harris Scarfe. One of the benefits of Neto is that it’s incredibly scalable, so you don’t have to keep changing solutions or worry about outgrowing the platform. Neto gives you all the tools you need to grow your business."
“You can have a bricks and mortar store, an online store, you can sell on eBay, on Amazon and on other Marketplaces all from one centralised solution. We allow retailers to focus on what they should be focusing on, which is sourcing great products and being traders.“
In 2015, Telstra acquired a stake in Neto, giving Neto the capital it needed to grow, and it has with 70% year on year growth.
“Telstra has really enabled Neto to further develop the product, into a product ready to go global”.
Although Telstra now have the majority stake, Ryan says he isn’t going anywhere.
“It’s still my baby—I am here for the long term”
Telstra are a very hands-off partner, although Ryan says he has learnt a lot from this partnership, but when it comes to how the business runs as a whole, Telstra have remained quite separate.
| Related Reading: Telstra Invests in Neto
When experiencing such high levels of growth, it’s easy to get caught up focusing on metrics and numbers instead of customers.
“You end up getting too distant from your customers—the very reason you started the business”.
Ryan acknowledged these growing pains and decided to take a step back and slow down, to refocus on what matters most—the customer. And he bought a bus!
“We took a step back and really started listening to our customers again”
“We bought a bus, and now do weekly field trips out to our customers—the insights and feedback we get from these visits are so inspiring, but also so valuable in terms of helping us understand our customers better.”
Neto customer, Jim's Jerky, recently received one of these visits from the Neto team in the bright blue We ❤️ Retail bus. Watch the video to learn more about how owner and founder, Jim, took the business from kiosks and field days to supermarkets and South East Asia.
Neto enables retailers to sell through Marketplaces like Amazon Australia and eBay and have been doing so for sometime. Neto is one of eBay Australia’s biggest partners, and last year alone Neto customers put over half a billion dollars through the eBay marketplace.
“Neto was one of the first platforms to integrate with Amazon Australia and we already have over one hundred retailers selling through Amazon Australia, with many of them processing thousands of dollars a month.”
It's the way of the future for Australian retailers to be a part of Marketplaces
Qantas Talking Business is an Inflight Entertainment radio program, hosted by Alan Kohler. Each month business leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators are interviewed about their expertise, business, and careers.
If you would like to learn more about Neto, and how you can use it to better manage your retail business, check out our free ‘Manage Everything’ guide.
