Chapters

Summary

Bunster Sauce started in 2012. Renae went to the Chilli Festival but couldn’t find the hot sauce of her favour. She still couldn’t find one in the stores. Therefore, she started making her sauce. It was for personal satisfaction. However, when she gave some away to her friends, their positive feedback gave Renae an idea for a business.

Her ecommerce game started to become full-scale in 2014. During Christmas, one of her sauces named ‘Shit The Bed’ had gone viral on the Internet. Renae noticed that many people from America were showing demand. However, shipping from Perth to America was costly. She couldn’t access this market in America. Therefore, Renae ran a crowdfunding campaign in 2015. It was successful, and her sauce became famous in the hot sauce community.

Simon asked how she got her sauces on retail shelves. Renae answered that consumers went to their local stores and asked for her sauces. The stores saw demand. Therefore, they decided to put them on their shelves. It was all about the community wanting her sauce.

Next, Simon asked whether Bunster Sauce was going in the direction of online or offline. Renae answered both. She mentioned how Australia has a culture of going to local stores to do grocery shopping. Therefore, her stance was to spread her sauce throughout Australia through supermarkets. America and new markets were going to be reached out to through their online store. She mentioned that it is their dream to get into China. She and Simon discussed whether to translate their labels upon penetrating the Chinese marketplace. Renae showed concern about whether they would understand the joke. Simon shared that one of his Chinese friends said, “If your label’s in English, it’s seen more as authentic.” In the end, research is crucial.

The next topic was about Renae’s experience of running an ecommerce store. She answered it is full of ebbs and flows. They were doing so well online and eventually got a distributor. Online orders dropped, but they knew it was because people were buying from the supermarkets. They continued selling and found out the online stores work well during Christmas.

Renae warned to not pre-sale to consumers overseas during the Christmas period. She had an experience where she had to fix things up at the last minute for her American consumers. (Mainly regarding shipping.) Renae advised that if you make promises to people in foreign countries at Christmas time, you have to be able to back them up.

Simon asked Renae about her go-to technique for selling products online. She answered that her marketing strategy is related. The approach is to jab, jab, jab, right hook. First, she would post jokes about hot sauces all day long. Occasionally, she would promote her product. Bunsters would repeat this marketing pattern throughout the year. After collecting people’s cookies, Bunsters would hammer them with advertisements during the Christmas period.

The topic moved to necessities on an ecommerce website. Renae raised a few points.

• Videos
• Free shipping options
• Structured About Us page
• Great Products page

She dug a bit deeper on the About Us page. People are curious about who is running the business. They want to know why you are selling these products. Make sure that people will fall in love with your story. Show your passion!

Simon then commented on her marketing strategy. He liked that the content is raw and organic. Renae replied that she was not afraid to be called names. What matters is that it resonates with her target audience. Her target group is men aged between 25 to 45. At the start, Renae had to go through face-to-face selling for years to find the best target group. She said it is not wise to think everyone is your customer.

Next, the two discussed media coverage of Bunsters Hot Sauce. The first show was the Hot Ones. Bunsters’s Black Label Hot Sauce was on the lineup for the show’s sixth season. A hot sauce shop in New York was in charge of choosing the lineup. Renae got in contact with them, and her sauce sold well in that shop. They then “tested” Renae. The shop asked Renae that they need 10,000 bottles of her sauce in one week. She ground through, and her sauce made it to the show’s lineup.

There were many other coverages where her sauce showed up. One was in a music video for a band called Lawrence. Another was in a radio show where a skit was played based on one of her sauce’s names. An actress was constantly putting Renae’s hot sauce on her social media stories. Everyone seemed to like raising this funnily named hot sauce on their feeds!

This episode ended with Renae’s call to action. Her advice was to find out exactly who your target customer is and target your communications towards them. Constantly build a great brand personality and build a relationship with your customers.