The Techsplained Series presents - Noshable

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[00:00:32] Competition out there. Between a hotel quality interior fit-out to coffee machines with pods from bringing their pets to being gifted welcome baskets. One else is left to do. Well today we're learning about something else we could offer. Probably one that you'd thought

[00:00:50] to sue yourself but thought it was probably a little too much work. Well not anymore. Today I'm chatting with Connor who will explain what Noshable offers hello. Connor how are you? Good, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat today. Yes thank you very much for coming

[00:01:06] along and I'm excited to learn more about Noshable but we're going to stick with the same questions so it's starting off with in one sentence what does Noshable do? Yeah we allow property managers to offer their guests grocery-concier services at an affordable

[00:01:22] price and with very little hassle on the property manager side of things. Right so I think a lot of property managers have thought about oh we will be nice to offer groceries or let the guests offer

[00:01:36] an organizer and groceries so how has Noshable made it work? So I'm wanting to offer this service to my guests. How does it work for me to organize it? Who's there's two methods and we call them

[00:01:50] trust of fulfillment because their people that are actually trusted to access property as opposed to services like instant card or Uber eats where they just drop things off at the door. There is this another level of trust that you want when someone's accessing either your home or maybe

[00:02:04] someone's second home that you manage and so those trusted fulfillment people are one of two. The first option is if you're a property manager and you do want to take on this feet but

[00:02:14] you still want to be much easier than doing it yourself, you can onboard your own people, your own cleaners, your own staff that can get your 16 year old daughter for the summer and then

[00:02:21] you can do it the rest of the year if she needs a summer job but I really want to do that someone's that's trusted within your own network. It can be onboarded and you can manage all of the

[00:02:30] delivery and pick up information through our dashboard and we'll mark it the links or you will mark it the links to the guests and the whole shopping experience payments, them doing all the shopping the orders getting placed with the grocery store the inventory at the grocery store

[00:02:45] that's all still handled by us so all you're doing is doing a quick curbside click list pick up you're not actually shopping or whoever your trusted fulfillment is and then stocking it in the fridge.

[00:02:55] That's the first option. Okay, wait, can I rewind it for a second? So in this case, who does the ordering? Because I'm seeing two kit-tooth cases here, the property manager can say,

[00:03:05] oh, I can set you up for you know, start a pack or is the guest placing the order here? The guest is placing the order and I can show you that little bit later so it's a very, very

[00:03:16] similar UI to that of ordering from Walmart.com or you know any major retail grocery store and you know, gone are the days of tech spots, grocery lists and just having people send you a list

[00:03:28] and then you're having to constantly communicate about substitutions and that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's the first method and then the second method is if you really don't want to have

[00:03:36] to handle that at all and you're just happy if your cleaners even show up at the right time which definitely a lot of people experience, then we have trusted fulfillment partners and are constantly

[00:03:44] expanding that network that will do the deliveries for you and exchange, they get 100% of the delivery fee. So if you use your own people, you can set the delivery fee and play with the margins

[00:03:55] there however you'd like. Alternatively, if you want, we'll just find a trusted fulfillment partner under area and then they will do all the deliveries for you and we actually still rev share a portion

[00:04:07] of the markup on the good. So even if you're a property manager not only is this like great for guest experience but if you decide not to use your own staff and the delivery fee goes to

[00:04:15] the people we partner with in your area to do the deliveries, you'll still make some money off of every order. Whoa, okay and when you say fulfillment and delivery accept, right? Do you mean

[00:04:26] the food is in the fridge? Yeah, all right. Yeah, it's in the fridge. It's laid out nicely on the counter that really gives you that experience like you're staying in like a four seasons or a nice hotel or

[00:04:36] like Disney World or something like that for a very similar price to Uber, Eats or Instacart or something of that nature. Yeah, so the guest, when they click on the link that I'm

[00:04:46] assuming that I'm gonna provide them with the link, a noshable link and then have the equivalent of a supermarket to choose from or is it a small arrangement or is it a supermarket range? Yeah,

[00:04:57] so what we found is most grocery concertes companies because they did do exist are significantly more expensive and oftentimes either it's just a tax box or it's generic pictures and then you click

[00:05:09] on that picture and then you provide specifics with us. It's directly tied into the inventory of the grocery source. It's the same price essentially, it's what they have in stock and it's what they carry.

[00:05:21] So you can specifically search a favorite snack or if you like for example your navigate and beyond is a popular, beyond me, is a popular brand. You can search that and see what that grocery store

[00:05:31] has that might be a meet substitute if everyone's grilling out that one night of your vacation. So you have a complete search that you're able to leverage. Yeah, okay so I sent the guest the link

[00:05:41] that done their shopping and then obviously it must come to the delivery section. So they're going to say that we arrive on this day and then do they have to pick a delivery window or deliver buy

[00:05:54] or how does the delivery time then work out? Yep, so actually that part of the experience starts before they even begin to shop. So right when they click that link, we tabbed each custom link

[00:06:05] to the property that they're staying in. So for example if we called the property that was offering Nashville to its guests Barcelona get away, the first thing they see when they click that custom

[00:06:15] link that's marketed them is a little pop up and it has a mini map like an OTA wood similar to Airbnb showing the location, the reflcation, the property, how the property is marketed so it's

[00:06:26] say in big kind of black letters are you shopping for Barcelona to get away and then the address. And all they have to do is hit yes to confirm and then then they can select their date of arrival

[00:06:37] and depending on like PMSs and guide books and things that we're working on integrating with right now down the line we won't have to even ask them what their date of arrival is, we'll have that

[00:06:48] information but for now we still do that and then we also start starting to sort of second homes and a lot of people don't really have a check in for their own second homes so this allows them

[00:06:57] to just pick that day to have their second homes stop but the goods as well and then from there they shop and then they check out. So we already kind of have that address and know where they're

[00:07:06] shopping for tied to that custom link and then as far as the time like the schedule goes to do the pickup that falls either on the property manager and their staff to decide when because they

[00:07:18] know when the property's turning or if they're outsourcing that then we have a standard turn window that we ask them and have set in place so that we know when we have our trust of a film

[00:07:27] of partners actually do the deliveries. Yeah you do you know I'm even regardless of what time the guest arrives there is that little window after the cleaners are finished to the early check-in

[00:07:39] where the house would be empty the property would be empty and it's an ideal time to slip it and stock up the freight the kitchen. So yes the property managers would know that little window

[00:07:49] wouldn't be the best time because obviously the idea is to have it be full the guest arrives so yeah yeah and we have found a lot of property managers will use their cleaners to do this anyways

[00:08:00] since it's like let's say you have a pretty standard turn of like 11 and then on the way to to the property you can stop at the grocery store maybe 15 minutes before the guest is checking out

[00:08:12] and then right when you get there you can clean the fridge and stock it or alternatively even if the cleaner is separate than the person who's doing the grocery delivery you can both be there simultaneously and just prioritize cleaning that kitchen in that fridge first maybe within

[00:08:26] the first hour and then you still have a three or four hour window of when the nostril person can actually come and stock the fridge. Yeah did you you just mentioned and you mentioned it

[00:08:35] video about pickup so this can also be picked up by the property manager stuff like he said the cleaner. Yes so the way we do it it's all curbside or like clickless pick up essentially

[00:08:47] the grocery stores shop for the whole order for free that the guest places so it's you know quickly stopping backing up your car at the pickup slot and then you can drive off so

[00:08:58] the average time spent is like six minutes I'm pretty sure at the grocery store so it's not like you're going in and shopping for all these items which saves a lot of time and makes it very

[00:09:07] convenient. Yeah okay so there it is it's not that the pickup all you have fulfillment partners that will actually put it in the kitchen in the fridge if the clean is aren't going to be there on

[00:09:19] that day. So the way it works is either way it still picked up at the grocery store. It's always picked up at the grocery store it's never shop in person by anyone representing nostrils. You know

[00:09:30] you're the property manager and you pick someone from your own network to do the pickup they do the pickup and they do the stocking still. Alternatively that whole process can be handled by one of

[00:09:39] our partners in which case they'll do the pickup and they'll do the stocking and your cleaners can be cleaning away and you don't have to worry about that. Yeah I think that full fulfillment role I thought

[00:09:48] that was the delivery in it is. It's the pickup delivered to the property and put it in the price. Okay yeah great okay so it's like a great service obviously you leave it in the hands of

[00:10:01] the guests they order what they want the timing is sorted out it can be delivered I mean picked up or brought to the property by a fulfillment person where's the money in this? So how does that

[00:10:15] have there is revenue share? You mentioned that how is money made even? Yeah so we're free for property managers just want to make that clear so it's not like a SaaS subscription it doesn't

[00:10:26] scale in price or anything like that whether you have one property you have 500 it's it's free to use if you're familiar with instant card or services like that there is a markup on each of the goods

[00:10:39] and we we share a portion of that markup with property managers to make them stay colder so every time that you know someone purchases a good individually you're making a small portion or

[00:10:48] percentage on that good on top of it being a free service that you're not paying for so well I might not be you know some crazy amount of money you're making at the same time it's completely free and

[00:10:57] we found the guest experience is really important and it just adds that level of hospitality of unreasonable hospitality and a lot of people like to talk about it's people's vacations it just

[00:11:08] makes them feel great and we've learned a lot of promo as well where we'll do like free grocery delivery so a lot of guests when we first on board property managers sometimes will put a lot

[00:11:17] of their properties it's just free grocery delivery for a week and a lot of their guests who book just literally get all their grocery stocks for free and they get a try out the service so yeah

[00:11:25] we make our money ideally from that markup but then as we're starting to scale to it'll be for us personally just from the business side like product placement and ads and things about nature

[00:11:36] but for now it's that it's mainly that markup. So for the prominent manager is free but I also get a little cup of the order correct and and the delivery fee you said you charge a delivery fee correct.

[00:11:48] Correct sometimes other times we have like promos and stuff or yeah you know whether it's completely free or spend this much either you know save a certain amount of money or you get the delivery for

[00:11:57] free then but the delivery fee like I said either goes to you if you want to handle it yourself or it goes to a trusted film at partner but we don't currently take a cut of any of that we just

[00:12:08] give that to whoever's doing the delivery. Yeah okay now I can hear you accidentally is American and I'm assuming that you're only really dealing with American markets and American supermarket so is that right for now? Right now correct yeah only American markets and then down the line here

[00:12:25] we'll probably look to Canada next and then and then we'll expand from there. Take over the world. There you go yeah. Yeah great okay now you do have a dashboard so as a property manager I'll be

[00:12:37] able to see what's coming and going or what's being ordered and delivered can we have a quick look at the dashboard then? Yeah let me share my screen and then we'll pop over to it so

[00:12:51] all right are you able to see this? Yep perfect I'm going to hide more eating controls here and then if we want to look right here this is under the orders tab you can filter three orders for each of your

[00:13:07] properties etc so this is actually like an order that just happened and there's the order info is not super necessary but the pick-up info is so this is if you were to use your own property

[00:13:23] or your own like property management team whoever that might be whether it's a cleaner quality assurance like I said it could literally be your daughter or son who's home for spring break or

[00:13:32] something and then you want to do it the rest of the time and then we tie it to a grocery store this is the number that you can call if you ever have issues like with the pick-up and then you can select

[00:13:41] time slots from this card. You know so they're like the window you might have when you know you're like it'll be clean and ready and then noshable automatically scheduled this this final pickup time for you right here and then you can also assign different team members so

[00:13:58] if you have multiple team members you may or may not be able to do it this just happens to have one but you could have multiple team members assigned as well and then if we go here to the card

[00:14:09] so you can email address if we with you when you allocate a time doesn't email go to that person to say you've got to pick up at this time. Yep so we have these different statuses you can see here

[00:14:20] and time they get changed either from noshables and or the property managers and yeah um then emails are automatically blasted out what next steps for the person picking up as well is like the guest if it's necessary for that piece of communication like once the order's been fulfilled

[00:14:36] you just like guest-tap piece of mind that it's already there and it's ready to go so they get a little email saying like high chef you know have a great vacation your your foods are waiting

[00:14:44] you or something like that so there's statuses through that kind of streamlined process and then if we go here you'll see the card um so this guest to the original order $265 worth of goods and then unfortunately there was just like one thing that ended up being unavailable

[00:15:03] since we do outgast order up to a year in advance so and then cash their card and then one that trip actually happens is one that it will be placed so at some times there's there's

[00:15:14] items that get substituted just because of seasonality or things have changed but it still allows a majority of the card to be handled in that booking process and allows them to skip the first two

[00:15:23] hours of their vacation so we'll intrude on this person's card a little bit and you can see kind of all things that they had bought unfortunately their beer was what was out oh no I know that's

[00:15:35] a plumber in fact I'm pretty sure I saw that support email and they had like you know it had asked about it and we said unfortunately it was out and they were making a joke about it they

[00:15:43] had a great experience though but they're like not the beer it couldn't have been the doctor pepper so yeah so you can see that you know these are all the goods that this

[00:15:53] that this guest had purchased and then each of these goods does have a slight mark up tied to it so if you were to go to you know whichever grouches for this is tied to which in this case is Walmart

[00:16:03] and look at these gluten-free Oreo sandwich cookies it would be less than $5.95 directly at Walmart and we're sharing a portion of that profit with the property managers yeah but for the convenience of having it already out of property when you're just about to arrive and especially

[00:16:18] like with little kids or you want a cup of tea and a biscuit when you get there your favorite biscuits or or some of them to my flocks and the freezer you know what a great idea it

[00:16:29] it's really great to have it there yeah yeah yeah and then if we'd like to see I think go ahead and pull up from one of the dental addresses here the experience that the guests will actually see

[00:16:41] going up so this is really where we focus more on the UI that the dashboard is pretty simple and a lot of times we have other people outsource their delivery anyways and so this is the experience

[00:16:53] like the guests will see when they've clicked that link whether you're like sent to a guide mouth or it's just automated guest messaging through your OTA whatever it is so the first thing they see

[00:17:04] is this says demo address program but in reality this is what would save Barcelona get away or however you market that property yeah kind of the idea of where where it is to make sure

[00:17:14] they're shopping for the right place and then they simply confirm yes select the time of arrival and then from there this new trip will pop up up here and they can juggle multiple trips so if you travel

[00:17:25] a lot and you have several work trips vacations of mixed plan you can build a cart as long as each place offers nautical and go between different carts different grocery stores and I have multiple

[00:17:36] orders going at the same time so there are obviously things like categories here they click through to order if my Wi-Fi loads there we go and you can start to build a cart with some fruit but then

[00:17:49] we can also search for specific things like let's say jeps for example and then it'll bring a variety of brands of ways another popular thing is like if the grocery store it's tied to

[00:18:04] because each property is set to a specific grocery store in the area that we offer and we have over 20 different grocery stores offered but you just have to pick one so that you're not shopping

[00:18:12] around at a bunch and most have similar items to carry anyways but one of the nice things is like sunscreen so if you're on a plane and you can't fit a big sunscreen and you didn't take a

[00:18:21] didn't check a bag and you can't bring it on in your carry on because it doesn't meet TSA requirements oftentimes these grocery stores will have things like sunscreen or what part and that allows

[00:18:31] you to order some of those CPG goods that you might not want to carry or be allowed to carry on a plane as well and then you can check your cart here you have the ability to exchange with closest match

[00:18:42] if you're just like I want SPF 30 sunscreen it doesn't have to be the specific brand and you can do that and if you're not willing to for example you can you can turn it off and say I just really

[00:18:52] want these strawberries where I don't want strawberries at all and that's how the substitutions work we're here the final price and then we have the delivery fee associated so this one is set to a

[00:19:02] promo since it's a demo address of free delivery yeah but at times you know they total say 25 dollars or something around that area depending on who's doing the delivery and what it costs. Yeah that's it great and yeah there's there's a couple other features like order history

[00:19:20] things about age but and I'm not even sure if this one has it tied so there's no upcoming orders but you can see this past order yeah this is just well this is just beer in this case but

[00:19:30] you can see the order you've had in the past as well but well I'm a friend to go in the way regularly well there you go just order the same things yeah there you go exactly so yeah other than that

[00:19:42] there's some other features we're working on in the near future such as like the ability to search for recipes as well as actually add all the ingredients for those recipes get added directly into

[00:19:51] your nostril cart. That's where the sorts of things of that nature but those are still in the work so for now this experience believe it or not is still pretty revolutionary compared to a lot

[00:20:01] of concierge companies out there and the nice thing is well even if you do like those concierge companies that have the tax box they don't have transparent pricing and so they've shopped all the groceries and charge your credit card like you might enjoy that experience and say forward

[00:20:16] up then you go to New York and you have to find a completely different company than hasn't standard so with us we have no matter who's doing the deliveries we have best practices and standard operating procedures set in place so that your fridge is going to be stocked

[00:20:28] nearly the same way every time no matter who's doing the delivery and it's all under that nauseaable umbrella. Hmm fantastic that's great and so you're like you said you're just in America

[00:20:40] are you all over America? Yes so with it kind of varies with our grocery stores that we offer we offer grocery stores in all 50 states in the US and I don't know if we are in all 50 states right now

[00:20:54] I don't think so but we have the ability to be so it kind of varies on just which property managers we currently have onboarded as well as where we have trusted fulfillment partners so we

[00:21:06] have certain people on the wait list right now or we just don't have a fulfillment partner yet in their area and we're working on getting it and who just don't want to use their own staff.

[00:21:14] The first example they have the grocery start connection we have the property manager on the wait list so you know we have a lot of that situation as well wherever just slowly getting

[00:21:23] the ability to fulfill these orders in all these different areas as well it's just a little bit more of an intense process and a vetting process compared to a gig economy service like

[00:21:34] Uber we really want to make sure that whoever's doing this delivery is going to be reliable and and that they're you know trusted as well because one of the things that we found and

[00:21:42] and I think this is just great advice in general in the hospitality space is setting expectations so I'd say 10 out of 10 times offering free grocery delivery is going to be you know

[00:21:54] a net positive for the person who's staying there whether they use it or not if it's free for them they're going to think this isn't great service and if especially if they use it

[00:22:02] they're just going to walk in and they're going to feel great but the worst thing you can do is offer groceries and then they arrive they had 30 minutes to make it to the grocery store that evening

[00:22:12] and they didn't so they then the groceries aren't in the fridge like you promised and they aren't stock something that arrive at the order and then they are like the next morning the first

[00:22:20] video instead of go to the beach or the mountains is to grocery shop two hours with hangar kids who haven't eaten since you know the night before so and I think that applies to a lot of things

[00:22:29] in hospitality so that's like one of the things we really have focused on and not sure what is ensuring that this this expectation we're setting and this promise of groceries happens every single time yeah yeah can we stop sharing the screen just that we've done with that dashboard

[00:22:45] yep and now you mentioned also before about connecting uh integrating with PMS so when you integrate this means it's going to be part of an email that goes out offering this service and then

[00:22:57] as you said when they go to book that they order their groceries the property will be there the checkout date will be there it'll all be tidy and also maybe in the digital guidebook as well as

[00:23:08] a reminder yes so for us the biggest ads or you're definitely going to be just the digital guidebook and then just having the information regarding the reservation so not having to ask them because

[00:23:18] we already have the address from the property manager but not having to ask them when they're checking in or the time they're getting in um that kind of information will just automatically

[00:23:27] be you know entered and feel that connection with the API of the PMS so that little box any saw where I selected my date would just disappear essentially and in terms of the size of

[00:23:38] your audience the companies that you work with really this is a service that you can offer even if you just have one property and as you said also you don't even have to have a holiday rental

[00:23:47] business you could just be a second home and you want to stop before you get there yeah exactly so it kind of goes across all different facets it's funny that we do have like a lot of smaller

[00:23:57] uh probably managers who have you know heard on me on podcasts or want to try it in fact I'd say it's usually the smaller ones that find me more organically and just want to try this out

[00:24:07] and get excited about it and we get a lot of feedback from the smaller ones just naturally and then the bigger ones will be sometimes at the prior astrophied back but yeah we have a big you know

[00:24:17] there's property managers with hundreds of properties and then there's ones that just have one or two and a lot of the times people own their own so they'll use it for their guests and then they also stay in that property themselves and they'll even use it for themselves

[00:24:28] hmm and given that you know it might be for a second home or just for one someone with one property that might any be available for some a time so there's no contract

[00:24:40] can you just pick up and use nautical whenever you want? yeah so in our dashboard and I didn't show this part because we're reworking it right now with the partners so I did want and we haven't

[00:24:50] released that publicly said in show yet there's the ability to not only like set the livery phase but you can turn on in all specific properties or all of your properties so if for example

[00:25:02] I don't know you know you just don't want to offer nautical because you were using your own staff to do all the deliveries and you might be able to use different people and one person always

[00:25:10] did this home and they're out sick but you can come back off until you know indefinitely until they're better or there's a renovation or there's issues with the fridge and you're like

[00:25:18] I don't even know if the fridge is working I don't want to get hundreds of dollars of groceries these guest paid for put there you have the ability to enable and disable properties whenever you like

[00:25:26] so theoretically if you just didn't want to use nautical for a little bit you could turn off all of your properties indefinitely and then turn them back on when you deem appropriate.

[00:25:35] And one more thing about the geography of America okay so I understand you know in a city environment yes easy to get deliveries and pick up groceries etc etc how do you find the delivery

[00:25:48] aspect or the fulfillment aspect in the countryside or in the mountains is that like forget it's too hot or you've managed. Yeah so I think well you almost just answered your on question in the sense that if you said forget it it's too hard then that's the experience

[00:26:02] the guest is going to go through right and so that's really the definition of hospitality is making their trip as easy as possible so yes it is harder than being in the city I would say

[00:26:12] and generally the delivery fees will be a little bit more expensive but since they're already very affordable guests are more than willing to pay that so mountain towns for example ski towns I'm a big skier myself they oftentimes the grocery store is sometimes be 30 20 to 40 minutes

[00:26:27] outside of like a town actually staying in the ski if you're actually staying like in the in this main town and that that ends up being an hour and a half trip sometimes just worth of driving alone

[00:26:37] not to mention shopping in a store that you're not familiar with which according to Nasdaq the average time shopping in a grocery store that you are familiar with still takes 41 minutes so you can call that maybe roughly an hour that's almost three hours of your vacation

[00:26:51] doing that so we found that that actually is one of the biggest value ads believe it or not even if it charges a little bit more because of the time spent it's saving you three hours of

[00:27:02] your trip just driving after potentially traveling long hours to get there so I do the application there well I agree it's a little bit longer process for the person doing the delivery it's even adds more value because that's better than the guest yes absolutely yeah

[00:27:19] now lucky America that's what I can say is there anything that we have not touched on about not sure goal that we should know about I'm not at all think so I think this is pretty

[00:27:29] in depth I think you ask good questions yeah overall I think it a lot of the nails in the head I try to think but I feel like it's pretty simple concept ultimately it's just something

[00:27:39] that hasn't been done at a national level yeah so I think yeah I think that's all right convenience though absolutely great convenience and maybe we'll just do another recap when you hit Europe so we can have another little refresh and get all Europe on board as well

[00:27:55] yeah yeah I would love to love to do that so thank you for being a piece of come visit yeah why not okay well if anyone has any questions the corner pop them into the comments below

[00:28:07] I will put the link in the description below corner it's been a pleasure learning about not sure if you're thinking very much like guys thanks for having me on thank you bye bye

[00:28:20] well I hope you enjoyed this episode if you'd like to catch up on ones you've missed just head to the textplainedseries.com or if you're short for time you can head to the tech mini's.com where you'll find extra short interviews see you next time