Govalo’s Rhian Beutler On The Future Of DTC Resiliency

Get tactical strategies for building market resilience in today’s uncertain economic climate.

What’s the greatest certainty in uncertain times? Opportunity. When your products are out of stock, when the supply chain is horrific, when you have overhired, and growth isn’t picking up, there’s still a chance for opportunity.

This episode challenges how we think about resilience. Rhian and Adii discuss:

  • The wisdom in doing the hard things and what resilience means post-covid
  • The cockroach mode to resetting expectations and achieving goals
  • How diversification can help brands build a resilient DTC supply chain

Tune in on: Apple | Google | Spotify

“Resilience is really about empowering brands to have the information they need to make better decisions. But I think the crucial thing is being proactive. What are the things you can do today to build a better business?“
Adii Pienaar, founder & CEO at Cogsy

Meet Rhian Beutler

Rhian is an ecommerce industry expert with a proven track record of launching and scaling Shopify app solutions. She is a near-decade-long veteran of the Shopify ecosystem with over two decades of experience in retail and adjacent industries.

As the US neared 50% ecommerce penetration, Rhian asked herself why gift cards were so far in the past and decided to build Govalo, a brand working on reinventing the digital gifting experience. 

Before Govalo, Rhian co-founded and bootstrapped Ventovv. Ventovv is the creator of popular Shopify apps such as SEO manager, Order Lookup, and ClockedIn, servicing some of Shopify’s biggest brands. 

With her experience and knowledge in search engine optimization, UX, BFCM, and supply chain economics, Rhian has spoken on these subjects worldwide. 

Her advice and expertise have helped merchants? Understand how to grow their AOV, scale their operations, and strategize their online stores.

Connect with Rhian on: LinkedIn | Twitter

About Govalo

Govalo was founded in 2021, alongside the growing ecommerce business scene during the pandemic. It allows you to create an enhanced gifting experience for your store with the customization and personalization your customers want. Whether it is a gift card or a specific product, your customers can choose the perfect gift, whichever suits them best.

Learn more about Govalo on: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

The Checkout episode 35 unpacks:

In today’s episode, we share our recent live webinar conversation with Rhian Beutler. The session aimed to answer how DTC brands can be more resilient in the current market. Here are the highlights.

[3:34]

Rhian’s journey building Govalo

  • Rhian’s banker background during the great recession
  • How Rhian leveraged her SMB banking background to help merchants grow online and offline
[4:35]

Shopify’s layoffs & what this means for retailers

  • Where things went wrong with Shopify’s overinflated workforce
[6:37]

Brand’s moving into omnichannel

  • Rhian mentions that “there’s going to be a push to omnichannel”
  • “What can you do as a digitally native brand to maybe seed a product in a physical space?”
  • How TikTok is one of the largest search engines at the moment
[9:08]

Some of the biggest challenges as entrepreneurs

  • Why hiring and salary expectations are some of the biggest challenges when building businesses
[11:38]

Cost-saving strategies for brands

  • “A lot of running a business is doing the hard thing, and that’s part of resilience.”
  • “Something that is going to be a good decision in four months, it’s also a good decision today.”
[20:27]

Why brands need to reset expectations

  • Rhian says, “ When you inflate a goal and keep inflating it, you’ll never hit the goal.”
  • As brands change their expectations, their plan, and also the outward narrative, they tend to do just fine
  • Adii expands on why brands should consider that sometimes surviving can also be considered winning
[23:14]

Empowering brands to make better decisions

  • Being proactive vs. reactive
  • “You need to be resilient, flexible, agile.”
  • How information is key to making better decisions
[38:54]

How brands can build a resilient supply chain

  • How Cogsy brings different sets of data points into the same conversation
  • What does China mean to brands in the future?
  • “I think what I already see the smartest brands doing is that they’re building a resilient supply chain by adding onshore vendors or suppliers closer to them.”
[49:01]

The crucial component of collaboration over competition

  • How Brightland and Graza (competitors) worked together to make a great collaboration
  • Why you need to find networks and communities as a founder