Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Nate Faust, Olive founder, discuss sustainability in e-commerce amid the company’s launch.
Video Transcript
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Welcome back. Nate Faust is no stranger to e-commerce. The co-founder of jet.com and former senior VP at Walmart is looking to disrupt the e-commerce industry with his latest startup, Olive, which consolidates your purchases into a single weekly delivery in a reusable package. Nate’s here with us now. Thanks so much for joining us. And congratulations on the launch of Olive, which when I said it was brand new, I wasn’t kidding. You launched two days ago. That’s not a lot of data to work off of, but how are things at the get-go?
NATE FAUST: Yeah, the response has been great. Obviously still early days, but both from consumers, and I would say what’s even been more unexpected over the last few days, we had over 100 retail partners signed up for launch. And we’ve had significant outreach just in the last 48 hours.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So talk to me about why you felt it necessary to launch Olive. Why did we need a more sustainable e-commerce experience?
NATE FAUST: Yeah, it’s funny. You know, I– as you mentioned, I’ve been in e-commerce for over a decade now. And I left Walmart about a year ago and was thinking about what I wanted to do next. And want to do something with sustainability impact and hadn’t even considered e-commerce, until one night, taking out the trash, just realized how big of a problem this has become from both an environmental perspective and a consumer pain point perspective. And I think that’s what really makes it time and ripe for an opportunity to change, is that it really has gotten to the point where, from just a raw convenience perspective, it’s become almost inconvenient.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So then how do you sell the platform to people who don’t necessarily think twice about the environmental impact they’re having every time they have an item shipped to their house in a cardboard box?
NATE FAUST: Yeah, absolutely. So the mission of Olive is undeniably on creating a greener supply chain for e-commerce. But our value proposition to consumers is all about convenience. Because we feel the greatest long-term impact will come from a service that customers love to use, regardless of whether they’re focused on the environment.
And so with Olive, when you sign up, there’s absolutely no fee to consumers. You can shop over 100 of your favorite fashion sites. And everything you order comes delivered in these reusable two-way shippers. And the most convenient aspect is our return process, where there’s no labels to print. You just drop any unwanted items back into the two-way shipper, a few clicks in the Olive app, and we pick it up off your doorstep.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So I want to talk a little bit about that process. Because I know it comes to…
Read More: E-commerce company Olive looks to make shopping more sustainable
