The Truth About Sustainability: Automation, Authenticity, and Amazon with Delilah Home | EP. #181

What does it really mean to be sustainable in today’s ecommerce landscape—and how can brands back it up? In this 181st episode of The E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews Michael Twer, Founder and CEO of Delilah Home, an award-winning organic home textile company that puts purpose at the center of every product.

Michael shares how he’s grown Delilah Home by creating real demand through storytelling, ethical practices, and smart automation. He dives into how this automation fuels omnichannel marketing (and reveals two of his favorite tools for making it work). But that’s not all—Michael pulls back the curtain on the biggest greenwashing trend in ecommerce and explains why many so-called “eco-friendly” brands don’t actually walk the talk.

If you care about brand authenticity, sustainability, and building community-powered demand, this episode is for you.

Watch the full episode below or visit TheEcommShow.com.

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The Truth About Sustainability: Automation, Authenticity, and Amazon with Delilah Home

Andrew Maff and Michael Twer

CONNECT WITH OUR HOST: AndrewMaff.com  |  Twitter: @AndrewMaff | LinkedIn: @AndrewMaff 

Michael Twer

"If you cannot pay it back, you pay it forward" - Michael Twer. I am the Founder and CEO of Delilah Home, a natural, clean, luxury home textile company focused on quality, the environment, and the community we serve. All of our Award Winning (Good Housekeeping, Wall Street Journal, Sleep Foundation) products are ethically made from sustainably sourced, certified organic cotton and organic hemp materials. Delilah Home is named after a golden retriever puppy who survived a life-threatening ordeal in the North Carolina mountains. Delilah weathered extreme cold temperatures and record winds by living off the land for 62 days. An entire community of thousands rallied for her successful return. Our motto of "if you cannot pay it back, you pay it forward" was established and we provide ourselves in giving back up to 10% of our annual profits. With little to no chemicals used in our entire supply chain, Delilah Home aims to protect the environment from harsh chemicals that are commonly used in conventional cotton production. The results? Our pure products are the safest and cleanest textiles on the market. we use only quality 100% organic cotton certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and non-toxic hemp products that are better for the environment. Delilah Home textiles do not contain allergenic or toxic chemicals commonly used in conventional cotton textile production. Our products are ideal for people with allergies, skin sensitivities, and respiratory problems. We partner with Fair Trade factories, which are certified to the highest textile standard. Yes, our products may be a little more expensive. We pay ABOVE living wages, while exceeding all local and national laws. At Delilah Home we also believe in being good stewards of our community, so that end, we partner with local and national charities such as Operation Warm and 1% for the Planet.

Andrew Maff  00:03

I see a lot of entrepreneurs get into trouble. They have too much hope, and they hope that they can sell a gajillion pieces and be rich in six months. It's not reality, Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The E-Comm Show as usual. I am your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by the founder and CEO of Delilah Home, Michael Twer. Michael, how you doing, buddy? Ready for a good show? I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Thank you for joining us. Super excited to have you on the show. I love talking about basically the sustainability side, but also the textile side, because it's a very interesting industry. So really interested to learn a lot from you, and obviously about Delilah home. But I always like start these off relatively stereotypically and kind of give you the floor and just tell us a little bit about your background, about Delilah home, and we'll take it

Michael Twer  01:40

from there. Oh, awesome. Well, I've watched a lot of your podcasts, and hopefully I can live expectations, and hopefully I can make this as entertaining and educational as possible. So thank you for having me awesome. My name is Michael tuer. I'm the CEO of Delilah home. We are a five year old Charlotte North Carolina based sustainable home textile company. We produce bath towels, bedding, beach towels that are made from organic cotton. And we also have a new product called dry tech, which we'll talk about here in a second, which is 100% recycled material from post and pre consumer waste. We pride ourselves on, on bringing the American consumers the safest and cleanest textiles. So from a non GMO see to time somebody gets our organic cotton products at home, zero harmful chemicals ever touch our products, and it's certified to what's called the gots standard, is the gold standard for the textile industry. In addition, we make all of our products in Portugal. Portugal is just amazing country, and high quality and one of the closest countries to to the US. But we found that it's, it's a lot of users do business in Portugal than than other countries, but we produce a good quality product. We sell to, we have an omni channel approach, which is different than most. Either you're a direct consumer, and you sell direct to consumer, or you're on Amazon, we sell to Macy's and Bloomingdale's and Target and Walmart, our Delilah home website as well as a brick and mortar retailer store. So we kind of have an omni channel approach on how we drive our business. So five years great reviews, we got an excellent product, and I'm looking forward to telling you more about it beautiful.

Andrew Maff  03:24

One of the things I always I was like, Okay, I know I got to talk about this. The textile industry is wildly competitive. It is not there's there's competitors everywhere. And you're even though you know, you guys are crushing it, you're still younger brands five years in. So breaking through that mold of the ones that have been around just for generations, or standing out across all the competition is obviously never easy. What's what's been the approach thus far to kind of help do that?

Michael Twer  03:51

You know, I think the way I approach Delilah home and the culture that I'm trying to bring here is I have a passion for being successful, you got to love what you do, and you got to be able to do that every single day, day in and day out. It is tough. It is tough to build a brand in in today's world, especially with all the different touch points that the consumer has to go through in order for your brand to get recognition. So you know, we continue to strive and continue to persevere and continue to really push every every single day. It is very competitive. But where our niche and where our lane is is the sustainability space. It's easy to make a tile, it's easy to make a bed sheet set, and you can get it from Pakistan, India, Turkey, China, wherever, and you can buy, you know, really, really cheap, but we take the approach that we're gonna we're gonna offer a luxury product at an affordable price that Natalie, are you gonna feel good about purchasing? You're gonna know that all the certifications are there, that it's gonna be safe, and also the people that are making your products, you're. We pay above a fair wage, our factories have some of the lowest carbon footprints in Europe. So we try to be responsible stewards, not only of the planet, but also with products that touch our skin. And your skin is your largest organ, and it's usually the last thing we think about. So we try to make sure that all of our products do not have any hidden toxic chemicals which are commonly found in conventional textile products. So that's kind of like the lane we're in. You're buying organic food, you get it, you get it that you don't want to have pesticides or herbicides on your apples or oranges. That's kind of the same thing with with our home textiles. So the

Andrew Maff  05:41

It's interesting you brought the food side, because that was exactly how this thing was. Like, okay, I know exactly how I can kind of draw this, this scenario, right? So like in the food space, we find that the kind of, like, clean eating element is becoming bigger and bigger, which is very similar to, like, you know, basically no nothing in it for the most part. And so obviously, on the textile side, is something that I've seen started to grow a lot more as well. However, I personally feel like, from a marketing perspective, that messaging and getting that the importance of it across is very difficult, especially when you've only got, like, you know, only so so big of a package, or you've only got so much room on a product page, or something like that. So how have you kind of helped, like, educate that consumer, to teach them a little bit more about that?

Michael Twer  06:26

Sure. So I mean, there is many people that are in this space right now that are doing an incredible job. I used to be the chairman for the organic trade association and the fiber council. So I work with some very large brands, Patagonia, bowling branch, coyucci, parachute, home, avocado, naturepedic, really, really incredible brands, and together, collectively, we're trying to to help educate the consumer on on what they what they buy, and what could be possibly harmful to to to their health. Same thing on, on the food side, but the OTA is very strong advocates on, on making sure that the organic brand is is that's high integrity, and also works with, with with Congress to make sure that that the rules with the USDA and the and the organic Trade Association will help with them, on trying to to steer and try to promote, you know, The rules, regulations for the for those type of products.

Andrew Maff  07:23

Nice, you. You said one of my favorite words, omnichannel. I love talking omni channel. I'm usually on the marketing side, specifically the omni channel side, but you mentioned you guys have a complete omni channel approach. Tell me a little bit about that. Okay,

Michael Twer  07:37

so my background, I've got 30 years of consumer product experience. I mean, I think I've called on almost every single retailer in this country. I used to have $100 million Walmart business way back when. But you when you're starting out as an entrepreneur, you know, you do the marketing math, and you say, Okay, if I sell X amount of pieces per day, I'm going to generate this amount of dollars per week, per month, per per year. But then reality sets in, and then you take a look at, okay, how much inventory do I need to buy? So it's kind of the chicken or the egg. You got to have inventory to make money, but if you don't have money, you can't make you can't buy inventory. So my approach was, okay, how do I meet my requirements? My factories with the minimum order quantities bring in enough inventory and turn that inventory as fast as possible. Where I see a lot of entrepreneurs get into trouble is they have too much hope, and they hope that they can sell a gajillion pieces and be rich in six months. It's not reality. So my approach was, okay, how can I get into as many channels as possible? We know that Amazon is 50% of all consumers, you know, shop on Amazon. Okay. Then there are retailers like Macy's or Bloomingdale's or Saks or Zola or Target or WalMart, help build your brand. Also build your awareness. As they grow. You grow, and as you grow, you turn your inventory, and it's just, it's just a great circle to kind of be in,

Andrew Maff  09:14

yeah, how are you managing that? Because being across those many different sales channels is obviously always a struggle. So is there a specific like EDI that you guys are using, or what's, what's kind of that approach?

Michael Twer  09:24

Yeah. So, because I've been doing this for such a long time, I mean, I've got my supply chain down, down to pennies, which is really, really cool. There you go. But I use, there's, there's two things I can tell you. There is a company called a CT data. A CT data is like a commerce hub, Sterling commerce, but they're they're my hub, and I have all of my retail partners go through a CT data, and then they link to my warehouse management system. So orders come in, go to a CT, go to my warehouse, ship. The tracking numbers go back to. A C T, and then a C T sends it back to the retailers, and then a C T also invoices in my QuickBook system, it's all automated, which is which allows me to free up my bandwidth so I can do more things to try to get more customers, kind of into that funnel. So that is the the systems and how you can automate your business will make you more efficient and also increase your speed. The second thing is, is with like Target and Walmart and others, there are companies that that you can upload channel advisors on. You can upload your data into their system, and their system shoots it out to all the marketplaces we use. We use a company called asenda for for targets. And so basically, you know, pricing inventory all goes into there and actually shoots to to target. But if I had more customers on that platform, it would automatically shoot it out to to all those marketplaces. So that, again, increased your speed and efficiency. Well, every

Andrew Maff  11:02

single one of those companies can now expect an invoice from both you and I for the shameless plug, and I hope that they enjoy it. So okay, so from a marketing perspective, now that's where that gets kind of interesting, right? So, like, because this is where I always get like, all right, I'm getting giddy. This is, this is where it gets interesting. You're on this many sales channels, and your logic is, if you have your product on all of these different marketplaces, as those marketplaces grow, you're growing along with it. That obviously helps from an inventory perspective, but you got to pour a little bit of gas on that fire and build the brand. So when you're doing your own marketing, and let's just say, obviously, mostly from an E commerce perspective, so mostly from a digital perspective, are you simply just directing people to the website, or are you putting in different elements where you're kind of promoting we're also available on these other marketplaces and these other retailers. Sure,

Michael Twer  11:49

as of right now, I've kept them separate. And the way I way I view this, is like a financial portfolio, you know, you got your kind of, kind of different buckets, and I have, kind of, like my marketplace channel. I've got my wholesale channel, I've got my direct consumer channel, and each one of those really kind of requires its own unique business plan, but the number one thing that I can can offer as a suggestion is customer service is key. And when you get to the marketplaces, you know, do you have the accessibility to answer customers questions or to to answer a negative review and try to turn that negative review into a positive review. On Macy's, we use Bizarre Voice, Bizarre Voice, which allows me to respond to positive reviews and also a negative reviews, you're never going to have a five star review no matter how hard you try, but if you're 4.5 and above, but you're responding to customers questions or concerns, that's going to help you build credibility with future customers. So the customer service aspect of the marketing is, is number one, and if you're on top of that, you're going to build the loyal following. Now on our direct consumer side, obviously, we're doing email blasts, we're doing some s. Then how do you get that Ruth, Chris butter, on top of your steak and have it sizzle and it smells real nice is you gotta, you gotta throw your products out there and try to get the media to pick it up and how to get on the best list. We've won several awards from good housekeeping and wire cutter a real simple as having the best bed sheets or best towels, and that. It's all about building credibility as you kind of build your your base and over time. And it's kind of like that, if you do 1% more each day, by the end of the year, you're going to be a lot stronger. So it's kind of like automatic habits, and that's going to what's going to help grow your brand, help grow the credibility in your brand, and it's going to eventually grow your sales.

Andrew Maff  13:59

How do you measure kind of that bleed over, though, right? Like, so from an advertising perspective, if you're running, let's say you're just running some med ads. Obviously you mentioned all of that traffic's going directly to your DTC website. But a lot of people, as you said, like 50% of people, are shopping on Amazon. So you get a lot of people that will come to your website and then be like, I want it in two days or whatever. So they hop over to Amazon and end up purchasing into there. Are you measuring? Are you attempting to measure that at all by kind of looking at some of the channels a little bit more holistically? Or do you keep it a little bit more like I know that that happens, but I'm just kind of tuning it out. More or less,

Michael Twer  14:34

I am kind of tuning it out and bucking the trend on on that I love Amazon as consumer. I don't, I don't love it as as a manufacturer, you know, I can't, you know, even though the companies are doing millions and millions of dollars, it is expensive to to be on the Amazon platform, but you have to be on there. I don't guarantee two day shipping, and that is something that, you know, I would love to do. Yeah, but the cost would force me to to increase my costs even, even more, to have that freight factor built into the product. So, you know, there's, there's kind of a strategy on that we're fulfilled by by merchant. We're not fulfilled by Amazon. So, you know, we're, it's going to take us, it'll take us two days to ship on the East Coast or into the Midwest, and it might take three to four days to to get to the west coast. So if customers know that ahead of time, then they have the choice whether they want it today or they want it in a couple days. If we've got the the credibility other already built up in Delilah home, then they're going to wait for something that's high quality, it's got last years, yeah,

Andrew Maff  15:42

yeah. It's a very interesting point. I mean, being being FBMS, it's definitely an interesting way to be available on the platform, but not be too reliant in a lot of Amazon's fun, different fees that they like to throw at you all the time. What? So from a marketing perspective, what's your main focus is it may, are you mainly seeing like success through like success through like, social media channels, influencer marketing, that kind of thing. Or is it more you're leaning more on your retention? Or obviously Google ads, like, what's, what's been, kind of the the differentiator for you so far,

Michael Twer  16:10

you know it's and here's another plug for another company we use, press hook. Okay? Press hook is kind of a do it yourself, media company that helps you get in front of of publishers and editors, and that has been kind of our, our best asset of being able to to offer a sample to a publisher that is on their platform and have them respond, And we've been able to get traction with a ton of publications, and especially with new products when you're launching that you need to kind of throw the net out as far and as wide as possible. But has been been incorrect for us, and it kind of comes down to what they talk about owned marketing. You know, now, do you own your marketing with the consumer that comes into your funnel, and if you're providing a good quality product with good customer service, they're going to come back and they're going to be loyal. On a side note, 40% of our business is repeat customers, so we're doing it right the first time. They're loving our products after they kind of kick the tire, so to speak. And they're coming back, and they're they're buying, buy more products, either they're buying towels or sheets or beach towels, and then have new products so that we can continue to service their their needs on the on the affiliate to marketing side, you know we're doing, we're working with share sale, we're working with influencers and bloggers, and then you got this kind of press hook side where we're working with with the media. And so what I've found is that this whole cycle of everything that we're doing really kind of feeds into each other, and it continues to build. And ironically, whenever we're on sale with Macy's, is when my entire business takes off. I can't explain it, but it's kind of like, you know, with the oppressive Macy's, maybe, yeah, I don't know, but it's kind of like having socks that disappear in the dryer. It's like, you know what happens? But you can't explain it, but it's, it's, it kind of helps, kind of fuel the fuel the machine. And it's, it's, it's really cool to kind of see everything all coming again. It could be seasonality, could be timing of the year, it could be promotions, whatever, but it's, it's, it's fun to watch it, but really owning the relationship is the key to to our success.

Andrew Maff  18:33

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know your your comment of really leaning in on customer service that is wildly underutilized by so many brands, that that is the clear differentiator that really allows you to stand out from not only the other brands, but even the other marketplaces where your brand is available, to actually have them incentivized to come to you, which is even better, because typically your margins are better anyway, one of the things I was curious about sustainability is, obviously, it's a very sexy term, right? Everyone kind of throws it out. Some brands are actually sustainable. Others not so much. But I also know that putting some of those efforts into practice is not easy. What would you say is, like one of the things that a lot of sustainability brands don't usually admit on how challenging that is,

Michael Twer  19:21

they don't admit how challenging it is. I would probably take a step back and and and say this is a lot of brands truly don't understand sustainability, meaning that they rely a lot on what their factory tells them, and they don't take it the next step further to prove or to validate the certifications of the factories. When I was the chairman of the OTA in the fiber Council, I don't know how many people, how many companies I talked to, said, Well, my factories said that they're got certified. Well, you can go on the gots website and see if they're certified. It, they're not so, you know, it's also kind of, you got to take that initiative to make sure that what you're claiming is actually valid, and make sure you've got proof to do that, because there's a ton of of greenwashing that continues to go on. And the issue with organic is on the food side. It's regulated by the USDA, okay? And the National Organic Program that's that's good. You put organic on food and sign organic, you can get some major league fines. On the textile side, it's not regulated. So it's still the kind of the wild wild west. Up until about two years ago, you could go on Amazon and you'd have a Chinese factory that would copy the gods logo and charge a premium for their products, because they're saying that it's organic when it wasn't. So they started to crack down on that. But there's still a lot of retailers and a lot of brands out there that are assuming the products that they're buying are truly certified when, when they're not. The only way to to really take a look at those is that there's architects, there's gots which is, which is the, the best standard, and they put you kind of through the ringer. And you got to make sure you got your your act together, because there's toll gates that kind of go through, and you got to have that transparency of looking back to make sure that every step is taken care of, to justify that it truly is organic, and the transactional certificates will prove that, and it goes through that different process. So that's kind of my roundabout way of answering that question. But sustainability continues to grow. One last tangent here, but last year was over $60 billion was was in fiber for organic textiles, so that has grown double digits for the for the last decade, slowed down as a single digits last year, but it continues to grow as consumers get educated and really understand what they're buying, who they're buying from, where are the products made, and are the claims that these companies making? Are they truly accurate?

Andrew Maff  22:12

Yeah, amazing. Yeah. You never would have thought like, oh, just actually do your due diligence and find out that what you're claiming is, in fact, accurate. It's it makes a ton of sense. Michael, I really appreciate having you on the show. I don't want to take up too much your time. I know you're super busy. I'd love to give you the floor let everyone know where they can find out more about you and more about Delilah home, of course.

Michael Twer  22:31

Well, great. Well, thank you so much for having me. Andrea. Really appreciate it. Our website is Delilah Home, delilahhome.com, you can also find us on Macys.com, Bloomingdales.com, Target, Walmart, Amazon. But if you come to to our our site, and if you have any questions, you're gonna get an answer from from me. And it could be at 10 o'clock at night, but I'm gonna respond with within, you know, minutes to to to an hour. That's kind of because I'm hooked to my phone. So we appreciate all the support. We're very blessed to have a great customer base. We try to do what's right every single day, even though we're not perfect. We do mess up, but we try to make it right. So we appreciate any opportunity to earn any of your customers or any of your followers business.

Andrew Maff  23:18

Michael, appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on the show. Everyone who tuned in, of course, thank you as well. Please make sure you do the usual thing, rate review, subscribe all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over to the ecommshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us. We'll see you all next time.

Narrator  23:36

Thank you for tuning in to The E-Comm Show head over to theecommshow.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTuskr YouTube channel. The E-Comm Show is brought to you by BlueTuskr, a full service digital marketing company specifically for e-commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth. Go to bluetuskr.com Now for more information. Make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of The E-Comm Show.