EP204 - 2020 Annual Predictions

EP204 - 2020 Annual Predictions

2019 Recap - Predictions made on episode 159

Scot

1. At least 5k more store closures in 2019. Yes.  9,300 US store closures per Coresight.
2. Amazon – Prof Galloway is big on Amazon having to create a AWS spinoff and has moderated that to tracking stock. I’m going to predict Amazon doesn’t do either of those things. But this WILL be the year they break ads out. Yes. Galloway was wrong.
3. eBay/Alibaba – I think this is the year when they both need to do something big and the stars are aligning for a combination there. Nope.
4.  Shopify gets acquired by one of the big ad-based companies (facebook/google most likely) Nope.
5. Walmart stumbles in e-commerce. Nope

Score 2/5

Jason

1. Amazon store count exceeds 1000 stores Nope.  571 Amazon Stores
   • 22 Book
   • 15 4-Star
   • 8 Pop-ups
   • 25 Go
   • 2 liquor
   • 499 Whole Foods
2. Walmart buys a last mile firm Nope
3. Another big  bankruptcy (going to be a tougher than expected year, JCP, category killers Office, BBBY, Neiman). Yep (Payless ShoeSource, Destination Maternity Shopko,Forever 21, ShopKo, Gymboree, Things Remembered, Charlotte Russe, Diesel, Z Gallerie, Charming Charlie, Barneys, Sugarfina, etc ...)
4. Mobile commerce revenue passes Desktop – Aided by PWA’s, and payment API’s we see mobile gap narrow. Nope.  60/35/5 Desktop/Mobile/Tablet Nov-Dec via Adobe.
5. Fads (Voice Commerce, Customer facing AI, SocialCommerce, VR BlockChain). Yes

BONUS: Amazon breaks out prime revenue (No)

Score 2/5

An epic fail for Jason & Scot! It turns out the future is difficult to see (and our case the timing is also tough).

2020 Predictions

Scot

1. Shopify wilts a bit - new competition comes out with different angles (marketcap stays static)
2. Fedex does something drastic - buy eBay? Merge with Alibaba?
3. The year of returns - “happy returns” - a startup raises $100M+ in space.
4. Mallageddon continues At least another 8k stores
5. Google gets aggressive in ecommerce
   • 10% traffic to ‘shopping actions’
   • buy ebay/fedex

Jason

1. Walmart - growth slows due to completion of grocery build out. Marc Lore leaves Walmart.
2. Amazon - Opens affordable grocery concept. Digital grocery wars heat up.
3. Owned brands continue to grow. 5% of retail in 2019, could be 8-10% in 2020 (as measured by IRI, for CPG private label).
4. Installment Payments heat up - At least one company is acquired (Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, QuadPay, Sizzle)
5. Digital in-store heats up, QR codes make a comeback

Bonus:  Cashier-less stores (Amazon Go), blockchain, 5G, big data, and personalization won’t have a significant impact on retail. No DNVB will break out. No major retail anti-trust actions in US. Brick & Mortar Marketplaces won’t take off (Showfields, Neighborhood Goods, B8ta). Shopify won’t compete with Amazon.  

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Episode 204 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, January 2nd, 2020.

Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

http://jasonandscot.com

Google Automated Transcription of the show

Transcript

Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode at 204 being recorded on Thursday January 2nd 2020 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners will Jason happy New Year happy new decade hope you had a really good last decade and I hope you had a good holiday. Jason: [0:53] I did Happy New Year to you. I'm with you on that new decade but they're you know there's some controversy about whether it is a new decade or not. Scot: [1:01] Yeah I don't believe that it's a it's a 10 plus one problem we'll just to sweep sweep past. Jason: [1:07] Yeah it's the twenties as far as I'm concerned so. Yes but it has already happened I nailed our intro despite the fact that we typed 2019 in the show notes. Scot: [1:22] Azle Easter I got them there for you you found it. Jason: [1:25] Yeah I was I felt I felt special about myself that I was able to fix that on the Fly. Scot: [1:32] Who said the most important question is have you been able to see the new Star Wars movie. Jason: [1:36] Oh my God Scott I've been thinking about you nonstop because yes I got to see the new Star Wars movie and obviously we'll will be spoiler-free but I I was totally happy with it and enjoyed it. Scot: [1:48] Yeah yeah me too weird thing happen to me where I've gotten to where I kind of like the Mandalorian almost better than the movies so I don't know. Jason: [1:57] So here's why I've been thinking about you nonstop my 4 year old is now both feet in on Star Wars everything. Scot: [2:06] Good quality parenting right there. Jason: [2:08] So we wouldn't want some of the movies there's a ton of like kid-friendly Star Wars content you probably knew all about this but there's like the Lego movies and cartoons and all this different stuff, and like for Hanukkah he got a lightsaber which he has not been separated from since and. Scot: [2:27] Nice. Jason: [2:27] We got a bunch of Star Wars books including I got him, like a graphic novel version of episodes for 5 and 6 and so now every night as part of our bedtime ritual he's his down with me and we we you know read us a segment from the book. Scot: [2:46] Give us your Darth Vader voice. Jason: [2:48] Yeah I'm not doing any voices on the podcast sorry. Scot: [2:53] Baby geek I am your father. Jason: [2:55] Exactly I have said that exact phrase tan. The what's super funny is my wife and I like you have enjoyed Mandalorian and we were watching it one night and Stephen King in like you should have been asleep and it came in and saw I like. 30 seconds of Mandalorian which we have not let him watch Mandalorian but Steven is totally 100% fixated on Mandalorian. So he's already convinced that mandalorians are way better than Jedis. Like the only character he likes from all of the previous Star Wars work is now Boba Fett and he like he brings them up and every contact and we're like. You seen 32nd. Scot: [3:44] Team Honda. Jason: [3:47] Anything he's like he's like four and he's asking like. Like when he sees Yoda in like Clone Wars he's asking like how is he only a baby in Mandalorian. Scot: [3:59] You have time like it's really confusing. Jason: [4:05] Star Wars is super confusing to explain to a four year old white guy because you start with the premise that like the bad guys have red lightsabers in the good guys have other colors and then like, it's only Don's I knew that all the bad guys used to be good guys and then become good guys again and so I. It's super like that Santa can that it yeah yeah it's a very convoluted but suffice it to say there's a bunch of Mandalorian and baby Yoda posters up in his room and he's like we're leaving in a Mandalorian World which just makes me think of you. Scot: [4:37] Regal Walden toys are coming out so that it's going to be exciting in the next couple of weeks are all the they held them because they didn't want to spoil some of the plot elements of Mandalorian soon there's a big wave of toys coming so it's good time. Jason: [4:50] I know and in fact a bunch of entrepreneurial people because they did not release baby Yoda toys during the show because they were trying to prove your point keep him Secret. So everybody and their brother started making baby Yoda toys and like there's been like you know a huge intellectual property Crackdown and there's like you know hundreds of people from Etsy that have been. Don the cease-and-desist orders over that. Scot: [5:17] Speaking of toys I saw on Twitter that you were going to try to hit one of the new Toys R Us did you make it to him. Jason: [5:24] I did I am wearing a button right now that says I don't want to grow up I'm a Toys R Us kid. Because I went to the Houston store a few days after it open so there's, Tyreke and for our listeners like Toys R Us went bankrupt or done at super sad huge disruption in the toy industry, a company bought the the intellectual property of Toys R Us and they did a partnership with beta who's been on the show a couple times, the open initially to Toys R Us stores so there's one in New Jersey and there's one in Houston Texas. So I got to go to the Houston Texas one and it was fun it was fun to see the brand, back alive and reimagined then it was a you know it's very different than a Toys R Us a traditional Toys R Us store because these are. Kind of 20,000 square foot Mall base toy stores versus. 80000 square foot big box toy stores but it was a fun immersive retail environment with a bunch of toys and, this mall which is a a mall Scott like a week before Christmas felt like a ghost town to me like it was. Tragically empty but I would argue the Toys R Us with the second busiest store in the in the whole mall and. [6:49] Behind Apple you're exactly right side note people are only in the Apple store to get tech support but still. But this one was really busy and people like had made a special trip just to go in like the brand is so strong so it looks like these first two stores are doing pretty well and I know there's a plan to open more so kudos to them for saving the brand and beta for doing a pretty good toy execution. Scot: [7:16] Nice the so thanks for the trip report this is our annual recap and he's always run long so I think we should just jump right on into it so being the first show of the decade and the year it is our custom I guess we've done this for fact, to do an annual prediction and then Square ourselves so way back in episode 159 we had our predictions, or 2019 so I think what we'll do is score each other to start out with and then we'll put out our predictions so why don't you go to my last year predictions. Jason: [7:58] And before you jump and let me just say I despise this show I've had red leading up to the show in the reason is is I've never done very well that however will I have done I've gotten progressively worse every year and last year while I did quite poorly you did stupendous wave and so, it's like I've dreaded even seen what my predictions were last year and hearing about them so I'm just going to rip the Band-Aid off and we'll get through the show but your first prediction for for 2019 was that at least 5K more stores would close in 2019 and let's get this out of the way you blew away that prediction coresite which is the company we most often use for kind of tracking Us store closures had like 9300 stores closing this year IHL did a study in the world even more store closures than that in their in their study Dope by any measure way more than 5,000 stores closed and you know in hindsight I should have let you get away with that prediction because that's why, it was too easy. Scot: [9:12] Well no I don't know if there's a lot of people saying but that was kind of going to be the worst. Jason: [9:19] That no so if you had said there is going to be worse than last year that would have been a slightly more predict like. Tempstar 5000 was less than last year or this year but yeah I agree, most people thought there be fewer closures this year than last year in that bike by depending on how you count did not prove to be the case that much more controversial thing on the whole store closures is it more open and closed if you go by the course I track her a lot more closed than open but if you go by other studies, that are the feel more comprehensive like they're actually were more swords that open then close so. Scot: [9:58] Yeah and I know the size Matters right to some of these are mattress stores which are pretty big. Jason: [10:04] And I whoop all a lot of the people that say way more stores open then close are also counting like restaurants and stores for example and the end restaurants have a lot of charm and so, a lot of controversy but bottom line you started out of the gate strong you're one for one and. Your second prediction, you just you just jumped right into the gutter because your second prediction was that Professor Scott Galloway would basically be wrong. Which I like as a general principle but more specifically what you're talking about is the, an inner 9 people the climate a year ago he had just published a book about the the for one of which was Amazon so he was he was publicly speaking about Amazon a ton and he you know was really beating a drum around having to split up Amazon and they're potentially Amazon would voluntarily spin off some of their businesses because they're so lucrative and so you know the talk to usually about 8 if you ask until your prediction was kind of to go negative and say you always wrong and Amazon isn't going to be split up and isn't going to voluntarily split up in any parts of their business and, you were certainly correct none of those things happens. Scot: [11:28] What have I learned from this anti Galloway bet is that he throws out so many things he gets one right and then looks like a genius show his we work one with hit. The bus was other ones didn't put the he's ridden the we work one for a good six months. Jason: [11:43] Yep yeah I feel like he the first one that hit for him that really like you know he made a lot of hay en was predicting Whole Foods would be acquired by Amazon and then yeah he was instrumental in that kind of picking the, he was an early picker of the we were demise the pressure point he also predicted Amazon would acquire a bunch of other people besides Whole Foods that they didn't in my favorite prediction is about 3 years ago he said that Amazon had peaked in that you should short the stock. Scot: [12:14] I would not have been good. Jason: [12:16] Side note yeah that would turned out not to be good investment advice. So yeah for your point like anyone in this predictions face like the whole key is to throw a bunch out and just remind people of the ones you got right and not bring up all the ones you got wrong. But you're doing great you're two for two yeah so third prediction that. Either or eBay and Alibaba would need to do something big in 2019, and so you use you propose that potentially they might do some sort of joint venture or some sort of combination. And I have to say he's got as far as I'm aware that did not happen. Scot: [13:03] Yeah but itself StubHub when you said that's pretty big. Jason: [13:09] No not relative to their socks. Scot: [13:11] It was Lucy 4 billion of 30 billion market cap that's more than materiality. Jason: [13:23] Again I'm dreading my own predictions so I'm grading you very very strictly enough so I'm going to say you're two for three right now. Scot: [13:35] Another thing just point out is the eBay CEO just got up and left one day if that was kind of surprised I don't know if we count that as something big happening or not there's this line with the Borden peace out. Jason: [13:49] Yeah need to do something big. Scot: [13:50] That's kind of a shot. Jason: [13:52] Sell the property will parts of your company and then watch the Executive Suite I don't think that was the spirit of I think you were more proposing they would do something that would help them reacquired growth. Scot: [14:05] Yeah but another thing I didn't anticipate us this anti-china thing that we have going on here right now so the tariffs were one thing but there's just. A lot of anti-china going on right now that I think is going to make this murderer and possible I don't think the US government would let app. Jason: [14:24] Yeah I think there's there are some number of entanglements there that that would be challenges there aren't there were some little Partnerships there some interesting things we like, well I guess it's more JD and the Walmart in the US but. Back on track your two for three and your fourth prediction was that Shopify gets Acquired and you said potentially by one of the big add bass companies like Facebook or Google +, once again to my knowledge that did not happen are you agree or do you have a argument there as well. Scot: [15:03] I agree and you know what's really amazing is if you look at kind of your your Shopify when I made this production was their stock is like at 1:44 and they were attending. Nick on all the stuff like 3x so weather like a 1012 blade on a company now they're $47 company they're pretty much on acquirable I think at that price and then the valuation multiple is extremely lucky so if you look at all the different soccer the service companies yet uses range of like 8 to 10 x there's something like 15 to 20 x is just crazy, good as those guys they essentially don't they will be at choir and not not a choir. Jason: [15:53] Totally agree there they're killing it both in terms of their their financial success and valuations but also their they're just winning in the marketplace and they're like you have continuing to capture more Greyhound away from the Enterprise guys and they're doing a bunch of interesting things so we'll talk more about them in the future I'm sure but yeah they're a bunch of people that would like to acquire them but for your point like there is not that's not really economically viable at this point and then number 5, Walmart stumbles in e-commerce and I took that to mean. That they're the rate of e-commerce growth would slow over 2018 which was pretty solid gross at like 40%. And they actually were exactly at 40% again in 2020 so there, they're growing very quickly they're growing faster than Amazon certainly much faster than the, the market overall and their growth rate in 2020 or 2019 was basically the same as 2018 so like by that measure I'm not giving them a stumble in 2019 but do you you agree or was you think it was some other dimension they stumbled in. Scot: [17:15] Agree I probably underestimated how long they had to kind of Wind by converting grocery over but I think this year probably will give you the. Jason: [17:29] I feel like that's a common theme in all of our predictions ynm that I've noticed both you and I are sort of afraid to double down and be like wrong one year and then say say it again the next year but many of our predictions come true a year after we predicted. Scot: [17:43] Lyrics the Alexa are pause airpods I did like 2 years and then it came up here I didn't God darn it. Jason: [17:49] Exactly which is frustrating yes so being super brutal you ended up 245 which is way off your your historic average. Scot: [18:02] Yeah I usually bat 500 but it wasn't wasn't there this year I mean on the stuff I feel like e-commerce slow down a little bit. Jason: [18:13] Oh no I for sure feel like it has and I do think. Scot: [18:16] But the pace of innovation is really slowing which is makes up makes it harder to throw out big predictions. Jason: [18:21] Yeah I also feel like it is this point like it's the timing of many things is tougher to predict than the actual events themselves and the Horizon is now longer than a year for your point so that's that's that another challenge with this whole predictions thing but I'm not remotely confident that I didn't any better so so with no further Ado let's let's see how I did. Scot: [18:51] Yes yes so your prediction so let's jump into this the first one is you were very giddy you probably had just visited three or four of the Amazon stores and you said look I am sure this can be over a thousand Amazon physical stores by the end of the year so I think. Whole Foods helps a lot here in this is there were there were a bunch of Articles out there that Amazon was going to because Wall Street Journal that they're going to have, thousands of Stories the right now we're sitting in about five to six hundred so you got Whole Foods 500 Whole Foods there's some pop upstairs for Stars book stores throw all that together you get sky like 555 75 so that's a pretty big Miss 57% is f on any grading scale so sorry I did not get that. Jason: [19:53] Yeah no I'll be honest I thought, perhaps Amazon go with scale and much more you were generous that they were actually a lot more pop-up stores the last year they closed most of the pop-up store so it's possible there's fewer Stars this year than they were last year of you if you included those so yeah I wildly miss that in the only like slightly interesting thing in that in that whole thing is I feel like the one concept that has scales slightly More Than People realizes the 4-star store so there now 15 for Star stores which is like coming up on on you know the number of bookstore so pretty soon we might have more, more 4-star stores that we have book stores but nowhere close to a thousand I was wildly wrong. Scot: [20:38] What are the clothes the popups cuz I've kept an eye on them in our malls and they're pretty popular MMOs price at the. Jason: [20:46] Yeah yeah well you know for a while they had a ton of them in Whole Food stores, and yeah I feel like they opened a lot of them in places where they could get real estate rather than in places where. Where there was a like strategic audience need a few pop-up stores their main are some kind of interesting Concepts so that yeah I don't I don't know. Scot: [21:12] So that's 0 4 5 4 for those homegamers keeping track of the score then your second one and this was one where I think the timing probably is going to be what this was on the heels of Target buying ships and here we are a year later that's gone really well you have Target, Ecommerce accelerated they're constantly talking about how should you store is doing well and all those initiatives that if they can anchor on ship, so your prediction was that in 2019 Walmart would buy a last-mile firm and that did not happen I think the big idea and last-mile will there be a couple one was going to just kind of Associates kind of on their way home free stuff and then the second one is this whole body camera thing where they're going to pop Associates right in your house to deliver stuff I don't think that is really caught on either. Jason: [22:10] Yeah I know II do I agree I think they I made that prediction cuz I felt like, that honey how stuff is really growing for them and they would need more Last Mile capacity and I still think that it is true, I didn't foresee that last year but you know like as whole food as a FedEx has kind of gone push the last run away from Amazon that the company they're running to is Walmart and so we we've seen some like bigger strategic Partnerships between Walmart and FedEx and now that you know they're starting to be some some economic weakness at FedEx, I do not want to talk about this year's predictions but that you could almost imagine at one point that that could be an acquisition or some kind of deeper strategic partnership but nevertheless did not happen last year. Scot: [23:03] So that says 045 stole your third one and I think you made a comment last year that you need to be less specific to this one's kind of interesting. And they said there could be another big bankruptcy but then you said such as JCPenney one of the office guys Bed Bath Beyond need and Marcus so you kind of had an ore in there or are you know we could have took her to this again. Being generous since we're sitting here at over to there were a lot of bankruptcies so we had the seat jabri we had Forever 21. What's rue21 was that a result 2018. Jason: [23:49] That might have been 18 or not sure. Scot: [23:51] One of the maternity stores Payless shoes and we'll see we had there was one of the mattress stores. So there were there were some pretty high-profile bankruptcies. Jason: [24:07] I'm taking the win but in hindsight like that was a lame prediction like of course somebody's going to go bankrupt every year so if you're not specific at Tulane prediction and if you are specific the names I mentioned. I still am taking the win and I would point out like the one that gets talked about the most which is actually one of the smaller ones is Barney's was like the, start a story brand that went bankrupt and I know the one that almost doesn't get talked about but was most crushing and near and dear to your heart is sugarfina. Scot: [24:37] Yeah. Steer. Okay so your fourth prediction. Jason: [24:44] Wait wait let's recap the score I'm now one of the three. Infinitely improved over over the previous two. Scot: [24:50] Yeah yeah you're all on at are two more to make up some some room here so your fourth prediction was that mobile Commerce Revenue would pass desktop and lessors of the show know you are a big fan of pwa which is not a rap band it's some kind of a technology for mobile stuff and also the new payment apis and some of the other stuff you thought we're going to close the mobile, I'll defer to you since you're the guru on this didn't did you. Jason: [25:21] Yeah did we mention that that e-commerce is slowing down a lot, none of those things happened at near the scale that I thought they would end so for sure no mobile Revenue did not pass desktop revenue and I I thought I could like save face and say well that didn't happen it did happen on the big shopping days bright like so you know you could kind of make try to make an argument that oh I totally happened on December Monday or things like that but the reality is even over the holiday. If you'll get November through December, 60% of all revenue happened on desktop 35% of Revenue on mobile and 5% on tablet so bottom line I wasn't even close. Sad. Scot: [26:12] Yep sorry dude so let's see that gives us one out of four, all right last chance on number 5 on this one, Scot of one of your anti predictions you said following things are going to be fads and not take off voice Commerce AI That's customer-facing social commerce virtual reality and boxing. Jason: [26:38] Yeah and again not a very awesome prediction but I'm going to take the win on that and say that those things are all we're all basically feds at least in 2019, the one that feels like it's trying to get some traction and some some aspects of social commerce but but I would still argue they weren't like. Meaningful in 2019. Scot: [27:02] If I give you that one. Jason: [27:03] Yeah I'm desperate for I'm desperate for a win that would give me the 22052 at least IU. Scot: [27:08] Yeah yeah and then you threw out because you're you're Jason you just couldn't stop at 5 got a Bonus and you said Amazon is going to breakout Prime Revenue you're really specific I had to go back and listen. Cuz I had a feeling you're kind of get a little slippery on it so Amazon has not broken out that's that's a no. Jason: [27:31] Yeah what really happened is I misspoke what I meant to say is that callonwood breakout primary. For Amazon and I yeah I said it wrong. Scot: [27:43] Yeah but since I was a bonus will you know we won't we won't count it so it's practically a tie this year so which is to me that's a loss cuz over the over the The Arc typically beat me by three or four answers. Jason: [27:59] And so it would be a win for me but since you basically came down to my level it doesn't I don't think it feels good for either of us but at least. Scot: [28:06] What are you get better. Jason: [28:07] At least we've established our credibility now so I'm sure it was on the edge of their seats to hear our wise predictions for next year now that we've shown how I'm nipotent we are. Scot: [28:17] We're going to rebound to I can feel it go do you want to join to do yours first. Jason: [28:22] No I want to hear you're so I can potentially use them. Scot: [28:27] Yep so here's my five predictions so I mentioned earlier that Shopify is kind of gone up 3x in a year that just feels you know, very nose bleeding to me and there's a lot of new competition coming out so I think whenever you have a value creation event like that where they've essentially created 45 billion dollars out of town are there could be a lot of money chasing Shopify, I don't know what their weaknesses but every company always has one so it's going to be interesting to see, what comes after them what angles they come after and all that good stuff so that's that's my prediction is that they're going to wilt a bit and you know I'll put a. [29:14] I need to put something more specific there I'll say they did kind of stay at this market cap or go down 10% somewhere between kind of here in temperature I don't think there's going to be another kind of like huge run up type your and it's going to be largely your folks waking up to say wait there is competition out there for this business model. But you don't think that doesn't get talked about this to turn just has to be like through the roof right so just on a unit turn to have to just be turning tons of customers and now in a cohort, it probably is its revenue for the cohort pipe the GMB for the cohort crime makes up and then that's what drives the revenue, overtime it just feels like there's going to be sup Rider light shown on part of their business model that isn't, this kind of perfect kind of price for protection company. Jason: [30:09] No I would agree with that I do think that maybe the one thing that that mitigates that a little bit is they are starting to successfully go upmarket a bit and get like some slightly more. Stables lower turn customers with higher gym be so so maybe that balance is out in the long run. Scot: [30:29] Yeah it's like a million at the base of the pyramid though and it takes a lot at the top of the pyramid. Jason: [30:35] It just takes one Kylie Jenner. Scot: [30:37] That last. That's my first prediction my second one and another prediction we would kind of I can't remember which was did that for a long time is part of me just like the earpods I was saying, Amazon will get into delivery that is, that would be a double a man because it sucks such an obvious once and for the longest time FedEx UPS said no no no there are partner or not our competitor the bloom is totally off that one right now where was like okay this is bad in fact you mentioned earlier FedEx is like getting hammered over this and so did Amazon kind of dug the knife in further where they won't even let seller fulfilled Prime sellers use FedEx because they say the service level isn't good enough. Jason: [31:32] Yeah you talk about throwing some holiday shade. Scot: [31:34] Ouch ouch so as a result of FedEx is under a lot of pressure right now and I think it's going to cause some kind of interesting thing to happen you know you got eBay out there kind of rudderless right now you could see FedEx eBay you could see you mention Walmart I think there's going to be some interesting, kind of marriage that happens with FedEx in and it's can be driven from the world of e-commerce. Jason: [32:04] Get I like that one. Scot: [32:06] Predictions for 3 this is not my forte but there's just a lot of Buzz around returns so there's several startups you could probably write them better than I can save Mall. BCS contact me about this which means it must be like just kind of, yeah they're all trying to solve returns problems and there's all kinds of clever ways of doing this of no Consolidated return centers different ways of managing the supply chain that kind of thing so I'm going to say 2020 will be the year where you know they're just probably be some kind of a winner that emerges from that and they'll be kind of like ShopRunner has try to do and not to successfully the offer a prime and a network of retailers that form an alternative prime one of these startups will be successful and I guess I'll Define it as. Raising over a hundred million something like that something that's like pretty pretty. Obvious that their leader they'll be pretty successful in in kind of taking a run at offering an on Amazon, multi retailer multi-brand approached returns. Jason: [33:25] So that's funny I wrote a similar prediction I didn't end up using it because I thought it was two wonky but I totally agree with the sentiment it does like I think it's returns it become a huge acute problem and so you know we're seeing lots of new investments in the hole reverse Logistics base to try to solve it so it that that seems reasonable although somebody raising a hundred million dollars is not peanuts so the so I like your. You're taking a stance. Scot: [33:58] That's my third and fourth one is a keeping with my mall again which has been a winner for for two years in a row I'm going to say you know what you call 9000 store closures in 2019 it's a good start. So I think we're going to have many more store closures I'm going to say at least eight thousand so continuing to keep, about the same as last year if not more I think we are going to see, I just feels like we're still over stored in a lot of different categories like drug stores that kind of stuff so I put that one out there. [34:34] And then this one this is one of these I've made a long time and I'm always wrong but I've some reason I'm back to it this year I just finally believe Google has is waking up to the Amazon Fred and and starting ticket much more seriously now they're there, terrible branding job at it but I think execution wise there is something there they have this Marketplace which is essentially called shopping Google shopping. Actions and you know the sink, they're getting pretty serious about it and I think this year they're going to get really really serious about it so what's that mean so I think I think. Overall I think I could see them actually in the hunt to buy an eBay or FedEx or something like that that could be interesting and then you know another one is the shopping actions is it's always just been this kind of on the edge like well a little Beyond 2% of Android latest Android lollipop popsicle Twix and yes it is a being like percent of a percent of a percent and not Material so so I'm thinking they get pretty serious about it meaning it's going to get a lot of exposure I'm on not only just some fraction of Android but across all Google properties. Jason: [35:59] So I like it how like what were you cancel BC to know that that that happened like you expect them to be like I'd top 100 retailer like what would what's the. Scot: [36:11] I think yeah I think 10% of shopping traffic going through it would be material so I would come start there. Jason: [36:20] Oh wow yeah that's quite mature okay. Scot: [36:22] And I would look at like search marketing as someone like the referee on this search marketing. Was that search engine land or one of those. Jason: [36:31] Ya SE land.com. At least to get the ball rolling you know the last month they announced Bill ready who is that executive PayPal is the new, like VP of Commerce a Google so they like they haven't a new person to sort of weed that initiative so that maybe bodes well for your prediction. Scot: [36:53] Yeah I worry about it because these payments guys want you when you've been in the payments world everything looks like a nail so so I worry we're going to get Google pay 8.0 embossing. Jason: [37:07] So yeah supposedly and I I don't know but I think he's got some non-competes and supposably like is being hired explicitly not to get involved in pain. Scot: [37:17] I did not know that. Jason: [37:19] So maybe that will benefit you. Scot: [37:23] Let's we can only hope. Jason: [37:24] Yes yes I like it though. Scot: [37:27] All right those are my five what are your five. Jason: [37:29] Awesome duck so my first one is I'm just going to take yours from last year and protect them for this year. Thinking of you just missed the timing and given all the ones that that have happened the past that's my new strategy so last year you predicted it Walmart, would would have a hiccup in 2019 so I'm going to say in 2020 is the year that the Walmart rate of growth slows down and I don't, actually mean that that, is a distressing anyway I just think sometime this year they're going to finish rolling out online grocery pick-up to all of their stores and they're going to have to comp against, stores that were opened last year where has for the last few years they've had this benefit of opening a bunch of stores and going from zero to some, some big number of digital grocery so I think it's going to be much tougher to maintain that 40% growth rate so I expect that growth rate to go down, which is enough kind of natural and then I'll throw out a wacky one and say I also actually think that this might be the year that Mark Laurie exits from Walmart. [38:43] Just think like, that he's probably been there awhile like we weave you know started to see some of hit a lot of the jet people have, kind of transitioned out now Andy Dunn has transitioned out that the guy has basically unlimited funds in the bank like I think he may just be like he's accomplished with what he can accomplish it at Walmart and we we might see a Changing of the Guard. Scot: [39:08] Did Nadal Ray say that he had like four years to make a trillion dollars but so it feels like they're being expensive choice. Jason: [39:18] Yeah I think it will be a I think he could afford an expensive choice I don't know how that would all work out like I could imagine him to go shooting some sort of payout, it made sense for both parties will see. Scot: [39:35] Is that a nand or nor. Jason: [39:37] Yeah so I want my official prediction to be that the rate of growth slows but if Mark Lori does away this year I want permission to go. Galloway and just like launch a website that's called Jason predicted that Mark would we. Scot: [39:52] Got it so it's amore with the Galloway Asterix. Jason: [39:56] It's the color its color exactly. So then my next permit prediction again following the trend that I like to always you always make some Amazon prediction so I'm going to steal that and. How to be honest like part of me feels like this is too easy and not a very controversial prediction but so many things don't happen that that like I do think it's fair I think this is the year that Amazon finally opens its own grocery concept bike separate from Whole Foods and I think it's going to be targeted at a more affordable price points and I think it's going to dramatically heat up the sort of digital grocery Wars and most notably, the Walmart Amazon Kroger battles. Scot: [40:44] Cool. Jason: [40:46] So number three is that I think we're going to see a lot more emphasis and talk about owned Brands this year and that's going to significantly grow as a part of retail so last year about 5% of all retail goods were, like private label type products and I think it could be dramatically bigger in 2020 I think it could be sort of in that 8 to 10% range. Which would be a huge disruption in the retail Marketplace. Scot: [41:19] What's your data source. Jason: [41:21] The 5% is actually 4.6% and I will have to I do have to get my intern to pull it out but that's predominantly focused on like the cpg and grocery space so it's one of those those Data Tracking companies but I'll find it for you. Scot: [41:47] So it's not Jason Goldberg go to himself. Jason: [41:49] No no no I we need a credible we need a credible external. Scot: [41:53] Is a data point out there were on the lam purses. Jason: [42:00] Yeah I like that one we just put it in the Echo chamber and and it'll become real. Scot: [42:06] That'll be interesting so that does that include digital native recall brands or this is more just like Target spending up. Jason: [42:17] Yeah, so I'm primary thinking about omnichannel retailers like Shifting the focus to Brands they own rather than so like to be it's more of the the, Captain Jack's of the world like I think Walmart's going to make a major effort to grow their own Brands Target you know me is is putting a huge effort into their new grocery brand and I I just think, the big macro Trend in in retailers we're going to see a couple retailers really try to can compete on, sort of Assortment and being the everything store and then in North America to me that's Walmart and Amazon and every other retailers going to try to win by selling stuff that no one else has and so I just think that's going to result in a lot bigger, Pechanga retail selling their own stuff instead of other people stuff. [43:12] We shall see ya. My fourth prediction is you know you you have on the area that there's a lot of momentum at the moment and returns and reverse Logistics another one for me is the installment payment space so I said installment payments are going to dramatically heat up and I think that's going to result in at least one major acquisition in that space so I think like, when I talk about installment payments I'm talking about a lot of these companies that are sort of alternative credit means a lot of them are kind of like, Finance your purchase in for for monthly payments that kind of thing and cities are friends like affirm and afterpay and Karma and I I just think that you know next year you see one of those acquired Maybe by a major credit card company or Bank you know I think some of the big traditional Financial folks are going to want to own a piece of that hot space And so there's going to be some good acquisitions. Scot: [44:15] Who who do you think this is an addiction but I'm curious who you think the buyers are going to be like traditional like Financial folks like City or or is. Jason: [44:26] Yeah so I think I think the big the big Banks participating banks that have a retail credit Division if you are receiving retail credit services so you do private label credit cards for like Best Buy, these guys are now taking a chunk of that space and and they've accomplished something that you've always wanted to do which is their built into the checkout flow which is super valuable to these credit card issuers and so I could easily like imagine one of those credit card firms wanting to acquire one of these guys I also think you could, you know it could be a PayPal or, square or you don't even like one of the big credit networks like Visa. Scot: [45:15] Singing payments do you have plans to move to Africa this year. Jason: [45:20] I was going to but I've been told that I only have one job and so I'm not qualified to to like move to Africa and remotely do my two CDL jobs. Who would you be referring to buy a by chance. Scot: [45:36] So Jack Dorsey CEO of Twitter and and square it's just kind of randomly said he's going to move to Africa for some. Of time if she can get Scott Galloway it really angered him he's very upset about. Jason: [45:52] Yeah but In fairness like I think of you a shit like Square in particular you're like, why is my guys been in a lot of his time on this Twitter thing and then now he's going to do it from Africa like that that would seems like, that would be a legitimate reason to have some concern. Scot: [46:12] Yeah yeah yeah. Jason: [46:14] Yep I would love to visit Africa but I think it would be on vacation and then my V prediction. Is one that I feel like I used to do all the time and then you know I skipped a year, so what will try it again I think this is going to be a year that digital in-store really heats up and the surprising piece of that is this much-maligned a technology that people in our industry like to make jokes about the the ugly QR code I think is going to make a a major comeback at retail and we'll see a bunch of of a Retailer's deployed QR codes for various forms of mobile wallets and particularly for like, letting you scan products and read reviews and things like that ends in retail stores. So those are my five and then. Scot: [47:08] DuckTales risky people hate QR you want a visceral hatred of York. Jason: [47:12] Yeah I feel like it's it's a bit of sneaky success I feel like there's a lot of people but they're pregnant primarily pendants that like have all this negativity around the QR code but didn't secretly you know. There there's a bunch of of use cases where the QR codes have been like Paramount like it's, it's you know a huge chunk of all payments at Starbucks and it's Walmart pay which is secretly been a success and it's you know it's it's Snapchat and if you go to China it's everywhere is WeChat so, so hopefully we'll see you by usually I am dead wrong in these things so I am not overly confident about any of them but. But I'm at least throwing it out there and again because the bonus is always treated me so well I thought I would throw a bonus in this year. Scot: [48:03] What do you have for this year. Jason: [48:06] So my bonus is I'm just going straight negative because I'll be honest when I first read these forecasts all five of my forecasts are things that we're not going to happen and then I realized that I can't I can't be that guy right so so I tried to make more optimistic reasonable forecast but then I reserve the right to point out all of the Ebenezer Scrooge bah humbug, moments so here's my long list of things that are not going to happen this year cashierless retail stores like Amazon go blockchain 5G big data and personalization none of those those Technologies are going to have a major impact on retail Talking Heads are going to go crazy about them and write stories about how you know if you don't do it immediately you're going to go out of business, but I think they're going to be the examples of success are going to be few and far between I don't think, everyone loves to talk about DJ need a vertical Brands but I don't think any of those are going to break out in a be particularly successful in 2020, I for sure don't think we're going to see any major retail antitrust actions in the US. [49:11] So that would be my negative Scott Galloway prediction I also don't think the the brick-and-mortar marketplace stores so that's beta showfields neighborhood Goods I don't think they're going to have a huge success or break out in 2020 and Shop of eyes getting a lot of Buzz right now but the the, thing I hear most about Shopify is that they're going to become a viable competitor for Amazon and I actually don't think they're going to compete with Amazon at all in 2020. Scot: [49:42] Yeah that the people that say they can compete feel like they think it Shopify would have some front door kind of marketplace Tech experience that kind of what you think people are looking. Jason: [49:54] There's people that talk about maybe they aggregate traffic and have some kind of marketplace experience where you could shop across multiple vendors you know they they bought a logistics company this year in the rapidly building out there with just aches and on paper that looks like, fulfillment by Amazon and some people are like oh that's competing with a fulfillment by Amazon but as I as we said earlier in the show I admire Shopify think they're making a bunch of the right decisions and they're doing really well. None of the services they provide to a client in my mind. Replace or compete with any of the services Amazon provides in anyway and like, I think they're for the most part synergistic in there they're going to have a lot of customer overlap but it's the end of the day Amazon is in the business of generating a huge amount of traffic and monetizing that traffic and they sell that traffic to their customers and that's exactly the opposite of what Shopify does Shopify does everything for you but get you any traffic whatsoever and you are totally responsible for bringing your own traffic and so I just think, that's a that's a, both sides of that strategy makes sense for both companies but I just I think all the pendants that are like oh you know the secret competitor for Amazon's going to turn out to be Shopify I just don't see it. Scot: [51:15] Any other bonuses you want though there. Jason: [51:21] No no no no I think I press my luck enough hopefully that you know there's some nuggets in their our listeners will be able to use they shake their 2020 and that will be able to redeem ourselves when we unquestionably I enter the new decade next January. Scot: [51:43] Yeah you know what maybe it would be fun as if listeners I'm just doing this off-the-cuff so what if listeners wanted to add some and we could kind of like aggregate some of the better ones in and talk about them on the next show but then also when we do the recap see what had a third competitor which of these listeners and see how they do against you. Jason: [52:05] Yeah that's a great idea because I it's it's kind of boring coming in second so I feel like third would be that's why I've been to just. Scot: [52:14] Looks like it would feel better if it smells cancer. Jason: [52:17] Fair enough. So maybe I try to take only the worst products that be funny I try to cherry-pick the worst predictions and then it still be me so yeah I'm totally in on that if listeners want to jump on to Facebook and we leave any of their own predictions or hit us up on Twitter will be happy to aggregate them put them in the show notes and include them in our recap next year and that's going to be a great final call to action because it's happen again we've used up our a lot of time so definitely love to hear all of our listeners predictions and also feel free if you just think, Scott and I are crazy and you want to refute any of our predictions we'd love to hear your thinking behind that and as always the beginning of the year before you get really busy at work is a perfect time to jump on iTunes and finally give us that five star review. Scot: [53:10] Things are running Jason congrats on salvaging a tie out this year. Jason: [53:15] Thanks very much it it it it feels good to be West behind than I usually am thanks everyone for listening and until next time happy commercing.