Future Commerce

Living Rent-Free in our BrainsThe drop culture and the hype culture have created a much shorter attention span.“We trample over each other to get the goods we want.” -PhillipGuided commerce has an emotional and personal impact when you do it in person, in such a way that it never lands the same when you’re doing it from a questionnaire.“Those sorts of sensory moments in commerce are often overlooked, but those are the things that actually make customer experience.” -Phillip“Ee-commerce is democratized access to at least the understanding of what's available and to browse and to shop unfettered.” -PhillipAssociated Links:Episode 225: Jingle All the WayInsiders #009: Shop Like It’s Your JobPhillip’s TikTokSubscribe to InsidersListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Predicting the Ecom, DTC, and Tech winners and losers of 2022It’s a new year and spoiler alert…Brian still loves Costco. He’s actually banking that it becomes the biggest retail winner of 2022, whereas Phillip is rooting for GAP Brands (Old Navy, Banana Republic, Atheta)Will Amazon come out as the biggest retail loser of 2022? Possibly. Everyone is feeling the effect of disinformation and it doesn’t seem to be getting betterCould beauty brands be leading the way in DTC this year? Phillip and Brian are thinking Harry’s and Hero Cosmetics“To criticize a direct to consumer brand is to somehow intrinsically criticize its founding team and the small amount of people that work on it. That has to change.” -PhillipWho will take home the gold for biggest media winner of 2022? HBO Max, Netflix, or could Youtube come out on top?“YouTube is completely untouched and maybe it should be the biggest winner of 2022.” -Phillip“Here's my loser for media: None. I think media is on a trajectory. Media continues to dominate.” -BrianThe rise of the Aggressive Aesthetic: brands are becoming loud.  They’re starting to stand out in a sleek and bold way.Associated Links:Insiders #092: These Brands I TrustEpisode 8: Body DataSubscribe to InsidersListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Phillip and Brian join Ingrid on Infinite Shelf to chat about the best highlights throughout the season thus far. Tune in now!

"This is Not Van Gogh"Today we're reviewing the best of the podcast in 2021, but instead ofBranded resale enables you to have a better understanding of how things are being bought and sold and how your brand is having a life after you’re done“The most sustainable product in the world is the one that already exists.” -Adam“Brands are actually a new kind of canvas. They are a piece of art to some degree.” -PhillipWe live in a world full of existential crises, but it's kind of fun. Sometimes other people won't agree with you that something should exist until they do.It’s easier to start carbon counting when you're small and your needs are small and you have a less complicated business. It's much harder to do it later on, and that's true of everything.Associated Links:Brands mentioned: Spirited Away, Curious ElixirsEpisode 191: Net Neutrality and the Deplatforming of TrumpEpisode 194: “The Most Sustainable Product is One That Already Exists”Episode 195: “Adorkable” Brands, Blands, and CARLYEpisode 196: Non-Fungible PodcastEpisode 66: Leading Indicators of Unchecked InflationEpisode 202: "Well Made": You Need to Have a Reason Why Something Should ExistEpisode 205: Rally and The Age of Fractional OwnershipEpisode 219: Project Gigaton: The SMB and DTC Impacts of Climate AccountabilitySubscribe to InsidersListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The First Ever Future Commerce DraftEvery person has a blind spot, and your mind fills that gap. But what are we missing? “We resort to hard data or often like quantifiable knowledge instead of gathering true, in the moment insight from people from their perspective, that first person perspective, which is really, really hard to validate.” -BrianExperience is different from every moment to every moment. We often don’t pay attention to the data that is related to our narrative.“​​I believe what we do is more art than it is expert analysis, right? Or an exploration of thought leadership. What we're doing is trying to communicate big, hairy ideas. And sometimes you can't communicate every single idea with logic and reason, and data. Sometimes you have to communicate it with art.” -PhillipThere is a power struggle. We can break the power struggle by having discourse. Having discourse is the future of brand building and equitable brand relationships.Associated Links:Insiders #107: Dork Mode: An Antidote to the Sea of SamenessInsiders #088: Paula’s Choice: On Blind Spots and Phase CancellationInsiders #070: Phenomenological BrandsInsiders #077: So You Think You’re a Collector Insiders #068: Proselytize Insiders #108: The Idolatry of the Algorithm Insiders #080: Rethinking Brand Power Structures Insiders #92: These Brands I Trust Subscribe to InsidersListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfCheck out our latest report Nine by NineWatch the Nine by Nine live experienceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The Way We’re Shopping Has Changed Forever When looking at Black Friday/Cyber Monday recaps, retail analysts and reporters drew a little bit of a flat lineBrands are seeing underwhelming sales growth on Amazon's Black Friday. “In general, performance for many brands was somewhat muted compared with the bumper 2020 sale event. A considerable factor could be that it appears that shoppers did not flock to Black Friday deals as eagerly this year.”- Kiri Masters, Forbes“More and more of these types of companies are being transparent with their data, even though they're private companies. As they become more dominant, they're helping us to understand the landscape a little more in the way that they're sharing data.” -PhillipWalmart was still the leader in brick-and-mortar sales on Black Friday, with nearly 59% of consumers who shopped in-store stepping into one of the box store locations. Over 42% visited physical Target locations, while approximately 30% went to Best Buy and 21% went to Kohl’s.“The way we're shopping has changed forever.” -PhillipWalmart was still the leader in brick-and-mortar sales on Black Friday, with nearly 59% of consumers who shopped in-store stepping into one of the box store locations.The future is here but not equally distributed yet. Market leaders are making investments in the metaverse, this might be an area where more brands are going to make investments and become more experimental.Associated Links:Salesforce DataForbes- Kiri MastersBarron’s Thursday StatsAdobe stockPymnts Black FridayPoolsuite NFT LaunchInsiders #108: The Idolatry of the Algorithm Adweek Boston Protocol Buweiser launches NFT cansSubscribe to Insiders to get our exclusive offers for Black Friday!Listen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfCheck out our latest report Nine by NineHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Becoming a Gift Influencer Drips vs. Drops? Drips all the way. Businesses should be providing drips to their customers, constant communication. Whereas drops are the seasonality of pushing your customer. “I love the always-on drip culture. I do still think there's excitement and like sexiness to a big drop. But you have to make sure that those drops are super, super necessary in the moment, like hitting exactly where they need to hit and then using the drips throughout the year to prepare for the big drops, but then also make sure that you're staying relevant and on top of mind.” -IngridThe best part of the holiday season is giving! But there’s different kinds of gifters. According to Brian and Ingrid, they’re both gift influencers.We’re going to see more of an experiential gift this season than an actual material gift.“This is a year where people are going to be giving things that get people out and moving and doing things.” -BrianAssociated Links:Subscribe to Insiders to get our exclusive offers for Black Friday!Listen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfCheck out our latest report Nine by NineWatch the Nine by Nine live experienceBands mentioned: Our Place, Tracksmith, SferraHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Smart Contracts are the New Covenants “All this stuff is stuff that's been out that we've been talking about for quite some time, but it's actually finding its way into the mainstream now and that's really exciting.” -Brian The future is fractional ownership and we are seeing it happen right now with an autonomous organization potentially fractionally owning the governance of us all being able to acquire a copy of the Constitution of the United States of America.“There's an ecom brain drain risk here in that these sexier, open source projects today are effectively of this variety where  folks are putting in many months of effort, a person months of effort, I should say, for what to what end.” -Phillip“Curation doesn't necessarily mean marketplace.” - BrianThis is what a lot of brand collabs feel like according to Phillip:Associated Links:Listen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfCheck out our latest report Nine by NineWatch the Nine by Nine live experienceSubscribe to InsidersPhillip’s Insiders piece with Melissa LeeHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Approaching Dork ModeNo Best Practices is a blog and a newsletter on a mission to help marketers think more like operators and make sure that what they're working on is contributing in a meaningful way to the bottom line.“There are three different ways of approaching marketing. One where you start and things are completely instinctual and gut driven, and then, “I'm making data driven decisions," and then there's the "Well, there actually are some kind of guiding principles that can explain what's going on," to help you to avoid analysis paralysis. That's what I'm trying to go after with the writing: getting things to an actionable place.” -Alex Is there a current existential threat to ecom businesses right now?“The eCommerce game itself is getting harder. There are fewer arbitrage opportunities and almost, unless you really are aware of that, it makes that past 20 years of experience less applicable to the future because you can't run the same playbook.” -AlexDork Mode is based off an obsession with technology to enable personalization, but moving past that to create real, personalized experiences for a subsegment of customers.The web should be much more diverse than it is.“There's the opportunity for the web to be so many more things to so many more people, and for brands to be so many more things, to so many more people. We think that we have to regress the mean, but we have the ability to not do that and we just haven't done anything with that power.” -Brian“Go back and really understand the narrative behind your business and how you got to where you are now and where you're trying to go.” -AlexAssociated Links:Learn more about Alex Greifeld and No Best Practices Read Alex’s work on Insiders: Digital Luxury Experiences: An Exercise in “Skinnovation”Dork Mode: An Antidote to the Sea of SamenessListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceListen to our newest podcast, Infinite ShelfCheck out our latest report Nine by NineSubscribe to InsidersHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Superseding Customer Relationships "Relationship supersedes brand" is a phrase that we've often said on the podcast, but Phillip is calling this into question.A transaction doesn’t have to be an exchange of goods or monetary. It can be influence, it can be power dynamics, it’s identity exchange.“What often is overlooked is the employee experience in delivering service and support. It's never been more important than it is today.” -PhillipGetting customer service right during post purchase is important and solidifies loyalty, but prepurchase is just as important. “The role of a customer support agent is morphing into something else: a brand ambassador. Someone that has to be on brand, someone that has to represent the brand well as they interact with the customer.” -BrianBrands are changing their view of what brand ambassadors can be. “We're all consuming more and we're all participating in commerce more because commerce touches everything.” -Phillip “The whole focus we have at Gorgias is let's automate. Let's focus on self-serve so that we can transfer all of the human time towards those valuable conversations.” -RomainAssociated Links:Learn more about Romain Lapeyre and GorgiasJoin the Gorgias community on Facebook!Brands mentioned: Princess Polly, Ilia BeautyListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceCheck out our latest report Nine by NineSubscribe to InsidersHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!