Future Commerce

Product discovery and marketplaces are all the rage right now but when Jules Pieri launched a product discovery marketplace 11 years ago she pioneered a cross-section of entrepreneurship that launches products more than 300 times per year. The Grommet is a curated marketplace of small businesses producing unique products from inspirational founders. Listen now! -- Main Takeaways: Brian and Phillip are joined on today's episode by Jules Pieri, Co-founder and CEO of The Grommet. The Grommet is a unique marketplace that takes the guesswork out of finding quality brands that represent truthful and meaningful brands. Today's market has paved the way for the romantic entrepreneur, but how do you turn your great idea into a successful business? The marketplace model has seen a prolific rise in variety, but how do you know what products and brands you can trust when shopping in a marketplace? Small Business Innovation: The Story of the Grommet: Phillip first met Jules at Magento Imagine and was entranced by the founder story of the Grommet, which he had never heard of before the conference. Jules started The Grommet eleven years ago, which launches one innovative consumer product from small businesses per day, a lot of which have become household names. The Grommet was founded because Jules saw that technology has made it easier for individuals to create products and larger companies were becoming less and less innovative. The innovation of small businesses proved to be very disruptive and now The Grommet is viewed by around four million people every day. From The Wrong Side of the Tracks: An Entrepreneurial Playbook: Brian asks Jules to talk more about herself and how she came to start the Grommet. Jules recounts how she grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Detroit, was the first person in her family to go to college, and when she was fourteen, she snuck behind her parents back and applied for boarding school. From very early, Jules developed a playbook for doing things that were scary and uncomfortable for her, and she learned to like it: a perfect platform for an entrepreneur. Her career tracks through three different phases: an early career as an industrial designer, later working for two separate start ups, and finally, Jules worked for some larger brands that led her to coming up with the idea for The Grommet. Left on the Cutting Room Floor: The Fallout of Innovation: Phillip recently listened to a podcast with Malcom Gladwell and Rick Rubin about the artistry is left on the cutting room floor as a musician and that the final product is only released after several edits and fine tuning. Larger brands have a tendency to play closer towards the plight of the musician where a lot ends up on the cutting room floor, but smaller brands have a lot of advantages in innovation, but tend to be capital constrained. Brian is reminded of an older episode with Sucharita Kodali from Forrester in which Sucharita describes her experience regarding the purchasing cycle of Toys"R"Us. Why do you think most products don't make it to shelves when being evaluated by large brands? A Call to Action: Citizen Commerce is Shaping the World: Jules has recently coined the term "citizen commerce" which means that every act a person takes to vote with either their time or money to support a product shapes a business. If you really care about a cause or a product, you have the opportunity to make that happen in the world by being more intentional with how you spend your time and money. Jules suggests to take a mer 10% of what you spend and put that towards products that you truly believe in and think will make a difference in the world. Consumers' demands and expectations of brands have become heightened and consumers have the power to determine winners in the marketplace; consumers can change the future of the world by not engaging with brands that don't meet these heightened expectations. A Massive Product Stream: How The Grommet Chooses Products: The Grommet lends credibility to the products it chooses to highlight each day, but only 3% of products actually make the cut. It takes a lot of time to figure out what companies truly stand for, but Grommet does that research for you and takes the time to make sure brands are being truthful. The Grommet engages deeply when a company is or is about to be in production and helps them craft their story and get that product to market. The hardest thing to do is get an audience in a crowded world, and retailers aren't interested in a single-product company in the current climate. The Power of the Marketplace: How Different Landscapes Highlight Different Products: What are the challenges that marketplaces face today, especially considering the hype around marketplaces as a business model? Jules sees that there is a trend to move more towards marketplaces and becoming increasingly more niche. Etsy and Amazon offer opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to marketplace originality and ease of shopping. There are a lot of interesting (yet scalable) marketplace models and The Grommet has a very interesting place in this landscape that they will be developing in the near future. Diminishing Returns: But Not How You Think: The return rate at The Grommet is an infinitesimal 3%, where as other eCommerce sites see returns in the high teens to low twenties percentage wise. The Grommet accomplishes this by using video to create product understanding, and the simple fact that they don't present products that aren't worth your money. The Grommet wins customers based on quality and trust, but most marketplaces are antithetical to those qualities by not providing products that are authentic. There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that examines how the ceding of product control has led to thousands of banned, unsafe, or mislabeled products. The Power of the Entrepreneur: Romanticizing Business: Statiscally, 66% of millenials and 75% of high school age students want to start their own businesses. Jules believes that there is a healthy ecosystem forming around the entrepreneurs that The Grommet works with and a lot of products that used to be locked up behind large companies, are now available to the public. It is not just the fact that there is an explosion of entrepreneurial companies that has led to this current market, but also due to an explosion of services and platforms that are helping the entrepreneurial brands. "In the Gold Rush, you want to be in the pickaxe business, because even people who never find gold still need the tool." The Right to Exist: Who Says What Products Belong in a Marketplace?: Phillip points out that crowdfunding platforms are an easy way to suss out need for a product in the marketplace. Jules reveals that the audiences on crowdfunding platforms tend to be older males with high disposable incomes, and the powerhouse consumers in the economy are older females with high disposable incomes. There is a whole world of opportunity beyond crowdfunding platforms, and companies like Away earn their place in the market by making the experience of purchasing their products better than that of their competitors. Jules personally does not like some of the trendy brands message of cutting out the middle the middle man to get a better product (which she affirms is a lie). How We Make Stuff Now: Turn Ideas Into Products That Build Successful Businesses: Jules has written a book called "How We Make Stuff Now: Turn Ideas Into Products That Build Successful Businesses". Based upon ten years of running The Grommet, Jules wrote the book to put all of the things she learned from makers into a form of reference for other makers out there. Writing a book was a low-priority bucket list item for Jules, but she found that there was no book like this out there, so she needed to create one for the industry. Due to her unique background and way of thinking, this book is clearly a stand out from other books out there and is truly unique in its advice and suggestions. Getting Capital: How To Get Funding for Your Product: CircleUp is a platform that aggregates angel investors and does equity funding in a vetted and curated offering to smaller companies. Phillip spent some time with Jason Calacanis and the world of syndicates and angels doing more passive investment is a new way for companies to bring entrepreneurship to market. Now is such a magical time to build a business because there are so many options available to you in regards to getting funding. Jules sees a huge competitive advantage in pursuing capitalist funds that promote diversity, especially the inclusion of women on their teams. Predicting the Future: The Standard Future Commerce Question: Phillip asks Jules to talk about a challenge or obstacle that some listeners may be facing right now. Every single week, Jules is blown away by some of the innovations that come through The Grommet. "Sometimes the world is just waiting for you to work an idea. Don't get discouraged if there is no proof that your idea is a great one." If you examine the market and don't see a need for your idea, that could mean that your innovation will be the exact thing that the world is waiting for. Brands Mentioned in this Episode: The Grommet Forrester Toys"R"Us Etsy Amazon Away CircleUp As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! Where was your most unlikely source of inspiration for one of your successful products? How are you capitalizing on today's entrepreneurial market? Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at info@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

With retail customers like Dollar Tree and White House Black Market, Oracle knows a thing or two about commerce. Their recent report, published in conjunction with CommerceNext, dives into how brands of all sizes - from DTC to Enterprise and Luxury, are investing in 2019 and beyond. Main Takeaways: Bob Meixner, Director of Product Strategy - Commerce & Loyalty at Oracle, joins Phillip on today's episode. API-focused commerce gives brands the power and flexibility to create innovate commerce solutions. Headless commerce is the future, but sometimes developing standalone headless solutions brings you back to square one with functionality. Thanks to some insightful marketing research by Oracle, we have greater insight into where brands are spending their recently increased marketing budgets. First Meetings and Background: Who is Bob Meixner?: Phillip first became aware of Bob at CommerceNext where he was a speaker with a session called "Measuring Up: How 100+ Leading Retailers are Investing in Digital Commerce". Back in 2006, Oracle acquired an enterprise content management vendor called Stellent (for whom Bob worked) which was one of the first acquisitions made by Oracle in the customer experience space. Bob later got the opportunity to lead the presales consulting team at eBay and Magento which was an exciting challenge given Magento's growth. Wanting to get to know a different side of the industry, Bob took his current role as being the Director of Product Strategy - Commerce & Loyalty. Oracle Today: Who is Using the Platform? Phillip asks Bob to talk more about what companies are using Oracle today, especially given Phillip's perspective that it is all large scale, enterprise corporations. Bob informs us that they have taken a lot of time taking on-premise systems that had longer implementation times and reimagining them as a cloud solution that is API first. The expectation of the software vendor being the actual hosting provider of the platform is something that is a big shift from the way platforms used to be hosted. Oracle has developed an architecture that allows you to have total creative control and extensibility on both the frontend and the backend while not losing upgradeability and the benefits of what you would expect in modern SaaS. Examining the Report: How Retailers are Investing in Digital Commerce: Phillip alludes back to Bob's talk at CommerceNext and talks about how interesting and comprehensive the report covered in the talk was. Oracle wanted to get a take on where folks were investing and they thought it would be helpful to publish some numbers on where digital commerce professionals were investing on a year to year comparative basis. Respondents include over 100 people at various large brands such as wholesale manufacturers, direct to consumer brands, multi-brand retailers, and digital-first multi-brand retailers. Download the report to take a look at the report yourself and get a better insight into the data. Key Insights: What Does the Report Tell Us?: Great news: budgets are on the rise in regards to eCommerce marketing and interesting enough, direct to consumer brands are increasing their budgets at a higher rate than traditional retailers. These budget increases are being used to make transactions much more frictionless which includes things like alternative payment types and chatbots for customer service scenarios. If you think about a lot of buzzwords in the industry such as augmented reality and voice, those are not being heavily invested in. The biggest barriers to achieving eCommerce goals are managing the array of solutions that brands deploy in their commerce and marketing stacks, issues with quickly executing on commerce initiatives, the inability to get a unified view of the customer, and aging technology systems. Things Are Harder Than They Seem: The Difficulties With Commerce: In another bit of research done by Oracle in partnership with Jeanne Bliss, there were over a thousand consumers surveyed that showed that consumers are willing to pay a premium for personalized and novel experiences. More than half of consumers are comfortable sharing personal information if they receive a better experience. People are willing to share information, but how are brands capturing this information and what are they doing with it? These challenges have not been solved yet due to all of the different solutions that claim to solve it, but many of them only solve a piece of the puzzle. Ways to Stick Out: Getting Ahead of the Competition: The Oracle report also mentions that there is an opportunity for brands to differentiate themselves amongst their peers by investing in voice technology. Bob adds that ignoring voice technology might be something that is a detriment to your brand. With the move to a headless world, voice technology will be a major player in the toolset that allows customers to interact with the brands they shop at. Phillip did a talk a few years ago called The Shopping Cart is Dead that spoke about similar possibilities with voice technology. How to Be Successful With Innovation: Tidbits to Live By: The fear of the unknown does not keep consumer brands from trying new things. Retailers and brands need platforms that allow them to succeed quickly or fail fast because that is what you need to figure out to succeed in today's economy. There are some many different unknowns at all levels in commerce, so leveraging platforms that have open APIs that let you experiment with new technologies is imperative. Open APIs that build differential experiences for their customers are going to be necessities for brands to push the envelope. Bringing It Back: How Oracle Is Approaching Innovation: Oracle Commerce Cloud is API first, cloud-native, and grants its users the ability to inject commerce into any level of engagement. Sometimes people approach commerce with the need to reinvent the wheel, but if you do this, you end up back where you started from. Oracle wanted to make sure that they provided a platform that lets your brand go headless where it makes sense, but gives the powerful automation that doesn't come along with custom-built API interactions. "Quick is king right now. Most people suffer from spending an inordinate amount of time with their legacy platforms trying to do basic functions". The Future Commerce Tradition: Thoughts for the Future: Phillip asks Bob to give his thoughts on what commerce will look like in the next few years in addition to what challenges retailers will face. Bob mentions that direct to consumer startups will need to figure out how to scale if they truly want to succeed: scalability is king. Enterprise retailers need to move faster because the ability to think and execute like a digitally native brand is how they're going to survive. In the luxury market, brands need to continue to invest in the overall customer experience because the value of the overall experience is greater than the actual product or service than the brand provides. Brands Mentioned in this Episode: Oracle As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! Where would you focus a larger marketing budget to make sure that you are keeping up with headless trends while still providing stability and functionality for your commerce platform? Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at hello@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners! With retail customers like Dollar Tree and White House Black Market, Oracle knows a thing or two about commerce. Their recent report, published in conjunction with CommerceNext, dives into how brands of all sizes - from DTC to Enterprise and Luxury, are investing in 2019 and beyond. With retail customers like Dollar Tree and White House Black Market, Oracle knows a thing or two about commerce. Their recent report, published in conjunction with CommerceNext, dives into how brands of all sizes - from DTC to Enterprise and Luxury, are investing in 2019 and beyond. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No episode today. Climate change is the biggest threat to the future of our lives, country, and world. Youth across the U.S. will lead a #ClimateStrike on September 20 to demand legislative action to combat climate change #StrikeWithUs strikewithus.org Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brands and consumers alike are addicted to Amazon. In this interview Kiri Masters, Author of "Amazon for CMOs", joins us to talk about her new book launch, how brands are battling addiction to the big-A, how consumers are being lured in with everything from advertising to QVC-style programming, and how everyone from Lady Gaga to Mitsubishi are competing for your attention on the world's biggest store. Main Takeaways: Today, Brian and Phillip are joined by Kiri Masters, the founder of Bobsled Marketing, author of the upcoming book Amazon for CMOs, and co-host of the Ecommerce Braintrust Podcast.  With its plethora of sales channels, many brands don't know how to find the perfect Amazon solution to sell their products on the platform. What are some best practices for being successful in selling your products on Amazon? Amazon has grown exponentially in recent years, but what do the next few years hold for the eCommerce giant? First Meetings Up Until Today: The Kiri Masters Story: Phillip and Brian first met back in February of 2018 when they were on the Ecommerce Braintrust Podcast talking about voice commerce. (Now that's on brand.) Bobsled Marketing is an agency that helps brands with their Amazon channel across branding, marketing, and operation support. Kiri started Bobsled Marketing about five years ago after a completed unrelated career in banking.  It's a passion of Kiri to not just keep their passion and learnings at Bobsled to themselves, but to share them with the world.  The Amazon Buffet: Many Different Choices for Many Different Companies: Phillip asks Kiri to give some examples of the advice they give and the expertise they impart to their clients when it comes to Amazon.  As an agency, Bobsled mainly deals with mid-market companies that have already done well in their own sales channels but need some clarification around Amazon-specific sales channels. If you're not educating yourself on the different business models within Amazon, then you are already behind the curve.  There are so many different paths and options you can choose with Amazon so it can be challenging to align your brand with the correct channel if you are not educated in its structure.  A Missed Opportunity: Why Don't More Brands Sell on Amazon? Kiri is still surprised at the number of household brands that do not have a presence on Amazon: but why are they not present on the platform? A lot of the information that you find written about selling on Amazon is geared towards the "wantrepreneur" crowd and not towards established brands. Amazon brings in about 50% of the eCommerce market, so not considering Amazon as a place to sell your product is missing a crucial portion of your retail strategy. Amazon serves as the point of discovery for a large portion of online shoppers. Starting With Amazon: What is Different About Brands that Start on Amazon?: Amazon is creating an addictive product not only for consumers but for brands as well.  There is an organic problem on Amazon when brands cannot control the shift to retention marketing that has become a trend in online retail.  On one hand, Amazon doesn't want merchants or sellers to interact directly with customers, but on the other hand, with regulatory issues like taxes, Amazon takes a backseat. The lack of direct connection with the customer is a major pitfall with brands who sell on Amazon because they are giving up any data that they would otherwise collect on their shoppers. Feeding the Beast: Selfish Trajectories for an Ecommerce Giant: Amazon has started to share customer acquisition metrics with the brands and sellers that are selling on their platform. All of the metrics that they are now launching look great on paper, but it still all circles back to Amazon building a self-serving advertising business. Lady Gaga launched her makeup line on Prime Day, but what does this mean for Amazon going forward? Amazon's private label strategy upsets a lot of brands because the extent of data that Amazon has on its shoppers seems much more significant.  Is the Future Bright or Dark?: Insider Insights Into Amazon's Trajectory: Kiri believes that Amazon is trying to fill gaps in their assortment rather than becoming an OEM manufacturer. Amazon is starting to look more like a social media channel every day as they are pushing more towards content creation. If Amazon is looking to create a massive marketing powerhouse, they need to vastly broaden their offerings at the top of the funnel.  Amazon has to make its platform stickier to keep people more engaged as everyone is competing for real estate in the attention of the consumer.  Amazon Live: Marketing Through Informational Videos: Brian asks Kiri and Phillip if they had watched Amazon Live, a QVC-like video stream that can showcase brands on the Amazon platform. Amazon Live is a pay-to-play channel but shows that Amazon is offering a lot of different ways to leverage the Amazon platform to get their products noticed.  As brands with backing come in with larger budgets, a lot of the smaller brands might not be able to compete with the spends.  Do you think offerings like Amazon Live will help smaller brands compete with larger brands for awareness? The Cost of Amazon: How Much is Too Much to Spend for Acquisition: The acquisition cost to get customers on Amazon is high, but after spending that much to get a customer, that customer belongs to Amazon. Anker started out selling exclusively on Amazon but used customer feedback and intelligent data capture to grow the brand. Digital native vertical brands like Glossier and Away have stated that they want direct connections with their customers and have stayed away from selling on Amazon. Other brands have a mote of sorts around their brands from Amazon because they require extension customization like Care/of and Madison Reed. Digitally Native Brands vs. Amazon: Is It Possible to Compete?: Kiri asks Brian and Phillip if they believe that digitally native brands can compete without having to sell on Amazon in the future? Brands are now able to put together a tech stack that is quite similar to what Amazon Prime can offer.  Amazon set the expectation for how brands have to interact with their customers in regards to logistics and fulfillment, and now brands can deliver at a palatable price point. Phillip brings up Nike, Allbirds, and Tumi to demonstrate a way that brands will eventually begin to differentiate between brand and product Amazon for CMOs: What's It All About?: Amazon for CMOs is co-authored by Kiri and her friend Mark Power who also runs an Amazon agency (but they are still friends). Kiri noticed that a lot of frank and honest conversations about Amazon between Executives was happening behind closed doors and this advice was based on your network and ability to connect with these people.  Kiri and Mark wanted a resource for the Executive audience that brought the voice of the industry into the book and talks about how brands are doing things.  The book also contains about 15 interviews with CMOs and Executive at large retail companies.  If you want a free copy of the book, they will be giving away free Kindle editions during the launch week of September 24th if you sign up on the site.  Looking Ahead: The Future of Amazon: Brian asks Kiri the standard question of where she sees Amazon heading in the next few years.  Kiri sees some external factors coming into Amazon's future, and a lot of those on regulation, which will lead to AWS splitting off from Amazon itself.  AWS was built for Amazon internally initially, so if it is separated, will the retail division have to pay market rates for AWS? Anti-trust in the United States has broken apart companies that eventually came back together, so there is a cyclical nature to splitting up large corporations. Brands Mentioned in this Episode: Bobsled Marketing Amazon Anker Glossier Away Care/of Madison Reed Nike Allbirds Tumi As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! Where do you think the next few years will take Amazon in regards to becoming a marketing giant? What are some of your best practices for selling your products on Amazon? Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at info@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nick Ling and Emmett Shine's new company, Pattern Brands, is on a mission - to create consumer brands which encourage you to enjoy everyday life and to create good habits. In this interview, we dive into why they formed Pattern, what the plan to do with it, and how they plan to change the world. Listen now! Main Takeaways: Nick Ling (Co-Founder and CEO) and Emmett Shine (Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director) of Pattern Brands join Brian and Phillip on today's episode. Pattern Brands is changing the way that its brands connect with their customers and helping them find more enjoyment in their daily lives.  How do you address and counter digital burnout in a digital world? Small and accomplishable tasks are actionable items that Pattern is encouraging its customers to complete to improve their lives. What is Pattern Brands?: The Founders' Story:  Gin Lane has been a digital-based agency that has focused on the start-up economy that grew out of New York City. Gin Lane became Pattern Brands, which is a family of brands that has products and guidance designed to help people find more enjoyment in their daily lives. While at Gin Lane, the team asked themselves how they could work together for years into the future, and Pattern grew out of that process. "We were all feeling this feeling of digital burnout, and Pattern itself is a reaction to that which strives to create an alternate reality in which we want to spend our time". Bridging the Gap: Having a Professional Service and Turning Those Lessons Inward: Gin Lane was a partner in bringing a lot of businesses to market and helped entrepreneurs go from a business-focused pitch deck, to what the business could potentially be. Gin Lane's employees often felt like they were employees of the companies that were in their portfolio, so this created a different relationship between these brands.  At Pattern, the team is doing a lot of the same things they would have done during the Gin Lane days, but are focusing on their brands as opposed to partner brands.  By understanding digital technology and products, Pattern was able to supplement their staff with skills that they knew they needed more expertise in. A Team of the Highest Caliber: Lessons in Hiring: Brian was struck by that part of Pattern's mission is working with people that they want to work with and asks if that has led to the hiring decisions they have made.  At any moment, Pattern can call upon any of the fifty or more entrepreneurs that they have worked with in the past, which has allowed a broad array of talent to come across.  Newer entrepreneurs rarely are in the position of being asked by a company like Pattern for their opinion, and these insights pave the way for meaningful hires.   Phillip asks if Nick and Emmett consider what they are doing at Pattern to be a reshaping of all of retail and where we are in that curve of change. The Reshaping of Modern Retail: The Curve of Change: The generation of consumer that is now entering their thirties has a very different set of values than the Baby Boomer generation, and the evolutions in consumer goods are a direct reflection of this change of values.  It is very hard for legacy brands to honestly say that they are serving this changed system of values.  Pattern is a reflection of the environment that we are in right now and is a direct response to the stresses of the current environment of the world.  Brian states that Baby Boomers feel to him now as they used to look at him, and points out that he feels digital burnout very strongly. Digital Burnout: Reconciling Strategy and Self Care: Is there a way to both promote digital strategy while promoting ways to deal with digital burnout? A lot of the authors that are writing on digital burnout are in their early thirties, and one of the main issues is that it is so hard to identify what is happening as you are going through burnout yourself.  For comparison, technology is a tool that has moved exponentially in our lifetimes, but our biology is something that is firmly stuck in place. We are in the infancy of technology in the grand scheme of civilization, so we do not have the tools or vocabulary to address and identify the issues that come along with that. What Does Success Look Like?: The Failure of Meritocracy: Emmett brings up a recent article in the Atlantic that talks about the failures of meritocracy and contrasts that to the opposite Attention Economy. These competing forces are squeezing all of our personal time and even our sleep. Consumers have an expectation of your brand that you didn't set, but there is a new expectation for brands to either build communities or have a conscious.  Pattern is trying to recognize the role we play in society, the marketplace, and government in a for-profit way. One Small Step: Re-Focusing Attention Through Accomplishable Tasks:  Speaking to an entity that acknowledges you is very important as a consumer, even if it is something we don't consciously strive for.  Pattern is trying to help young adults recognize that the balance of where their attention is focused might not be the best for their well being.  One of the main ways in which Pattern is changing behavior is by encouraging small and accomplishable tasks that promote better self-care and remedy digital burnout.  We are eroding and losing touch with each other due to digital burnout and Pattern is hoping to reverse this erosion, Rhythms of Life: Disruption and Connection in the Digital Age: Brian brings up Care/Of and how they are focused on building a connection between the consumer and the brand in a way that hasn't happened since long ago. Is there an active shift between how brands and consumers interact with each other? Pattern is thinking about intimacy at scale and trying to give people the acknowledged experience of small-town general stores but on a larger scale.  Emmet comments that they are starting to describe their brands as "direct-with-consumer" as that implies a bi-directional relationship. Changing Behaviors: Breaking Digital Chains: Pattern is trying to change peoples' habits in a non-aspirational or patronizing way by meeting people where they are at and expressing and allowing vulnerabilities.  The guidance component of Pattern is human-led (not AI or automated) and this allows for a more human connection between the brand and the consumer.  What are the benefits of having a human-led guidance component as opposed to an automated system? Nick states that they are trying to help people redefine how they spend their quality time, but that isn't easy. Fostering Change: Power Through Commerce: Commerce can connect people globally (as it has for millennia) and it can change the future. What other areas could be ripe for fostering such a level of global change? Commerce focus entrepreneurship is the way you provide global change and mobility for founders and businesses in the United States.  Phillip states that this journey of improving lives and addressing digital burnout is one that he has been going through himself. Deeper Dives: Future Commerce Alumni Questions:  Emily Singer from last week's episode asks how Pattern balances philosophy with the need to sell products. Pattern is trying to help people be intentional and conscious of how they use consumer products, just how the food industry has come to a more conscious positioning in the past twenty years.  As a brand, Pattern is intentional with how they communicate with their consumers through Instagram by restricting usage to only six hours per week.  Pattern is not selling a product, they are selling a way to use your time. Looking to the Future: Personal Betterment For All: Brian asks Nick and Emmett to talk about where they see commerce headed in the next five years. Nick says that we are at the beginning of the revolution of commerce instead of at the end of it and we will continue to see legacy brands struggle as millennial values overtake the industry.  We will also see more and more personalized brands as technology is allowing us to serve smaller and smaller groups of people.  Emmett believes that automation and AI will continue to advance and that there are benefits to technology and what that democratizes. Brands Mentioned in this Episode: Pattern Brands Gin Lane Care/Of As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! How can your brand encourage your customers to make changes to improve their lives? Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at info@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How do brands create retention strategies centered around content to keep their customers consistently purchasing? Emily Singer, the founder of consumer brand-focused newsletter Chips + Dip, joins the show to talk trends, brand analysis and how modern brands are using storytelling to create rich, immersive experiences for their customers. Listen now! Main Takeaways: Emily Singer, Marketing Manager at Alma and the Founder of the Chips + Dips newsletter, joins Brian and Philip on today's episode. Brands are trending towards developing unique voices that automatically identify their target customers.  How do smaller brands compete with the widespread voice of larger brands? Phillip and Emily have visited Showfields, but did it live up to the hype? Chips + Dips: The Story Behind the Content (And The Author):  Emily gives us a walkthrough of a typical issue of Chips + Dips as well as what she prefers to cover in her writing. (Spoiler: there are dip recipes with every edition.) Phillip asks Emily to give us a brief history of how Chips + Dips came about and to give us the "Emily Singer Story". Early in her career, Emily wanted to work in media, and Chips + Dips came about because she wanted an outlet where she could write the stories that she wanted to write. No one was creating a casual analysis of news and trends that focused on the brand stories instead of looking at numbers and revenue, so Emily created Chips + Dips to fill that void.  Untangling the Threads: Discovering Brand Trends: Brian asks Emily to explain a bit how she untangles the threads she discovers in the world of brands and marketing.  By latching onto things that may seem insignificant or small, Emily can use her unique mind to piece together the bigger picture amidst several publications. Emily blows Phillip's mind by letting him know that she has a separate Instagram account that just follows brands so it doesn't disrupt the flow of her interests on her main account. (Phillip also brings up how he doesn't let Brian choose music on his Spotify account.) Bridging the Gap: Insights from a Direct to Consumer Insider: Emily talks about her first direct to consumer experience with JackThreads (which was acquired by Thrillist) and what she did when working with the brand.  Most recently, Emily worked at Daily Harvest, and how the subscription service company differed from her other direct to consumer experience.  Phillip brings up how there are brands (such as JackThreads and Gilt Groupe) that harken back to a certain "era" of eCommerce and how these brands change with the times.  People are more thoughtful and intentional consumers nowadays which has caused brands to shift their focus to customer retention as opposed to flash sales. Retail and Direct-To-Consumer: Competing For Your Attention: Brian asks Emily to talk a bit more about content and the role that content plays in retail and brands.  In the retail space, brands are spreading their wings and trying to cast a wider net and provide customers with more ways to engage, and content is a simple and logical way to do that.  Outdoor Voices sells workout gear, but they also have a very robust Instagram story approach that allows consumers to engage with the brand differently. "Brand is all about storytelling and building a rich, immersive experience." The Power of Touchpoints: Reaching the Customer in New Ways: Phillip brings up Haus, a brand that has one product, and how Haus needs a way and reason to talk to you outside of selling their product.  Do companies with a narrow vertical need to expand the number of customer touchpoints to remain relevant?  Emily discusses Great Jones, a cookware company, and how their strategy differs because what they sell is supposed to be a more permanent fixture in their customers' lives. Brian references the episode with Charlie Cole from Tumi and how Tumi wants its customers to use their bags for a long time so it has to create new touchpoints to stay relevant with their customers. Smaller Brand Strategies: How to Compete with the Big Guys: Phillip remembers the panel he led at Commerce Next that covered how smaller brands need to reorient the way they view lifetime value to be customer-centric. Floyd has partnered with Airbnb in a collaboration called Stay Floyd that features home rentals fully outfitted with Floyd furniture. Brian cleverly points out that stories with multiple characters are the best stories, and when you think about brand partnerships, you see how their stories merge and create something more complete and powerful when told with others.  In the episode with Jeremy King from Pinterest, Jeremy spoke about how Pinterest was trying to lead its users to interact with the real world, and Phillip compares this to brands with a conscious.  The Most Interesting Store in the World: Did It Live Up to the Hype?: Back in Episode 89 with Brandon Singer (Phillip mistakenly says it's Episode 97) was when Showfields was first discussed, and now Phillip and Emily recently visited the location. Emily describes Showfields as one of the few companies trying to make a direct to consumer department store. (Neighborhood Goods is another one that is opening in New York this fall.) When Emily first visited Showfields, there was only one floor and felt much more like an Instagram experience than an actual department store. Each brand has its own micro experience, but there is no cohesion between the different brands because the Showfields brand is too strong and competing with the brands it contains. (Phillip agrees with some serious sass.) The Other Side of the Screen: Phillip Tries a Thought Experiment: Phillip tries a thought experiment and asks Brian and Emily to think about the persona of brands and not the persona of the consumer. Should brands enable their consumers to be content creators to then leverage that consumer-created content to make their brand more socially aware? What people care about and value is more important to a marketer than their personality.  Brands that are focused and have a strong story will find their audience without having to cast a wide net to capture the attention of a vast range of consumers. (Tracksmith is a great example of this.) What the Future Holds: Emily's Predictions: Emily predicts that retail space is only going to get increasingly crowded and increasingly noisy, thus making staying in business a challenge Retention overgrowth and finding ways to foster brand affinity and lifetime value are going to be keys to staying in business and being successful.  You don't need to build a billion-dollar brand, you can stay small.  Building brands that are sustainable and thoughtful calls upon the people running the brands to be more thoughtful themselves when it comes to raising capital. Brands Mentioned in this Episode: JackThreads Thrillist Daily Harvest Gilt Groupe Outdoor Voices Haus Great Jones Floyd Airbnb Showfields Neighborhood Goods  Tracksmith As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! Is it possible to bootstrap a brand when organic is dead and social marketing is pay-to-play? Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at info@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Uberification of pot, CBD and having a clear strategy in a world of microtrends. Interview with Chelsea Clements, head of performance marketing at Green Growth Brands. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What does the perfect fit really look like? Sabrina Abney, Ecommerce Director at Mizzen + Main, and David Pastewka , Co-Founder at Drapr, join the show to talk optimizing virtual try-on solutions, "comfortable AF" clothing, technology in digital-first marketplaces, and crafting the best-possible customer journey. Listen now! Main Takeaways: David Pastewka, co-founder of Drapr, and Sabrina Abney, Director of eCommerce at Mizzen+Main, join Brian and Phillip on today's episode. Mizzen+Main is using innovative technologies like Drapr to take the online customer experience to new levels of personalization and ease.  Customers are becoming increasingly accustomed to a one-to-one retail experience, and body data is allowing brands to create just that.  Body data is allowing brands to get deeper insights into their customer bases to not only understand physical attributes of their core customers, but also to predict what sizes need to have larger inventory to meet consumer demand. A Virtual Try-On Company Meets Quality and Comfort: The Drapr/Mizzen+Main Story: Phillip met David a few months ago at the Drapr booth during RetailX and was taken back by how Drapr allows customers to virtually see how clothing from various retailers will fit over their actual bodies in a way that is as close to photo-realism as possible while browsing on a store's website. Sabrina takes us through a brief history of Mizzen+Main and how the founder came up with the idea after observing a bunch of sweaty interns.  Phillip remembers the first time he encountered Mizzen+Main through one of their memorable domain: comfortable.af.  Solving Fit Issues of Digitally Native Brands: Drapr Saves the Day: Sabrina comments that all digitally native brands are challenged by the fact that customers can't try on products before they commit to a purchase.  The ability to see what a piece of clothing looks like on your body is a huge boon when it comes to making the decision to purchase.  Brian recalls the marketing campaign that featured JJ Watt as a great example of way to identify customers that connect with your brand. Drapr is trying to replicate the experience of trying something on your body, and then standing in front of a mirror.  The Science Behind Try-On Technology: Replicating Fabric Online: Brian asks David about how they handle the ways in which different types of fabrics behave and interact when worn.  While the "feel" of fabric cannot yet be captured online, the fit and draping qualities of Mizzen+Main shirts were captured with 3D scanning and cloth simulation. The main goal of the process was the capture the realism of the shirts to make renderings as true to life as possible.  Sabrina explains that innovation is the fabric of Mizzen+Main's products and brand identity, and the technology behind Drapr is the perfect intersection of values.  Benchmarks of Success: Quantifying Innovation: How do brands determine what is a successful innovation when the metrics of success are constantly evolving along with technology? Sabrina reveals that there are KPIs that are being tracked (which are constantly being tweaked) along with invaluable customer surveys. Brian geeks out the potential massive reduction in product returns that come along with the ability to see how clothing fits before purchasing.  "Success doesn't look like just a conversion, but looks like a positive customer experience which requires the ability to quantify whether or not it's a good experience." Conversations Drive Direction: The Power of Customer Feedback:  Phillip asks David if the conversations that are being had with their customers are informing the future direction of Drapr.  Every single case and customer is so different, so the conversations give invaluable insight into how customers behave and what benefits them most along the customer journey. The data from just the first set of customers using their tool has given Drapr enough information and direction to shape the next few months of development.  Phillip harkens back to the episode with Jeremy King and how everyone at eBay was required to speak directly to customers as part of the company culture. Doing More to Earn Customer Loyalty: The Cost of Being a Premium Brand:  What can premium brands do to encourage customers to spend more on products that are at more of a premium price? Sabrina speaks about how listening to their customers and making their voices heard attributes greatly to brand loyalty in addition to their innovation.  Mizzen+Main is in all Nordstrom stores across the country, has over 700 retail partners, and has started opening their own branded stores.  Just getting a customer to feel the fabric and try the shirts on is a huge factor in customer attribution, and it doesn't necessarily matter where the customers interact with the fabric.  Shaping the Future: Content Creation from Body Data: Brian asks both Sabrina and David if digital try-on has lead or if it will lead to content creation sometime in the future.   David says that content creation will play a huge part in Drapr's future, where you won't be putting clothing on a body that looks like you, but you will be simulating clothing on your actual body.  This extremely personalized image of a customer in a digitally rendered version of clothing is immediately shareable and be considered content creation.  Brand loyalty doesn't necessarily translate to loyalty of the technology that powers it so how do you bridge the gap from brand loyalty to loyalty in technology? Intimate Personal Knowledge: The Management of Body Data: Sabrina discusses the conversations that Mizzen+Main had with Drapr regarding the usage of customer data and how that data would be managed. Who will own the data in this partnership between Mizzen+Main and Draper, the brand or the technology provider? Can body data of a customer base help in the future development of a brand? Brian brings up how a 3D body scanning app is in on Drapr's roadmap amd David confirms that there will be pilot programs being released within the next few months. Making It Easy: How to Use Body Data for a Tailored Customer Experience: Creating audience segments and campaigns for these segments based on body data is a natural trajectory for Mizzen+Main's marketing plan.  Sabrina mentions how size data can be used for birthday specific marketing, as a pain point in birthday marketing is that advertised pieces would not always be available in the customer's size.  Customers want a more one-to-one experience with product recommendations in not just style and color, but with fit and size that make it easier for them to shop.  Brian asks Sabrina is Mizzen+Main's customers will come to expect a personalized experienced based on their body data in the future.  Beyond the Customer Journey: Further Uses for Customer Body Data: With the knowledge of customers' sizes, Brian asks Sabrina if body data affects the supply chain in regards to planning production trends.  As their core customer starts to get older, the body types and sizes that sell the most products change along with the customer ages.  Sabrina enlightens us that they are using their own version of predictive modeling to plan how much to make of certain sizes.  When customers find another brand that has clothing in their size, Sabrina predicts that it might already be too late and you have probably already lost that customer.  Five Years From Now: What Does the Future Look Like: David predicts that everyone will be shopping as themselves online due to the undeniable advantages of shopping online. Technology is progressing to the point where you will soon visit a brand's website and see pictures of yourself there in that brand's clothing.  Sabrina thinks virtual try-on will replace size guides in regards to customer expectations on clothing sites.  The entire customer journey from email, to advertising, and even to browsing websites will be tailored to an individual level. Brands Mentioned in this Episode: Drapr Mizzen+Main Nordstrom As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! With body data becoming more robust, where do you think the future of retail personalization will be within the next few years? Is there a point where customer data goes too far when it comes to intimate physical knowledge of customers' bodies? Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at info@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Few updates for your Monday morning: we launched the Future Commerce Sustainability Initiative, we're publishing bonus content on the next two Tuesdays, we're at Etail East in Boston and don't miss this next Friday's episode with Mizzen and Main! >> Click here to subscribe to FC Insiders today! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Pinterest is giving their community tools to engage in commerce, not to interact more online but to get out and discover the world around them. In this episode, we interview Jeremy King, the SVP of Engineering at Pinterest and former CTO of Walmart.com, to discover how they're using advanced machine vision and context to power the catalogs and commerce experiences both on-and-off-platform. Listen now! Main Takeaways: Jeremy King, SVP of Technology at Pinterest, joins Brian and Phillip on today's episode. Is the open-source format the "secret sauce" to being successful when developing advancements in technology? Inspiration engines like Pinterest are fostering real-world interactions and building communities.   Customization through personalization sometimes leads to repetitive product recommendations, but there are ways to battle this using big data. Jeremy King: A Brief Professional History: Jeremy has been at Pinterest for only 4 months, but previously spent 8 years at Walmart running Walmart Labs and helped them go through their digital transformation.  Brian heard Jeremy's talk at NRF and asks Brian how he ended up at Walmart and to talk a bit about his journey with the company. Eight years ago, Walmart did not have a very large presence online, but throughout his tenure at the company, they vastly expanded their eCommerce entity.  Technology Leadership: What is the Secret Sauce?: Phillip harkens back months ago to when Wayfair was on the show and comments on how open-source adoption can change the image of your brand. Leadership from a technology perspective is a monumental task in regards to advancement in technologies for brands.  Jeremy talks about the difficulties that corporations such as Walmart face in technology that simply does not scale to the massive size of the corporation itself.  Open-source contributions and a healthy approach to technology selection are the "secret sauce" that Jeremy attributes to success in technological leadership. "Most companies these days have to have a new respect for how much technology plays in their success or failure". Open-Source Technology: The Power of the Community:  If you are using technologies that are not open-source, you are typically beholden to the direction and decisions of a single organization as opposed to the community of open-source technology.  Try things in house first, and then look for other solutions that don't already lie within your team.  Pick the places where you want to be innovative and insource those things then outsource everything else to save you time and effort.  What parts of your business do you outsource and where are you trying to innovate in-house?  Social Media versus Discovery: How to Make Something Shoppable: With over 300 million visitors a month, Pinterest was going to be a unique opportunity for Jeremy to scale the team and build technology for a product that people already love.  How do you make a discovery platform like Pinterest more shoppable?  As a discovery engine, people go to Pinterest with a positive mentality so making shopping more accessible is the goal as opposed to interrupting social media behaviors.  Pinterest is also a great platform for team collaboration as it allows a positive and creative environment to share ideas and feedback. The Shift Towards Commerce: The Evolution of Purchasing:  The number one request from Pinners is to have a clear and easy way to purchase items that they have fallen in love with while using the platform.  Retailers are often surprised that their catalogs are largely already in Pinterest due to people pinning their favorite products.  Brian and Phillip also refer to their most recent episode and bring up how discovery platforms are replacing traditional department store experiences. People are coming to Pinterest to build inspiration, something that was traditionally accomplished with physical catalogs and in-store experiences.  Room For All: Discovery for Both Big and Small: Hundreds of millions of pins as catalog items are helping small companies with discovery as 97% of Pinterest's top 1000 searches are unbranded.  Companies can use Pinterest to introduce themselves to prospective shoppers and reach people they never would be able to reach otherwise.  Brian identifies this as a great example of passive shopping and Phillip expands on the concept in specific reference to Pinterest.  Any other shopping experience would rely on the conversion at the moment of product consideration, but with Pinterest, people are looking to be inspired along their entire retail journey.  The Secret Sauce: How to Succeed in Technology: Phillip asks Jeremy to give the listeners some about on criteria about decisions regarding technology and how to outfit a team. Jeremy recalls how he brought the startup mentality to Walmart and created the world's largest startup with Walmart labs.  Access to data on a company-wide basis is paramount for your team to be able to use that data to solve problems. There are also some basic company culture choices that Jeremy recommends such as engineers sitting with your business team to expedite business decisions and processes.  The Digital Community: Fostering Relationships Offline: Brian asks Jeremy how he sees technology either bringing communities together and then how commerce relates to the building of a digital community.  Pinterest's goal is to help you find inspiration so that you can bring your ideas to life in the real world, and when ideas overlap, they create real-world relationships. The team at Pinterest wants you to get out there and go do things, and the communities you find of like-minded individuals are natural by-products of this.  Brian gets some visions of shared Pinterest workshops in the future, and Phillip sees it as the antidote to the digital wellness movement.  Jeremy's Predictions: The Landscape of the Next Five Years:  Phillip asks Jeremy to talk about his predictions for the next five years from a technology and commerce perspective.  Jeremy says that machine learning technology is what makes Pinterest so great, and hundreds of calculations a second tailor your Pinterest home page. Where will machine learning technology be in five years and how do you think machine learning engines like Pinterest can use that technology to provide the best experience for their users? According to Jeremy, machine learning development will contribute greatly to the beautification and personalization of discovery platforms over the next few years.  Quantifying Serendipity: Overcoming the Issues of Customization Through Personalization: Brian brings up how customization through personalization can lead consumers to only seeing the same type of products and asks Jeremy to talk about how Pinterest is tackling this issue. With its use of boards as a method of categorization, Pinterest can tailor the machine learning model to find out what people are inspired by.  If you can quantify the moment of inspiration (coined Serendipity by Jeremy) you will be able to calculate the most effective times to break the mold of recommended products and boards. Knowing what your customers need and what they want can only be found by actually communicating with your customers. Brands Mentioned in this Episode: Pinterest Walmart Wayfair Jet.com As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! Is the open-source format of technology building something you would implement for your brand? Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at info@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.