Future Commerce

Main Takeaways: Instagram discovers that Phillip has a thing for sneakers. Facebook wants to venture into matchmaking, and they certainly have enough data to do it.   Can data-rich companies step up their security game? Retailers are using real-time data to put employees in the right place at the right time. Personalized wellness packs: The future of health? Professors are leaving the classroom for a better paycheck. Facebook Uses AI to Mine Data it Already Owns: Facebook has decided to use artificial intelligence or AI to look at Instagram data, even though, they already have access to all that data anyway because they own Instagram. So basically Facebook is reading your Facebook posts? Instagram learns of Phillips very secret shoe obsession. Everyone learns that Instagram(owned by Facebook) is somehow tracking shopping that goes beyond Instagram. Phillip and Brian are shocked to learn that Facebook is sending out non-GDPR compliant emails. Mark Zuckerberg Matchmaker Extraordinaire? Facebook knows everything about everyone, even people who don't use its service. Which means that Mark Zuckerberg knows you better than you do. Also cringy? Mark Zuckerberg vs. Judiciary Committee:  full of dinosaurs who survived the stone age of social media, During the hearing, a Congressman thought it appropriate to discuss FaceMash, a pre-Facebook website that allowed users to rate other users based on their attractiveness. Zuckerberg called this a prank, but could that project be where his dreams of matchmaking emerged from? Phillip says that because Facebook has all the data of pretty much everyone, they probably would be pretty successful in this endeavor, and that's what makes it all the more terrifying. If you live in Columbia and trust Facebook's algorithms, Facebook has already launched a matchmaking service. Brian says that this is actually a huge opportunity for commerce, where companies could use this info to push projects, or services facilitated towards these matches made in data heaven. This could open up a massive market for experiential retail. Phillip and Brian agree that 90's era romantic-comedies are the best movies. Can Humans Adapt to the World's Triumphs and Troubles? Since social media has changed everything, Facebook alone being home to 2 billion users, can humans catch us with the change in socialization? Brian references a former IBM strategist in saying that adaptability quotient (AQ) outranks both IQ and EQ especially as it pertains to marketability and leadership. Phillip wonders how long it will take for humans to be able to adapt to the current situation, in the days of information overload and global suffering. Are modern global social networks going to lead to a Darwinist phenomenon where only the strong survive?      Twitter Needs to Get Rid of Its Ponytail: 330MM Twitter users were sent into a possible panic after Twitter sent out an email that the user's passwords had been exposed. Twitter insists that even with this breach, the company didn't think that anyone's account had been compromised, but users should change their passwords anyway. Phillip says that Twitter handled this perfectly well. This was one of Phillip and Brian's predictions for 2016. Are companies getting better at security, or just at owning up that their security is terrible? Twitter was proactive in immediately making customers aware of this issue, but as Phillip makes clear, this breach wasn't as much a risk for customers, and showed Twitter putting their customers need for transparency first. Can Stores Use Time-Tech to Improve In-Store Experience? Ripple Metrics is providing data to retailers that will allow them to more efficiently handle their store staff. This is accomplished by monitoring store traffic, which sounds like great news for all customers who get super frustrated when there's no one there to help them in a store. Brian is super excited about this tech, because it re-emphasizes that retail is becoming all about the in-store experience and how to provide that experience to customers. Now, in-store customer analytics do exist but, the really innovative part of this technology is that it gives retailers the ability to place employees in the store when there is a need for them to be there. This technology uses a combination of real-time analytics as well as predictive analytics to determine where and when to place workers in a way that would best serve customers. Now, Walmart has utilized similar tech in the past, to keep track of their employees schedules to keep their employees from going full time. Actually, Walmart has a somewhat checkered past of keeping their employees from benefits by keeping hours below full-time, and they were sued for it. Phillip says that in-tracking has been used in some pretty crazy ways, in order to better understand the customer. "Things that can be automated will be automated and things that can't require training and knowledge and those are the things you want to invest in". In-Store Experience is Becoming a Mainstay For Retail: Macy's acquires Story, proving that experiential retail is a thing, and that in-store experience is everything. Phillip says that we are going to need "sommes of retail" to tell the story of how products come into being. Brian says Nordstrom has already accomplished this. And with experts in the field becoming necessary this may lead to even more automation of jobs that can be done by a machine. Personalized Products Give Consumers a More Tailor-Made Fit: Phillip is super excited about Care/of, a company that is created personalized wellness packs based on a customers individual needs. This kind of product really drives the customer experience emphasis home: it doesn't just ask questions, it asks all the questions about diet, lifestyle, goals, allergies, and even your level of belief in supplements themselves. care/of also asks about mental health to ensure that there won't be any negative interactions with the recommended supplements. And if you are a skeptic like Phillip (and Phillip is indeed a skeptic), have no fear, because the service includes the number of double-blind studies on each supplement and its effectiveness. The entire process is incredibly personal, from the questions, to the 30 daily-use packets with the customers name on each one, even down to the various inspirational quotes meant to improve the overall experience. Facebook is Hiring Professors Away From The Classroom: AI is growing rapidly, and salaries seem to match the demand for the skill set. Facebook, is working to stay as ahead of the data curve as possible, by hiring three robotics professors for their new AI labs in Seattle and Pittsburgh. Is it worth taking professors out of the classroom, and will this become a ongoing issue? Brian makes the point that we do need better ways of educating in AI, and if schools lose their academics to tech companies cushy salaries and benefits, this may impact the education system, and future generations. Retail Tech is moving fast and Future Commerce is moving faster. Go over to Futurecommerce.fm and give us your feedback! We love to hear from our listeners!

Main Takeaways: Baked by Melissa gives away 100,000 cupcakes to prove love and sugary treats really do win. Oculus Go is better than a party trick. Instagram decides that they want more than just dopamine-fueled likes from their users. Amazon vs. Alibaba, who will win the battle of the commerce giants? Did the world peak in the mid 90's? Now we can all recognize all the Royal Wedding guests. Magento Imagine: Coolest Kids on the E-Commerce Block: Phillip was the MC for Magento Imagine, which is supremely cool. Phillip was so excited to be able to be able to share the stage with the esteemable  Sucharita Kodali. On a slight side note: Phillip also got to interview Melissa Ben-Ishay on her business and how Baked By Melissa gave away 100,000 cupcakes in their #sidewithlove campaign, and to spread love and kindness. Also: Phillip opened a merch store on his other podcast to raise awareness about mental health, with all the proceeds going to Open Sourcing Mental Illness. Oculus Go: Cost-Effective Virtual Reality: Brian is super excited about this, and apparently so is the President of Sony, and everyone else. Could most of the hype surrounding Oculus be because of its price point? Brian and Phillip agree that Oculus is well.. good for what it is, entry level VR. One of the ways that this kind of tech would be incredibly valuable Verge Cast has a great review of Oculus Go. One of the ways that Oculus or similar technology can be really valuable is in the commerce space, in which basic level VR could be utilized to bring the storefront to the convenience of a customer's home or increase the value of an in-store experience. Brian is ready to go out and purchase an Oculus Go, Philip was three seconds away from buying one. Brian really doesn't want to hand his data over to Facebook. Beyond Just Likes: Get Ready to Shop The {Insta} Gram! Phillip decides that calling it "The Gram" might actually be worse than people who say "Insta". Instagram has been steadily adding commerce features for a while, including Instagram business features, and shoppable, but now purchasing through Instagram is much simpler. Now, nstagram will allow users to purchase directly through the Instagram app, and allow for payment information to be entered in the app. Basically, feel free to shop in the privacy of Facebook's data centers. Brian wonders if David Marcus had anything to do with this. Phillip says that this will just cut out the middleman, because before people would just purchase products they saw on Instagram off of the Amazon website. Will this hurt Amazon? Spoiler alert: Phillip is a baby hypebeast with folders full of sneakers. Will This Entire Episode be About Amazon? Amazon seems to be simultaneously sending push notifications for Chewbacca bobbleheads and trying to make Snapchat (spark) a thing (it's never going to be a thing) for some reason. If Amazon would bring Amazon pay into Instagram, then Phillip's life would be complete. Amazon is also trying to go after Alibaba, by picking up the tab for new merchants. Phillip says that it would be interesting to have Amazon pay buttons all over the internet, so that people could experience brands on Amazon even if the entire catalogue wasn't on Amazon. Check out Eric Broussard Keynote from Magento Imagine to better understand this. Everyone seems to have a different understanding of what Amazon actually is: music, streaming, echo? Or is Amazon two-day shipping? The price increase in prime seems to be the end of the world, Phillip is going to beat Amazon at its own game by buying more things on Amazon. The amount of Amazon prime users has reached 90MM people, and has exceeded any other voting bloc, including evangelicals. "Your customer is Amazon's customer". Brian can still not comment on anything Amazon related. Does GenZ have Amazon Prime 2-Day Delivery Privilege? Life seems pretty peachy for those born after the year 2000, especially regarding commerce. Brian says people born in the 2000's are growing up in a post-Amazon world, where they can order anything and have it shipped in two days. Brian also predicts that Phillip's shoe addiction might be long-lasting. Phillip laments that he cannot get the sneakers he wants within two days, proving that Amazon prime may have spoiled everyone's shipping expectations forever. Also: Phillip describes how ordering shoes used to work: and the process sounds both terrifying and exhausting. Was there even a life before smartphones? Bar banter is no longer a thing, which is kind of sad. All TV world problems have already been solved. Sky News is Using Facial Recognition to Identify Royal Wedding Guests: Sky News has decided to make the royal wedding a bit more entertaining, by using facial recognition & AI to let everyone know who's who at Meghan Markle's upcoming wedding to Prince Harry. This will be powered by Amazon's recognition cloud-based machine learning tool. Phillip finds this all fascinating. Brian says that this type of technology is an excellent opportunity for commerce and really could change the world. Maybe the future of smart TV's is personalized context. Brian cannot wait until Linkedin gets facial recognition so he can know everything about everyone when he goes to a conference. Go over to Futurecommerce.fm and give us your feedback! We love to hear from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast and Future Commerce is moving faster.

"Secondhand Commerce" is changing the way that we purchase luxury goods - from watches and handbags to sneakers - secondary markets are finding life after the initial purchase. Plus: Macy's acquires Story in a move to bring experiential retail to the big department store. Special thanks to Ryan MacInnis of Voysis for joining us on this episode of Future Commerce! Apologies for the audio quality in this episode as we encountered a technical issue. Should be fixed going forward! Thanks for listening! Main Takeaways: The advent of Voice, AR, and VR is allowing smaller retailers to compete with Amazon and Walmart. Phillip is a hype-beast-in-training. Second-hand and limited-edition may be calls-to-action for consumers. Is Amazon at war with everyone? Mobile-based-commerce may soon overtake desktop. Ryan (or Brian) And The Rise of Voice in Commerce: Ryan McIness of Voysis is standing in for Brian, and he seems pretty excited about it. Ryan gives some insight into Voysis: "Voysis is a B2B solution that mimics the Alexa experience". "If you have a brand and you want to voice-enable your mobile app, then you come to us, and we make sure its based off your data and your product catalog, the intelligence smart stuff that's related to your brand." Apparently, everyone's going to Vegas to talk about commerce. Voysis puts out an infographic that basically breaks the internet: The shock value may have made this go viral, in it Voysis claims that by 2020 75% of all households will have a voice-enabled device. Phillip points out that a lot of people are really starting to see voice as part of their brands. Also: "It makes you question how your brand voice translates to other mediums and how a brand goes beyond written word or logo." Ryan says that the advent of Voice, as well as AR and VR, has allowed brands to actually compete with Amazon and Walmart. But Amazon does have Alexa. Old is The New Brand-New: Second-Hand Commerce Edition: So consumers seem to be trying something new... ahem old by buying second-hand luxury items in a secondary market. In fact: there's a resale report by ThreadUp that points to the fact that one in three women shopped second-hand last year. Simon Birkhead writing in Daily Insights over at Gartner L2 talks about how second-hand purchases are becoming trendy, and resale sites like Poshmark, TheRealReal, and Depop are seeing a significant uptick in traffic. Phillip asks sneakerhead Ryan if he has ever bought second-hand sneakers? Ryan and Phillip discuss how Phillip is a hypebeast-in-training, and how he fell into the sneaker community by accident. Spoiler alert: It involves orange sneakers, limited edition LeBron 15's and Casey Niestat. The second-hand market does seem to defy all digital commerce logic Phillip wonders if a big box retailer could get ahold of this and make a move, would it be on a retail roadmap? Limited Edition Items Bring All The Consumers to The Yard: Phillip has finally figured out segues. Another Future Commerce alumni Richard Kestenbaum has written an article for Forbes on Macy's acquiring Story. Why is Story so cool? Because in keeping with their name, every six-eight weeks the store completely changes, and new items all keeping with a chosen theme (chosen by founder Rachel Shechtman) are curated and sold for a limited time. This kind of commerce is interesting because it creates a feeling of possible FOMO, and doesn't allow consumers to sit too long on purchasing situations. Phillip points out that brands with evergreen products can use limited-edition items to take more risks and be more daring. Voice can be a big part of this and allows brands to ahem... find their voice. Ryan makes the point that limited-edition experiential retail may help bring customers in the door, and then allow brands to be innovative to keep them. Is Walmart Trying to Challenge Amazon in India? Walmart and Amazon may be going head to head in India. So Walmart has acquired 77% of e-commerce brand Flipkart Flipkart currently number one in India for e-commerce, can anyone guess who is number two? In fact, Flipkart was started by two former Amazon employees. Phillip says that this points to a long-term strategy by Walmart, and actually changes the way he thinks about Walmarts place in commerce. Ryan says that this brings to mind Uber going into China and then selling its stake to its competitor (Grab), will Amazon buy Flipkart to step up its game? One of the most innovative parts of Walmarts strategy is how they are trying to personalize recommendations, this might actually give them an edge over Amazon. Amazon Sends Out a Siren's Call to Paypal Users: Amazon may be trying to start its own war, with Paypal, How is Amazon trying to compete? By hyper incentivizing Amazon Pay. Amazon announces they will help negotiate lower fees, and help merchants with discounts if they adopt Amazon Pay. This announcement caused Square and Paypal stock to short-circuit. Why does everything always come back to Amazon? Phillip points out that Brian wouldn't be able to discuss this since he works for Amazon. Can The Rise of Mobile-Based-Commerce Change Everything? Adobe says that we may soon be at the point where mobile-based-commerce overtakes desktop-commerce. Also: Retailers are saying that 70% of their traffic is coming from mobile. Ryan says that this shouldn't really surprise anyone. Macy's came out and said that mobile is becoming a much bigger part of their brand, and their new mobile app is integrated with their retail stores . Now, people never have to interact with another person, when in-store, or online, which sounds like a great idea? Phillip points out that not all conversion is direct-to-purchase. "Companies like Instagram enabling in-app purchasing is the path and the shortest path to purchase." What brands must realize that there really is no one strategy and that some consumers want in-store, and some like to shop online, and experiential retail really is everything. Go over to Futurecommerce.fm and give us your feedback! We love to hear from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast and Future Commerce is moving faster.

We're back! Brian joins Amazon, we talk subscription movie passes driving return to the shopping malls; and are we seeing leading indicators of unchecked inflation? PLUS: Who is the Nordstrom customer? Main Takeaways: Have Phillip and Brian run out of things to talk about? Odd-couple partnerships have become a thing in retail. Brian can never talk about Amazon, ever. GDPR: Friend or foe to small business? Brian makes a prediction that may change the way we regard the economy. Big Box Retail Crossover: Odd Couple Edition: Brian and Phillip graciously request a check from Magento for all the promoting they are doing this episode. Retail crossover is happening, and all the big box retailers are super into it. Nordstrom is now offering Anthropologie Home in their stores, will this bring new customers into Nordstroms? JCPenny is partnering up with Sephora (one of the easiest places to get lost in), which will remind customers that JC Penny still exists. Also, regarding Lord and Taylor and Walmart, the ultimate odd couple, can Wallmart upscale its offerings? Barbara Thau poses the question: Are retailers becoming mini malls? Kohl's is downsizing some of its stores, and adding German grocer Aldi's to their space, can discount shopping, and local produce make for a better retail experience? Brian points out that retailers are now free to be frenemies. Phillip wonders where these retailers are sourcing their data from, in deciding to form what may be the best crossover episodes ever. Can Movie Pass Bring Theaters Back From The Dead? Random movie news: Malls are trading the ghosts of retail's past for luxury movie theaters. In an effort to get people to actually go to the movies, Movie Pass is basically trying to be the Netflix for movie theaters. Brian is not all about movies, but find Movie Pass interesting. Phillip brings up a Retail Wire article that questions whether Movie Pass can reveive dying malls? One really interesting data point from the article: 54% of Americans prefer to watch movies at home, with only 13% preferring to go to the theaters. Brian points out that this makes sense: people can have an equitable movie theatre experience at home, especially with the emergence of streaming services like Netflix, and Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Phillip only uses Netflix to watch The Office (and Jessica Jones) which is pretty strange to anyone who has ever binge-watched anything on Netflix (which is basically everyone). Brian calls Phillip old. Does Anyone Really Understand GDPR? Phillip laments that only large business will have the resources to follow GDPR to the letter of the law. Many e-commerce platforms are only following the spirit of the law, not the letter, and it's putting all the onus on small business. If any e-commerce platforms are interested, here are the actual compliance regulations. Brian says he wants to wait before he makes a full prediction on how GDPR will impact small business. Are people okay with data sharing as long as they get some value in exchange? Brian says that government has a role to play in ensuring companies are not taking advantage of their customers. Sheryl Sandburg has said that for users who want to opt out of data sharing, there may be a premium Facebook product in the works. This may be a little daunting to some, who still want to believe that Facebook is totally harmless. Phillip wonders why the US government cannot just tattoo our foreheads. Could Economic Growth be Different Based on Social Class? Brian broaches an idea: Perhaps everyone is wrong about inflation, and the markers for economic growth. Brian is a big fan of The Atlantic. What if money is worth a lot less than we think, and what if that is what is confusing people about rate of economic growth? Seattle passes a $15 minimum wage to bolster wage growth, and somehow the world doesn't suddenly combust. Phillip points out that buying power depends on socio-economic status, so not everyone is really gaining the same from the uptick in economic growth. And as usual, the middle class will get the least and pay the most. Go over to Futurecommerce.fm and give us your feedback! We love to hear from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast and Future Commerce is moving faster.

"Hopefully, GDPR is the medicine we need to start putting our customers at the center of the story, and not our conversion rates." We review Shoptalk 2018 in the wake of Cambridge Analytica with a discussion about the content, the vendors, the experience, and how merchants can take the knowledge gained at a show like Shoptalk and turn it into actionable results. "Hopefully, GDPR is the medicine we need to start putting our customers at the center of the story, and not our conversion rates." We review Shoptalk 2018 in the wake of Cambridge Analytica with a discussion about the content, the vendors, the experience, and how merchants can take the knowledge gained at a show like Shoptalk and turn it into actionable results. Main Takeaways: Brian and Phillip recap some of the standouts of Shoptalk 2018 and how these standouts made lasting impressions. AR and VR are being implemented in new and creative ways and could very well be shaping the future of the retail industry. The technology that was being developed a few years ago is now being used in the state of the current retail industry but is there room for its development? Cambridge Analytica happened and shook the public to its core but will data security regulations like GDPR be able to prevent future leaks? One Beef, Two Beef, Red Beef, Blue Beef: Brian and Phillip start by bringing up some beef between them that they at this year's Shoptalk Conference. Brian registered for Press Passes for Shoptalk and listed himself as Host of Future Commerce, and Phillip as the co-host. (Scandalous!) The Future Commerce content team accompanied Brian and Phillip this year to help capture the show and be active on social media. Brian and Phillip went out to Red Rock Canyon, and even though they got stranded out in the desert, they can not recommend the location highly enough. Brian's Big Shoptalk Announcement: The Career Change: Brian made a big announcement at Shoptalk and let us know that he is now employed by Amazon (cue music) Expect the tone of the show to shift so that now Phillip will prod Brian until he is forced to recuse himself from the conversation. Brian is super excited to be on board at Amazon and thinks that his role working with the pay team and eCommerce platforms is a great fit. VR in eCommerce: Separating the Virtual World from the Real World: Brian hosted a panel at Shoptalk in which he spoke with Brian Cavanagh from the Hershey Company, Mike Festa from Wayfair Next, and Greg Jones from the Google AR Team. The Hershey Company is partnering with goPuff to create a VR Shopping App that will allow consumers to purchase convenience store items within a VR experience. The first thing that jumped out to Phillip as he was watching the panel was the Hershey Company's unique take on VR, which is to not replicate a commerce experience in the real world in VR. Phillip describes the Hershey VR experience as a Willy Wonka-esque experience in which you can explore a colorful world and purchase almost everything you see. The Retail Renaissance: A Recurring Shoptalk Theme: Phillip recalls that a recurring theme at this year's Shoptalk was the fact that retail is not dead, but rather, we are going through a Retail Renaissance. (And thus a show title was born.) Someone even compared the artistic progression of Picasso throughout his life to the evolution of retail to where it is today. Digital Hurdles: Overcoming VR Roadblocks: We still think about the online shopping experience in regards to aisles and carts, but with VR being such an expressive medium, the possibilities are endless. What's the most efficient way to shop versus what's the most experiential way to shop? The biggest challenge that retailers will face when trying to get into AR or VR is creating a library of 3D assets. Brian predicts that the 3D asset problem is not a problem that retailers should have to solve, but instead, brands themselves will provide the assets from the point of origin to retailers. Predictions Become Reality: Future Commerce at Shoptalk: Phillip talks about how nice it was to see so many listeners at Shoptalk and brings up how, for avid listeners of the show, a lot of the topics that were brought up at Shoptalk were things that they had already heard on Future Commerce. Iterations of things that Brian and Phillip had predicted on the show have come to fruition in the real world by brands known across the globe. Trevor Sumner from Perch gave a rundown of the store of the future that incorporates responsive and interactive displays that interact with physical items from store shelves. All of the information that we have available online is now available to us in new and dynamic ways right when we need it as we shop. Trends and Topics: The Arcs of Future Commerce: Phillip takes us back in time and talks about some of the arcs of Future Commerce as defined by the main conversation points of each year: the first year was voice and conversational technology, the second year was AR and VR, and this year's focus has been disruption and protecting our private data. Back in October of 2017, Phillip and Brian advised a retailer that stated not to believe anyone that said they were using AI or machine learning because AI has been reduced to a marketing term without any actual functionality. Phillip couldn't believe that Shoptalk had an entire area devoted to AI and Machine Learning and that the application of what could be a transformational technology to retail is abysmal at this point in 2018. (Phillip's feeling spicy today.) Brian brings up a past episode with Jonathan Epstein from 2 years ago that had one of the best applications of machine learning that he's ever seen, and there hasn't been much more innovation in those two years by other players in the industry. Making an Impression: The Standouts of Shoptalk: Phillip did not recognize the Handy booth until around the third day at which point he saw that they were everywhere. Handy has partnered with Walmart and will provide handyman services to Walmart customers in over 2,000 stores nationwide. Phillip also gives accolades to the startup Hemster, a technology/services company that provides tailoring and alterations (that are incredibly cheap) to business and individuals in addition to free delivery service of the alterations. Another standout was Mizzen+Main for the simple fact that it was an actual fashion brand at the show with clothes and that their domain name is comfortable.af. (Brian got to bring a Mizzen+Main shirt home and agrees that it is indeed Comfortable AF.) Three Shoptalks Later: Using the Past to Predict the Future: Brian states that we have hit a spot in technology where what is being spoken about in Shoptalk is similar to what was spoken about in Shoptalk 1 (which was two years ago). Brian also predicts that the technology that we are using now will be used for the next 3-5 years and will power the next wave of commerce. "There is too much to do with the technology that we have and too much opportunity to make money on it so people will put their dollars and effort towards that and we will probably see IRCE and NRF follow in this direction as well." Is it a good thing that other conferences will start to look more like Shoptalk with the current technology stack? Phillip Goes on a Rant: Technology is Not a Replacement for Quality: There was more than one brand that Phillip spoke with that had filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the past 12-18 months that ranged from big-box retailers to actual fashion brands and the fact that some of these companies were looking at AR and VR as a means to save their business was terrifying to him. The current technologies that are emerging today are not replacements for the fundamentals of being a good brand with a good product that connects with your customer. Brian agrees that if you are looking at any one technology to save your business, you are looking in the wrong spot as you have made some bad business decisions to get where you are today. "If you are in eCommerce and you are not connecting with your customers regularly, then you are missing out on a fundamental". The State of Data Security: Cambridge Analytica Fallout: Brian references Episode 55 in which predictions were made for what was going to happen in 2018 and Brian predicted the idea of giving shoppers access to their data to help them leverage that data to accomplish things and sure enough, companies are beginning to do this. If you are affected by GDPR, you should probably consider that you don't want to run two different data strategies across channels and start planning your future data strategies now. Data security could not be more timely as the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light during Shoptalk. What do you we actually need in our commerce experiences that can minimize data requirements as opposed to including everything just because we have the capability of plugging it in? "We need to put our customers at the center of the story instead of our conversion rates at the center of our story." Phillip predicts that in the same way that companies became "green" in response to customer demand, he sees an opportunity for companies to go private in which they will not partner with third-party companies to protect your data. As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! Should AR and VR play a bigger role in the future of retail? Does the Cambridge Analytica breach change the face of data privacy and will GDPR be a step in the right directions towards the protection of customer data? 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, and we love hearing from our listeners! Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

"No company can afford to stand still" - we sat down with David J. Katz - a Linked In Top Voice in Retail - to discuss how technology is changing consumer demands and pushing companies into creating better experiences. Show Notes: Main Takeaways: David J. Katz is here from Randa, the world's largest men's accessory company, that ships more than 75 million units of product a year. With the ever-changing technological landscape, retail has is being disrupted with advancements made in technology, and therefore, it's important to change approaches to fit the current retail environment. Digitizing the traditional brick-and-mortar shopping experience is essential today when customers rely on their phones for information and recommendations. Entertainment has taken a more significant role in retail than ever before but is there a worthwhile and lucrative space for entertainment in the coming years in the commerce world? The Most Rational, Logical Path You Can Imagine: David recounts the journey that got him to where he is today: a journey that began with him as a medical student studying neuroscience that granted him a unique view into the psychology and physiology of human behavior. Thanks to a bribe from his family, David took a year deferment before spending the next nine years in med school, and he ended up not going back and eventually went to business school instead. He got hands-on experience in operating businesses that had wholesale products and selling those to retailers. Brian points out some of David's prolific achievements, such as being named one of LinkedIn's Top Voice in Retail. Stimulating Customer Response to Grow Your Business: Because Randa is dominant in their market, their goal is to stimulate customer response to buy more product as opposed to getting a larger share of the market. Phillip brings up a recent Merchant to Merchant live podcast in which he spoke to Filson about how they are combatting the vertical challenge of modern technology by going horizontal with their product line. David illustrates Randa's strategy of increasing consumer exposure to belts by surrounding the pants sections of department stores with their products. (Can you sense some of that psychology education here?) With their market share and their marketing spend capability, Randa can ensure that every color in every brand is always in stock. What happens when you are shopping online? Do all the infrastructure specifications and display strategies put in place by David get disrupted? Growing Up Technological: The Cycle of Disruption: David takes us through the cycle of retail (from the days of the Wells Fargo wagon in fact) and how as technology advances, the retail cycle is disrupted. Phillip brings up that he has seen some recent advances in belt technology and asks David if they are able to improve and drive technology advancement to capture those areas of the market. "David responds with some serious pearls of wisdom by saying, "Nothing is so perfect, so ideal that you cannot reinvent, reimagine, and innovate to make it better and more relevant." As an example of some innovations made in the world of belts, there is belt that is also a phone charger. Talk about squeezing the last bit of power out of your smartphone. David brings up that women are typically faster at adapting to new technologies, which is why there aren't as many advancements in men's fashion as there are in women's fashion. Brian also brings up another technological advancement in the form of RFID-blocking wallets, an advancement that prevents the scanning of your id through your wallet. Digitizing the Brick-and-Mortar Experience: How to Recreate the In-Store Experience Online: Brian asks David what he is investing in or working on in regards to online shopping to mirror the amazing strategies that Randa has in place in regards to their brick-and-mortar installations. Randa is using a lot of digital technologies to dynamically display appropriate accessories to compliment what the customer is shopping for, and then they will continue to market those accessories even after the customer has finished their online shopping session. David also brings up that even while shopping in a physical store, customers still resort to their phones for product information, so it's essential for Randa to have an online presence, even for customers that are shopping at brick-and-mortar locations. Ever Changing Bits and Pieces: What is a brand today? Brian brings up an article recently published by Future Commerce alumnus Richard Kestenbaum (check out his episode) that defines "ingredient brands" and asks David how he sees brands evolving. Ingredient brands are essentially the things inside a product that make it more valuable (think Intel Inside). Randa has invented and patented belt technologies like Exact Fit that can be considered ingredient branding that they put inside other brands. The word brand initial came from cattle branding which dates back centuries and is found across many cultures, and we still identify ourselves as part of a "tribe" with similarly branded others which grant you membership and validation. Brian brings up that when customers used to associate themselves with a brand, they were assured of three things: A certain lifestyle coordination with that brand, value coordinating with the cost of items from that brand, and the benefit of being identified by other because of their brand choice. Today, with social media and online verification while shopping, you can see thousands and thousands of reviews and comments on any given product instantly. David predicts that there will be a tiny number of influential national and global brands that still mean something valuable, but there will be hundreds of thousands of digitally native brands that are targeting specific niches of customers. The Modern Proprietor: Big Data Knows What You Need: The ability to target the interests of customers on such a granular level is a powerful tool that will lead to changing the face of branding itself. David also brings everything full circle by comparing the data mining of today to the proprietors of old, both know their customers needs, interests, and wants and can custom tailor their products and recommendations to fit those needs. New data points are being created all the time, such as data related to your body that can even further customize personal product recommendations. David explains how they are just beginning to use AI to recommend products based on an image, essentially superimposing a belt onto the image that compliments what you're wearing. The Shiny Factor: Not All That Glimmers is Gold: Phillip asks if David thinks that people will follow technology into the future of if he foresees people overinvesting in technology as we see it today. David responds by saying the situation is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, people are distracted by whatever is new and shiny that people might think is valuable, but is only just shiny (like this security robot that took a nosedive into a fountain), but on the other hand, when technology provides a better experience for your associates and peers, then it provides an incredible value. Brian harkens back to a past episode with Sucharita Mulpuru in which she advocates the sentiment that just because you can build something, doesn't mean you should. Are You Not Entertained?: Entertainment's Role in Retail: What is the role of entertainment in retail experiences and does entertainment have a place in retail in the next couple of years? David says that Starbucks is an excellent example of entertainment in retail: you spend getting your coffee, and then you spend an hour on your laptop in their store and going through their carefully curated experience. On one of his stints on QVC, David recalls that when he was doing a bit dressed as a doctor, viewership went up, but fewer people were ordering because the entertainment factor alone did not convince people to order when the entertainment didn't show why the product was relevant. The key factor in making entertainment work for your brand is to engage your customers in a way that helps your brand and increases conversion over time. As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What is the meaning of brands today, and how is that changing in this compressed supply change environment? Do you see entertainment playing a more significant role in retail in the next few years? 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, and we love hearing from our listeners! Guest David J. Katz, EVP and CMO, Randa Accessories

What happens when you no longer control your own likeness? Is there an ethical line to be crossed with posthumous product spokesmanship? We skirt the line in this episode and get topical - talking about the subject of ethics and artificial intelligence and how online communities have banned "Deep Fakes" - pornographic simulations produced by artificial intelligence. Deep Fakes: weaponizing AI We're seeing a really gross intersection of what we talked about on our prediction show around digital personal identity rights with body timage and data technology and how it advances with consumer products. The Verge and an AP article both discuss the emergence of "deep fakes:" applying people's likenesses using AI in a pornographic way. These communities take hi-res videos and still frames from notable actresses for training data and  apply their likeness to nude photos. There's no real legal consensus on deep fakes and their consequences, so a lot of these online sites have come together and banned them and their communities. This is hitting right on the topic of that scary, black mirror-esque world we now live in where your face can be unwittingly applied without your consent to literally any context in some of the seediest and darkest ways with no way for you to manage it. Legal Ramifications of Deep Fakes The legal ramifications are unclear because we've never had this sophisticated level of technology. This is something that will come up in law, and we'll probably start to see entire bills at the federal level. There's been no federal regulations yet that address how to handle your body data. The Historical Blind Eye to Invasive Technology It's troubling that there were a lot of communities that turned a blind eye for years to  still images. There was this incredible story in Wired about 10-12 years ago about how Gillian Anderson at one point was the most photoshopped face on the internet, and many of the photos were suggestive. They were suggesting it was because of facial symmetry. Those types of images have been around for decades with no one doing anything about it. We can all agree that it's harmful to somebody in some way when they're applying your likeness in that way. The advent of AI assisted fakery is taking it to the next level and blurring the line of realism. Incredibly complex technology in the hands of the people: We were talking to Greg Steinberg at Something Digital and he asked hypothetically, what if we applied this to products? You could change any scene, from commercials to videos, to represent your product with AI. You could apply the Coke filter to any image and anything anyone holding is a can of coke. Amazing movie technology is now available in the palm of your hand. It's now available for consumers and businesses to take advantage of in a pretty easy way. In 2016 at the Adobe max creativity conference they announced a tool that with creative cloud suite, that after 20 minutes of training spoken word data, you could train an AI or ML algorithm to parrot back phrases in another person's voice that you typed in. A year and a half ago tech demo showcased a face to face algorithm that was applied to fake CNN broadcasts that used a source actor and overlaid that actor with political figures to show that GW and Vladimir Putin saying things they didn't actually say. Is there even one way that this is a positive contribution to society? Manipulative technology for sales There are ways it could be used to leverage selling things, and businesses can use this type of tech as a tool. We touched on this in episode 8. People will have control of their body data and can leverage it for various reasons: they can sell it, it will outlast you posthumously, and you'll need someone to monitor and be in charge of it after you die. For models (and maybe everyone's a model now) they'll be able to give companies access to their body data for specific reasons. The question is: how are we going to enforce this? It's such powerful tech that if we don't have good governance than it's going to get out of control real quick. But just because we legislate this new reality, it doesn't mean that it's going to control people's behavior. Just because it's illegal won't make it cease to exist. The difficult and expensive road to wiping your image from the internet What's required to wipe your image off the internet, especially if it's someone's likeness or personal image, takes a lot of work: people have to trademark their face, or send DMCA take down notices to sites like Reddit to actually enforce their copyright. At some point, what's coming in weaponized tech and disinformation campaigns. In no way is it helpful for humankind. Policy Update with Danny Sepulveda! The political traction net neutrality has is fascinating. What happened immediately, and even before Ajit Pai repealed it, was a fairly widespread uprising of folks supporting net neutrality. Nonetheless the department went forward with repealing it. A number of States have gone forward with their own net neutrality rules. The original net neutrality rules were over 400 page long with fairly complex issues. "I've been working in this for over 20 years, and I've never seen an issue that's gotten so much traffic." Reasons for the traction: People love the idea of the internet as  a public space open and accessible to everyone as a relatively egalitarian basis People don't appreciate a regulator behaving in the best interest of the regulated as opposed to the interests of the public. Republicans believe that if you own pipes going into somebody's house, you should have the freedom to contract with the providers for different treatment for better ROI, and consequently, this would encourage additional investment in infrastructure around the country. But there's a tremendous amount of incentive to manipulate that gatekeeper function for non-productive ends to extract tolls and rents. Most Democrats believe net neutrality should be upheld because it works. The way people access internet now without intervention with internet service provider has worked really well with innovation. What's next Congress is considering repealing the FCC's decision. It's highly unlikely to work due to Republican control of both Congress and the house. Right now 49 Senators wish for repeal. We only need 1 or 2 more Senators to agree to repeal the rule, but it's highly unlikely the House would agree. Even if the House voted to go back to net neutrality, the President could still veto the effort. We are unlikely to see a restoration of net neutrality during this administration. There are also lawsuits against it right now. The courts could throw it out. Which would return us to Obama era rules. Once the courts decide, either way, it will create a political dynamic in which members of Congress will have to come to some decision about whether they wish to write into law some kind of compromise. In all likelihood, Net neutrality won't be restored. But there's been a lot of activism, and we'll see what it means politically in the midterms going forward. BACK TO THE DUDES BODY DATAAAA! In a commerce context, body data is really useful. But using it to accomplish things with people's image is just dangerous. We don't see it not being used. It's a tech that exists now, and it'll be used by businesses, and they'll find use cases for it. Now that it exists, we can't go back. Aside from spokesperson and generational licensing groups like the Elvis and Marilyn Monroe estates, all I see this being novel for in a commerce context is us having more and more Reba Mcentire and KFC Colonel Sanders mash ups. We don't need more Jim Gaffigan colonel Sanders to make me buy fried chicken, but that's where we're heading. Consider though, the Micro-Spokesperson: using AI to determine the best person to influence another set of customers. That influencer will sell their digital body rights to influence a certain set of people based of specific sets of DNA factors. DNA TESTING, FOLKS! 23andme was spamming the heck out of us on the Winter Olympics. If you've watched the Olympics, you probably saw the ads at least 50 times. It's just one example of new DNA testing groups. There's a ton of other really specific stuff going on with DNA testing. It's getting better and better, and you're able to determine more stuff with it. A company is matching DNA to medications: you get your DNA scanned and then get better understanding of what medications will work better for you based off your results. It's personalized medication for you. BACK TO INFLUENCERS! (Honey I shrunk the influencers.) Venturebeat talks about Influential, a company that just launched a social intelligence platform. They find influencers for brands using the help of IBM Watson. They can find people based on microsegment affinities to predict whether or not they would be influential for a brand for micro-influencer engagement. Imagine if they took training data from dating apps, and then used that data to help create influencers based off of attraction factors that would allow people to trust somebody more, or like them more, because they look a specific way ro have a certain personality. (We so need GDPR in the US). Who will influence the influencers? Everything is happening on instagram. There's a story on L2 called, "Can Nike keep snapchat alive?" Nike was the first company to sell directly on snapchat, and that collaboration is signaling that snapchat might be moving into e commerce. But in the same week, Kendall Jenner tweeted the snapchat 1 milliion dollar dip in their market valuation. Even when you're doing interesting things in retail, when influencers are doing things in retail, and have the products to engage in 1 to 1, even then it comes down to a handful of people having the eyeballs to really determine the fate of those platforms. So there are influencers for the influencers. The success will be in if you can keep the attention of the people who matter. And there's no amount of AI to keep the attention of capricious people. Ad Age recently talked about all the data that shows how micro-influencers are having an insane affect on people above and beyond the standard celebrity influencers. If you're a brand, you probably don't want a big celebrity, you probably want a series of micro-influencers. Instagram influencers wouldn't traditionally have any corporate sponsorship, but they do because they have million and millions of eyeballs. It's only because of their engagement in social. It has nothing to do with any accolade or aptitude. 15-20  years ago you'd have to be an athlete or actor to gain it. Now anybody can do it for just about anything for anybody. Or we can fake you with AI. Back to Body Data! Shoutout to Shapescale.com: a 3D body scanning tool for fitness tracking and visualization. You stand on their scale and it records your body and then you can get a picture of yourself from a 3D view and actually visualize different things, like how you should go about changing your body to see what you want to do. It looks at fat and muscle mass, and you get heat maps of where your body's changing, and you get visual goal tracking. It's marketed as the next gen of scales beyond the "smart" scale we have no. Beyond it being "cool," but we have to wonder, where does it go from here other than being cool? Perhaps you can mine the data and do your own A/B tests on your body? It does do is allow someone to attack weight loss or health like a business problem: and treat their life like something they can test and try something out on. Despite this wealth of technology and data, we're more depressed than we've ever been as a country. Maybe it's not actually helping us. That concludes our awesome meandering and tangential show, and we'd love to hear what you have to say. Go to futurecommerce.fm. Hit us up and lend more to conversation. Or Email us at and

We're bringing you a bonus episode - we sat down with Kiri Masters of Ecommerce Braintrust Podcast to talk about the proliferation of voice and voice commerce - and how it's changing the perception of what a brand is and how they engage their customers. To listen to the WHOLE thing head over to ecommercebraintrust.com and listen to Episode 19! Special thanks to Kiri Masters, Julie Spear and the Ecommerce Braintrust podcast for featuring us! Listen to the whole thing: https://www.ecommercebraintrust.com/episodes/voice-commerce-the-future-is-here

Voice is dominating commerce experiences: but is it kitsch or is it kismet? What separates retailers who are implementing voice strategies? Ryan MacInnis of Voysis joins us to talk about how to give your brand a voice in a world spoken by Alexa. Plus: Facebook Fiona and Aloha - one more smart speaker / tablet to contend for our attention. Show Notes Coming soon

We fulfill a promise to our listeners and provide an in-depth review of Amazon Go - including food, assortment, experience, and how the technology will be applied and extended into the future. Show Notes Main Takeaways Brian and Phillip take a trip to flagship Amazon Go Store in Seattle and enjoy the experience. How is an Amazon Go location set up, and what are some of the logistics in its day to day operations? Can the Amazon Go model be applied to other retailers? Shipping With Amazon might be Amazon's most significant business venture to date. Is Amazon Go the Future? Phillip says yes, and that future is now. Amazon Go is basically a grocery store that allows you to pick up any item and that item is automatically tagged, added to your cart, and is then charged to your Amazon Prime account upon leaving (as long as you have the app)). Phillip and Brian were excited about Amazon Go over a year ago. Did the Experience Live Up to the Hype? Brian and Phillip ventured to an Amazon Go location together to see what the experience was actually like. Brian says the Amazon Go experience was "good, easy, and exactly what it was advertised to be." Brian also experimented with picking items up and then putting them back on the shelf. Phillip says that he loved the experience. Amazon Go: The Set Up: Phillip and Brian agree that the store is not huge, but more akin to a convenience store (Or a "Whole Foods) convenient store" according to Brian). Phillip describes the products as "a really wide selection of a lot of things with unique selections in between" and goes into some serious detail of all the food items that are for sale. There was also a good selection of high-end items. How does the set-up contribute to the overall experience? Phillip points out that some of the sensors that track customer activity looked more commercial as opposed to industrial. What kinds of sensors are being used to detect what products are removed from the shelves? Amazon Go: The Haul: Since it was breakfast time, Brian walked out with a sandwich from a locally sourced bakery that was pretty good (for a convenience store breakfast sandwich). Phillip also left with a breakfast sandwich. Both Brian and Phillip agree that there were some pretty good, higher-end selections to be found. In addition to free cream cheese for bagel purchases, there was also free Cholula Hot Sauce and Sriracha packages. Bless. Alert: there was no hot coffee to be found anywhere in the store. (Unless Brian and Phillip couldn't find it.) For the products that were of the local variety (as in not pre-packed or mass produced), Phillip points out that there were unique QR codes that must help the sensors identify these items. The Logistics and the Competitive Landscape: Brian questions what the minimum number of staff would be to run a store like this, given the unique new factors this retail set up introduces. Will Amazon release any numbers detailing what it costs to staff a store like this (especially for a store that is not a flagship store). Phillip hopes that he sees some sort of Moore's Law that comes with this sort of tech innovation. Philip also points out that there are other companies that are implementing this technology in much larger stores than the Amazon Go store. Phillip thinks there will be innovation from a lot more players aside from just Amazon. Brian adds that we will see a lot more examples of this, a lot quicker than we might think. Will Amazon make this technology available for other retailers? (Probably not for Walmart.) Beyond Amazon: Implementing Consumer Ecosystems: Phillip wonders if other retailers would find success in a retail model like Amazon Go without the existing ecosystem that Amazon has established with its customers. Will this technology be useful in any other retail experience aside from a convenience store? With the phasing out of physical media for music, Best Buy is giving Phillip fewer reasons to shop there. (Who knew CDs would be such a trigger point for Phillip?) Brian reveals that he only shops at Amazon and Costco. Brian cleverly states that "there is no reason to go out of your way to have more convenience." Shipping with Amazon: A New Goliath on the Horizon: Shipping WIth Amazon (SWA) is probably a bigger announcement than Amazon Go. Phillip predicts that SWA might be the biggest part of Amazon's business in five years. Phillip calls FedEx and UPS the "cockroaches of logistics." With Target's recent acquisition of Shipt, Phillip points out that other entities are rising to compete with Amazon. Brian wonders if UPS or FedEx are anticipating the shrinkage that may occur once SWA gets up and running. Final Thoughts on Amazon Go: To harken back to Episode 21, Brian exclaims that Amazon Go "is the future of shopping." Phillip says that a few years ago, he would have made fun of Amazon for a venture like Amazon Go, but Amazon has continued to prove that they can deliver on experiences like this. Brian wonders if Amazon will release a new phone this year. Go over to Futurecommerce.fm and give us your feedback! We love to hear from our listeners!