Up Next In Commerce

Ask and you shall receive! We did a survey of our audience a few months back, and the number one requested topic was influencer marketing. And for good reason! Influencer marketing has infiltrated every industry and has the ability to drive large ROI if done correctly. But many new or smaller brands are wondering if they can take part in this marketing channel. And the answer is yes! Eric Lam, is the co-founder of AspireIQ, and he is here to explain how the industry has become democratized and any brand can take part in it, as long as they go about it the right way.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he gets into all of that and more, including why he bet big on the idea of influencers when it was still a radical idea used mostly by large companies with large celebrities. Today, Eric says that there are certain mistakes that many companies are making when it comes to working with influencers, and he details exactly how you should go about measuring the ROI from your influencer strategy. Plus, Eric explains why he thinks platforms like TikTok are undervalued and he predicts the future of how the world of influencer marketing will grow. Main Takeaways:The ROI of the Storm: Understanding the attribution funnel of influencer marketing is a key metric to determine the ROI of your efforts. But what if there are other aspects of the partnership that should be considered, that many brands are missing?Can I See Your Manager?: One of the biggest challenges of influencer marketing is managing the various influencers you work with and the logistics of tracking and shipping the products your influencers are promoting. Building a platform and communication structure that solves that problem is what sets influencer community management companies apart.Democracy Now: Part of what social media has done is democratize content creation. Previously, brands and those with money were in control of what content was created, when, and who could see it. Now, individuals have the same capabilities in the palms of their hands, which not only leads to better content, but opens the door to revenue streams and opportunities for regular people to become influencers.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome to the Up Next In Commerce Podcast, I'm your host, Stephanie Postles. Co-Founder at mission.org. Today, we're talking all things influencers, but the co-founder of AspireIQ, Eric Lam. Eric, nice to meet you.Eric:Great to meet you as well. Thanks for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm excited to have you on so no pressure, but we did a survey of our audience, and the number one thing that everyone wanted to hear about was influencers. Early, like we got dozens of responses of [crosstalk 00:00:32].Eric:Love to hear it.Stephanie:Yeah. This is the perfect interview.Eric:Fantastic. Well, that's really helpful for me to hear, especially for my team work in sales.Stephanie:There you go. Tell me a little bit about what is AspireIQ.Eric:We're a platform for brands to build and engage communities of influential people from traditional social media influencers to top customers and brand fans to experts and more. We actually started back in 2013. Even though it's mainstream now, back then, influencer marketing was a pretty new concept. Frankly, the idea of businesses using Instagram back then in a meaningful way was pretty rare. Of course, now 93% of brands and kind of based on your survey, it sounds like that's increasing, are using influencer marketing as a core part of their digital and social media strategies, and we're lucky to be partnered with over 300 brands on the platform from some of the biggest names like Samsung to leading [inaudible] brands like Glossier and Purple Mattress.Stephanie:Amazing. Tell me a little bit, how is the platform design? If I'm a new customer, what would I experience when I enter a platform and what do I get out of it?Eric:Yeah. Even back in the day, I think pretty much from the beginning, some of the biggest problems we've tried to solve in influencer marketing have come down to three parts, finding the right influencers to work with in terms of creating content and promoting your brand, to managing the complex workflow between your brand and potentially hundreds of influencers in your community, to analyzing the impact of these influencer communities on your marketing goals. I think that where we've really made our bread and butter is that second one, the building workflow. That's because if any of your listeners have built influencer marketing programs, and actually in our early days, probably our first two years, we didn't have our own software, so we experienced this ourselves when we were running influencer campaigns for our clients.Eric:The real work that goes into this is all the communication and the cumbersome project management, the data organization, the contracts, the product shipping, the payments, and just keeping track of all this stuff in one place, especially if you're working with more than, say 10 influencers at a given time, like that's where the real work is. That's where we really focused on building a platform that can provide meaningful scale to clients building this in a sophisticated way. I think at this point, we've got a range of sophistication levels from fortune 500 companies who have seven different teams working across different countries with outside agencies and the corporate office, to some of the biggest DTC brands in the world who have kind of built their secret sauce in influencer marketing, and almost need to design this customized system within our platform for how to do influencer marketing. So, it's come a long way in terms of the sophistication level that a lot of our clients have had.Stephanie:That's awesome. Since 2013, what kind of shifts in the market have you seen? Because when I think about influencers, especially back in the day, it's like, if you don't have a Kardashian, you don't have an influencer. Now it seems like way more about like micro influencers who have a trusted audience and people actually buy what they want. What kind of things have you seen like shifts in the market?Eric:Yeah, it's evolved in a lot of different, really interesting ways. You're exactly right. I think in the early days, well, frankly in the really early days, when we first started, almost no one was doing influencer marketing, which was obviously tough for our business because we were trying to go to every brand and convince them to spend even like a hundred bucks on an influencer.Stephanie:They're like, no, thanks. Out of budget.Eric:Yeah. I think that was already like pulling teeth. I think, back then, I think the only brands doing this were probably these emerging ecommerce brands where ... they can't compete on traditional advertising, so Instagram had become this place where they discovered already consumers were coming there to learn about what to buy, what to do, where to go. That was true, even though back then Instagram wasn't this kind of commercialized or sponsor place the way it is today. But even in our early days, what kept us going is that we talked to so many ecommerce brands and consistently what we heard was the biggest channel that they were focusing on was social media and specifically influencer marketing.Eric:Then I think, yeah, after a few years, maybe like 2015 and 2016, the industry kind of evolve to what you were talking about, where everybody was trying to work with Kardashians. It was all about working with the biggest fashion bloggers, the biggest celebrities. The bigger, the better. And you're thinking about these vanity metrics, like how many followers someone has, or how many likes they have, regardless of if they saw meaningful returns on investment. Those were the early cowboy days of influencer marketing. I think because of a lot of the mainstream brands got involved there, you started to then see an evolution of how a lot of the DTC, a lot of ecommerce brands were starting to think about influencer marketing because they were kind of getting priced out of these big macro celebrities.Eric:So, they started honing in on more specialized micro influencers, like you mentioned, who, they might not have as big of a following, but they were a lot more targeted, a lot more focused in the concept of created, which meant they were a great fit for more personalized experiences, more authentic content in terms of the segments they were trying to reach among their customers. I think the second thing that was really interesting about the way this evolved is that these same ecommerce brands started using influencers for more than just trying to reach their audiences like in an advertising way, and they started looking at them as holistic content creators, because when you think about what an influencer is, they're kind of like this studio photographer model all wrapped into one person, whose literal job it is to make engaging content for this generation.Eric:These brands started re-purposing a lot of their content and using it in all their different channels, from paid advertising, to ecommerce website, to email marketing and more because content became this King of everything they wanted to do across digital. Today, I think that's kind of even more the case where you're looking at even more long tail influencers, and even people that aren't considered traditional social media influencers, but are really important to the brands and their strategies from marketing perspective. Brands might be building programs where they're combining influencers, but they're also combining those with top customers, power users, experts, working professionals who do customer referrals, whichever groups of people who have the greatest word of mouth impact on the customers and trying to win over, regardless of if they have a social media following or not. I think it's a really exciting phase of influencer marketing we're heading into, where it really includes, even democratize, where brands are kind of looking for these authentic voices, no matter where they come from.Stephanie:Yep. I love that. Yeah, I was just going to say, it feels like now there's so much more opportunity for anyone to have an influencer if you find the right person, whereas before, not so much. But if you're thinking about finding an influencer in your space or finding someone to partner with or using your platform to find some, what kind of metrics would you look at to make sure they're a good fit? What should a brand be looking for to be like, "ah, this is my perfect person?"Eric:Yeah. I think a lot of it comes down to what the goals of this influencer program is. But I think, at the end of the day, a lot of that comes down to subjective type of qualities. Obviously, you can see if they have a big following, you can see if they have really high engagement rates, but at the end of the day, you want to look at, what are people talking about in their comment section? What's the type of narrative they're kind of build with their audience? And does that really resonate with the type of nuanced audience segment that you're trying to build with your audiences? Because that tells you a lot about how they're going to co-create this narrative with you.Eric:That's really what we tell people when we give them advice is, you should really be building relationships with these influencers and treat them as a part of your community rather than looking at it as a transaction. I think that one of the biggest mistakes I see a lot is that, people will look at influencer marketing almost as like buying ad space, and it's really not like buying ad space because content creators are people.Stephanie:Yeah, these are people.Eric:Yeah, these are people who have these like nuanced feelings about the content they make, what they feel comfortable with, what's authentic to them. This is like their livelihood. Communicating with that level of empathy is really important, and if you can find people that really match your brand values and are going to be true advocates for you, that really translates into the authenticity, both from what they're saying, but also the kind of content they make because influencer marketing is pretty mature now and audiences can smell inauthenticity from a mile away. So, it matters a lot to find people that really believe in your brand.Stephanie:How do you go about making sure that a relationship is built on your platform and that someone's not just going through and being like, "Okay, bye. I want this." How do you develop or encourage a relationship to be built before they start working together?Eric:Yeah, I think a lot of times, frankly, sometimes it starts not necessarily with a kind of a official collaboration or with an official contract or anything like that. A lot of brands, what they do is they'll do what's called product seeding, and they'll send these gift bags out to influencers or micro influencers. A lot of people try out the products. If they like the products, they'll have them give feedback, they'll invite them to some events, they'll have them be part of some community activities before they really kind of like level them up into true ambassadors for the brand that have these more formalized contracts and agreements and payment structures and things like that. I think, obviously not all of that is necessary, but it kind of creates this much more organic experience, where ambassadors almost like come to you or are built with you, rather than just saying to every person, hey, we've got this $10,000 campaign and here you go, who wants the money? Kind of going based on much more of a transactional experience.Eric:That's one way to go. I think other ways to go are influencers who can come to you and are creating a more of an inbound experience. What we see a lot is brands setting up kind of these programs and looking for new ambassadors and new influencers to the program. A lot of times those might be smaller, but getting people to kind of sign up when they're small, when they have smaller followings is a great way to almost like build this farm system of up and coming influencers that are working with you in their early days so that when they become really big and famous. Obviously they've been kind of long-term supporters, long-term advocates of your brand for quite a while.Stephanie:Yep. That's great. Yeah, I think I've mentioned a few times in different episodes that I was ... I forget who I was listening to, where they're discussing influencers and how to pick them, but they said you should zero in on the comments and how their followers are actually engaging, because if they're engaging in one way where it's just like, oh, that's pretty, I like that shirt or something, that might not actually be an influential person you should work with versus someone who's saying, "Where can I buy that shirt right now?" If you see a lot of that in the comments, even if they're small, like they have people waiting to buy whatever they wear. I thought that was always a good reminder.Eric:Yeah, totally. I think that a lot of times, that that comes from some of these smaller influencers, because they're so focused on the type of content they make and their audiences really trust them with that messaging. I think a lot of influencers just understand that when they take these sponsorship deals, they're doing it in a way where they really need to make sure it looks, and it is the fact that they really care about this brand. They believe in the values, they believe in the product. I think audiences are really attuned to that, and I think they can pick up on that.Stephanie:Yep. I agree. In previous episodes, we've had a lot of guests tell us that it's been really hard to accurately measure the ROI of an influencer campaign. A couple of people have tried it or quite a few of them have tried it, but they just didn't know if they got the results or they didn't know how long until I see results. What do you advise around, how do you make sure to measure things in a way that you can see an ROI or not, and when should they expect to see some kind of success?Eric:Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, it is actually challenging. I think it's because, the reason is because I think influencer marketing sits at this unique intersection of brand and performance marketing where it's a little bit of both. I think if you're looking at as only one or only the other one, you're almost like undervaluing what you have in your influencer program. We actually have this internal marketing strategy team that works with all of our clients, and their job is basically to design this type of thing. Like, how are you going to measure the overall ROI of your program? Because it's so unique to every client. In terms of brand awareness, obviously that stuff is relatively straight forward. Like, how many views am I getting? How many video minutes are watched? How much engagement there are? What's the audience demographics that I'm trying to reach?Eric:Obviously this is an ecommerce podcast, so most people are interested in, how am I generating sales? That's where it gets really interesting, because like you said, it's not the easiest thing in the world to build the full attribution funnel for influencer marketing. Why is that? It's because all of this content sits somewhere that isn't pixel. It sits not on your own channel, and not even on your own Facebook. It sits on the influencer's Instagram page or their YouTube, and not all the time there's easy ways to click out of links. What we typically do is we build a combination of indirect and direct metrics to give you a sense of how your program is performing. There's definitely lots of ways to measure direct conversions. There's link tracking, coupon code redemptions, affiliate links, landing page sign-ups.Eric:Typically, those are very good ways of seeing directly attributable sales. Especially if you've built kind of this really great long tail of ambassadors who are all doing, like I said, whether your product seeding them, you're seeding them these gaskets, and you're not necessarily asking for anything, where you're building potentially hundreds or thousands of ambassadors who are ... you might not have a ton of following, but they really believe in the product and they're kind of posting about you. You'll start to see a lot of return in terms of referrals on that program, just based on kind of their channels clicking into those links and go into your website and buying things, something like that. But a lot of the times, when you're talking about influencer posts, because there's not an easy way to click out of this, of the posts, we tend to look at more indirect measures because a lot of times what happens is a consumer sees a post, they see the brand and then they exit to a browser and they go directly to the website.Eric:We say is that, hey, look at the indirect measures like referral sources from social channels, and that includes things like the Instagram shopping and checkout, which Facebook is investing a ton of money into all types of ways of commercializing your social channels. Then of course, there's the value of the content itself, which has been really interesting. Like I said, a lot of ecommerce brands are looking at these influencers as content creation vehicles, and so there's obviously the cost that it would've cost to create, potentially hundreds of purpose-built photos and videos, but what's even more is, what's the value of having 10 times the number of assets to personalize all these digital customer journeys from your paid ads, your ecommerce, your email marketing, and almost always what we see is our performance marketing clients will have an overall increase in their ROAS, but thanks to this kind of ongoing pipeline of constant.Eric:I think the last one that's super interesting thing has been really game changing over the last couple of years is actually using influencer channels themselves as paid ad vehicles. There's actually ... obviously there's easy functionality to boost posts that perform well, but there's actually, for in channels like Instagram, if an influencer has a business account, there's an option to grant advertiser access to a third party so that you can actually run a wide diversity of paid ads using the influencers content, where the ads are coming from the influencers channel themselves. This actually gives marketers almost this infinite number of channels to test on and has been an absolute game changer for brands looking to build more sophisticated paid social strategies. All those things are kind of like in combination, obviously are this complex web of how do you value the ROI of an influencer, but it's because there's this huge diversity of the ways that you could utilize them depending on your marketing strategy.Stephanie:That's great. Yeah. That's a really good summary, especially that last point. I don't think I have heard that, or I was not aware that you could leverage their accounts and kind of post from under their accounts. Yeah, that seems to be interesting.Eric:Yeah, it's little known, but it's become a lot more popularized, I think recently. Obviously you want to make sure that you have a firm agreement with the influencer. This is something that in our platform we kind of wrap up in a bow for you to be able to request, but obviously you're using their content, you're getting the right approvals from them, so they don't have their channel advertising to people or using content that they're not comfortable with. But assuming that they are, it's actually a win-win for both parties, because essentially what's happening is, as a brand, you're kind of leveraging them as a voice for your brand to kind of new audiences. For them, they're reaching new audiences themselves and in a way that can kind of get them more followers and more reach.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. I could see there being a bit of like, making sure that whatever you write is in their voice, or is it like pretty transparent that this is a brand takeover of their account?Eric:I think it's typically a collaboration, and a lot of times what we'll advise is that, definitely having the influencer sign off on all the language and making sure that they're comfortable with what they're saying, because you don't want to get ... definitely don't want to misrepresent what they're saying, and it is in a partnership between brand and creator.Stephanie:Yep. Got it. All right. A little story time. First, we'll start with, what are some of the biggest missteps that you've seen brands experience when they've tried to set up their own influencer partnerships? What are some horror stories that you've heard in the industry? You know I like failure.Eric:Yeah, definitely I think a couple of common things that I see, and again, they kind of relate to this idea that, hey, these influencers are ads basically, and that leads to behaviors, like I said about not building relationships. I talked about that one already, but I think another one is basically taking too risk averse of an approach in the creative process. I won't name specific brands, but I think, especially when you're talking about like the bigger brands in the industry, the Fortune 500 brands, a lot of them struggle with the idea of kind of like merging their influencer strategy with their creative strategy, because they typically have this really rigid process of guidelines and brand safety that they apply usually to kind of $25,000 to $50,000 photo shoots, and they want to apply that same framework to influencers.Eric:And they're like, cool. They have to do this set of 20 guidelines, they have to check all these boxes in terms of what they're going to say, they have to say it in this way, and in this tone. At the end of the day, that just doesn't work because people are smart. Consumers are smart. Consumers know when something is super forced and inauthentic. At the end of the day, the whole point of working with influencers is that you're co-creating a narrative. You're supposed to be harnessing the personality and the creativity that's unique to each person, and by forcing them to kind of fit in this tightly defined box that is so clearly branded, that just leads to poor performing content. It's kind of defeating the purpose of using influencers in the first place. I would say that's the biggest misstep I tend to see, and it is typical among, I would say like the bigger brands in the industry.Stephanie:Got it. I could see brands, especially smaller ones, trying to find, of course, untapped influencers. What industries do you think there are a bunch of influencers that maybe you guys haven't even tapped into, and what's maybe bringing this question about, as I just did a recap episode with one of my coworkers around like the first 50 episodes, and we were talking about shoppable gaming and unreal and how there's influencers in these game worlds and how shopping is going to be in there soon. I was like, oh, it seems like there could be a lot of virtual influencers that maybe aren't tapped, but are there any industries like that where you're like, oh, we're exploring this or we see this being big in the future, but we haven't actually fully gotten it yet?Eric:Yeah. Well, I would say, even though it's been incredibly popularized in the last year or so, I would say TikTok is still wildly undervalued. I think not enough brands understand that TikTok has this enormous breadth and depth of not only audiences, but content creators, because I'm 38 years old and I look at a lot of like Parenting TikTok, I look at a lot of the Home Depot TikTok. It's so different than I think most perceptions are of, oh, it's just funny videos or teenagers dancing and things like that, because there's such a diversity of content and audience within TikTok that I think only a handful of brands are really taking advantage of. That's definitely, I would say a big focus for us going forward, is kind of getting in deep with tech talk and making sure that our brands can be successful there.Eric:I would say more to specifically your question around industries, I would say a lot of industries that we've seen that have kind of more emerging, I would say "influencers," not necessarily traditionally defined influencers, are more like professional fields. For example, one of my friends from business school named Trina Spear, she's founded this company FIGS Scrubs. I think they've had the strategy probably for ... maybe since they were founded, where they've almost created influencers out of nurses and doctors where, when they first started, there were no nurse influencers or doctor influencers or anything like that. But they started partnering with all these people that could just create really great content, and they might just be people in that professional field people that might have 500 followers, but posted really cool content and they would send the product, get them involved, get them bought into the mission and the vision of the brand.Eric:Now a lot of those people, they have tens of thousands of followers because of the partnership they've done with FIGS, and FIGS is an incredibly popular brand among the healthcare industry now, and has a really, really loyal following across ... up and down nurses and doctors and everything else.Stephanie:That's really cool. Yeah, I think we had FIGS on our list. I have to check with Hillary on that, but I think we had them potentially coming on maybe so. Yeah, that's really cool to hear how they do that.Eric:They're great. I look forward to listening to that one.Stephanie:Cool. How do you onboard new influencers, and who are some names of people that I would know? Because even though it's kind of vanity, I'm sure everyone listening is like, well, who are some names that I would know in your platform?Eric:Yeah. Interestingly, we don't really take that kind of approach when it comes to influencers, because a lot of times our influencers are brand-driven. What we try to do is we try to provide a system of record and a platform for our brands to manage all of their influencer programs themselves. This is actually an industry choice we've made, I think back in the founding of the company, where we decided pretty early that we were not going to win based on us having the most influencers or us having access to talent agencies or communities of people, because frankly, we were basically four guys who came from either a gaming company or a hedge fund, and so we were not going to win based on who we knew.Eric:What we decided to do is we said, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to build a platform that has incredible workflow and ability to scale up these influencer programs and have brands build the tools they need to manage them, and those brands will essentially onboard and essentially, almost onboard the influencers onto our platform themselves. It's actually played out pretty well where we now have hundreds of thousands of influencers on the platform. I think in a 95% of cases, those influencers were brought by some brand that we had on our platform who essentially invited those influencers themselves to the AspireIQ platform. This has been a really great way of feeding.Stephanie:Oh, that's smart.Eric:... a marketplace where when ... in [inaudible] teach about like, when you start a marketplace, you have to create standalone value for one of the sides, and that was our [inaudible] standalone value for the brands that they would essentially attract the influencers to the platform because we just didn't have them.Stephanie:Let's talk about the early days a little bit. I saw that you had worked at Pocket Gems, and I think it said you led a very large team who was mostly accountable for like 80 million in annual revenue. I want to hear a bit about your background and what you did at Pocket Gems that maybe helped influence AspireIQ.Eric:Yeah. I started my career in finance actually before business school, which is really disappointing for my dad because my dad was a computer science professor, so I didn't get into technology immediately the way that he wanted. But yeah, after business school, I went to Pocket Gems. Yeah, started as a product manager, built a couple of games there. Pocket Gems, for some background, is a mobile app gaming company. Really, it was an incredible experience because gaming, especially back then, I mean, you think about like, this pre-Zynga IPO and all the kind of the rise of mobile gaming, and everything was extremely data-driven and fast paced. It was a great environment to learn about how to build products that can grow and scale really quickly.Eric:But I think the biggest thing it taught me was essentially how much mobile and social were going to change the world, and pretty much changed the world so much more than I had ever conceptualized, I think, before joining, in almost a similar way with the way the internet changed everything in the late '90s. It's because of the fact that we have this super computer in our pockets that's like a high-definition video camera that makes any of this stuff possible. I think, as we were building games there, as we were building apps, as we were doing user acquisition, I could tell, based on the things that were working and the channels that we were working for, for our own growth, that all this was happening here organically. When you looked at social media, everyone can create this amazing content that's just as relevant and meaningful as what's done in studio, and it's completely democratized, giving a voice to anybody with a mobile phone and social media.Eric:I wanted to work on something following that, that could take advantage or basically capitalize on the fact that the world is essentially changing from what I call companies to people. Because when you open your phone, you look at most content nowadays, chances are it's something that a regular person made. It's not a company. It was kind of obvious, at the time, to a lot of us that were founding the company that people were going to be at the center of how these businesses or brands were built. That's what we were focused on doing. We didn't have it all figured out in terms of what we would do or the product we would build. We started with social media and went from there, but we just knew it was around this idea that brands and building a brand, building a marketing strategy needed to be much more people oriented, and around this idea that mobile and social were going to change the world.Stephanie:When you launched into aspire IQ, what were some maybe hiccups or missteps that you guys made in the beginning when trying to figure out this marketplace and building the platform, anything happened there of note?Eric:Yeah, it was funny because again, it was for people who didn't come from the marketing industry and we're trying to get into ... which I think, when I gave people advice, people would always ask me like, "Hey, are you going to ... should I start this company? I really want to do a startup." A lot of times the advice I give is, "Look, if this is something you have to do, it shouldn't matter what I say, that you're going to do it." I think this was really interesting thing where we all had this intense belief that this was going to be a thing, that this would work, even though none of us had come from the industry. I think, because none of us had come from the industry, that really put us at this disadvantage for, who to talk to. We were really scrapping trying to find our first sales and talk to any ecommerce brands that would listen to us, talk to any brands that would listen to us.Eric:It was such early days that we couldn't even charge any money for the product we made. We built this product in about a year, and we basically had to give it away for free because people just didn't value it. They didn't understand why they should pay a platform for influencer marketing. I think we actually had to create ... is really funny. In our first outreaches to influencers even, we were trying to scrape together these first influencer campaigns where we had to pretend that we were the platform, but actually underneath, it was just the four of us trying to run and match-make with different influencers. But we were saying like ...Stephanie:[crosstalk] service.Eric:Yeah, but we were saying like, oh yeah, there's something really like technological going on under the hood. Don't worry [inaudible] the brands. But it was actually just us trying to run the different influencers saying, "Hey, look, can you please join this campaign?" We had to use the pseudonym actually, because nobody would respond to our emails among influencers. They didn't believe that we were a real company. We had to use pseudonyms of people that sounded more legitimate to make sure these influencers would respond to us.Stephanie:Oh, that's crazy.Eric:In the early days, again, not only were brands not really doing a lot of influencer marketing, but the influencers themselves weren't doing a lot of "influencer marketing" among sponsorship opportunities. This wasn't as much of a business for them, where they're already and set up to take a lot of these inbound requests. In the early days, that matchmaking process, like you said, was quite difficult. Of course, nowadays, it's almost like a machine where everybody ... if you have like 5,000 followers, you might even have a manager at this point. Yeah, in those early days, it was a lot of a lot of talking on the phone to explain who we were and what we were trying to do.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. I think that also is such an advantage that when you don't come from the industry, it reminds me of like us building up this media company like none of us really knew what we were doing in the early days, but from your perspective, I could see a lot of people thinking about building an influencer company and being like, I need to partner with Hollywood, I need to go to CAA. There's a certain way things are done around here. I think that's actually a huge advantage when you don't really know what you don't know and you just move forward and figure it out, and maybe do it differently.Eric:Yeah. I think that, that definitely helped us, I would say in the later stages of the company, because by the time, like I had said, in 2016, 2017, when this took off as an industry, we were one of the few companies that have built this as a true software platform, because all of this came from technology. So, how are we going to win? We weren't going to win because again, we were connected to the right people. So, we were just heads down, really building as much of the product we could essentially understand based on our own running of these campaigns. When the industry took off, we had assembled this immense product advantage versus a lot of our competitors that were essentially glorified agencies. Back then, I think a lot of companies were effectively ... because you might come from an agency, so you think that an agency is the way to solve this problem, this matchmaking problem.Eric:But what we saw was something much more nuanced, which was, okay after you've solved the matchmaking problem, what are you going to do with these influencers, and how are you going to make this a scalable program that will last the test of time? All those things were built into, essentially how do you create almost like a CRM workflow with analytics and all the different automation that we built into it that would be relevant, frankly, for people that weren't really doing anything back when we first started. We were basically lucky that we survived the first few years with almost like making no money, that we could make it to the maturity of the industry when our product became more relevant.Stephanie:Yeah, that's good. Because some people are a little too far ahead and you guys were ahead, but you ended up making it work, which is awesome.Eric:Yeah, absolutely.Stephanie:Now that we're talking a little bit about the future, I want to head into the future. What do you think the future of influencers looks like maybe in like five to 10 years?Eric:Yeah. I think that, like I said, I think influencer marketing is going to keep diversifying to ... just not people who necessarily have social media following it. I think it's going to be around who is influential for your brand specifically? Again, it could be professional, it could be experts, it could be customers. I think a lot of the brands we talk to that are on the bleeding edge, like a Glossier for example, is the gold standard, I would say, of this, who's one of our favorite partner customers. They figured out, I think first that, it doesn't really matter if you have this massive social following. They've built this community of fans, employees, even healthcare workers, things like that, and regardless of who you are, they do an incredible job of making you feel like a part of the community, probably because the brand started out of this shared love of Emily Weiss's beauty blog.Eric:Regardless if you have a following on social media, they highlight a lot of their community members in their marketing. They give them exclusive first looks so they can get feedback and build buzz around new product launches. They take an active interest in pretty much what all these different communities, how they respond to products, and that shapes a lot of the strategy that Glossier has as a brand. I would say they're one of the first, I would say community led brands. I would say that that's going to be, what I would say is the future of, not just influencer marketing, but building commerce brands in general, because what you see now it is there's such a dependence on third parties for a lot of ecommerce companies on generating leads from places like Facebook ads.Eric:That's almost becoming this increasing tax on the cost of doing business of running ecommerce. When you've built an advantage for a brand like Glossier, where you almost have your own channel of your community that generates all this buzz and brand awareness and referrals that, that becomes this competitive advantage, because you can build growth without relying on third parties doing all of your lead generation. I think that's what I'm really excited about as kind of the future of influencer marketing, but also the future of kind of commerce in the way brands will start to own their own communities and their own channels.Stephanie:Yeah. That's a great answer. I think that's the gold standard that a lot of brands probably want to figure out is like, how do you build that community that you can leverage and not always having to rely on external customer acquisition? But it'd be interesting to dive into their model of like, how do they actually build that up and build that community of fans to then have that network to launch to with their products and whatnot?Stephanie:All right, cool. With a few minutes left, let's dive into the lightning round brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to throw a question your way and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Eric?Eric:Fantastic. Ready. Stephanie:What's up next on your reading list?Eric:Ooh. I think that one book that I really love and just read is a book by Carrie Melissa Jones called Building Brand Communities. She goes into a lot about how you ... similar to the Glossier example, you really need to co-create an experience of communities with shared values, kind of mutual benefit, how is your community going to interact with you as a brand? I love that book. We actually sent it to I think all of our customers.Stephanie:Oh, nice. I'll have to check that out. That sounds like a good one. What is the best piece of advice you ever received?Eric:Yeah, I think the best advice I ever received was either from like a personal or professional level, are you growing as a person? Are you scaling? Are you developing new skills? I give that advice either to employees at the company or people who are asking you for advice. A lot of it has to do, its just kind of acceleration in any way that makes sense or is meaningful to you.Stephanie:I love that. That is good. What's up next on your Netflix queue. What are you enjoying these days?Eric:Oh, wow. Netflix. I just started watching Killing Eve. I think it's an older show, but that's ...Stephanie:Okay, is it good?Eric:Yeah. I love that show. I don't know if I'm as big of a fan of Sandra Oh, but it's a BBC show, and I love pretty much all BBC shows.Stephanie:Okay. I'll have check that out. I have not even heard of that one. What do you wish you understood better right now? It could be a trend, it could be a piece of tech, anything.Eric:I think the thing I wish I understood better is how Silicon Valley works. What's funny is we've never been kind of the favored child, I would say, of the tech industry here and in terms of raising money and things like that. I think marketing has never been the sexy object, the way crypto and those things were. I think I wish I understood the way VCs thought better.Stephanie:All right, Eric. Well, this has been a really fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and AspireIQ?Eric:Yeah. Definitely you can check out aspireiq.com/upnext. Yeah, we've got some interesting reading there. We've definitely got a case study on Purple Mattress and a bunch of other cool stuff to read.Stephanie:Ooh, nice. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining. We will have to have you back for round two, maybe even in person in the studio in the future.Eric:Hopefully the world works out that way. Thank you so much, Stephanie. It's great to be on. Fun time.

Rachel Drori has come a long way from the days of filling a shopping cart at Trader Joe's and packing up healthy, frozen meals for delivery to customers all around New York — all while being nine-months pregnant. As the Founder and CEO of Daily Harvest, Rachel bootstrapped her company from the very beginning, and eventually had a few big names reach out to invest, including folks like Serena Williams and Gwyneth Paltrow. In 2019, Daily Harvest generated more than $125M in revenue and the company is growing. So what makes her meal-delivery service different from the others? The heavy focus on customer-centricity.When Rachel founded Daily Harvest, her goal was to build a customer-driven company that connected people with food that was designed specifically for them. But what did that look like from a practical standpoint and what can others learn from Rachel’s journey? On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, we’ll give you the answers to just that, so stay tuned!Main Takeaways:Nimble and Agile: In marketing and customer acquisition, it’s a mistake to be reliant on any one channel. Having the ability to understand and follow the trends, and then meet potential customers where they are at the moment they are online will allow you to actually bring in new customers reliably.Call and Response: Customers are less interested in having a place to share their thoughts than they are in having their feedback responded to by the brand they are interacting with. In every channel, there should be a way to engage in two-way conversations with your customers and then a method to follow through on those customers’ needs in a way that everyone can see.High On Your Own Supply: Having control of your supply chain is one of the best ways to create agility within your organization. But sometimes it takes some technology investment to bring all your suppliers on board.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is Stephanie Postles, your host and co-founder of mission.org. Today on the show, we have Rachel Drori, the founder and CEO of Daily Harvest. Rachel, welcome, welcome.Rachel:Hi, thanks for having me.Stephanie:Thanks for coming on. So yesterday in the mail, I got an amazing box of Daily Harvest. And it was the perfect way for me to understand exactly what it was and enjoyed this morning. But to kick it off, maybe I'll let you explain what Daily Harvest is.Rachel:First of all, I need to know what you tried first, and then....Stephanie:I tried a smoothie, and today I'm going to be trying one of the soups in there. I think there was a lentil soup that you just add water to. I'm like, "This is what I need in my life, something that you just add water to or just add coconut water to make a smoothie and it's done."Rachel:I love it. Yes. So I started Daily Harvest about five years ago. And the mission is simple. It's really to take care of food so that food can take care of all of us. And we do this by starting at the root with our farmers. And we grow the best fruits and vegetables in the best way possible. And then we make incredible food, which I'm glad you got to try. [inaudible] smoothies and flatbreads, ice cream, alongside with people who eat it, our customers. And the idea is that you can then stock your home with convenient, but also clean and delicious food that's built on real fruits and vegetables. And part of our magic is really connecting people with food that was designed specifically for them so that you're really always stocked with a whole food kitchen of clean food when you want it and it's ready in minutes.Stephanie:I love that. I think on my Twitter, I posted a picture of my freezer and what it looks like. And it was kind of sad because there was like waffles next to one of them. I'm like, "What?" This is my life. I have waffles and then now a new experience that I don't think I'll be able to step away from after this.Rachel:Well, that's what I like to hear. But it's interesting, people buying additional freezers in the last few months. And I'm like, "I support this message. I support this very much."Stephanie:That is awesome. So tell me a little bit about the early days of when you were starting it. I mean, I'm thinking about all the different logistics and the supply chain and working with farmers. And I want to kind of hear how it all got started.Rachel:So as I started pulling on the strings really trying to figure out why the food that I wanted didn't exist, what I realized is that it was because food is not customer driven. The way food is created is actually really far from that. And the reason food is not customer driven is actually a true systemic problem. So as I set out to start Daily Harvest, part of what I wanted to do was really solve some of the systemic challenges with food. Not only the convenience and the health factor, but also why do we have to choose between preserving ourselves and preserving the planet all of the time with packaging and sustainability and regenerative farming practices and all the stuff that makes our food systems so broken? So back in those early days, I had these really grand ambitions, still have the grand ambitions, but less power to actually make them happen in those days. And what I did was I faked it all until I was actually able to do them.Rachel:So I was buying our ingredients at Trader Joe's. I wasn't telling stories of things that were going to happen in future but buying ingredients at Trader Joe's, got a commercial kitchen in Long Island City. And my right hand and my left hand were my first team members, bagging all those ingredients up into food that I knew solved all of the customer problems that I had surfaced to myself but also in friends and family, and started delivering across New York City and really trying to see if I was solving problems for people other than myself. And it turned out I was. And I'd quit my job and dove in head first.Stephanie:That is amazing. So were you personally delivering a lot of this items in the beginning?Rachel:I was delivering everything.Stephanie:Oh gosh. Any crazy stories of the delivery days?Rachel:Yeah. So I was nine months pregnant towards the end of the bootstrap MVP period. And I could no longer get behind the wheel of my car. But I had a 16-year-old nephew who could drive with an adult.Stephanie:Oh my gosh, getting his permit hours with you?Rachel:Yes, yes. It was ridiculous. So I would pick him up. I would pay him like $15 an hour to drive around and hop in and out. And I would sit in the car like a beached whale. And he would run these boxes up to people's apartments. And I would be like, "Nope, can't give us a ticket. I'm in here."Stephanie:And I'm pregnant. So even more of a reason. Don't try. That's awesome. So then around that time, it looks like you were also... Was that when you were also raising money?Rachel:So I did raise money... well, so I'd raised a few rounds at this point. I actually tried to raise money for a Series C at that phase and it didn't go very well to be honest. People didn't really understand how I had this grandiose vision and I was delivering smoothies. They just couldn't connect the dots. And I guess it was too much of a leap for people. So I decided to bootstrap for as long as I possibly could. And when I say bootstrap, I think people assume you have money to burn. When I say scrappy, literally doing things like having my nephew deliver the food, and I created the website entirely by myself and the packaging and printed everything. There was no money spent to be clear.Rachel:And raised money officially right after I had my first child and decided I needed... I was kind of choking off growth and needed to take it from the MVP stage to something much bigger. And we launched nationally in 2016, which was almost like a year after that period, and then raised our Series A actually when I was pregnant with my second child, which was super fun.Stephanie:What kind of experience did you have being pregnant and raising money or trying to raise money? What happened during that? Because I know I have some personal experiences that maybe weren't always the most positive of people just being like, "How do you plan on running a business and you're pregnant?" Even now, knowing I have three kids, people saying, "How do you plan on running a business with three kids?" And what kind of stories do you have around that? Hopefully, I'll get one. So I'm interested to hear.Rachel:Yeah. I mean, the positive and the negative. The positive was that I had no time to worry about being pregnant. I was just like, "Oh, yeah, this is just happening and I'm going to keep moving." And I think a lot of people in that moment of life and in that phase kind of stew in the moment. And it was great. Nine months later or 10 months later, a baby popped out and I was like, "Moving on." And the negative is it's funny exactly as you just phrased it. The question that came up not actually as frequently as I thought it might, but once or twice, I definitely got the question, how do you plan to be a good mother and run a business? And I'm like, "Interesting question that I'm not going to justify with an answer. But if what you're trying to ask is if I'm 100% committed to making Daily Harvest successful, the answer is yes."Stephanie:Yep. That's great. That's a good way to do it like, "I'm not even going to answer that."Rachel:What a ridiculous question?Stephanie:Yeah. I always say like I could never imagine someone asking like, "Oh, man, how do you plan on still working if your kids are on the way?" I can do that.Rachel:Totally.Stephanie:So I saw you have some really impressive names as investors like Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow. Tell me a little bit about how you got these investors on board.Rachel:Yes. So each one is kind of its own story, but Serena is my favorite because I got a random email from Alexis Ohanian who's now her husband, at the time was Serena's boyfriend. And he was like, "My girlfriend and I eat Daily Harvest every day. We would love to talk to you." I had no idea who his girlfriend was. And the next thing I knew, I was on the phone with Serena Williams like, "Wait, what?"Stephanie:Oh my gosh. That is actually insane. I mean, I wouldn't have known that either because I don't really know names and stuff like that. So how did the conversation go?Rachel:I had no idea. I mean, it was amazing. She's so cool and was incredibly down to earth. And she was just saying how Daily Harvest really helped her eat the way that she wanted to eat, the way that she needed to eat in a pinch. And she loved the idea. And this was super early on. And I was like, "First of all, how do you even know about us? But amazing." And she asked if she could invest. And I was like, "Let me think about this for a second. Yes, absolutely."Stephanie:Oh, that's great. Stephanie:So after you landed Serena, did other investors come along when you could kind of point to like, "I've got Serena Williams. You win her out." How did the other ones go?Rachel:I mean, it's funny. We weren't really public with it until much later. So we had other investors reach out to us with interest, but it had nothing to do with Serena. It really was people finding us in pretty organic ways. And people just getting excited about the idea and the concept and seeing the problem that I stated earlier in their own life and seeing that we don't have to compromise, we can have it all, at least with our food. So each story, as I said, is pretty unique. But they really all were people who found us, which was pretty remarkable.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. I mean, that's a testament to the product. Very, very cool. So when thinking about new customers finding you in organic or non-organic ways, how are you getting in front of people right now? And I'm asking this question because I went on your guys's Pinterest, and I saw you have like 4 million views a month. And I was like, "What? How are they getting 4 million views on Pinterest?" So I want to hear a little bit about your customer acquisition and how you're getting in front of people.Rachel:Yes. So we have a really robust marketing mix. My background is marketing. So we always started with the goal of, how are we not beholden to any one channel? Right? Because I think that that's just asking for trouble. And we built it in a really nimble and agile way so that as trends and algorithms and all sorts of things change, that we can then be nimble as a result. And we're lucky that we have a really high amount of our customers come in through word of mouth. But we've also done a lot of things to make that easier, to remove the friction of people sharing when they have a positive Daily Harvest experience.Rachel:But there are other things that I think have made us stand out on... I mean, literally, you name a marketing channel, we are on it. There's nothing that's like secret saucy there. But I really think it comes down to our differentiated messaging and our differentiated photography and really focusing on connecting with universal human truths where people are just like, "Oh, you get me. Yep, I understand. I'm going to learn more."Stephanie:Oh, that's great. So tell me a little bit about that differentiated messaging that you're talking about? How do you go about figuring out what you want to message and how do you know what will connect and what won't? Because what you might think is going to be a universal truth, I might be like, "Oh, that's not my truth." How do you guys go about making sure you're speaking to your customer?Rachel:Absolutely. It definitely is trial and error to understand what works, but we obviously have a mission. So we're looking for customers with whom our mission resonates. And there's just a lot of different ways where when you remove your marketing hat and you're like, "How would a normal human say this?" Or, "What is the way of saying something that gets somebody to stop their scroll or perk their ears while listening to something that they might otherwise fast forward past?" And then it's the same thing on the visual side, really focusing on photography and imagery that's visually arresting and beautiful. And also stuff that looks delicious. You can't underestimate the salivation factor of... I don't know if that's a real thing.Stephanie:I like that. Now it needs to be.Rachel:It totally does. How much of a photograph actually makes you salivate? Because that's tied to how hungry it makes you and how much it makes you want something.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, pictures are everything. Even on your packaging and things like that, I mean, that's what makes me want to buy something, even when I'm on DoorDash or something, if an item doesn't have a picture on it, I'm like, "No, I'm not so sure if I want it," even if it sounds amazing. I want to see what it actually looks like. So it seems like you have very, very smart to have pictures on everything, especially Pinterest.Rachel:Yep. And because people have such short attention spans these days, and because there's so much media being thrown at you constantly, we also really focus on simplicity with it. So not only is it beautiful and drool-worthy, but it's also simplistic.Stephanie:That's great. So earlier, you mentioned also removing friction of having customers share their stories. How did you go about ensuring that a new customer or existing customer would share their stories and keep doing them?Rachel:Yeah. So what we have found is it's not so much about giving the customers places to share their thoughts and feelings. It's more about showing that you respond to them. So one of the things that we did really early on is we built a quite agile supply chain. And the goal of that was really to be able to respond to customer needs. We wanted to create a customer driven company. We had to be able to respond to customer needs. And it's one thing to have these amazing insights and to be innovative. And a lot of companies have the ability to do that. But if you can't respond in a timely manner, does it really matter? I'm not so sure.Rachel:So by showing customers, not just telling them, that we are actually listening to them and creating the food that they want to eat with them, and then connecting people with the food that was created for them, it sounds pretty simplistic. But there are really few companies that actually do it. So we're able to bring something to market in six to eight weeks from the time our customers tell us what they want. And I think that that is why customers love to share with us. And that is why we continue to be able to build these connections with our customers, those relationships.Stephanie:That's such a good point actually to show someone like you're not just submitting something into a black box and nothing's ever happening. What does the process look like? Where are they submitting their feedback? And then how do you interact with them in a way that is one on one, but then also shows your entire customer or new customer base, "Here's what we did for this one customer?" What does that process look like from start to finish?Rachel:Yeah. I mean, literally any channel that you can think of, we've built a way to interact. So whether it is through our app, whether it is through text message, whether it is through social media, you name it, we've made the conversation two ways. And what's interesting about it is if you think back to the story I told you earlier where kind of faking it till you make it, I'm air quoting, which you obviously can't see, but you're faking it but kind of faking it.Rachel:In the early days, our way of talking to our customers was every single team member at Daily Harvest would follow the Daily Harvest hashtag and every single day, it was the expectation that they would scroll through. And when somebody wrote something about Daily Harvest, the team engaged. Every single person on the team was asked to engage. So everyone from an engineer who might not under normal circumstances have any interaction with a customer directly to somebody on our culinary team. And it depends on what the customer put out there. But if it was something like your app is X, Y, Z, then an engineer would jump in and say, "Hey, can you tell me more about that?" And really just empowering the team to forge those relationships and to have those conversations I think is really what started it from a team culture perspective.Rachel:And then as we've grown, we've built tools in this way that allow it to happen. [inaudible 00:20:08], obviously, not everybody is scrolling through every single Daily Harvest hashtag these days, but we've empowered everybody to really think about how we maintain our vision of being truly customer driven.Stephanie:I love that. I mean, that's such a good experience. It's so different than, of course, corporate culture where you're probably told you are not allowed to engage with someone who tweets at us, and it has to be approved by PR. And there's so many rules and stuff. A lot of us had been taught in the past like, "Just don't say anything." And I can imagine how great of a culture you build by saying, "Everyone get on there. Respond to these people. It's on you to actually keep our customers happy." That seems like a transformative environment.Rachel:Absolutely. And then you have it scaled too. People really are thinking customer first at all times.Stephanie:Yeah, that's really cool. So when it comes to product request, I mean, it seems like there'd be an area that could be like a leaderboard where people can vote on the next products they want and actually determine that. Is there anything like that that you have going on to kind of create more social engagement and also people having an input in the product that maybe they wouldn't have just tweeted at you and said like, I want to have more figs?" They might not have that idea on their own, but they would like to maybe vote on it?Rachel:Totally. Yeah. I mean, we have all sorts of engagement opportunities for customers. But the important thing to know is that none of our skews or collections at Daily Harvest are created to be generally accepted. So we really focus on what people want from the perspective of their taste affinities, which is really differentiated.Rachel:So if you think about traditional product cycles and product development tools, people will look at things like demographics, psychographics, household income, credit card swipe data, and all of these things that when you kind of zoom out really never made sense to me because I can tell you, my husband and I live in the same house. We have the same household income. We share credit cards. We have the same credit card swipe data, same education, we met in school. But when it comes down to it, he orders from a very different restaurant than where I order from at night when we order in. So we really try to focus on what taste preferences are. And we try to create food for specific groups of people that have similar taste preferences, so nothing that we create is meant for general consumption. And that's where it gets really nuanced and really differentiated.Rachel:So yes, we will say to people, "We're thinking about creating X, Y, Z, and we would love your input." We take that into consideration, but we also take into consideration that, "Who is actually answering that question and where they're coming from and what their taste preferences are." Because I might like something that is, let's say, filled with greens, and you might like something that has no garlic in it or whatever it is because you might be allergic to garlic. And we're not going to like the same thing. So why should we try to make food for both of us?Stephanie:I love that idea of making sure that you actually focus on your customers because I think it's very easy, especially with all these new B2C companies that are launching right now to get distracted and not remember like, "Who did you actually build this for? What is your customer base? And what are you trying to do in this world?" Instead of being like, "Oh, and this person wants more sugar added to the matcha. Okay, I didn't really want to add a bunch of sugar to it, but this person wants it." It's a good reminder to not get distracted.Rachel:Right. But if we do have a group of customers that tell us that they want that same matcha that's a bit sweeter, we can accommodate that. It's just we would never target the same food to... We would know who we're targeting what to.Stephanie:Yep, very cool. So I'm very interested in the partnerships that you have with farmers and what your supply chain looks like behind the scenes that you can make these really quick product pivots or new products coming out in like six-day weeks. So can you speak a little about, what did that look like forming those partnerships? And any hiccups that you experienced in the early days of trying to get that worked out?Rachel:Yeah. I mean, as I said, it started with Trader Joe's because every time we reached out to a farm, they were like, "Who are you? Can you guarantee this entire crop?" And I was like, "I don't know."Stephanie:They were asking you to guarantee whole crops for them?Rachel:I mean, sometimes you have to if you want to be in control of how sweet it is, what the nutrition level is, you really have to be. And that was the vision because the way that I always envisioned taking care of food was really at the systemic level. So really to make change, you have to go to that level of scale in your purchasing. And we're incredibly meticulous about the ingredients that we use and how we source them. We actually have an entire team that's dedicated to finding the best farms. And we have over 400 farms that we work with directly. So we set incredibly rigorous standards that ensure not only are our partners using regenerative practices in their farming, things like increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, using organic farming practices, strengthening the health and vitality of our farm soil, using fair labor practices.Rachel:But we also are really particular about when we harvest our food. We want to make sure that the fig or the blueberry that you're eating is unparalleled not only from a nutrition perspective, but also from a taste perspective. So that means that we have to let every single ingredient reach its full nutritional and flavor potential on the vine or on the tree. And then we freeze everything within 24 hours of it being picked, which is really differentiated. And because of that rigor, our food is actually more nutritious than the stuff that you buy in the grocery store, which is something that a lot of people are surprised to hear. I think a lot of people see frozen as not as nutritious or inferior, when in fact, unless you are picking something straight from the farm and consuming it within three days, that's just not the case.Rachel:And we work with these farmers to also create entirely new supply chains, which is amazing. Our customers told us that they really wanted something with celery root last fall. And we worked with the farmer to create an entire supply chain of frozen celery root that had never existed before. And what's cool about a frozen supply chain is there's actually 50% less food waste and there's just so many benefits to the system overall. But we really think a lot about how we create the most nourishing, best tasting food and it really all comes back to those farm relationships.Stephanie:Wow, that's really cool. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people like you said don't understand the frozen aspect of why it's better because I know a while back, I heard that about fish too. But it's better to have frozen fish that's frozen right away when it's caught than getting something fresh. Fresh feels like it's healthier but actually it's more nutritional if you get the frozen one that was frozen right on the ship or boat or whatever it is.Rachel:When you think about the frozen aisle in the grocery store, most people associate it with like dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets.Stephanie:Yes, which may or may not be in my freezer right now.Rachel:I don't judge. When you ask most people what's in their freezer, it's like ice cream and vodka and ice cubes. I'm like, "These are not bad things, but it just shows you how the food system has evolved." And the microwave dinner was created not because it was healthy. It was because it was convenient and it was because it was created during this Industrial Revolution when food and science melded together in ways that is just so unnatural and we kind of just stayed there. So I think there's been a lot of... not I think. There's been a lot of education for customers to help them understand the benefits of frozen not only for themselves, not only for their taste buds, but also for the food system as a whole.Stephanie:Got it, that's great. So the one thing I'm thinking about too is working with farms, I can see them being on older tech stacks I'll call them or no tech stacks.Rachel:What tech stacks?Stephanie:Yeah. I'll just say non-existent tech stacks maybe unless they're like the very advanced farm with the drones going on.Rachel:No, [crosstalk 00:29:55].Stephanie:You're working with 400 farms. How are you placing these orders and getting things to happen quickly and making sure that it's up to your standards and that nothing's going to get backed up? How do you do that with farms that don't have a tech stack?Rachel:I mean, we built the technology for it.Stephanie:Tell me a bit about that. What did that process look like?Rachel:Yeah. So in the beginning, we only had a few farms, and it was easier to manage. But obviously, once you hit a certain scale, it becomes a little unwieldy and it's not just 400 farms. There's four crops a year and different ingredients. One farm might have six ingredients that they're growing for us. So it can get really complicated. But as I said, we have a large team that really focuses on this, and they're incredibly passionate. So what we did is we thought about how technology could make their job easier, how we can leverage technology to remove some of the friction in managing the quality of our food and the supply chain in general. And we really built a verification system that... I would say a trust but verify system where we set certain quality standards. Because we can't [inaudible] people who are on site at every farm with every harvest, and then there's like a verification system where they're sending us samples constantly to make sure that that everything is as we say it needs to be. And we're verifying nutrition after something is frozen to make sure that it's as it's supposed to be. And through every step, we are trusting and verifying. And all of that is rigorously notated in our technology stack.Stephanie:That's really cool. So it seems like you're bringing a lot of farmers online. Have they asked to reuse the technology with other partners too? They could be a whole separate business like, "Here's technology that you can now have with anyone else ordering from you."Rachel:Totally. I mean, we work with a lot of small farmers. So a lot of farmers don't have a lot of other business. We've really grown to a scale where most of our farmers are Daily Harvest farmers.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh, cool.Rachel:Really cool when you think about it. But yeah. I mean, we've definitely had people ask, but we've got to focus on our core competencies and what we're trying to achieve.Stephanie:Yep. That's great. So everyone's obviously looking into subscription businesses right now. It's always top of mind like, "Should this business be a subscription or not?" Everyone wants one. How do you think about retaining your customers and enticing them to stay with you for the long haul?Rachel:Yeah. So one thing that's interesting about Daily Harvest is on the outside, we kind of look like a subscription, but we're actually not a subscription. We're really what we call a replenishment business because once you sign up for Daily Harvest, our goal is to make sure that your freezer is always stocked. And it's not because that's good for us, it's because that's how we make sure that you have the food that you want when you want it. At that moment when you're hangry, when you're reaching for that bar, you need to have the right food in your freezer. Otherwise, you're going to make a different choice, right?Rachel:So we think a lot about what that replenishment looks like. And we also never want you to get an order of Daily Harvest that you don't want. Right? So we actually communicate with our customers ad nauseum to make sure that we're never sending them anything that they don't want, and they're only getting food when they do want it. And that's what makes us different from a subscription business where you have to consume your food or use your razor or whatever it is within a specific period of time and it's only good for that period of time. Because we're frozen, we're really not perishable, which is a huge benefit and allows us to be even more customer centric, but really thinking about maintaining our customer base.Rachel:Removing friction for our customers and making things as easy as possible for them, making their account as easy as possible to manage making sure that they're getting the food that they want when they want it. And we found that there's a direct correlation between removing that friction, being customer driven. We don't even think about about retention. We think about how can we be more customer driven? How can we get our customers exactly what they want? And what we found is that those things correlate really nicely.Stephanie:Yeah, I completely agree. So what does that back end account management look like for your customers? And one thing that's coming to mind is like the past couple interviews I've done, we've touched on one click ordering and how that's a big thing that a lot of people are expecting now. And I could see that maybe coming into play for you guys too where you're more about replenishing items. If I'm out of my matcha, or smoothie, or whatever it was that I really just enjoyed, going on to my account and just ordering that, and not having to have minimums or anything. Just being like, "That's what I want," and just doing it one off. How do you guys have the back end working?Rachel:Yeah. So we don't do that. And the reason why is because we really think of ourselves, as I said, as replenishment. So our customer behavior is much more going to shop at Costco, let's say. You don't go to Costco to buy one thing. It's never worth a shot.Stephanie:I need 10 pounds of butter when I go there.Rachel:Totally. But you have certain things that you go and you buy a lot of. So our customer really thinks about, how can Daily Harvest fill my entire freezer? When your inventory at home starts to dwindle, that's when you make your next purchase. So for us, one click ordering is not a thing. And we find that actually there's tension between how much cognitive load you reduce and how much customer friction you reduce, and people really getting the food that they want. So there's definitely a balance there. But what we do instead is we have an app and our app is incredibly customer driven. And it's about communication with our customers and making sure that, as I said, they're getting the food that they want when they want it. But it's definitely as easy as humanly possible, but not so easy that you're going to get something that you don't want.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's great. Yeah. And I think that's a really good reminder, too, that everyone might be obsessed with a subscription model because that is good for businesses to lock people in. But that might actually leave a bad taste in a customer's mouth. And your model is completely different, which is like focus on what they want and what they need and make it easy for them to order and refill quickly without having to come back a thousand times.Rachel:Yep. And make it as easy as possible honestly for them to pause and cancel and do all the things they want to do because when you do that, they come back.Stephanie:Yep. I love that. Low friction, it's worth it. So to go to little more general commerce questions, what kind of disruptions do you see coming to commerce right now maybe in the next couple years?Rachel:I mean, look, I think COVID has been... it's been an interesting few months. But what it has done is it's really accelerated a bunch of trends that we've seen. And we've seen this huge adoption of ecommerce and people's willingness to stick around once they've tried it. So as you had early adopters previously who were signing up for food delivery or whatever it may be delivered to their home, what we're seeing now is people who are not early adopters, so more of the mainstream signing up. And there are different needs, and there's a different level of education, and there's all sorts of nuance to take into account with that trend. So we're thinking a lot about that, how we continue to remove friction for this different type of customer.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's really great. So we have a couple minutes left and I want to jump over to the lightning round brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Rachel?Rachel:No.Stephanie:Prepare yourself to get some deep breaths. Get in the game. All right. We'll start with the easier ones first. What's Up next on your Netflix queue?Rachel:Oh, wait. I can't remember what it was called. It's The Man and the Company Castle. Hold on.Stephanie:Oh, that Amazon? The Man in the High Castle?Rachel:Yes. Not Netflix.Stephanie:That's okay. Yeah. Have you started it yet or?Rachel:I haven't but I am such a history nerd. And I don't know how I missed that this show existed, but I cannot tell you how excited I am to watch it.Stephanie:Yeah, it's very good.Rachel:Yeah. And I also feel like there's something about current state of affairs and dystopian society is that it really resonates. So let's see what it's got for us.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, I like that one a lot. I think it's a good reminder I'm always very biased and ask about Netflix but Amazon, they've got some good stuff. I mean, I've binge-watched I think it was like Marvelous Mrs. Maisel if you knew to balance yourself out of it from dystopian to fun and cute. Also a very good series that I loved.Rachel:That show is amazing.Stephanie:Oh, you like it too? Yeah. It always leaves me with the happy feeling like, "Oh, this is cute. I love this."Rachel:All the time that I remind them of Rachel Brosnahan, and I'm like, "That is a huge compliment. Thank you."Stephanie:That is. She's awesome. Good. What's up next on your reading list? And it can be business or personal.Rachel:So it's Never Split the Difference which I've actually read before, but I like to read it every few years because I think it's the best negotiator out there and I'm not a natural negotiator. But it's obviously a huge part of my job. So it's coming up on time to read it once more.Stephanie:That's great. What is one thing that comes to mind when you think about that book? One lesson or principle where you're like, "Yeah, I'm not going to split the difference?" Anything high level other than what I just said which is just jacking the title.Rachel:So my favorite takeaway from the book, and it's just a reminder, it's really about listening. It's funny. I think a lot about toddler psychology these days because I have a three-year-old and a five-year-old. And there's a lot in common with the tactics in this book and toddler psychology, but it's really about validating people's emotions and feelings and creating trust and safety to be able to negotiate better.Stephanie:Oh, that's good. I like that. It shows that so many things are similar in life. Dealing with toddlers is the same thing as negotiating for your salary or investment money. Same thing.Rachel:It really is. It's crazy.Stephanie:I have to check that one out. What app or a piece of tech are you using right now that's making you more efficient in your life?Rachel:Okay. So this is such a weird one, but my husband just introduced me to the app for my cable provider. And I had no idea that this existed. I never watched TV ever. But given that we're in day three of the sit and wait for the results of our election, I've been able to just pop it up and have the news on live stream behind me. And it's been incredible because previously, I was refreshing my Twitter feed every 20 minutes or whatever it was. But just kind of having it in live feed behind me has been a huge unlock for my efficiency in this crazy time.Stephanie:That's great. I haven't even thought about apps from cable providers. So it's a good reminder for everyone. I like that.Rachel:It never occurred to me that one would even exist, and I'm very happy with it.Stephanie:That's great. What's one thing that you wish you knew more about? It could be a topic, a trend, a theme, anything.Rachel:Let's see. I really wish I knew more about human psychology. I feel like every time I read something or learn more, I get really excited and I want to dive in more but I really never have time to. And it's something that I feel would make me better at what I do every day if I really understood the psychology behind it.Stephanie:That's a good one. Yeah, I completely agree about that. Something I always want to dive into more and haven't had the time yet. So Rachel, this has been such a fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and Daily Harvest?Rachel:At dailyharvest.com.Stephanie:Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show.Rachel:Thanks for having me.

Keepsakes, momentos, treasures, heirlooms — whatever you call them, everyone has certain things that they hold dear. For many people, hand-written notes fall into that category. In a world filled with 240-character tweets, rapid-fire text messages, and a stuffed email inbox, getting a hand-written note means more than ever. Even if it comes from a brand.   Personalization is one of the buzziest words in ecommerce, and every business is trying to find a way to give its customers the best, most personal experience possible. David Wachs is helping them with that.David is the CEO of Handwrytten, which uses robots to send personal, hand-written notes, which have a 300% higher open rate than other types of communication. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, David explains why personalization is the way of the future. Plus, he dives into the thinking behind subscription-based services and what it takes for your subscription to stand out to investors. David also shares the advice that he received from Conan O’Brien that has stayed with him his entire life. Main Takeaways:This is Getting Personal: Over the last few years, consumers have started seeking more personalized experiences. There are many ways to create those experiences in-store and online, but ecomm businesses have a personalization advantage due to the data they have access to. Brands that can tap into that data and then follow through are the ones that stand out.   Subscribe Here: Subscription services are popping up everywhere. When done correctly, subscription services provide a recurring revenue model, which is something most investors look for. However, creating the right model takes time, effort, and experimentation, and it’s important to be willing to put in that work to find the model that is best for you and your customers. Here’s Some Advice: When one piece of advice sticks with you 20 years later, that’s something worth paying attention to. Tune in to hear what words of wisdom from Conan O’Brien have inspired David every step of his journey.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Today on the show, we have David Wachs, the CEO of Handwrytten, spelled with a Y. David, welcome.David:Thank you so much for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on the show. I just went down a great wormhole of watching your robots write letters. I think that's a great starting point to hear how you came to be at Handwrytten. What brought you to found it?David:Yeah, so this is actually my second venture. My first one was in the text messaging space. So, I started that one before the iPhone came out. We rode the wave of mobile technology with the iPhone and all that. By the end, we were sending millions of messages a day on behalf of major brands, like Toys R Us, a lot of brands that are now bankrupt, but no fault of ours, but Toys R Us, Sam's Club, OfficeMax, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc.David:What we did was we helped them connect with their customers through text messages. And then we also did iPhone apps and Android apps and all that, but our core was really text messages. What we found was, it really, really worked. I mean, these were not spam messages. These were people opted in, so they actually wanted to receive Abercrombie & Fitch offers, etc, straight to their cell phone. When we sent out those offers, they'd have literally lines out the door.David:We worked with Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which is a big smoothie shop chain. Every time they sent out an offer, I'd walk into a Tropical Smoothie. I'd say, "How's this mobile thing working?" They didn't know who I was, and they'd say, "Oh, my gosh. Every time we do it, we have to staff up, because we sell so many smoothies." So, I knew we had something good. But at the same time, I helped create a monster, because everybody nowadays is getting inundated with probably 50 text messages a day from family and commercial texts and right now, political texts, several hundred emails a day.David:I think the average office workers receives about 150 emails a day and spends 28% of their time sorting through all that email. And then you add stuff like Twitter and Facebook and Slack and all the Instagram, all these other electronic forms of communication. Maybe I'm just old, but for me, it all just becomes noise.Stephanie:It's very noisy right now, especially with the political texts that I'm getting.David:Oh, my God.Stephanie:I'm getting like five a day. Stop it. I don't want that anywhere.David:I know, I know. It all just becomes noise. The average 35 to 44-year-old receives nearly 1,600 texts a month. The average 18 to 24-year-old receives 4,000 a month. So, what I know and what you know is no matter how personalized that email or that text looks... Hey, David, thank you so much for your purchase of this coffee grinder or whatever. ... that text was automated or that email was automated. We immediately discount the value of it, right?David:Half of them or way more than half, I never even read, because you just know it's automated junk. And then junk mail, the slick stuff that comes in your mailbox goes directly to your trash can. But what I realized right before leaving, my last company, is handwritten notes not only do they get opened, but they get treasured. I have a bookshelf behind me at my last job that had the handwritten notes I received. My salespeople had all the handwritten notes they received. What I wanted to do was when I sold my last company is I wanted to send handwritten thank you notes to my employees and send handwritten thank you notes to my best clients, thanking them for helping me build up this company and sell it and all the rest.David:I started doing that. I sat down with the best intentions. Very quickly, my hand got sore or I ran out of stamps or I screwed up a card and I had to get another one. I just realized there had to be a better way. So, that's a long explanation on how I ended up with Handwrytten, which is what we have today. What Handwrytten is a combination of software on the front end and then robots on the back end. So, you visit handwrytten.com or use our iPhone app, Android app, Zapier, Salesforce.com Integration, which is a big integration for us, and I know a sponsor of the show, HubSpot integration, all these ways to get your handwritten notes into the system.David:And then we use robots, real robots that we have a patent pending on and I can get into how we develop those, but they're custom robots we built, robots holding real ballpoint pens that actually then write out the notes and mail them on your behalf. The end result is completely indistinguishable from a human.David:We're doing this for large brands and small brands and individuals. Consumers can go on and send their mother a birthday card, for example, all the way up to major brands.Stephanie:Though your mom might know. She'd be like, "That's not your handwriting, Stephanie." Do you guys have any tech that maybe could mimic handwriting, where I could go in there and write up a couple words, and then your robots come in and write it similar to my handwriting?David:So, not exactly. What we do is if you really want your handwriting recreated, we have worksheets for you. It's like you're back in middle school. You have to fill in all the letters and all the numbers multiple times, because we need multiple variations, and we need ligature combinations. So, like two Os together, two Ls together. Do you cross your two Ts with one crossbar or two? We take all that into account. We create a very robust handwriting just for you, but it's an expensive onetime thing. So, pay for it once, it's yours. It's in the system. You can use it as much as you want, no additional charge. So, yeah, but most of our clients or businesses not you sending to your mother. So, for them, it doesn't really matter as much.David:Honestly, I dissuade people from creating their handwriting style, because it is so expensive.Stephanie:Very cool. So, tell me a little bit about maybe some case studies or the ROI that some of your clients are seeing when they send out a note that looks personalized versus just a typical letter, something that's written up by a computer and is very obvious?David:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I have a bunch of stats here, but I don't want to constantly give you footnotes on the stats. So, if I say any stats that are of interest to any of your listeners, just visit Handwrytten.com. That's Handwrytten with a Y. You can pull up all the resources and double check, be a fact checker, etc. But handwritten on envelopes, just the envelopes, have a 300% or a three-time greater open rate than printed envelopes. You just Google that stat and that pops up everywhere. And then also response rates are anywhere from 20 to 50% higher.David:We work with a bespoke suit company based in Canada. They send out coupons every year around the holidays. Those coupons come with a handwritten note from their CEO and his handwriting style with his signature. Those coupons have an 18% redemption rate when usually the company's coupon redemption rate is closer to the 3 to 5% rate. So, it's been very effective for them.David:We have other clients... Let me see here. We have some retention improvements. So, we have a client that does meal box or actually snack boxes for offices. Basically, they'll send you a huge box of snacks every two weeks with like beef jerky or crackers and cookies and all that. What they do is if they accidentally send your office the wrong snack box, they'll follow up with a handwritten note and the right snacks. Now, obviously, the additional snacks help increase retention, but the handwritten note doesn't hurt.David:What they find is if they screw up a client and they send them this snack box, that customer ends up having a greater lifetime value than if they never screwed up in the first place.Stephanie:That's smart. I mean, not only are you getting more times to get in front of that customer, but then you can show them how great the customer experience is even when things go wrong. Yeah, it seems like you'd be a lot more memorable by actually messing up. That's pretty smart.David:Yeah, and then we have some side effects of these, because most people just get one or two handwritten notes a month now, not like the good old days when they receive a bunch. People literally Instagram and tweet these things. So, we work with a company called VNYL.David:What they are is they are a vinyl record subscription service. So, if you're really into old school vinyl, they will look at your Spotify account and your other... I don't know about Pandora, but your other music services. They'll see what you listen to. And then they'll send you vinyl records that they recommend based on your habits. With those vinyl records, they'll include a handwritten note written by us. So, every day we'll write up a whole bunch of their handwritten notes, send them back to VNYL. They'll get inserted with these orders. Not only people love those notes, they then post them on Instagram and on Twitter. That creates a viral aspect that then helps drive more business back to VNYL.David:We've seen the same thing with a morning YouTube show. It's one of the largest morning YouTube shows on the planet. They're a client of ours. They were launching a fan club, where you'd pay 5 or 25 bucks a month or whatever to be a part of their fan club. The first thing they'd send you was this handwritten note from the two hosts of the morning show.David:What's funny is they didn't change up the language on that note at all. Everybody got the same note with the exception of dear Stephanie or whatever, but the rest of the note was identical. All these people are posting these photos of this note to Twitter over and over again. I mean, it's the same note just different names over and over. People were so upset if their note did not arrive within a few days. You know what I mean? They were so looking forward to receiving a note from these two YouTube guys.Stephanie:Are there any backlash on that? Because I could see some people feeling like maybe they were tricked, or especially earlier, when you're talking about retention. If someone is sending out a set of vinyl records every month and see similar handwriting or the exact same one every single time, it seems like there could be a risk of someone saying, "Hey, this isn't actually authentic. You tricked me." Have you seen that backlash, or how do you guys approach that when it comes to a subscription model with someone who's maybe sending out a same snack box every month with a note in it that people will eventually be like, "Oh, yeah, this is obviously not a person writing it. It's the same every single time"?David:Yeah, that's a great question. So, with VNYL, they've got a number of personalities that are the box curators. So, there's like 10 some odd people that are responsible for making these recommendations. Each one of those people was assigned one of our handwriting styles. So, if you get a note from Cody, it'll be in Tenacious Nick. Our handwriting style is called Tenacious Nick this month. And then next month, you get a message from Suzy, it might be in Chill Charity. The following month if you get one from Cody again, it'll be back in Tenacious Nick. So, you'll associate Tenacious Nick with Cody. And then that's how that works.David:We have not seen a backlash. With the morning YouTube show, I was shocked that they didn't see it because they weren't... We vary stuff on the notes. So, in fact, we worked with a home fitness gym thing. They wanted a note from their founder included with every one of their products. They were annoyed with us that there was variation in the writing. We said, "Well, this is-Stephanie:A good thing.David:"... this isn't a print product. Every line's not supposed to identically look like the other card." They were just not a great client for us, because of that. They wanted everything to be exactly... That's not how people write.Stephanie:Yeah, that's actually the exact question I was going to ask. Do you incorporate errors or smudges? How do you think about building the technology behind the scenes to make it more real?David:Yeah, for sure. So, we actually built our own font engine for one, leveraging some best of class technologies underneath it all. But we do stuff like the left margin of the card is not straight. So, it's not like every letter of every line starts on the same exposition as the line above it. There's what we call jitter. It moves in or moves out very subtly, but a couple of points. A point is a 72nd of an inch for those that don't know, but yeah. So, we move those letters in and out, so that there's some variation there. We also do the same thing with interline or intraline, I always screw that up, but the spacing between lines.David:So, one line might be slightly closer to the line above it and slightly farther from the line below it than the next one and vice versa. So, there is some line spacing stuff going on there. Then, like I said, the letters themselves alter quite a bit. We've got at least four or five copies of every letter plus ligature combos. So, you might have three copies of an L, but then we also have three copies of two L's together. So, there's a lot of variation in going into our handwriting. We get this a lot. We don't curve the text. So, there is a little bit of maybe over precision on the text is fairly straight.David:Now, the page might be slightly rotated, so that the text runs up the page ever so slightly or down the page ever so slightly, but it's not like the text is going to be on a roller coaster and go up and then down and back again. It's relatively consistent. We are working on that, but it has not been a problem. It's still very much passes most people's internal Turing tests of what looks human versus what looks robotic. So, yeah, we don't want to overdo it. The line jittering and the left margin jittering is all very, very subtle. So, that it's not like creating some uncanny valley that looks totally bogus. You know what I mean? So, those are some of the things we do there. We work with a mattress company. In every mattress box, there's, "Thank you so much for buying our mattress."David:And then there was what I call a doodle. So, they made I think like eight of these little pieces of art. So, the words, "Thank you for your mattress," were not in one of our handwriting styles. It's a direct replica of somebody writing that. And then below that, the doodle is a direct replica of somebody drawing a doodle. So, it could be moon in the stars or there's one of somebody sleeping in a bed with a little thought cloud showing what they're dreaming of, a little cat.David:What was cool about that is with eight variations, if you buy two mattresses from them, one might have one little note from one guy in it and then the next mattress might have a note from somebody else in it. So, it looks really, really real. And then you post those to Twitter. It really shows up well there. So, that's what I recommend doing. If you're doing the same note over and over in volume, let's just mix it up a little bit. It doesn't cost you really anything more after you get going. You have some great variation.Stephanie:I saw you guys moved to having a subscription model, which a lot of guests who come on the show, they talk about thinking about doing that or some of them have recently. How did you guys know it was the right time to move into a subscription model?David:That's a great question. You're the first person to ask me that.Stephanie:Good.David:Yeah, so there's a number of reasons we did that. I will be bluntly honest, because I think it's of most value to everybody. Number one, I've self-funded Handwrytten to date for the last six years. I intend to continue doing that. However, we were just written up in the Inc 500. We had a good placement in the Inc 500. That created a lot of interest by investors. One thing investors are looking for is a recurring revenue model. While most of our clients recur every month, we have like solar panel installers that send thousands of messages a month. It's not structured as a recurring revenue model. It's just whatever you do, you pay for the next month, you don't do anything, you don't pay anything for it. So, we wanted to come up with a structure for a subscription model that would work.David:This is more the PR-friendly answer, but they're both totally true. On the flip side, we have customers that wanted to send a lot of notes a month but didn't want to do them all at once and didn't want to do a huge pre-pay buy. So, before this, there were two ways to get discounts. One was to do a huge pre-pay, where you say, "Okay, I'm going to send 10,000 notes for the next couple months, and I'll pay for that at a discount;" or go on our website and bulk upload a spreadsheet of 10,000 notes. For a lot of people, those two models don't work. What if I'm sending 10 cards a month, but they're spread out over the course of a month? I mean, I'm still sending 10 cards, can't they get a little bit of a discount on that?David:So, we tried to come up with a model that serves them. It's tough, because unlike an email provider or a CRM provider or anybody else, we have hard costs. Forget about the cardstock and the labor that goes into every card and all that, we have a 55¢ stamp on every card. That's expensive. You know what I mean? So, it took us years to think of a way that would make this work. What we decided was you prepay for credit. That credit, it goes on your account. So, you pre-pay 35 bucks, you get 35 bucks of credit on your account. But that credit also gets you a 15% discount on all orders for the month, so not just on the orders you spend the $35 on. After you exhaust that 35 bucks, you still get that discount moving forward for the rest of the month.David:So, that was the model that we came up with, because we wanted to provide value, we don't want to rip anybody off, but we needed a recurring revenue option. It is strictly an option. You can use our service for the rest of your life without ever using one of these subscription models.Stephanie:I think the one thing that came to mind was I've been listening to a lot of different interviews of SaaS founders, talking about how the subscription model, the future is not as much about getting into a long-term contract. It's more actually pulling back to where you only pay for what you use. It's not actually locking you into a contract anymore, because a lot of people are nervous about that or maybe prepaying. So, were there any surprises that maybe you guys have seen within the last week and a half as you implement this or pushback from customers or anything where you're like, "Oh, we weren't expecting that"? The consumer maybe thought this one thing, but actually, our plan was different. We adjusted it. Anything that you had to change after launching?David:Yeah, there's a few things. Nothing that was a got you and nothing we're really changing. It was more interesting. Okay, so we had somebody cancel their plan today. They signed up and then immediately canceled. So, if you sign up and you get the 15% off, that's 15% off the cards. That's not 15% off gift cards, which should go without saying, but maybe we have to add some language to the FAQ and all that, because I mean, that would be an arbitrage opportunity for somebody. You go on our website. You buy a Visa card for 15% off. You then take that Visa card and buy more Visa cards for... You know what I mean? So, that's just crazy town.Stephanie:It's good you didn't figure that out the hard way.David:No, no, this pre-pay for a while has always locked you out. I mean, when you pre-pay for something, you're pre-paying for the service, not for gift cards. It clearly does not work. I mean, it could be a huge issue. So, that was one. We had a woman that was very upset that she didn't get a discount on her gift cards, and we refunded her. We have a money back guarantee. So, if anybody uses our service and they don't like the service, they don't like the handwriting, they don't like the card quality. They don't like the subscription, whatever, we'll just give you your money back.David:I think more companies need to broadcast their money back guarantee, because even if they don't think they have one, they have one. On our website, we have our money back guarantee. Before that, if anybody called and complained, we still gave them their money back. We just didn't advertise that we had a money back guarantee. So, we gave the service without getting the benefit, if you know what I mean. Side point. So, point number one was people were shocked that you don't get a discount on gift cards creating an arbitrage.Stephanie:One person, but yes.David:Yeah. Point number two, I'm surprised that... So, we have a 10% plan, a 15% off Plan and a 20% off Plan. We might go 25%. But I'm actually surprised so many people subscribed for 10% off. I didn't realize 10% off would move the needle where people would be willing to subscribe. But if you're in that area where you send that many cards, why not subscribe? So, that's great. I'm glad people are using it. In fact, it's our most popular plan right now.David:So, that was two, and then three, which I expected. But my expectation was realized was people we have a cancel at any time type offer. So, we have a lot of people signing up for the 10% off plan, sending five cards, and then canceling the plan. That's fine. If they want to do that, I'm not going to stop people from doing it. It's more important to us to be transparent and create a plan that has no lock in and deal with the people that are just trying to take advantage of it. If they want to do that, fine.Stephanie:Yeah, I mean, it also seems like that you're still getting that sale and you'll probably be remembered in the future. They're like, "Oh, that was a good experience. Okay, I'm going to go back again.” So, maybe it's not as harmful as... Even though initially, you might be like, "Oh, that's annoying," but maybe the future customer that you wouldn't have otherwise had.David:Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's totally fine. I've still sold them five cards or whatever it is. So, it's no big deal. It's funny how people will go out of their way to save 10%, 10% for me doesn't really move the needle but whatever.Stephanie:I know. Yeah, that's very interesting that, 10% moves people to act like that. I think the biggest thing that you are also saying is like the clarity in the subscription model, which I think is really important and that a lot of companies don't get right from the start, because they can make really confusing ones.Stephanie:So right now, it also seems like there could be... Well, twofold, either a big opportunity in direct mail or it's noisier than ever, because brands know that people are home and they're starting to do direct mail where maybe they weren't doing that a year ago. So, how are you thinking about direct mail right now and making sure that your notes are getting opened? Is there still an opportunity, or is that dried up with where we're at right now?David:So, I will say we are the largest handwriting provider in the world. Based on our volume, I will tell you there is room for improvement. We have very large brands using us, but it's still just a drop in the bucket of everybody that could use us. I think a lot of brands just don't even know it's an option.David:There's the BCG matrix, which is like the hardest thing to sell is a new product to a new customer. If you're an office supplier and you start selling your existing customer a different type of pen, well, they're an existing customer and they've already bought a pen from you. So, that's an easy sell. If you're selling a new customer a pen, people know about pens do an easy sell. But if you're selling Joe on the street that you've never met a handwriting service, it's very hard. So, there is a bunch of that. We're doing our best to raise awareness. That's been targeting quite frankly, a lot of Facebook advertising. We used to just go after Google and SEO, SEO, that type of stuff. But now, we're trying to drive awareness through Facebook and LinkedIn and all the rest.David:But yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity for brands to do this, because nobody is doing it or very few are doing it in a consistent, structured manner where some of our clients come to us and do a one-off campaign or one-off promotion, and then they'll say, "Oh, that was the greatest promotion we've ever done. We'll reconsider it again next year." You're thinking, "Why is it a promotion in the first place?" That should be an ongoing part of your CRM outreach strategy." Right now, we're developing a whole program just for automotive dealers to do just that, where you buy a car, you immediately receive a handwritten thank you. A couple weeks later, you receive a service offer, birthday card, happy holidays card, etc. It just repeats without the dealer even having to think about it. I think that model of moving it away from being a promotion to being a part of your CRM strategy is really what needs to happen.David:But a lot of other online brands actually have the advantage over traditional retail, because they have the home addresses of the clients where the retailers may or may not depending on if they're in the loyalty program. So, online brands have this huge benefit of creating a one-to-one personalization opportunity through handwritten notes that brick and mortars might not. So, there's that. And then also right now, it's at the disservice of large B2B brands, because they might have your work address, but then they don't have your home address. So, they're left out of the shuffle too. But even before this COVID crisis, we were seeing online brands take much better advantage of this than in-store.David:I can give you a perfect example here. We work with a very high-end perfumery that makes a very expensive cologne and very expensive perfume. Everybody that's buys this cologne and perfume from their website, they received a very beautiful handwritten note, thanking them for their purchase, etc. But if you walk into a department store, I walked in there with my wife and kids. We're walking through the mall, and we walked into this department store prior to COVID. I found the product and I was showing it to my wife. A store rep came over and said, "This is the product." I said, "Oh, yes, thank you. I'm just showing to my wife because we send out your handwritten notes." She said, "No, you don't, I have to send my own handwritten notes." I explained what I meant.David:She said, "As a store rep, we're supposed to send handwritten notes, but we're too busy talking to customers like you, finishing up a sale, cleaning up the merchandising of the department, doing whatever else is required. We never get around to it. So, even though we have the best intentions in place, because it's not automated for us, we don't get to it." We've been pushing this perfumery to offer the same service to their in-store experience, which would create a much better personal one-to-one experience than the online only.David:Where we've done a really good job of this or really the client that we have... It's all about the client. It's a high-end luxury leather goods company. They make handbags, purses, shoes, that type of thing. Every time you make any purchase whatsoever in one of their retail outlets, a handwritten note goes out from our service. But it's signed by the store clerk that you worked with or it has their name and their phone number at the bottom of the note. So, we automated what this perfumery didn't, basically. We tied it to the end. But short answer your question is I still think there's a huge opportunity here. Quite frankly, people are very lonely right now. Any handwritten mail I think will get savored and opened and really showing that-Stephanie:They need a good handwritten note.David:They really do.Stephanie:Now's the timeDavid:Yeah, people have the time for it. I think at an abstract level, so two things. One, maybe they might not believe it's actually handwritten if they start getting thousands of these a day or something, which will never happen. But they might say, "Oh, gee, this is not actually handwritten." But that doesn't stop people when they get their Christmas card from the president, depending on what election year it is. But if they get their Christmas card from the president, they probably realize the president didn't sit down and sign a Christmas card to them. But it almost doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts and there is that they went above and beyond just laser printing a note. They figured out a way to send me something that seems really personal.Stephanie:So, I wanted to circle back to what we were talking about earlier about investors and how you were self-funded for the last six years. I want to hear a little bit about why you're thinking about bringing on investors now and what that thought process is like.David:So, this really has more to do with David Wachs than Handwrytten. So, this is my second venture. My first company, that text messaging company, also was self-funded. I built that up and I was able to sell that off and do pretty well. That was a true startup. There were a lot of nights where it was just me in an empty room with a two-liter diet Mountain Dew sitting by my side as I program.Stephanie:Nice, healthy.David:Classic, stereotypical startup image, I lived that. But that company actually took off a lot faster than Handwrytten. This time, I decided, "Okay, well, I'm just going to invest my own money, I'm going to build it up." I never really considered venture until this year when we got on the Inc 500. The problem is or the problem I see is we're in a bit of a doughnut hole. Had we gone for venture early on, we would have been great, because then we would have had an idea and no track record. We would have built up this company.David:We would have taken up an S ton of cash, garbage truck cash. We would have invested all of this advertising and built it up really fast. But instead of doing that, I grew profitably and organically, I reinvested profits back into the company, so our growth trajectory is much slower. Because of that, now venture capitalists don't even really want to talk to us. Oh, you've only grown at this rate, not 50 times. I'm like, "Well, yeah, because I've grown smartly and profitably."Stephanie:That seems to be a focus, the tides are turning a bit. I mean, there was, for a long time, just grow as quick as you can, we'll give you a bunch of money. You don't even have to figure out the business model. Do you even have a business? If you want to pivot halfway through spending all the money, it's fine, but I am starting to see a shift now, where, yeah, they're looking for companies actually grow sustainably, at least some VC firms around here. So, I don't know if you experienced that yet.David:Honestly, I've been so busy. So, we entertained a few VC phone calls. They were very, very nice people and very, very big firms. They basically said, "Oh, well, you haven't grown enough this year." I said, "Well, COVID has been going on. So, there's that." Because not a lot of our clients were retailers, so we lost that business, etc. So, to answer your question, part of it was I've actually worked in VC. I've worked for two different VC firms, but I've never taken VC.David:I thought it would be good for me personally to go through that experience of receiving VC, having somebody else to report to from a funding perspective. And then potentially down the road, really working for a VC firm as a partner or something like that. I thought that would be my next transition, because this is company number two. I don't see myself going through this process again. So, that was the thought process of, "Well, if I take VC now, we could really blow this up, because I've got a well-oiled machine here that just needs money to scale, that needs to scale advertising."David:The technology is pretty much done, although we're doing some really innovative stuff in machine vision, machine learning, which I can talk about. The idea was, "I haven't done it before. Let me give this a go, if anybody's interested." I had a handful of conversations, they all went the same way. I'm short on time these days. So, I was just like, "Well, let me get back to the grindstone and maybe worry about that later."Stephanie:Got it. Cool. Yeah, thanks for answering that. I was wondering where you left off with that. All right. So, we only have 10 minutes left. So, I was going to shift over to the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, David?David:I will do my best.Stephanie:All right. That's all I ask for. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?David:Personalization. Whether it's a handwritten note or an experience that's personalized when you visit a website or anything else, I think standing out through personalization, there's been study after study by companies like Segment that say that's a huge opportunity.Stephanie:Do you name your robots?David:No, we name our handwriting. The robots are numbered. So, it's 1 through whatever, 95 right now. We used to have an animated robot, and he still is on our website. If you buy a card, you'll see this little animated robot at the end. His name is Pinbot 2000, because when I was growing up, things that ended in 2000 sounded very futuristic even though [crosstalk 00:44:47].Stephanie:Yeah.David:His name is Pinbot 2000.Stephanie:I like it. What's your favorite handwriting?David:I like Tenacious Nick. If you visit our website, it's a very sweeping block print.Stephanie:[inaudible] check it out. What's up next on your reading list?David:It's funny. I've got a bunch of books here. This one is by the head of sales for HubSpot, Mark Roberge? I hope I'm pronouncing that right. It's called the Sales Acceleration Formula. It was recommended to me. So, I figured I'd read it tomorrow when I have to fly to Chicago.Stephanie:Very cool. What's up next on your Netflix queue?David:My brother actually is a bigwig at Netflix, but what I'm watching right now is on Amazon. It's The Boys. I'm trying to finish season two.Stephanie:Oh, is it good?David:Yeah. It's a dark superhero tale. The one I liked on Netflix... It was 40 minutes and was great. I think it's called Cubers. It's great. If you don't care about Rubik's Cubes at all, which I really don't, it was still wonderful. It's the story of two Rubik's Cube masters. One of them is autistic, and the other Rubik's Cube master, who is just a really nice guy in Australia. The friendship that evolves through these two Rubik's Cube masters. That's really good.Stephanie:That's interesting. If you were to have a podcast, what would the podcast be about and who would your first guest be?David:That is a great-Stephanie:It can't be about handwritten notes.David:No, no, I think it would be about one-to-one marketing though, which is very much in the same vein and probably a sucker answer that I'm giving you. But it would be how do you market to people on a personal level that doesn't come across as junk, because everything's looking like junk?Stephanie:Yup, I like that.David:That would be what it is, and I apologize in advance for that answer.Stephanie:No, I like that one. I mean, I think it's much needed now. Who would you bring on as a guest?David:Joe Polish, who's a marketing expert. He's quite good. Dean Jackson who he works with would be a good guest for that. There's probably somebody from Segment as they have a lot of data that backs it up. So, I'd want to talk with them.Stephanie:Cool. All right. And then the last one, since you've started a company before and you've sold it and started another one, what piece of advice would you give to a new entrepreneur who's starting up a new commerce company?David:Commerce or not, the one piece of advice that I give to everybody was told to me in person over dinner. So, this is a little bit of a humble brag by Conan O'Brien. So, when I was in college, I used to be in this group that would bring speakers to campus and we brought Conan O'Brien. So, the guys that organized got to sit down and do dinner with him. This is a long time ago. So, he was relatively starting out on having his own talk show back then.David:But the advice he gave us was, "Always get in over your head." That has stuck with me for 20 some odd years now, always get in over your head. I mean, people give you advice every day, but how much of it sticks for 20 years. The way I interpret that is if you don't get in over your head, you're never going to grow. You're just never going to pull yourself out of your comfort zone and really do something bigger than you thought you could do. So, I think about it all the time.Stephanie:I like it. Okay, Conan, coming in with some good wise words, pretty good. All right, David. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Handwrytten with a Y?David:Handwrytten with Y, so you can visit Handwrytten with a Y, H-A-N-D-W-R-Y-T-T-E-N.com. We have @handwrytten on Twitter, Handwrytten on Facebook. Personally, I'm @DavidB, as in boy, Wachs, W-A-C-H-S on Twitter. You can find me there, although I don't tweet very much. If anybody wants to try the service, there's two things I'd say. If you go to the business page, you can actually request a samples kit for free. That samples kit will have all sorts of different handwriting styles for you, including Tenacious Nick, my favorite, but they're all good.David:The other thing is if you sign up and you sign up with an email and password, you can enter a discount code. Enter discount code 'podcast', and you'll get $5 in credit that you can then use to send yourself a card or somebody else's card or send your first card, whatever. So, that's available for you too.Stephanie:Awesome. All right. Well, thanks so much, David. It's been fun. We will have to have you back in the future once you can see more about your subscription service and all that. So, thanks for coming on.David:Awesome. Thanks, Stephanie.

In the world of ecommerce, there is no greater thorn in the side of shop owners than cart abandonment. When you look at the data, which reveals that cart abandonment is somewhere between 80 to 85% across the board — it’s clear that this is a problem aching for a solution. The reason cart abandonment is so high is because the checkout process is often over-complicated, requires too many clicks, asks the customer to provide too much information, the list goes on. There is so much friction involved that customers with intent to buy never reach the point of conversion. But what if that process could become seamless?Domm Holland, the CEO of Fast, believes he’s achieved that frictionless experience thanks to a democratized one-click checkout solution that works across the internet. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Domm explains how that one-click solution works, and why it isn’t the answer to a payment problem, it’s actually solving an identity problem that permeates every industry.   Main Takeaways:It’s a Long Road Home: It is a common misconception that the checkout process happens simply when the customer hits the buy button. The truth is that there are many steps to the checkout process, and in most cases they have not been optimized — that’s why cart abandonment rates are so high. In order to get customers to stop abandoning their carts, ecommerce platforms are doing everything they can to create a frictionless experience every step of the way. One and Done: One-click ordering is the gold standard of frictionless checkout. Although some sites claim to have one-click checkout, you often are still multiple clicks away from actually finalizing an order, especially when you’re visiting for the first time, which requires you to fill out identification fields. By solving the identity problem for the consumer and by batching orders on the backend for merchants, Fast created a solution that delivers a true one-click checkout experience across the internet that can be installed directly on product pages.Open Your Mind: In the future, ecommerce will not take place only on ecommerce websites. From social media, to influencer content, to videos and more, one-click shopping will be coming to all of those channels so you will neve have to leave one site to shop on another. This means that opportunities for enterprising ecommerce minds will be there for the taking and those who take action quickly will unlock the value of a frictionless shopping experience and win customers for life.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone. Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postals, co-founder at mission.org. Joining us today, we have Domm Holland, the co-founder and CEO of Fast. Domm, welcome to the show.Domm:Hey Stephanie. Thanks so much for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm really excited to have you. It's actually perfect because I was just going through a very poor checkout process, and I was like wow, what a perfect interview I have coming today. I think it took about 25 fields to fill in [crosstalk] and I was like I need Domm in my life. So tell me a little bit about Fast. What does Fast do, and how are you guys different?Domm:Yeah, so the simplest way to think of us is we're a one click checkout for the entire internet with no passwords. So it's a button that you'll see on websites that says Fast Checkout. When you click it, you'll instantly buy whatever you're looking at. And that could be a single item, so our button often sits above the add to cart button. So you can click Fast Checkout and just by the product instantly that you're looking at. You don't have to go add to cart, view cart, checkout and then go through 20 fields like you did, and then get to payment. It all happens in one click.Domm:Or you can click add to cart and sort of buy 20 items on the store and then use Fast Checkout at the end. Once you've used Fast Checkout to buy something, then you can track all your deliveries in one place. You can download all your receipts in one place. You can instantly reorder items you've ordered before through Fast from your Fast feed. So we have this fantastic and aggregated post purchase experience, which means again, you don't have to scramble to go back to remember the name of a site you bought something from a month ago and click a link from Gmail and then log in with a password you created for one store to try and find delivery date or something else. So yeah, we just try and make life easy and fast for consumers.Stephanie:That's amazing. So what led you to creating Fast? Was there a problem that you encountered yourself or what excited you about the payment ecosystem?Domm:Yeah, so originally it wasn't a payment problem. And fundamentally I think what Fast is solving for is actually an identity problem and payments is just one component of that. The original inception was I'm married with two little kids and my youngest child was in hospital for a few weeks, so we had my wife's grandmother staying with us and helping us out. One night she was sitting at the kitchen table ordering groceries for us and forgot a password and just couldn't order groceries. One of the largest supermarket chains in Australia, turn over $70 billion a year, just couldn't figure out how to charge a little old lady's credit card a couple hundred dollars for some food because of some broken string of text.Domm:It was just like a hard lockout. For her to be able to buy food, it didn't make sense. So at the time, I've got a [inaudible] of a passwords authentication system that can be used on ecommerce sites. The idea is granny could've just identified herself and then easily logged in and bought the groceries. But I think that I put it online, I had tens of thousands of people use it in a couple days and realize this is a big opportunity.Domm:But fundamentally, passwords aren't a problem, they're a symptom. Again, the problem is that each business requires us to re identify ourselves, which means create new account, create a new password. Login with this password created for one store. Fill in all these fields and forms from scratch. Give them payment information from scratch. Again, from a subscription standpoint, if you lose your credit card, suddenly your Netflix subscription doesn't work. Your [inaudible] subscriptions don't work. Everything is cut off because everyone has these siloed pools of data for us.Domm:So that's fundamentally what we solve for is just you not having to continually tell everyone who you are. I'm 33 years old. My name and date of birth and basic information hasn't changed in over three decades, yet I have to keep filling in forms and telling people as if it's brand new information. It doesn't make sense. So we solve for that and make that really easy. And payment is a part of that, an integral part of that, because it's part of the consumer experience. A lot of our consumer interactions involve financial transactions.Domm:But a lot of the time, it's just fundamentally making it easier for people to leverage their identity online.Stephanie:That's awesome. So earlier you were mentioning about your name and age not changing. What does the back end look like to solve for identity, and why hasn't this been done before?Domm:Yeah. Look, I think that there are companies had the opportunity to do this before. I think Facebook really had that opportunity. But [inaudible] didn't go down the identity space, they went down the advertising road. So rather than use your data to make your data portable and easy for consumers to use, they chose to your data for advertising.Domm:I don't think that from Facebook's perspective, I don't think it was a bad decision. Facebook makes a lot of money from doing that. But it's just a different... they can't then become your trusted source of data, if they're using your data for advertising as their primary source of revenue, then it's not really your trusted source for holding your private and sensitive information.Domm:So I think that there's been opportunities like that and I do think that advertising tends to kill identity products really quickly. But I think the other reality is that people have just kind of thought about things differently, or they've been solving their own problems, or they've been solving for business problems instead of consumer problems. And things like Apple, Apple building an ecosystem that you can now do log in sometimes, you can do check out if you're on Apple device on some sites and with some cards and that type of thing.Domm:They've got limited context, but basically they've got solutions to make it easier for people to perform certain actions if they're within their ecosystem. Same thing is kind of true of Google. Same thing is true of other ecommerce platforms for stores that are on those platforms. And basically what these companies are doing are reinforcing their existing ecosystems. Or further monetizing their existing base of merchants. But they obviously don't want to reward people who aren't in their ecosystem, right?Domm:And so they're fundamentally solving a different problem. Like for us, we're trying to solve the problem of granny being able to buy groceries, like how can we make it fast and easy for people to buy things? And how do we make it fast and easy for people to login? How do we make it fast and easy for people to securely use their data online? And it's just a very different value problem. Our product strategy differs because we're out there trying to solve a consumer problem and most of these companies aren't. I think that's the primary difference that you see shine through in products.Stephanie:Got it. I read that you are a self taught engineer, so tell me a little bit about that, and are you doing the engineering at Fast or no longer are you doing that?Domm:Yeah. Yeah, I've been programming since I was 13, 14. I'm 33 now, so a long time. I always liked to build things, always been fascinated with computers and programming and technology in general. I learned C programming when I was 13, 14 and been building ever sense. I fell in love with it. I built the original Fast V.1. Up until recently actually it was completely built and maintained by me. We now have a very big and strong engineering org and I can say unequivocally that no, I no longer build the Fast infrastructure. The team keep me far away. I don't think I'm the enterprise grade engineer that we need internally. But I'm still very technically involved and involved in a very close level at the product side. Very opinionated as how products should work, obviously.Domm:Allison, my co founder and I, both have very strong visions as to how we think the future of identity, future of payments, future of commerce should work. And really want to see that come to life through our products.Stephanie:That's great. So what was the first thing you built when you were 13? Do you remember?Domm:Yeah. So the first program I ever wrote was a script to determine if a word was a palindrome. My ex stepdad actually was a computer scientist and a programmer. He, myself, and the sys admin of a university in Australia, each wrote our own version of the script and then measured the speed and had a competition to see whose script would perform the fastest calculation. It was the first-Stephanie:That's great. How it all got started. I love that. So with everything that's happening right now with the pandemic, I can see a very big problem happening around new scans that are coming back because you have a lot more people who are now using digital payments that maybe they weren't doing that in the past. It seems like there's a big opportunity there for people to take advantage. So how are you guys approaching this landscape now? Is it different now than it maybe would have been a year ago, the problems that you're having to solve around security?Domm:Yeah. Internally, we've been absolutely focused on security since day one. So we hired a VP of security before we hired our first engineering manager. We really built out the security function very early. Honestly for a company of our stage, I would unequivocally say had the most sophisticated security posture of all. We have a lot of different programs in place. And really it's because we're managing data and payments. It's essentially our business. So we're just very intentional and have been about embedding into our culture as a culture of security and privacy from day one.Domm:And it's a really important piece. The reality is that it's not that interesting from a consumer's perspective. They're far less interested in security than they should be. So that doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about it, it just means that we don't talk about it a lot. It's not a benefit that's going to drive consumers in droves to sign up for Fast. One click check out drives consumers and drives to sign up for Fast. But the reality is, we need to keep them safe when they do, and security is an integral part of that. Same thing is true of merchants and in reducing fraud and charge [inaudible] and so forth.Domm:So we invest a lot into that at every level of our product from application design perspective and a system design perspective and infrastructure and internal policies and whatever else. We think about it a lot. The reality is that our product is extremely well poised to reduce both consumer fraud or merchant fraud and identity theft and so forth because we sit as an identity solution, as first and foremost. So when it comes to making a transaction, typically everyone's transactions are siloed. Everyone's data vaults are siloed. So every store is operating independently. They're kind of only looking at their own historical data primarily as the determinant risk. Whereas the beautiful thing about Fast is that because we sit across every store, because you can use your identity hold with Fast at every different merchant and all the different sites across the internet, we can in a really sophisticated manner, help to reduce that risk because we can gauge risk against your profile and past purchases and log in history and so forth, and identify anomalies. So it really means that we can keep consumers far more safe than basically any other solution.Stephanie:Yeah. That's really great. I think anyone who is working with you would feel really good about having those safety measures in place because I was just reading about how many people are now using debit cards, especially with contact less payments. But that a lot of merchants aren't asking for pins anymore because it's too much friction when it comes to payments. And I never even thought about that, that a merchant can be like, "Ah no, I'm not going to ask for the pin for your debit card because it takes too much time." That's a huge risk. Your debit card can be linked to your entire savings.Domm:Yeah. Look, absolutely. In Australia, we launched [inaudible] chip cards earlier than the US and really years ago [inaudible] chip cards were mandatorily introduced throughout the country, so we've been using them for a long time. We have less than $100 you don't use a pin, and over $100 you do. That's standard across the country. Whereas here, it's almost like the wild west where some stores enforce a pin on any transaction, so a dollar or something like that, you still have to use a pin.Domm:And then some stores, I've done hundreds of dollars in transactions and had no pin. Yeah, I think there is something to be said about having a set of standards and a strong set of standards to protect both consumer and the bank or the merchant. One is, your risk as a consumer and suddenly not having food in your account. And that's right, it's a debit card linked to your real money. And if that account is drained, even if you've got protection from the bank or whatnot, it's not going to come instantly. And so there's a real risk for people, and then again from the merchant's side, from card fraud.Stephanie:Yeah. Very scary. So when it comes to ecommerce shops, what tools are you integrated with right now? Who can actually use you? Or [crosstalk] in the future who do you plan to use, or who do you plan to partner with?Domm:Yeah, good question. So we launched last month in a partnership with Big Commerce. So every one of Big Commerce's 60,000 merchants can offer a fast checkout to their consumers and to their shoppers. Next month our launch with support for Woo Commerce, another large platform with over a million and a half active merchants. And Magento after that. And then next year we're going to be launching support for a Sales Force [inaudible 00:14:39]. I'm really excited to work with the Salesforce team and take their launch on commerce cloud.Stephanie:Amazing. I'm not biased or anything but I do think they're probably going to be the best partner.Domm:Without a doubt. The reality is, a lot of the world's favorite brands really do see it on Commerce Cloud, so it absolutely is a key partner and one we're excited to get off the ground.Stephanie:Love that. So to shift over to the merchant mindset a bit, because that is who listens for the most part to this show, I was looking on your co founder Allison's twitter and she had a stat on there saying that 50% of cart abandonment occurs at the payment stage in the US. And I wanted to hear a little bit about maybe a case study or metrics that you guys look at to see where a merchant should be looking at to see if their payment process is going well and how maybe... what is the average? What should they say like, "Oh, this is normal cart abandonment around this percent is normal, and this is too high"? How can a merchant think about whether they're doing well or not?Domm:Yeah, great question. I think that there are so many ways to look at this. The average cart abandonment is 80 to 85% across the board.Stephanie:Oh wow. It's higher than I thought.Domm:It's phenomenally high. And so the reality is, if you're doing less than that, than you're doing above and below industry average, so maybe you think that's good. The reality is, it's appalling. 80 to 85% of your customers who have given clear intent to purchase are leaving without buying something. So even if you're below that, I don't think it's good enough. It's not good enough because one, you're missing out on a lot of sales. And two, your customers are just having a terrible experience.Domm:Some people, like my granny story, it's just actually a hard [inaudible 00:16:24]. They're just unable to buy from you. Other people, it's just so long and inconvenient that they're just leaving. And the reality is, like we said, the typical flow is this add to cart, view, like everyone kind of thinks of checkout as a final stage of checkout. But it's not. The process of buying something is add to cart, view cart, checkout, and then you typically ask them for your email first and then you try to work out if they're a customer or not. If they are a customer, get them to log in. If they're not, then say, "Do you want to do guest checkout?" Then you give them a whole bunch of forms to fill out. And then at the end you ask them for payment.Domm:So Fast is really different. Every single site that has Fast on it, you will see a Fast checkout button on the product page. And you can also see it on the cart page, and you can also see it on the checkout page. But it's on every product page. And this is really the biggest difference because the fastest way, the easiest way for somebody to buy something is from the point that they're looking at what they want to buy. It's one click to be finished and order from the point that you're looking at the product with Fast. And that is just such a big difference. It's an actual one click check out. Whereas every other solution isn't one click anyway. The payment, it's normally at least two or three or five clicks or whatever. But it's one or two or three or five clicks after you've done like ten steps to get to the payment section of checkout. And it's really slow.Domm:So as a merchant, you can see very clearly in your analytics every stage of drop off. So from add to cart, how many people leave? From view cart, how many people leave? From checkout, from the email form, how many people leave? And so forth all the way down the train. Now if you've got 15 steps in that process, if you've got five steps in that process, then that's a lot more than one step. It's hard to have that levels of abandonment from a one step process. So that's why Fast is really just so different in market because we take what is a much, much longer process and just simplify it to the NTH degree.Stephanie:Got it. Are you advising the merchants when it comes to minimums? Because I could see me finding, I don't know, a mascara, it's only a couple of dollars, having fast check out on there, how do you set that up for the merchants so that they're still doing things and their profitable way but also allowing for that fast checkout, especially if they have lower priced items?Domm:You're talking about my favorite point here. The fear of merchants, and absolutely warranted, the reason that they would not put any other payment buttons on the product page. So it's not like no one else has ever asked to be on the product page, but merchants typically just say no to having PayPal, Apply Pay, Google Pay, like pick your payment button. They just say no to having it on the product page. And it's because the fear is, and an absolutely warranted fear, is that it will reduce average order values. It will reduce the average items per order. It will increase delivery costs. It will increase shipping costs. And they don't want to do that. Merchants don't want to reduce the amount of money that they're making.Domm:And the reality is, if you put an Apple Pay button onto a product page and a consumer uses that button, the merchant is guaranteeing that they're only selling one item. So if it's mascara for $4.99, then they're only selling mascara for $4.99. As a consumer, it also means that a consumer is going to pay individual shipping costs for an item. So typically the shipping might be six, seven dollars or something. So a five dollar mascara is suddenly more than double as expensive. So as a consumer, it's not a great outcome either. So it doesn't make sense.Domm:Even on higher value transactions, even if the product was $50, a merchant still wants to bundle multiple products into a transaction. So they still aren't incentivized to be pushing payment, like individual payment buttons onto product pages. The difference of Fast, and we spent a long time engineering something with this exact use case in mind, and it makes us absolutely different from every single payment button on the market because we're not just a payment button, is that we natively integrate batching. Which means, as a consumer, when you click Fast checkout, you instantly buy whatever you're looking to buy. The mascara, it's yours. Now you can keep browsing.Domm:And then a couple of minutes later, you decide that you want to buy eyeliner, and you click Fast checkout on the eyeliner, and now you've got one order with two products on it. Not two orders of one product. So for the merchant, the average order value is now increased. The average items per order is now increased. They only have to fulfill one order. So they only have one box. It's going to go out to the consumer, and so it's only going to be one delivery cost to them. And they're only going to be charged one transaction fee. So the consumer only has one charge on their credit card. The merchant only has one charge from Fast.Domm:It keeps average order value high, [inaudible] order. Even though we're on every single product page, and I can tell you that between 75 and 80% of every single checkout on Fast is from the product page. So it is absolutely overwhelming the impact that it has to businesses, to every single business that takes on Fast, that the majority of these sales coming from product page. And it makes all the sense in the world, yet our average items per order is over two. And a lot of stores, the average items per order, even without buttons on the product page, is less than two. It's like, 1.7, 1.6. So we are driving people, we are making it easy for people to buy things. People are buying things. People are buying more things. So businesses make far more money, can increase their order values, can increase the average items per order, can decrease their shipping cost, can decrease their payment cost, and yet still be increasing conversion rate much higher than they are now. And decreasing abandonment.Domm:Yeah. The button on the product page, the Fast checkout on product page, with our batching functionality, is just a next level for ecommerce.Stephanie:That's really cool to hear, how that works behind the scenes. And I can definitely see that working well. I mean I'm even thinking about how many times I've added a bunch of things to a cart, especially on my phone, and then just forgot about it and came back and it wasn't there anymore. And even within Amazon, I mean they have that Buy Now button, and I will buy the smallest things, just buy, buy, buy. I'm sure maybe they also batch that in the background, but it doesn't matter to me because I'm just going through quickly buying things that maybe otherwise would have sat in the cart for a week.Domm:You've hit the nail on the head. So Amazon is the only other company in the world that batches like we do. And they only batch like that for Amazon.com. So Amazon Pay doesn't do this. So what we have done is take that same functionality that the world's largest ecommerce site built for themselves and given it to every single other merchant. And it's just natively integrated out of the box. Merchants don't have to do anything. They just integrate Fast and we do the rest. So it's very, very sophisticated technology that decreases costs for business and everyone gets it by default. Yeah.Stephanie:Wow. That's awesome. So I also just read that you guys raised 20 million in funding, and I wanted to hear a little bit about what you plan to do with that.Domm:Yeah. So we raised $20 million dollar series [inaudible] by Stripe. Obviously Stripe is one of the largest payment processors, payment infrastructure businesses. And in fact, Strive recently just partnered with Sales Force and Strive is going to be integrated into Commerce Cloud as well. And they're sort of key partner of Commerce Cloud.Domm:Really, our goal is to enable as many consumers and as many businesses as possible to use Fast. So the money we raised is really to speed up that expansion. Our mission is to put these buttons on every website in the world, and partnering with people like Stripe, a huge distribution partner for Fast, and great partners for us. And we use Stripe's payment processing, which underpins Fast. But yeah, we're deploying the capital to build our network of merchants and offer Fast to every internet connected consumer in the world.Stephanie:That's awesome. So how are you approaching international markets? Have you started doing that yet? How are you thinking about that roll out plan? Because it seems like it could be tricky since everyone has a different idea of how payments should work, or what they're comfortable with, or how they pay.Domm:Yeah. It's a good point. So we already have merchants in five countries. We can support merchants in 42 countries. So we're expanding our roll out. And we support buyers all around the world, obviously. Ecommerce is kind of inherently global because you can buy from stores all around the world and have items shipped internationally quite easily these days. So there is definitely a large global component to our business.Domm:The reality is that typically payment processing has been dictated by merchants. And it's a cost driven exercise. It's more of a commodity product. And a consumer has no idea who Stripe is or [inaudible] or Braintree or these companies sit in the background that process money. Consumers don't know them. The consumer just interfaces with the business, gives them their credit card details, and away they go. The reality is that with Fast, we're a button system on the front end. Consumers get to know who we are, they choose to use the button because they get one click check out. It means that they get this entire post purchase experience for free that they didn't get before. Finally they get all of their orders in one place, all of their products in one place. It's a great experience for a consumer.Domm:And the consumer is now driving the decision as to how payment processing should be, rather than business. Now that's not to say businesses don't have a choice, obviously they get to put Fast on their website. But the reality is, the consumers are being far more active into which payment provider is being used because it's being driven by that front end decision. And I think that that's the biggest change that you'll see moving forward is that a lot of payment decisions get remade by consumers as opposed to businesses.Stephanie:Yep. I love that. So have you heard any feature requests from these new customers that you're onboarding that maybe you weren't expecting? Since you just launched six weeks ago, I'm sure you maybe have a couple people being like, "Hey, I would like this or that," and you're actually building something that you weren't planning to build before launching.Domm:Yeah. Look, our two biggest features that we get asked for all the time by merchants and consumers is returns and subscriptions. And we're going to be supporting both of those very early next year. We want you to be able to manage your subscriptions through Fast, and as a consumer, this means we put all of the power in a consumer's hand. So that all of the control, stuff that they don't have. At the moment, they don't get to see all of their purchases in one place. They don't get to see rich receipt information. They don't get to reorder products easily, so we're giving them that.Domm:But the same thing is true for subscriptions. Where are all the subscriptions managed that come out of our accounts every month? It's horrific, the state of subscriptions. And so we're building that support for our subscriptions for consumers. And obviously for business as well, that means that it comes very easy. One click for customers to sign up for a subscription with you. So it's a really great experience for both. And then returns as well. We want to make it easier for consumers to return things when they need to return things. And give them instant refunds on the money. Let them spend the money again straight away. Domm:And then the last one that I find really exciting is so we already offer the one click reorder from Fast from our online dashboard, but we're going to be bringing out instant reordering of physical products. So you can scan a code on the back of your shampoo when you run out and more shampoo will come [inaudible 00:28:09]. You can do the same thing with ketchup in your fridge, and more ketchup will come. So basically, every consumable good in your house you'll be able to reorder just by scanning the code on the back of the product.Stephanie:Wow. It feels like you guys are tackling a lot of different really important areas. I'm even thinking about some of those finance apps where they're like, "Let's analyze all the subscriptions that you're subscribed to." It seems like you guys are kind of building a dashboard that's going to cover that, cover the reordering of things, covering returns. You guys seem to be doing a lot that a lot of other individuals have maybe tried to build one off products to solve.Domm:Yeah. Exactly. And I think that you think about all these spaces. This has been the problem. Everyone has thought of all of these things as disjointed problems. Again, the core thing that we're solving is identity for consumers. When you walk into a doctor, you still have to fill in a paper based form. It's crazy. Everyone just has these siloed information. Move address, you've got to tell everyone your new address again. The state of the world, the world is broken because of identity. So that's fundamentally what we're solving.Domm:So we're giving consumers a home to manage their information. And that means when you buy things, give you a home to manage those purchases. When you subscribe to things, give you a home to manage those subscriptions. We really just think, "How do we provide a really secure and centralized spot for consumers where it puts them in control of their data?" As opposed to leaving businesses to being in control of their data.Stephanie:Yeah. Even thinking right now about every time I take my... I have six month old twins, I take them into the doctor, and I have to fill out the form twice with the same information. I'm like, "Ah. This is horrible."Domm:Exactly. Yeah. One hundred percent. I think of doctors as the best use case for us, as to how annoying it is and how frustrating. Yeah.Stephanie:So what channels are you all using to get the word out? What do you see success? And I'm asking this because I was looking at your website and then on Instagram, bam, there was Domm talking to me saying, "Hey. You checked out our website. Where did you go?" And I was like, "Whoa. That was quick and awesome retargeting." So what are you guys finding success in right now to get the word out about Fast?Domm:Yeah. So obviously social channels are great. We use all the major social channels. And a lot of different data retargeting tools. Especially for business customers, so these tools like [inaudible] really effectively target our core demographic. Really, for us, distribution actually comes through sellers. Sellers put the button on their website and really that's the biggest window into consumers. That's where we grow our fastest consumer generation. So we don't typically have to try and actively build or really drastically, productively build the consumer network, because it comes through sellers. 90% of buyers, our first time Fast customers, they come to us through a merchant site.Domm:But now, after the first time that they fill in the form once, now they have one click check out everywhere else. Even on that site. Once they click Fast checkout on a mascara, then they fill in their details, then they keep browsing and then they buy the second product, and the second product is one click. And then the same thing is true if they come back a month later or a week later or whatever, they can buy again. So for us, it's all about how do we bring on more merchants? And great thing about ecommerce is that every ecommerce site in the world is public. We can identify our entire market from [inaudible 00:31:44].Domm:We use Sales Force for our engine and we track virtually every ecommerce site in the world and know what technology they're on and know what payment processes they use and target them accordingly. Through both sales and marketing. And partner with platforms Big Commerce or Sales Force, Commerce Cloud or so forth to better selling to those ecosystems. But yeah, I think really just want to make use of all of the tools and channels available to us, all the relevant ones at least, and reach people wherever they are.Stephanie:Awesome. So it seems like also that you guys are very far ahead of certain topics. Certain products that you're building just feel far in the future that I didn't think those problems would get solved in a year, but it seems like you guys are tackling them. So I wanted to hear what the future of online commerce looks like to you. In 2025, what will the process look like and how should merchants be preparing right now?Domm:Yeah. Great question. It's so amazing to see all the value that you can unlock by enabling frictionless commerce. Is the idea of this sort of click and buy. And really it's been this nirvana or the epiphany of what people really want, and we've never gotten there. And that's exactly was Fast has delivered. So suddenly you can open up ecommerce opportunities everywhere. Not just through your site and then through some ten minute checkout process. If it's one click check out, it means you could just pay 50 cents and read an article, or subscribe to the Wall Street Journal in one click. Or watch a movie in one click, or you can land on a site after seeing an Instagram ad and actually just check out in one click once you like the product. Or check out from an ad itself. Some frictionless. Maybe it is a mascara, a bundle or something that you see in an ad, and just one click purchase from the ad itself. That has been the nirvana of advertising for a long time.Domm:But it also means through social media, one click purchase through social media. If you do see an influencer promoting a product that you like or something that you do want, then just unlocking the value a lot sooner, and having less barriers for consumers to actually buy the things that they want to buy and enjoy the things they want to enjoy. So there's a whole Rolodex of opportunity.Domm:I think things like our physical reorder product is going to just unlock a whole new wave of opportunity again. Because it's not limited to the [inaudible] who bought it originally. You could go to the supermarket and buy ketchup off the shelf and then take it home, and then when you're finished, then scan the code. Anyone in your house could scan the code and instantly more would be delivered. So it's not tied to a person, it's tied to a product. I think having that ability to mix real well to digital transactions that simply will just unlock opportunities that we can't even think about at the moment.Stephanie:I love that. I also think Tik Tok is big. My team always laughs at me about that, but I think about how many people I follow on there. And I was watching this one girl's video where she had some cup off Amazon and she was just doing a silly review, and apparently millions of people bought this cup just because of her review. But she didn't get any attribution back. And it would have been nice to have a Fast button in there where [crosstalk] buy that. I want that too.Domm:Yeah. Absolutely. We're going to run tests of one click check out just from links in Twitter later this year. But yeah, Tik Tok 100%. We'll be able to do it later this year from a QR code embedded in the Tik Tok videos or Instagram videos, which would give them attribution and affiliate fees and whatever else. But yeah, I think that there's so much we could do and we'd love to really expect to work a lot more closely with some of the large social networks over the next 12 months.Stephanie:That's really cool. Yeah, I'm excited to see where it transforms to. All right, so I want to shift over to the lightning round brought to you by Sales Force Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Domm?Domm:Okay.Stephanie:All right. What's up next on your podcast list? Do you listen to podcasts or do you just join them?Domm:Yeah. So actually I'm listening to Business Wars at the moment. I am really enjoying hearing about one, the war of two companies I think is kind of interesting. But the history of companies as well. I had no idea that the founder of Adidas, one, how Adidas got its name, and then two, the brother of the founder of Adidas started Puma. Anyway, I find these stories amazing, so I'm digging my way through the many seasons of that podcast.Stephanie:Oh, that's great. So we have a podcast called The Story and we did a whole episode on the brothers and how they were building Adidas together and yeah, how they shifted over to having competing companies. It was a very interesting story.Domm:Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.Stephanie:What's up next in your travel destinations when you can travel? Where are you headed?Domm:I am Australian as you can hear, and I'm just addicted to the sun. I'm like a lizard. So it's always tropical beach. I'm hoping to be able to get to Hawaii. I'm optimistically, maybe naively optimistic about getting to Hawaii for Christmas. But anywhere with sun and water is my dream destination.Stephanie:That's great. What is your most recent impulse buy? What did you hit Fast checkout on recently?Domm:So solo [inaudible] great merchants now, but at a product that we actually just used at a beach last night. And it's a solo stove, so it's a fire pit. Beautiful fire pits, and they are really an amazing product and we went down to Ocean Beach last night and busted it out for the first time. We bought that with Fast checkout from the product page. But yeah, that was a really, really nice product to buy.Stephanie:That sounds nice. I need one of those. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Domm:Oh. We're thinking about this at the moment. Who would my first guest be? I do think that there's lots of opportunity in ecommerce and a lot of the companies doing really interesting things, especially in the age of Covid. The world has changed so dramatically. I think Nike has been doing some really interesting things and rapidly changing their business model. Their CEO has come from a tech background. I think that would be a very interesting discussion to hear more about Nike's ongoing strategy and what the brand looks like moving forward.Stephanie:That would be a good one. All right and the last one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Domm:Well I mean, I'll give you two things. One is the obvious, which is Covid. It is drastically shaping ecommerce. The second one is logistics. Again, [inaudible] because of Covid, but with increased ecommerce demand. But logistics is definitely going to be interesting to see how logistics plays out and changes ecommerce. Especially democratizing the Amazon effect across the internet.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, I completely agree. Well Domm, this has been a very fast interview. I think we did your brand justice by how quick and how many hits we had in here. Where can people find out more about you and Fast?Domm:Great. Yeah, thanks. I had a blast. People may have to listen at a slower speed because I know I talk quickly. Fast, F-A-S-T dot co. You go on our website, have a look. Sign up as a consumer. If you're a merchant, hit us at sales@fast.co. We'd love to get in touch, or go to fast.co [inaudible 00:40:08]. Sellers, you can hit us on social media. We're very active on Twitter. We're active on all the channels, but Twitter is definitely our number one channel. You can go to twitter.com\fast and you can engage with the business. If you want to talk to me directly, twitter.com\domm, D-O double M.Stephanie:That's a good handle. Perfect. Thanks so much, Domm.Domm:Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

The best way to chart a path forward is to understand the state of the industry and the possible changes that could occur in the near future. In business, that means keeping an eye on all of the trends in your industry, analyzing data collected by yourself or others, and letting the insights be your guide. One of the most popular places to find insights is through industry reports put together by large organizations that have access to billions of data points, which can be graphed out and analyzed on a deeper level. The Shopping Index is one of those reports. It is put out quarterly by Salesforce and it contains information about consumer behavior, shopping activity across numerous platforms, and a look into how different industries are performing. In one of the most recent Shopping Index reports, Salesforce collected information from more than one billion global shoppers in order to paint an accurate picture of what the world of ecommerce looks like. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, we break down some of the key findings in the  report with the two people who helped put it together, Caila Schwartz and Ann Marie Aviles. Caila is the Senior Manager of Strategy and Insights, Retail and Consumer Goods at Salesforce and Ann Marie is the Senior Associate of Industry Strategy & Insights at Salesforce. So what’s ahead for the holiday season? How much of the consumer behavior adopted during the pandemic will stick around? And why do people stay loyal to a brand? Find out on this episode.Main Takeaways:Invest in the Basics, Not the New Shiny Object: Even if you have the coolest new technology and a unique website experience, if your customer gets to the point of purchase and sees you don’t have inventory or that delivery will take weeks, that customer is lost. Make sure you have the basics covered before you start bringing anything extra to your site. Come In, Stay Awhile: Past data has proven that when consumers adopt new digital behaviors, they tend to stick with that behavior. As every holiday season passes, and more people shop online, those customers are maintaining that online behavior long-term. Each holiday season can be viewed as a stepping stone in digital growth. The holiday season can create a new normal if you have a strategy to meet demand and then retain the consumer.Move to Mobile: In recent years, and especially during the pandemic, there has been a significant shift toward mobile and social shopping. As the number one driver of orders, mobile experiences should be a top priority for any business owner in the future.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie Postles:Welcome, welcome to our very first roundtable style episode. This is Stephanie Postles, Co-Founder of mission.org and your host of Up Next in Commerce. Today, we are chatting with Caila Schwartz and Ann Marie Aviles. Ladies, welcome to the show.Caila Schwartz:Thank you.Ann Marie:Thanks for having us.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I'm excited. It should be interesting having a three person call, like I said, it's the first one. So we'll see where it goes. It'll be fun. So, Caila, can you first introduce yourself? Tell me a little bit about you and your role?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, so I'm Caila Schwartz. I've been with Salesforce for six years now. I am on the Industry Strategy and Insights team focusing on retail and consumer goods. And I am responsible for several initiatives throughout the year that our team puts out into market, which include our quarterly shopping index, as well as all of our holiday reporting. So really utilizing real shopping data to understand the consumer and help put together some insights that can help our customers make some strategic decisions.Stephanie Postles:Amazing. And Ann Marie, what about you? Tell me a little bit about your role?Ann Marie:Yeah, happy to. So I'm also on Caila's team, but I have a slightly different focus. So I've been at Salesforce for just about a year and a half now by the way of Forrester research. So my background is definitely in research. And so I'd like to think of the shopping index as a fine line and I provide the cheese and the consumer perspective on what their priorities are, how their habits are changing through a lot of in depth research work.Stephanie Postles:Amazing. So that's a good place to start, then I really want to dive deep into the shopping index. So maybe Ann Marie, if you want to start there telling me a little bit about how long is the shopping index been around? What is it? And how can a customer or any shop owner use the shopping index to further their business?Ann Marie:Sure. So for this one, I think Caila, since she actually created the shopping index would be the perfect person to describe its origin story.Stephanie Postles:Perfect, Caila, take it away.Caila Schwartz:Thank you, Ann Marie. Well, I can't claim the genius behind it because it was actually created by someone much smarter than myself, a several, several years ago. I would say about maybe its seven years ago. So we've been publishing, like I said, the shopping index quarterly for the past ... I want to say six or seven years. So it's one of our longest running assets. I inherited it about four years ago. And it came out of a project or initiative to understand the consumer. And back in the day we were from the Demandware. So I worked for Demandware, before I got acquired by Salesforce, and we had access to all of this data from our platform.Caila Schwartz:And internally, we started asking questions about how we could potentially use this data to help give insights to our customers on consumer behavior. And the shopping index was born. So it's really become the bedrock piece of content that helps us start to ask questions that then lead to a lot of these other great pieces of content and research that we do. So like I said, it's our longest running asset. But as far as how consumers or customers are using it, it really is a benchmarking tool. And it's meant to be like a sounding board.Caila Schwartz:How are you performing against your peers? Is there opportunity for improvement? And using it as a way to uncover some of those questions for customers, about their business, and areas that they can focus on?Stephanie Postles:[inaudible 00:04:51]. That's a good point to go through what are some of the really key metrics that people find the most value in and maybe we can talk through maybe what Q2 look like. What are some of the things that people really rely on?Caila Schwartz:That's a great question. I think it really depends on the individual business and what their unique challenges are. I know that right now, everyone's experiencing some really big searches in digital activity on their websites. So the biggest question that we have right now is, is this normal? Am I doing well, compared to my competitors? Am I not doing as well? So, bringing it back to those core metrics around traffic growth, spend growth, conversion rates. So really bringing it back to the basics almost, of understanding and getting really a basic understanding of performance compared to the market.Stephanie Postles:Yes, this report sounds awesome. I'm looking through it right now, it looks like it's in a really cool Tableau dashboard, which is really fun, and easy to digest. Some of the things that I'm looking at now are when it comes to computer and mobile growth, it seems like ... now it seems obvious, but a lot of people have shifted to mobile, but then maybe the cart abandonment piece has not increased as much, maybe if you can talk a little bit about that. I'm trying to think if I'm a shop owner, and right now all my traffic has been on desktop, and now it's shifted in to mobile, but then I'm not able to convert the customers as well. What are you seeing behind that data to maybe help with that piece?Caila Schwartz:Yeah. In an example like that, where we can break it down by device and say, "Hey, we're seeing a lot of traffic coming from mobile, but it's not converting as well." Mobile traffic is up, traffic overall is up. The conversion is far down, or looking at your add To cart rate or your cart abandonment rate to see, are consumers getting to that cart? And are they finishing that checkout process? So, trying to identify those points of friction within the shopping journey, using this data, and so if we see that there's a high level of cart abandonments, or checkout abandonment, that would lead me to believe that there's something about that checkout experience that isn't ideal. And we see that, especially on mobile.Caila Schwartz:The mobile shopping experience, at least the checkout experience it's come a long way in recent years, but the whole tapping in all of your little form fields on your mobile device is really cumbersome. And so, thinking about ways to flatten that funnel through mobile wallets, whether it's through Pay Pal, or Apple Pay, or Google pay. So those are some of the ways that a shop owner could utilize that data to see, okay, where are the points of friction within that shopping journey? And mobile is the number one driver of traffic and orders. And we've seen over the past several years mobile really accelerate as the number one device for consumers.Caila Schwartz:So as a business owner, if you're thinking about what device to prioritize, creating a great mobile experience is going to be the top of your priority list. But what's interesting about 2020 is that even though we're still seeing this massive shift to mobile, which we still are, computers have actually had a resurgence. And it really highlights the need to have a great experience across all of your touchpoints. So even if you're focusing on mobile, you have to think about providing a great experience, no matter where the consumer chooses to engage with you. And I think that's something that is really easy to forget, because sometimes you can get so hyper focused on one particular device or channel or tactic, and it really is about the big picture.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I completely agree. I can also see some of these ... like you said, these are things that you can benchmark your business against, and it would give me peace of mind anyways, if I could say, "What is the average?" And it's nice that on your [inaudible] report, you have it, or you can select it by vertical. So I was just looking at a footwear vertical because we've had Puma and Little Burgundy shoes on and being able to see what is the average order value and the discount rate that other people are offering and the cart abandonment like, "Oh, okay, maybe 80 something percent is actually has always been normal, so what can I do to become better than that?" Or if I'm worse than that, at least I know what the average is. So it seems like you could not only give peace of mind, but then also see areas where a shop owner could improve, which is great.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. Remember, these are just averages so and there's people that are doing better, there's people that are doing worse. So where do you stand amongst that? And then where are those opportunities for improvement?Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the social traffic data you guys collect? Because I'm looking at that now, and it shows the social traffic share increasing by mobile. And I think I know what that means, but maybe detail that a bit so I can see what the opportunity is, by that share increasing?Caila Schwartz:Yeah. So our social data that we collect is coming from the social referral data. So data from a social platform, whether it's Instagram, or Facebook, or Pinterest, any channel that's directing traffic to an ecommerce website, as a referral. It's also paid in organic. So we're collecting that visit data and we're looking at it through the lens of, okay, is this social referral from a mobile device, is it from a computer? And then we look at it overall. And then the percentages within that chart are looking at the share of traffic, against all other sources of traffic. So if it says, 10% of mobile traffic, or 10% social share for mobile devices, that means that 10% of all mobile traffic came from a social referral channel.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that makes sense. We've actually heard that theme, quite a bit from many previous guests, where they're talking about the social shopping experience and how they're relying on influencers, and how, of course, there's a lot of platforms Instagram, TikTok that people are looking at right now. But that seems like if a shop is not playing there or a brand is not there, you should probably be there, because it's rising.Caila Schwartz:Oh, totally. And Ann Marie can really go into more detail on this, but in our snapshot series, research, we did some research on just the different types of pieces of content that consumers are engaged with, and I know social was right up there. Ann Marie, can you elaborate on what you guys found from that?Ann Marie:Totally. Yeah, happy to. So you're totally right. Social is the talk of the town right now. Typically, we see social referred traffic hit around 9-10% around the holidays, which is when you see all of those peak online numbers. But now that's just the usual during quarantine times when everybody's IRL lives have been pushed online. And through the snapshot research series that we did, where we surveyed thousands of consumers every two weeks to see how their shopping habits were changing, how their emotional states were changing over time. And we found that since the onset of the pandemic, 63% of US millennials, said they had made a purchase over social media.Ann Marie:So it's really turning into ... we like to call it the mall of the 21st century because social media platforms are where you can congregate with your friends, you can chat and you can discover new artists and new products. So as you called out before, we're seeing Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, all definitely cash in with awesome new features, which just continues fueling the fire. The easier it is to sign up for a product drop, or learn about a new makeup line, the more consumers flock to it, and then the more innovation these companies provide on the back end. So it really is exciting.Stephanie Postles:That's great. Are there any new channels that you guys saw popping up that maybe others wouldn't be aware of right now?Ann Marie:So one big trend that we're seeing, explode over in Asia was shoppable videos. So during the pandemic, I love this example because it was so wild to me. Rural farmers started live streaming their different produce because they no longer had access to things like farmers markets. And I believe the stat now is on ... In Taobao, we have over 50,000 rural farmers that will sell their different fruits and vegetables and produce to an online audience that will just see the video and immediately click tap and make the purchase. We even saw that Shanghai did their fashion week, all online where you could stream models coming down the runway, and immediately say, I definitely want that dress or those shoes and make the purchase in real time.Stephanie Postles:That's great. What platform was that, where you can actually click and make [inaudible 00:15:25]? Because I still feel like there's a bit of friction on some of the social platforms that I use anyways, that it's not always very easy to buy, I'm even thinking about Instagram, I follow a bunch of influencers, and they talked about the outfits but then you have to go to a different app to maybe find it, and then it opens up again in a different browser. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I don't even remember what I was looking for. So is there a different app? Maybe [inaudible] they're using it makes it more frictionless.Ann Marie:Totally. Yeah. So in China, it's all about Taobao. But in the US, we're starting to see tech companies make investments there. So Snapchat is now launching a bunch of shoppable like video series, where they will announce new product drops, and you can buy it in app. I know, Google has something in the works called Shoploop. And a couple other tech companies are starting to release new programs so that in the US or in Canada, we'll be able to have a more seamless experience. Because you're totally right. It feels like a webpage hopscotch where you just want to learn more about one product, and then you get rerouted, four different times, definitely not optimal.Stephanie Postles:And it's out of stock. Lop off.Ann Marie:Yeah. Don't get me started.Stephanie Postles:So with all these new tech investments that are being made, and a lot the larger players are investing in this area, is there anything that a brand can do to start preparing for this, either with their tech stack, or just making sure that they're ready when Google comes out with their new technology that can maybe be implemented? What should a brand be doing right now to prepare for this?Ann Marie:Totally. So I think one getting a sense of your audience and what they want. It's a very basic statement, but maybe you don't need to be the earliest adopter on this technology if your consumers aren't streaming as much videos. But I would say the most important thing is just one, you alluded to it earlier, but making sure you have a really solid set of ideas about what products you actually have, inventory and fulfillment, if this huge journey is just going to end up in an out of stock. That's a really bad experience. So I would say that before launching into shoppable videos, make sure you have a handle on the basics. And that's a huge issue we're seeing with fulfillment period, where stores are having a hard time getting a sense of where their inventory even is. Is it locked in a warehouse? Is that in a store, do they have it available? So I would say, step one, just make sure you have a solid order management system, a good handle on where your inventory is, and how you can access it before moving further down the road.Stephanie Postles:So if your inventory is a mess right now, and you're still like, this company is like, "Oh, man, I don't even know what to do, my retail store closed down." And like you mentioned, it's probably in a warehouse somewhere, but how much do I have? Our team hasn't been able to go there in a while. How would you recommend them starting from scratch right now to start building a good inventory system where they can tap into that, know what they have and not have out of stock issues that I have actually been seeing a ton recently?Caila Schwartz:That is a great question. I think it really first starts with a great order management system. And being able to share information across multiple systems. So thinking about data integration, and not having any data siloed of any one system and then implementing processes and procedures to make sure that you have the stock available in your stores, and then you have your emergency stock set up so that you're not servicing inventory visibility on the website that isn't truly there. When we think about the holiday season, inventory is a huge player because ... and a huge topic of conversation because fulfillment is going to be such a challenge, last mile delivery is going to be such a challenge. There's such a huge shift to digital. There's a huge shift in B2C parcel delivery right now.Caila Schwartz:The system is overloaded. So how does a brand or retailer get packages to consumers when they don't even know if they can rely on traditional parcel delivery? So thinking about moving inventory closest to the source of demand. And that's really all about utilizing your data, understanding where that demand lies, and getting it there and in order to facilitate shipping from store or fulfilling from store, and all of those things, or utilizing some of these newer tactics like crowdsourcing, Uber and Lyft, to deliver packages. So it really comes down to having a really great system, forecasting your demand, and not just forecasting your demand or forecasting where your demand is going to be, and making sure you put your inventory there. And making sure that all of your systems are able to communicate with each other so that you can have a really well rounded view of your customer, your organization and what steps you need.Caila Schwartz:You can then use that information to understand what necessary steps you need to do to get your business to where it needs to be in terms of inventory management.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I love that. It seems like there's definitely a lot of room for companies to look at their back end processes. I know we were we had a previous guest on the show that was talking about every order that comes in it has the rules behind the scene that say, "Okay, you're calling or you're buying from California, so pull from the warehouse in San Francisco. Or you're in Maryland pull from the D.C. one." And I had all that setup in the back end, but they had just recently implemented that. And it hadn't been something they had before. I'm like, "Wow, that's really smart. Why doesn't every company have that?" Because why would you ship something across the country if you could pull from a store or a warehouses that's right near that customer?Caila Schwartz:Exactly.Stephanie Postles:The other thing I was looking at right now was the average order value. And I was surprised to see on average that it had decreased in Q2 2020. And I guess I was a little bit surprised by that. Because I hear everyone's moving online, and people were buying a lot of new things that maybe they hadn't bought before, whether it's around toys and home improvement. There's a lot of new needs have sprung up when everyone's at home right now. So can you walk me through a bit about why the average order value went down in Q2?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I think that what we saw in Q2, we saw massive growth in digital spend. So 71% year over year growth in actual spend. So people were buying more, or buying more online. What's interesting about AOV, its average order value per order. What we saw, at least in terms of consumer behavior in Q2 was a shift to ... Yes, there was the essential purchasing, which happened in March. But in Q2, we saw a shift towards non essential purchasing. And so there was this cup for purchases.Stephanie Postles:That was on me.Caila Schwartz:Yeah.Stephanie Postles:I want a new make up, I don't know why. I don't go anywhere, but I want it now.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. So, I probably have a package coming every day from Amazon, like "Oh, look at this cool new contraption. Let's try it out."Stephanie Postles:[inaudible] the dopamine now, we can't go in and see people and have fun conversations. So we just want a new package every day.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. So I think that what we saw this decrease in average order value is really a function of people just placing a quick hit order, a satisfying psychological needs to ... just seeing like, your Amazon guy or your UPS deliverer show up was like, "So exciting."Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Hi, friends, how you doing?Caila Schwartz:Exactly. So I think there is a component of that. And so I think when people are ordering more frequently, or average order value tends to be lower. Also, what we do know is that average order value on phones tends to be lower. And so we saw significant increase in mobile orders, like I said before, makes up the majority of orders by device, when we look at it compared to computers and tablets. So consumers are likely not doing a big shopping list on their phones, they're watching TV and scrolling their social feeds and buying. So I think that was a function of that type of behavior. And that's why [inaudible] probably dipped a little bit in Q2.Stephanie Postles:Got it.Ann Marie:But I will say that we might expect this to change too because the reality is very similar to you both where I'll have a different package coming in every day. But that's incredibly expensive for retailers, if you think about all those shipping costs, and then layer on the fact that a lot of logistics companies are ramping up their prices for the holiday season. So I think increasingly we're going to see retailers implement more bundling, or just higher minimums, to make it worth all of those shipping fees. So we're watching their numbers closely to see, of course for the holiday season next quarter and the quarter after that, how the average order value does evolve over time.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that's really interesting thinking about a lot of people right now do want things, even if they're smaller and are starting to get used to that two day shipping and free shipping, I know at least myself want to go somewhere. And it's like, pretty high order value to get free shipping, and like, sometimes I'll just like give up and go look somewhere else. So it seems like there's an interesting balancing act between making sure that you're running a business in a profitable way, and that you're figuring out how to ship things and not just shipping these little one off things here and there, but then also not scaring away your customer to where they come in and they're like, "Whoa, $75 minimum before free shipping." I don't know, that's too much.Stephanie Postles:Another thing I wanted to, anyway, maybe you can touch on a bit more is the snapshot series you were mentioning. You talked about how you were getting a read on consumers every two weeks, but I didn't hear too many details around what you were actually seeing now versus maybe even a couple months ago or last year, like what are the biggest changes that you've seen among consumer buying behavior and sentiment?Ann Marie:Sure, yeah. I think some of the biggest jumps were, So a couple of things we were tracking was adoption of new shopping habits. And so it's no surprise to hear that curbside pickup or buy online pick up in store rocketed up in popularity alongside contact, plus payments. But it was really great to see numbers to those statements. So in the initial weeks of the pandemic, we saw curbside pickup grow, I think it was close to 38% in popularity as entirely new categories of shoppers, I'm thinking my older parents were trying these new means of getting the essentials home. But another really cool thing that we tracked and we saw evolve over the course of the pandemic itself too, which is priorities. So one of the questions we were asking and tracking was when it comes to loyalty or how you choose which brands and retailers to purchase from, what are some of the most important factors?Ann Marie:And early on when we're hearing a lot about core years and unrest with certain brands and their shipping practices, and health concerns, one of the top priorities and be more loyal to a brand was how they were treating their employees. And over time, we saw that shift to a more, I would call it inventory focus and also accessibility focus, meaning that the number one reason to shop with a certain brand at the end of the day was, do they have everything I need in one place? Because those out of stock notifications were definitely driving everyone crazy.Stephanie Postles:So when you said how they were treating employees, what do you mean by that? Because when I walk into the store, I probably wouldn't know or when I'm looking at a e commerce shop, I don't think I would really know how they're treating their employees. Like I wouldn't have the nitty gritty. So what do you think people are looking for when they're looking for that metric to stay loyal to a brand?Ann Marie:Sure, yeah. So for that, it was employee health and wellness. So are they ensuring that people are wearing masks? Are the hours reasonable? It's not something that you would necessarily see [inaudible] aside from the mask when walking into a store, but there are a ton of news reports and of course, I won't name names here, but there are a lot of news reports about disgruntled employees having to work overtime or not having the same health benefits during the crisis and yet having extremely public facing roles if you think about in-store associates at a grocery store or a pharmacy. And so that was something that rubbed consumers the wrong way and did impact some purchasing habits. But over time really, that number one reason to be loyal to a new brand or website was about of course price, but really number one was availability and in stock.Stephanie Postles:Earlier you mentioned these new customers that are coming online and had been coming online the past couple months. How are you guys thinking about retaining those customers? Are they going to be here after the pandemic is over? Will these new shoppers still be wanting contactless delivery and being able to pick up curbside? Is this going to stay or do you think quite a few of them are going to revert back to their old habits?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I can take this one on. We know from our research and looking at our data that whenever we see big spikes in digital adoption, which is historically typically seen in the holiday shopping season, but more specifically CyberWeek, we see huge rates of digital adoption during this weeks. And what we know is that when consumers adopt new digital behaviors, they tend to stick around. So every holiday season, we see a huge surge in that new digital shoppers. And at the end of every season, we see what we call a new digital baseline. So it's like a weird set of stairs, where digital spend, digital traffic is pretty flat for most of the year. And then during CyberWeek, it spikes way up. And then it starts to fall towards the end of the season. And then once we hit January 1, it spikes back down. But it never goes back down to the level that it was before CyberWeek.Caila Schwartz:So we see it's like a stepping stone or set of stairs. It just keeps creeping up after every CyberWeek. So what this tells us is that consumers are adopting behavior that they might not have otherwise adopted, if they had not been enticed to shop online. And they're shopping online because there's a lot of great deals online, there's a lot of incentives online, there's a reason to know no longer ... not say no longer, but people aren't lining up outside of their local stores at 5 am on Black Friday anymore. It's becoming less and less of a thing, because people can shop from anywhere all throughout CyberWeek and get great deals from the comfort of their homes.Caila Schwartz:And so what we know from that is that when consumers adopt new digital habits, they don't typically just go away. And yes, people will want to go back to the store, but the conveniences of curbside, especially for buying groceries and other types of goods are really going to ... I don't think we're going backwards, we saw buy online pick up in store search to really take hold last year and that was a non pandemic year. So I think that what's happening in 2020, none of this is going away and it's going to continue to ... it's not going to accelerate at the same pace, but people are still going to retain these behaviors that they've learned.Stephanie Postles:I think that's a really interesting point too when it comes to thinking about if a brand is starting to see that there may be having higher profitability when it comes to maybe mobile orders, or they're just seeing higher conversions or something, maybe giving the consumer an even bigger reason to shop a certain way so that they can retain them in the long term. Because it seems like once you get them there, then you've captured them on that platform. And if you have a platform that you prefer them to order on or a certain way to order, it seems like they might want to incentivize them to do that, even if it is having a slightly higher sale price or something to bring them there, so then they can have that customer longer term where they want them, if that makes sense.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. It's all about the entire customer journey too. It's not even just about that purchase, it's about thinking, how do you engage that consumer and provide them with great content? And that was something that we really saw come out of the pandemic through those Instagram Live sessions. You could take a class of the loo lemon superstar, like athlete, and do that live on your phone. How cool is that?Caila Schwartz:We saw these really great pieces of engagement that came out of it. And then not only that, but thinking about how you service that customer after the sale, and making sure that you're offering many different types of ways to resolve problems, whether it's through a self service type of a knowledge base, or live chat or bots to really like ... bots might seem impersonal but sometimes people just want to know like, where's my order? How do I return? And it's things that you can really offload easily so that you can focus on giving a really great personalized experience to some of your more challenging cases and so really thinking about retaining the customer after the sales, just thinking about the entire journey, recognizing that it's not linear, there's a lot of different paths and twists and turns that that shopper is taking, and continuing to be there for that customer and embedding yourself where they are.Stephanie Postles:Love that. Ann Marie, what were you going to hop in and say?Ann Marie:Just to wrap up the last statement in terms of, are people going back to normal? The reality is that, at least in the United States, plenty of states are re-opening. And we're seeing in the shopping index that instead of, there's this huge climb of hockey stick growth in terms of digital orders, but it's not going back to normal. It's not bell shaped at all. It's exactly as Caila described that leveling off in that step shape. And one question that we had asked earlier on in the pandemic is, do you think you'll go back to buying in person after all of this is over? And we found that at 60% of consumers said that they were likely to continue buying essential goods online [inaudible] subsided. So there's definitely a significant amount of stickiness there.Stephanie Postles:That's great. Were there any surprises in the data or anything maybe? I don't know if you guys ask long form questions or get answers in that format, but anything surprising, or funny or interesting, that you weren't expecting?Caila Schwartz:Ah, that's a good one. Ann Marie, do you have anything that surprised you?Ann Marie:It's funny how none of these trends are brand new, right? Like Caila mentioned, buy online pick up in store has been around, so has contactless purchases and buying online. It's really just the sheer acceleration of all of these habits that was mind blowing to actually see in the numbers. So our data set contains the clicks and taps of over a billion shoppers. And we saw that data set increased by 40%. So we saw 40% net new online shoppers since the pandemic. And so well, yes. We know that people obviously are doing more shopping online as their quarantine, it was really wild to quantify it in that way.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that's great. Yeah, very interesting to see. So, I want you guys to predict the future now. So what are you thinking Q3 results are going to look like?Caila Schwartz:Well, we're digging into Q3 right now as we speak. So we just ended Q3 yesterday. So I don't have any updates to share yet. But looking at the data, initially, a few weeks ago, and seeing where we were, we're still we still see a massive acceleration to digital. And we saw huge, huge growth in Q2, we're seeing a little bit of a leveling off in Q3. I think it's a function of people just not shopping as much for back to school this year, because a lot of kids are home, and also waiting on a heavy promotion filled fall and winter.Caila Schwartz:The growth is still very significant, much greater than we typically see in Q3. And so while I don't know final numbers, I think we're going to see a lot of the trends that we saw in Q2 continue to shift into Q3.Stephanie Postles:That would be good to see. Ann Marie, anything to add?Ann Marie:One trend that I'm excited to continue tracking frankly for next quarter is just this embrace of social. So, not only are consumers really flocking to buy new products, signing up for product drops, but the flat platform forums themselves. And brands themselves are doing such cool things on different social media platforms. The other day, I saw Marc Jacobs was launching a new product, and they had this huge Zoom party and you could walk into different Zoom Rooms.Ann Marie:And one of them, you could get your portrait done over Zoom video. Yeah. And so they had a lot of great user generated content, because people were tweeting about their portraits and Charlotte Tilbury, which is a makeup brand, they're doing these free 10 minute makeup tutorials that you can have either over FaceTime, or they can just stream it as well to learn how to bedazzle your eye just because eye makeup is where it's at now that half of our faces are covered with masks. So, the creativity is something that I'm just amped to see especially as we gear up for the holiday.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that's a really good reminder to figure out how to stand out like that, because there are a lot of creative things you can do, you just have to think differently about the platforms that you can utilize. So, that's really fun thinking about the Zoom Rooms. I also think it's interesting thing about how you can maybe leverage influencers and incentivize them to sell for you through these platforms. So like you're mentioning with the makeup videos, how can you have maybe people that you can tap into to do maybe one on one quick tutorials to people so they walk away with an experience that they're like, "wow, that was memorable. And I'm going to talk about it right afterwards," to get that UPC content.Ann Marie:Absolutely, yep. Influencers are a huge plan. We're seeing a lot of video views coming in from influencers more so than brands themselves. So it's definitely a powerful tool to rely on. A trusted advocate for your brand to draw people to your content.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, completely agree.Stephanie Postles:All right. Cool. I will jump into the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce commerce cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you both a question, and you have a minute or less to answer. But I should probably just give you 30 seconds or less to answer since there's two of you. Are you ready?Caila Schwartz:Yes. I hope so.Stephanie Postles:All right. Caila, I'll start with you. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Caila Schwartz:Oh, I'm going to say that fulfillment. Fulfillment, last mile will have the biggest impact on ecommerce.Stephanie Postles:All right, Ann Marie.Ann Marie:You know what? I was going to have the same answer. So definitely fulfillment and also continually improving that checkout flow make it as easy as possible to get shoppers from their daydream product to having it at home.Stephanie Postles:Yep, completely agree. All right, what's up next on your reading list? Ann Marie first.Ann Marie:Oh man, for commerce or in general?Stephanie Postles:In general.Ann Marie:Oh my goodness. So, I just started a new book called On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, which is the story of an immigrant moving to the US. And it's like a journey of self discovery. And it's really beautiful. So highly recommend.Stephanie Postles:I like that. That sounds good. I have to check it out. Caila, how about you?Caila Schwartz:I have two children. So my reading list these days consists of children's books.Stephanie Postles:[inaudible] there.Caila Schwartz:Pete The Cat is up next tonight.Stephanie Postles:I like it.Caila Schwartz:Oh, yeah. We're all booked with the cat.Stephanie Postles:I'll have to check that out. [inaudible] all about Max and Ruby over here. So I'm trying something new to get away from that.Caila Schwartz:Kitty Cat, it's like straight out of the 1970s. They use a lot of like, it's groovy.Stephanie Postles:Oh my God.Caila Schwartz:So, my four year old is running around saying, "It's groovy."Stephanie Postles:I like that. Bring it back.Caila Schwartz:Yeah.Stephanie Postles:[inaudible] turns back. That's good. What about commerce news? What kind of things do you all pay attention to stay on top of the trends other than internal research?Caila Schwartz:I'll go first. Say definitely there's a lot of commerce experts on Twitter. I love just scrolling through Twitter and seeing what the sentiment is and what people are talking about. It really gets a good pulse check on that to see what other industry leaders are thinking about. And I'm a data nerd, so I love reading through like e-marketer and statistics and seeing what the latest results are.Stephanie Postles:Great, Ann Marie.Ann Marie:Yeah, I would say, Twitter is a great curated view of what's hot. I love following Michelle Grant, Jason Goldberg, Brendon Witcher. But in addition to that, I do stay on top of a lot of the data, but I have a definite favorite newsletter and that's Retail Brew. It comes out a couple times a week, it's incredibly well written, really thought out, and it's not necessarily about being the first to report on a trend but they go really deep. So, it's a really great explanation to what's going on and why.Stephanie Postles:I like that. Yeah, a lot of people are ready to do newsjocky type of newsletters, and I like the ones that actually go deep on topic where I walk away and learn something from it.Ann Marie:Same. Absolutely.Stephanie Postles:What's Up next on your Netflix queue? Ann Marie first.Ann Marie:I would say I haven't been Netflixing. I've been trying to get away from the screens as much as possible.Stephanie Postles:That's good. That can be an answer. That's good. Caila, what about you?Caila Schwartz:Great question. So I recently heard of this on the radio this morning, actually, after dropping my kids off at daycare. There's this true crime series. I think it's called The Family Next Door.Stephanie Postles:Yeah.Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I heard it was really interesting and creepy. I'm going to try and convince my husband to watch that later.Stephanie Postles:What is your favorite ecommerce tool that you see people using or that you may be tested out a bit that you think is really impactful?Caila Schwartz:You want to go first Ann Marie?Ann Marie:Sure. Yeah, I would say I have a lot of fun with the AR like makeup try ons. I think they've come a long way. So big fan of L'Oreal's ModiFace. And also just Apple Pay. It sounds really nice. It could be able to just scan my finger and then just have everything be checked out and done with instead of filling out 100 different fields and messing up my zip code has made my life as a shopper much better.Stephanie Postles:That frictionless experience, just like you said, super important.Ann Marie:You have it.Stephanie Postles:What about you, Caila?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I'm a big Apple Pay lover, because I do most of my shopping on my phone. So I love just being able to double tap and be on my merry way. And I have to go find my credit card hidden somewhere under the couches. But for me, I love them. So I am a terrible decorator. And so I get all my ideas from Instagram. So I love being able to use the searchable images. So you can search the image and they'll make recommendations. Wayfair has an app that does this. It'll pick out recommendations from your catalog based on the image that you put into the search box, and so I think that's so cool, because I've been able to find a lot of things that like, oh, where do you source this? How do you find this? Who carries this? So I think that's a really cool feature that I am totally loving these days.Stephanie Postles:I love that. Alright, and the last one, if we were to have a Caila and Anne Marie podcast, what would you both want to talk about? What would the show be about and who was your first guest be? This is where you have to collaborate a bit.Ann Marie:Oh, wow. Oh, boy, Caila should it be the highs and the lows of social media or what are you thinking? We have a lot of conversations about this.Stephanie Postles:Oh, it sounds like there's already one brewing behind then.Ann Marie:Always up to something.Caila Schwartz:I know, right? Yeah. We've definitely had a few rounds of the impact of social, positive and negative.Stephanie Postles:That would be a good one. And who would your guest be for that?Caila Schwartz:If we could have anybody?Stephanie Postles:Anyone.Caila Schwartz:Oh, man. Well, you could just go right to the top and get Mark Zuckerberg and ...Stephanie Postles:There you go. Yeah, why not? We'll get him on.Ann Marie:Let's do it.Caila Schwartz:Yeah c'mon.Stephanie Postles:I'm on the new show. I like it. That's a good one. Okay. But Ann Marie, this has been a very fun roundtable. Thank you for being my first guest to try this out with me. Where can people find out more about the shopping index and your work and the two of you?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, well, we are both on Twitter, where we publish all of our content. My handle is Caila Schwartz. I also launched an Instagram page. We're publishing all of this content as well. It's called Data_Candy, Data underscore Candy so you can follow along with me there. Ann Marie, what about you?Ann Marie:Sure. Twitter's a great place to find me @AviAnnMarie. So, A-V-I-A-N-N-M-A-R-I-E. And also check out Salesforce's blog, Caila and I are always writing up the what it means behind all of the data on the shopping index. So you could do a quick Google search for Caila Schwartz or Ann Marie Aviles at Salesforce blog to see the latest in commerce trends.Stephanie Postles:Love that. Thanks so much for joining.

Haven’t had a chance to listen to our first 50 episodes yet? Never fear, you’ve got time and they’re not going anywhere. In the meantime, we’ve created an epic recap episode to keep you up to date with this ever-changing world. Throughout the first 50 episodes of Up Next in Commerce, we’ve chatted with some of the fastest-growing startups - like Thrive Market and Haus - to the more well-known companies like Puma, Rosetta Stone, Bombas, and HP. Our guests have shared everything from their toughest lessons, to their secrets to success, to the must-know advice for every ecomm leader. And while every company is different and every story unique, over the last 50 episodes, several common themes have emerged. On today’s special episode of Up Next in Commerce, host Stephanie Postles is joined by Albert Chou, the VP of Operations at Mission.org, to dive into some of these top trends.The two discuss the supply chain shakeups companies have had to face this year, and they do a deep dive into the world of influencers and how brands can work with them in a way that leads to lasting ROI. Plus, they look into their crystal balls to try to predict how DTC companies will work with and compete against Amazon, debate on how voice search will impact shopping, and discuss what the future of shoppable worlds might look like. Main Takeaways:Supply Chain Shakeups: Everyone is competing against the hard-to-match expectations set by Amazon — but it’s not all about fast shipping. Processing returns effectively and managing every step of the supply chain so you are left with margins that actually allow you to grow are the main areas that all retailers are, and will continue to be, focused on. I’ll Take One Order of Influencers: Because influencer marketing has become so in demand, there are more strategies than ever to try to get the most ROI out of influencers. What is likely to happen in the future is the creation of a marketplace where brands can buy verified influencers, who are themselves driving the demand for more upfront payment.  Make It Worth It: Building an omnichannel strategy is about more than just offering a brick and mortar location for people to buy your products. Today’s shoppers are looking for experiences that are memorable and entertaining. But it’s important that while brands create those memorable experiences, they don’t forget that little goal of converting potential customers into real buyers.Turning Virtual Into Reality: Shoppable video and the increased offerings of digital products is going to set the stage for future commerce. The next generation is already using real cash to buy virtual products for their avatars in various games. In years to come, not only will you have the option for your avatar to have that virtual product, the real-life version will be offered in tandem for the user behind the screen.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone, and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Today, it's a new and interesting episode where I have our VP of ops, Albert Chou on the show, where we're going to go through the previous 50 episodes and talk about highlights, and then talk about future trends that maybe no one has talked about on the show so far. Albert, welcome.Albert:Yeah, thanks for having me. But to be clear, we're not going to go by the 50 episodes one by one because-Stephanie:We're doing one by one.Albert:No, that's terrible. We can't do it. Cannot do it.Stephanie:So, Albert, tell our listeners why did I invite you on the show?Albert:Well, I do have my own ecommerce business, www.[inaudible 00:00:41].com, I've also helped out on a couple others. The biggest one got to 10 million a year. And I worked for an ecommerce startup. One of the co-founders was a guest on the show AddShoppers. So, been working in the game of ecommerce probably since 2016 and still operating today, so learned from painful mistakes, as well as seeing other people have great success.Stephanie:Yeah, you always have some really good feedback and comments on our prep docs. Our amazing producer, Hilary, will put together an awesome prep doc for every episode for me, and then you come in along with all your other job responsibilities at mission, with the VP of ops, you do everything here, but you also come in and add some good questions and comments, and that's why I thought it would be fun to bring you on. So, thanks for hopping on here with me.Albert:Yeah, let's do it.Stephanie:So, to start, I thought we could kind of go through just some high level trends, because through all the episodes that I've had and all the guests we've had on the show so far, there's actually quite a bit of similarities that I heard. And starting with the first one, I think talking about supply chains is really interesting, because so many of the guests who've come on have talked about the shake up in supply chains that they've seen and how they're kind of pivoting and what they're experiencing, and I think that might be a good place to start.Albert:Well, when they talk about supply chain, everyone's competing against what Amazon has created, right? Amazon has created this expectation that you can get what you want, when you want it pretty darn fast. And so if you're any direct consumer brand, or any brand out there, if you're a retailer, that's what's becoming the now norm, right? Can you send it to your customer really fast, and can you take it back? That's like probably the most painful part of ecommerce is the fact that you do have a percentage of tolerance for returns. So, the tighter your supply chain is, the more margins you can create in the process, the more able you can take a return without losing everything. So, it makes total sense that every business is trying to figure this out, how to get closer to the consumer, how to make things closer to the customer, how to make sure that they can take back whatever is being sent back. So, it's just matching what the new customer expectation is.Stephanie:Yeah. I think it was also very interesting, talking to the ShipBob guy where he was talking about how you can basically tap into different fulfillment centers by using them, whereas before, everything with COVID, a lot of people actually were shipping all the way across the country and not really looking at maybe location based ordering. Maybe some people were, but I found that kind of a good shake up that now people are starting to think about how to do things more efficiently and how also not just to rely on one supply chain, because a lot of them maybe are going out of business right now, a lot of the warehouses are having issues, there's a lot of inventory issues. So, it's good to have not all your eggs in one basket.Albert:So, it's not just that. So, there's companies out there that are investing into logistics infrastructure specifically for other people to share. So, similar to ShipBob, there's other competitors in that field. But it goes further than that. If you take a look at some of the publicly traded companies, one of the larger ecommerce platforms, they have invested heavily in infrastructure and warehousing. I know that ChannelAdvisor did the same exact thing. They literally bought a warehousing logistics company. And ChannelAdvisor, for the longest time, has been a company that helps you as a merchant, list your products across the different marketplaces. So, if Stephanie's t-shirt company wants to list their product across Amazon, they want to list it across Rakuten, they want to list it across eBay, and maybe some others, she would still have to ship and fulfill from her own store.Albert:Now, why did ChannelAdvisor build that tool so you can list one product and get it plugged in everywhere? So, why did they invest in all these warehousing companies? Now, it hasn't come to full service yet but you can kind of see it down the road like the supply chain is where the innovation is going to occur. And I think you're going to continue to see that, you're going to see more entrance in it, and it's just non stop, that race will never stop. Basically, a customer can never get something fast enough. You know what I mean? There's always going to be this push to get it there faster.Stephanie:Yeah. It's also interesting hearing about certain companies trying to compete with shipping models against Amazon and trying to have one in two day shipping. It feels like such a hard thing to create from scratch now, but if you can figure that out, you're going to win.Albert:So, I don't know if you know this, Steph. I've also sold through FBA Amazon.Stephanie:I think you told me that?Albert:Do you know [crosstalk 00:05:37]?Stephanie:What did you sell, first of all?Albert:It was an adult card game.Stephanie:I don't want to hear anymore. This is a kid friendly show.Albert:It was not kid friendly. But how it worked is, so I got my order in China, and I had 5,000 pieces, literally shipped it to an FBA Center in New Jersey, never touched the product, and then Amazon automatically redistributed it across as its fulfillment network. And I would get updates like, "Oh, we're moving two boxes to Texas." "Why?" Because we predict, in Texas, someone will buy this, and therefore by moving it closer to the customer, we can reduce the shipping with our internal [crosstalk 00:06:20]."Stephanie:Do you have an influence over that prediction model.Albert:No.Stephanie:Because now more than ever, I'm like, how can anyone predict anything? I mean, there was a really good quote about like, should we be preparing for more people to buy Inkjet printers because they're all working from home, or extra freezers to prepare for the worst? It feels like there's no way to predict for that, so how do they even know that there's a couple in Texas who might want that?Albert:So, add to cart. I think add to cart is what they're doing, right? They're looking at how many people are adding to cart and then they're also looking at the percentage of conversion over time of people who do add to cart. So, if you see a bunch of cart adds for this product or a bunch of search volume increasing for a product in a specific area, you can automatically assume that that product is going to be in demand in that area. They've probably gotten it down to a super exact science.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm not going to question them. I'm sure they got it.Albert:Yeah. And since they're always moving products within their own fulfillment network everywhere, they see that there's a probability that this is going to happen, they just move it closer to you so that when they finally rely on last mile logistics, they've got it as close as possible so that they don't have to pay so much.Stephanie:Yeah, that makes sense. All right. So, the next one I want to kind of move into is influencers. So, first, we did a survey of our audience and a lot of people wanted to hear about influencers. How do I use influencers? What's a good way to actually get a good ROI on it? And a lot of our guests actually mentioned influencers as well. Some people were trying it out and were like, "I don't actually know if this is even working." Other people were having great success but were trying different models. So, I don't know if you've listened to the fancy.com CEO, Greg Spillane episode.Albert:I did.Stephanie:Okay. Well, first of all, that guy's a badass. I mean, making that company his stories. Like did you hear about how he went into a warehouse or a storage locker and found a bunch of credit cards that the founders were giving away with like $1,000 on it, and they were just giving it away to influencers just to try and get them to use fancy.com? Did you hear some of the stories that he was going through about what he experienced when coming into the company to try and turn it around?Albert:I mean, it's the classic, right? It's the classic problem in marketing, right? You're pretty sure some of it is going to work, some people say it's up to half, you just don't know which half, right? And so you're just blowing money trying to get more movement, but I get what they were originally trying to do makes total sense. I mean, you read about the stories of businesses like Gymshark, which built their whole business model off of influencers, and I think they just got a private equity valuation into the billions, so everyone wants to jump on that train.Albert:The problem is influencers themselves have created this marketplace, right? So, if you claim you're an influencer, and you have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, now influencers, they don't want to work on commission, they want to work on upfront fees. So, there's this new network which you're now going to see tools come into place of helping merchants buy influence. And so that's the next wave, right? Because I mean, there's a lot of influencers that are frauds or they have no influence on their audience whatsoever, they just have a big Instagram following for whatever reason.Stephanie:Yeah. They just [crosstalk 00:09:30].Albert:That's why the merchants are so frustrated.Stephanie:Oh, yeah. I mean, it's hard to know. You can see someone with a million followers, and something that I saw that was actually a good reminder for anyone with a small business was they're talking about how you can see if those followers have an intent to buy. So, if you have some influencer on there and they're showcasing some purse, or some lipstick, or whatever it might be, and the people in the comments are like, "Oh cute," or, "Pretty" or just liking it, they actually don't have followers who have an intent to buy. Versus you might see more micro influencers, like people that follow from around the area or something, and the people in those comments are like, "Where do I get that jacket from?" Like, "Please link up your shirt."Stephanie:And those are the kind of influences you want to go after because you actually know that if you're in front of their audience, they're ready to buy because they trust that person, which seems like it's kind of shifting, whereas before it was like just get the big name, the big followers, and now it's more like, "Let's make sure we get an ROI. How do we make sure to track this stuff and see some good conversions from it?"Albert:Yeah. I mean, you don't know what you don't know, so all you're looking at is what you assume is a big audience. And so that's the biggest misconception in social media, it doesn't determine their purchasing behaviors. It's just, "I like this person because I think she looks good, or I think he looks good, or I think he's funny. I'm not going to buy anything.Stephanie:Yeah, I can definitely see tools coming out soon, or maybe they're already out in the world, showing like here are kind of the demographics of this person's followers. So, you can sign up with an influencer and also see the income level, the job title, so you know that what you're getting with that influencer is going to have good results because you can see the profile of their followers.Albert:So, interesting, right? Platforms now that are creating marketplaces of influencers. So, I'll name one. We have not had their CEO on the show, but grin.co, you should join the show.Stephanie:[crosstalk] here.Albert:Yeah. GRIN is pretty fascinating, because they've built this marketplace where you as a merchant can then log in and you can see all the influencers, you can search by category. Let's say I want surfing, or you want food, or you want outdoor, whatever it is you want, it'll pull up a list of influencers and then it'll show the basic vanity metrics. But it also has ratings of probability of sale, because they've already maybe done a campaign for another brand, so you as a brand kind of see those numbers. Now, the problem always is, as a consumer is, you kind of always get drawn to the big numbers, right? So, you'll see like, let's say, the superstar TikToker, girl Charli D'Amelio. How do you pronounce her last name? D'Amelio?Stephanie:I don't know, and I'm surprised you know anyone on TikTok.Albert:But Charli D'Amelio, you'll see her name and it'll show you significant likelihood to influence dollars, it'll be significant, right? But then as a brand, you have to determine can you afford her, because she doesn't tweet or TikTok for you for nothing, right? It'll be hilarious. It'll say her agency, and of course, she's repped by a huge agency. So, that's where even tools like that, the problem is, let's say, the signal to noise ratio is still overwhelmingly noise and the ones that have tremendous signal, well, the problem is you can't afford it. So, I think the tools have to try to figure out by budget, almost, like how much ROI are you going to get per $1,000 of spend or something like that? That's probably going to be the next wave of measurement.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think also the platforms are trying to catch up to be able to actually attribute sales to these influencers. I know TikTok is trying to do that right now. Instagram's been trying to do that, but I think they are still implementing a lot of features to actually allow the influencers to get paid. So, I think with that, you'll see a whole new wave of new influencers and micro influencers as well because now they can actually get paid.Stephanie:I mean, I saw someone, they were talking about some... I think it was some coffee mug or, I don't know, a cup or something on TikTok, and it was on Amazon, but didn't have any links or anything, and it sold out on Amazon because this one girl was talking about the functionality of it and how much she liked it, and people were like, "Oh, how do I buy through your link? I want to make sure you get a cut of it." And she was like, "I don't need that. I just review stuff because it's fun." And so it's interesting seeing how you have influencers who really do care about that attribution and won't work without it versus the people who maybe are big influencers but aren't actually looking for that, at least not right off the bat, or maybe because there's friction right now, with setting up that model.Albert:Well, I think the bigger you get as an influencer, the more you could charge for your time than results. So, if you're a superstar, like, let's go with professional athletes, the original influencers, right? If you're LeBron James, you're Michael Jordan and someone wants to buy your name, you just charge them for the name. Like you're like, "I don't know if you'll get $1 of sales, I'm just telling you right now that I'm not repping your product unless you pay me this much money." Right?Albert:So, it's still this push and pull where brands want all this information, they want to know your audience, they want to know all that stuff, and then influencers themselves are getting so big. Like, we're reading about how these people on TikTok, kids, I call them kids, I'm old, but they're making 100 grand a month, and that's considered an average influencer. What are talking about? 100 grand a month to make TikTok dance videos, and yeah. So, I can see a brand wanting to be like, "Well, how much will I get for sales," and I can just see how tough it is when the kid on the other end says, "Well, I won't TikTok dance for you for under 100,000."Stephanie:I just read that the next generation is getting paid more than ever right now, not just for being influencers but just for a lot of things. They're demanding higher payment than any other generation before them. That's good, good intense though.Albert:Yeah. Listen, ask for whatever you want. If you can get it, you might as well ask for it. Why not?Stephanie:Very, very true. So, I think the high level summary for that one then it's just that most brands should be exploring influencers in your market, but also making sure that you're setting up the ROI and tracking it correctly, and maybe looking for those new tools that are coming out or that are already out to make sure that wherever you're devoting your budget to you actually can track it, where in the past maybe it wasn't as required by your company or yourself to have that many metrics behind it, but now you actually can, so I think it's worthwhile.Albert:Yeah. I actually think some of our other guests that really talked about investing significantly into the product and making sure that the customer experience from the moment that they sign up, to buy it, to they receive it, that that experience is airtight, because that's where you're going to find your influencers, right? I think a couple of the men's shaving companies like Supply and Beard Brand talked about how they built a community of people who move these products. Well, that's the ultimate influence right there, right? Constant good reviews of your products. And if you get lucky enough to find a Dogface 208, then you win. Albert:Dogface is the guy that skateboarded while singing Fleetwood Mac and drinking cranberry juice.Albert:Well, cranberry juice sales, all time high. So, this wasn't a paid campaign or paid activation, sales are at an all time high. They're talking about it might see Wisconsin cranberry farming industry. That's how much in demand cranberry juice is right now. So, if you have a great product, your likelihood of catching a wave I think is much greater than if you're just constantly paying influencers.Stephanie:Yeah. And I like that idea of make sure all your other ducks are in a row first before you start going after influencers. I think we've had a couple of guests who talked about you really need to make sure everything from start to finish, to unboxing, to follow up, that needs to be airtight before you start trying a bunch of other things, because then you are at risk of getting distracted and actually not being able to focus on, not only your core product, but also your customer experience.Albert:You got it.Stephanie:All right. So, the other thing that I think was interesting that a lot of people have talked about is, of course, like omnichannel, and one of our guests is talking about the reinvention of brick and mortar stores, and talking about how it's now turning to be more about experiential experiences instead of just going there to buy something, because so many people now are shifting to a place where they're actually very comfortable buying online, even if they never did before, and going into the store is more about having a good experience and something to draw them in there versus actually making a purchase in store. I think it's all about experiences now and people are going to expect something very different going forward than they ever expected before.Albert:Yeah. I mean, that's the magic question, right? People are trying to... I've read articles about re-envisioning the mall of the future. If I think about current present retailers that are doing a pretty good job, I mean, obviously, Apple Store seems to be like one of the leaders where I had not admittedly walked by an apple store recently, but I do remember back when I did, six months ago, there were a lot of people in there, a lot of people in there touching the products, getting a feel of the products, they made it a very hands-on experience. I can think of other businesses that have done a really good job. Like, why does every Bass Pro Shops have a giant aquarium in the middle of the store? Because they want you to go and look at it. You know what I mean? To pull you in. They know you're a hobbyist. So, I don't know how good businesses are going to be at doing that, but I know that they're all trying. I mean, they have to.Stephanie:Yeah, yeah. I mean, when we had little burgundy shoes on, they were talking about how they were actually partnering with other people, other shops or people that are on the same street as them, even if it was a bank they're partnering with, and they were kind of doing giveaways or doing just different social business events or things like that, to make sure to get people in the store because they're like, "We don't really mind if you buy, but just coming in and getting that customer experience that we have, and being able to get in the vibe of the music, and actually experiencing our brand, even if it's only for a moment, is worth so much more than... Buying online is important, but we also want you to know who we are, and if that means partnering with other brands around us to give you an added benefit..." I mean, that's where I can see a lot of other brands doing that partnership strategy to try and get different customers that you would maybe never touch before in the same place.Albert:Yeah. Really, it remains to be seen that it'll work, because I always think, when I hear about the people with the rain experience, I don't question it at all, but I think also to Borders Books or Barnes and Nobles books, I felt like those are really inviting places. They got nice couches, good coffee, it smelled great, there's always baked goods there, you can read whatever magazine you wanted, or check out books, and they never kicked you out or nothing if you're hanging out there, but it didn't work. There weren't enough people buying the books, they were just chilling, I guess. So, I guess that's the real delicate balance, which is how do you educate, entertain and inform but also do it so much in a way that a person purchases the product versus, I don't know, coming in there and staying all day long?Stephanie:Yeah. That makes me wonder just about the business model, though, of like, are you encouraging people to buy, because... I mean, I don't know how the Amazon bookstores are doing now, but when I went in to them when we were in Seattle, it was just a very different experience because what you could get in the store was not what you can get online, not what you would get at any other bookstore, because there was actually, "Here's a review that we picked out," so you can kind of get a feel for this book, or, "Here's some of our top charting books right in front of you."Stephanie:So, it was kind of like it was bringing an online experience offline as well but in a very different way where I wanted to go in there, I wanted to hang out, but then I also found myself buying online afterwards. I was taking pictures of books and then I was just going on Amazon and buying. So, it seems like they figured it out there, and they don't have too much inventory to where they're holding a bunch of books and expecting them to sell, but it seems like it needs to move more to that model instead of thousands of books hoping someone comes in and buys.Albert:I can see that in a more curated... I know Amazon's experimenting with their five star stores where it's only physical products that have earned an average of four and a half, five stars. So, it's more of a curated experience, which is what we're more used to online, instead of looking at your whole catalog of crap, we see exactly what we're looking at what we want to see or the best stuff right up front.Stephanie:Yeah. And that's also something a lot of guests have mentioned, it's about that personalized experience and making sure that what you're showing the new customers, what they want to see. And I think the idea of curation too. I mean, people are trusting, not only these influencers, but also just people that they trust in general, where it's like, "Oh, my friend likes this." So, making sure that you can kind of show that or have that curated experience I think will be important going forward.Albert:Yeah. So, this is interesting, because I think this is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy of what's happening with consumer behavior and curation, which is, the more curated things become, the more likely or the lower the tolerance a person's patience becomes for browsing. Because I've read stats about how the average web browser, or consumer, whatever, spending less time on pages, clicking through less links, because they're constantly being served, let's say, what they want sooner, faster, so then they react that way. So, it's like feeding itself, right?Stephanie:Feeding the beast.Albert:Yeah. The consumer expectations. Like, if you don't know what I want within two clicks, I'm bouncing.Stephanie:You're done.Albert:I don't got time for those three clicks. I'm out.Stephanie:Yeah. That's tricky. I mean, it is kind of like building up a monster in a way where everyone's going to have to keep leveling up their game with how their new customers or current customers experience their shops.Albert:Yeah, it's going to be painful for merchants to do this, I think, it's going to be very painful. Or they can look at it the other way. There's an opportunity for a technology vendor that can do it. You know what I mean?Stephanie:Oh, yeah. Anyone who's got those good recommendations, yeah, they're already ahead of the game if they're implementing that.Stephanie:All right. So, the next trend, which actually no one really talked about, but it's more around partnerships, but I saw a very interesting partnership. I don't know if you have heard of that show on Netflix called Get Organized. Have you? Where they were going into homes, Reese Witherspoon, and they're organizing her house, and it's very popular now. Maybe your wife watched it. Have you heard of that?Albert:I can conceptualize what it is but I have not seen it or heard of it.Stephanie:Okay. So, they partnered with a Container Store, and they did it in a really good organic way where, of course, they're putting everything in containers and organizing it, and it made the container sales jumped by like 17% after this series went out, and I thought that's a really good example of not just product placement, but doing it in a way that wasn't annoying, and having, not only a partnership from the product perspective, but they also partnered with Netflix in the marketing aspect.Stephanie:So, it's like a good, well-rounded approach, but it also didn't make the content suffer. And I haven't seen a lot of companies do it that well. You always can think of other companies... I mean, there's product placement in almost everything, but you don't walk away being like, "Oh, I really need that to complete my experience." And I can just see a lot of more or a lot more unique partnerships forming like that in the future, where people are thinking outside the box and are not just doing the typical like, "Oh, let's just try this and see how it works." I can see more people experimenting with this, maybe not on that large of a level, but I thought that was a really unique partnership, and especially being able to see the sales jump right afterwards, it shows that it paid off.Albert:Do you think that was because they were actively solving a problem? Right? You're disorganized. I'm going to show you how to get organized. So, inherently the audience that watches it is looking to solve that problem, so inherently they then go purchase those products, or source those products.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, they definitely, of course, nailed the perfect person who would have an intent to buy as someone who's also trying to get organized, but I think the way they did it just wasn't like hitting you over the head with it, it was kind of like, "Well, here's what we use." It was like, "No big deal, if you want to use it too, this is what we use."Stephanie:And I think that's actually the perfect strategy of like, "We're not going to push this on you, and we're not going to be annoying about it, this isn't an ad, but this is just exactly what we use to make this look perfect." And I think there's a lot of opportunity for other brands to think about that, like, how do you do it in a way where the content is still good? It's not making you feel pressured, but it's in the back of your mind of like, "Oh, this is what I could use to be like Reese Witherspoon," which she's the best.Albert:It's the classic, like, is this a threat or is this an opportunity, right? Because it just depends on the eye of the beholder. But one of the things, to your point, that makes it a threat to existing brands is if they're not good at it. One of the opportunities influencer see is that it's now easier than ever to make and source their own products under their own brand labels, right? Think of the power that Chip and Joanna Gaines have gained, right?Albert:Now it's to the point where it's like they're going to be almost impossible to buy because Magnolia products is coming, and it's already here, and it's going to keep getting bigger and bigger, where they're going to... You already know they know how to organically insert their products into all their content of you already think their style is the best, you already think their builds are the best, you already think their personalities are the best, now they're not even doing the partnership deal, right? Now it's not like, "Oh, go to Target to get the Magnolia collection?" No, go to Magnolia to get the Magnolia collection, right? They're going to cut the distribution network out and just be like, "We're the distributors of this." And that's always a challenge, I think. I do think that's something that the brands get nervous about is because like, if you sponsor somebody and they do a really great job, well, what stops them from cutting you out of the equation?Stephanie:Yep. Which is also what a lot of brands are scared about with Amazon. I mean, we heard mixed messages about that where some people were very excited about partnering with them, they were getting championed on that platform, Amazon was promoting them, and they weren't really worried too much about it, they're like, "Why wouldn't you be on Amazon, because that's where everyone said you should be selling on there?" And then we heard quite a few other ecommerce leaders who were like, "No way would I get on there. You're not going to make as much money. You can't control the experience. You can't control where it's being seen. And I want to make sure my DTC company is being portrayed how I want it and I don't want it to be knocked off on Amazon." So, the same kind of thing there.Albert:Yeah, that's it, and that's never going to stop. Constant threat market share takeover.Stephanie:Oh, I know. Constant battle, but interesting to watch. I think those people should be on Amazon, though, because I do think that is where so many people are. It seems like, yeah, it's where you need to be.Albert:Yeah. Here's what's interesting. The biggest players have kind of stepped off, but like Nike, Nike has got so much... Nike has enough power, I think, to step off that platform, but if you're trying to be discovered, I mean, it just does seem overwhelmingly hard to do it without that distribution network. I think it's just tough.Stephanie:Yeah. When we were talking about ShoppableTV, I'm also thinking about... I mean, you might know this better since your kids are on some of these gaming type of platforms, but having Shoppable worlds, whatever that may be, seems like something that could be coming in the future but we're not there yet, probably. I mean, I know we are when it comes to virtually shopping for things, that like, "Oh, I want to make sure to get this. Whatever this is in this world, I want to buy it," but it seems like there could be an opportunity as well for implementing your products into those worlds that are being built up right now.Albert:Yeah. Personally, I'm not as bullish on that because I still think people want to... I don't know. I don't really know, maybe because I just don't do it myself, because I definitely see my kids being drawn in when they're playing games, like they recognize products. What's weird is, when kids. To me, it's what's weird. So, for anyone who has kids that play Roblox, my kids see things on Roblox and they want to buy them, and they're digital products.Stephanie:Yeah. What are they? What are they buying?Albert:Like the new sword? They're like, "I want this sword." It's like, "What sword?" It's like, "The digital sword." It's like, "What do you mean digital sword." It's like, "My character can carry this sword if I buy this with real cash." And that makes no sense to me. What are you talking about?Stephanie:Exactly. I think it could be transitioning eventually. I mean, yes, people will always want those digital swords, I heard that people are buying t-shirts in there. I want to make sure my little avatar guy is wearing the coolest t-shirt. I don't really understand that, but then I don't know if you heard about Fortnight had Travis Scott do a virtual concert and was watched by millions of people.Albert:Yep.Stephanie:There's a very big reason why people would be like, "Whatever he was wearing, I want to wear."Albert:Now, did you hear about Travis Scott's McDonald's deal?Stephanie:No. What's that?Albert:It was like the number one selling meal for the last couple months.Stephanie:Just McDonald's in in general or what's his meal?Albert:The Travis Scott meal. I don't know. It's literally his meal. You know what I mean? You can have a number one, you can have a number two, you can have a Travis Scott.Stephanie:It says the Travis Scott meal is a quarter pounder with cheese, lettuce, and bacon.Albert:I'm just saying that's the power of you talking about a digital world. Yeah. There's the power of influence too, but he's already a mega celebrity, right? But I view it as this, it's like, what people are into, and this is why, like I was saying before, I feel like I age out of this stuff very quickly, and we're talking about ever evolving change. I came from a time where if I didn't have a physical product in my hand, I didn't think was real. I remember when mp3s first came out, I was like, "Why would I buy an mp3?" It's like, "It's a digital version of your songs." "What if I lose it?" They would be like, "What if you use your CDs?" "But at least I'm in control of my CD." You know what I mean? Like, that's my CD. I know where it is. I take responsibility for it. I was slow to convert there.Albert:And I feel for me, I'm always slow to convert to digital products, but when I watch my kids, it's just unbelievable. I don't even think they're interested in physical products. They keep wanting digital things. They want more games, they want more currency for their players, they just want this stuff. So, that's why I kind of didn't answer that because I was thinking simultaneously in my head, this is never going to work, but I think I mean this is not going to work on me but this is going to work on my kids, because it's happening right now. I get things all the time on my Google Play app, iTunes account, like, "What is this?"Stephanie:Why don't you buy one more virtual sword?Albert:So, will company start integrating like t-shirt... All right. So, let's take one of our t-shirt clients, right? We've kind of asked our guests on Up Next in Commerce, we've asked this to all of them. How do you convey that your product is soft, silky, whatever their product descriptors are, to someone without them touching it? And so it makes you wonder, in the future, is someone going to see a yellow hammock in their virtual world and be like, "Huh," and it'll pop up a ding like, bing. "Not only can your character have a yellow hammock, you can have one too." It's like, "Oh, okay, cool."Stephanie:Yeah. Especially if you can kind of see it blowing in the wind, or you can see that shirt like, oh, that's form fitting on this person in my virtual world that I really like. If you can kind of see things and details about it that mimic it. I mean, it seems like there's an opportunity there, it might not be here just yet, and you definitely have to figure out the demographics behind it, because, yeah, I mean, like you said, you might not be interested in that.Stephanie:However, I was listening to a pretty good interview with this guy, Matthew Ball, he was the former head of strategy at Amazon Studios, and he had a really good episode talking about how he was the same as you like, "Oh, this just isn't my world, however, I see actually a lot of companies, they will start being able to adapt these same types of technologies to where the older generation will actually start adopting as well, they just are trying to figure that out right now like, what will they feel comfortable with and what are they looking for? Like, what problems can you solve to get them there?"Albert:It's going to be pretty fascinating when someone's upsell customer journey path is actually get the digital avatar to consume this product first and then offer the physical. You know what I mean? When we talk about the hammock, can you imagine that, like, "Oh, my avatar really likes this hammock. He seems great. I think I might get one for myself in real life." What?Stephanie:I mean, I kind of would. I would do it. You need to get in these worlds to really experience it, but I mean, it does just seem like that is where the world is trending right now, around these games. I mean, a company I follow really closely is Epic Games, I think they're-Albert:They're in out neighborhood. [crosstalk 00:35:26].Stephanie:I think their leadership team is brilliant around what they're doing with their platform and how they're essentially giving away almost all the underlying technology that other companies have been charging for for a really long time, and they're kind of building this really big moat to be able to expand in a bunch of different ways. So, I kind of keep tabs on them, and that also, of course, influences my commerce hat when I'm thinking about too like, "Oh, wow, these two worlds could blend together in a really unique way and whoever gets there first..." Usually, the first movers are the ones that can get that arbitrage. So, seems like an interesting spot to watch.Albert:Yes, the Unreal Engine, for our listeners that are not familiar. Epic built a platform called the Unreal Engine of which you can build your gaming world on so that you could use... think of it as less code, you had less code, less character development, it's all built for you, you just add your characters and they can build worlds for you. How they do it is they charge you a royalty fee, I believe it's like 5%, but only if your sales are over a specific number.Stephanie:Yeah, it's very beneficial to creators, and that's why a lot of people are moving to that platform now because they're used to having these apps where certain stores, they're taking like 30 and 40%, and if you move to Unreal, you're essentially keeping the majority of your sales.Albert:Yeah, and you don't have to pay until you reach a certain number. So, by the time you're paying Epic, you've already made it, and then you're fine with it, I guess. The number is tolerable. By the way, if you follow Epic Games founder, Tim Sweeney, on Twitter right now, he's in a constant fight with Apple over [crosstalk 00:36:56].Stephanie:Oh, I know.Albert:He does not like it.Stephanie:I wouldn't either.Albert:It's a fun follow, though. It's a great follow.Stephanie:Go, Tim. I'm going to follow you right now.Stephanie:All right. So, the last one that I want to talk about is... I think this is interesting. You might be like, "That's weird." But I think there's such a big opportunity for optimizing, not only your website for voice searches, but also potentially building out custom Alexa skills to solve a problem. I see people doing that right now, but not really in ecommerce as much, but think about having an Alexa where you're like, "Hey, Alexa, tell me what wine goes best with this kind of recipe." Or, "Hey, Alexa, suggest some outfit for me based on the weather today." And you kind of build a tool that's actually helpful that's also you know, of course, very close to your brand. And so you can become top of mind by building out those skills or just implementing voice search in general. I just think the world is headed in that way because the technology is starting to get better, but I don't see a lot of brands jumping on that right now.Albert:I think the ability for AI to understand intent and meaning isn't quite there yet. I'm trying to think of myself using my own consumer behavior, right? Do I use voice to text right now to enter searches? Yeah, because it's a lot easier than typing it in or swiping it in, right? So, if I want to ask Google a question, I will just click the mic button and talk. Would I do that to solve problems? I don't know, but I think I haven't yet because contextually, it's very difficult, but it won't be far, right. So, right now, I think a lot of people Google best. Do you know what I mean? Like you said, best way to do X for Y, right? And then the next level is going to be can NLP technology, AI technology, whatever it is going to be that understands the nuance and intent and meaning start making it super personalized recommendations?Albert:So, can you imagine if you went to Home Depot, because what you're talking about would be super cool, if you go to Home Depot and say, "Hey, my garbage disposal broke. How do I replace it?" And it just comes up with like, boom, "You're going to need this, this, this, this," and then it gives me a how-to guide of how I buy a garbage disposal, I'm going to need these tools, I'm gonna need the sealants, and getting them-Stephanie:Can you imagine saying that, like, "Here's exactly how you're going to fix it. Let me send you a video to your phone." And like, "You need like Albert's brand of screws." Like, they're literally dropping your own products in there like, "This is how I would fix it, and also, here's a how-to video," and you walk away being like, "Wow, I not only bought that brand stuff, maybe, or I didn't, but they're top of mind now. They actually helped me fix my garbage disposal." How cool would that be?Albert:So, speaking of this, there was a while ago where I believe it was the president of O'Reilly, I'm pretty sure it was. The O'Reilly Auto Parts basically came out and said that Amazon was not a threat because buying car parts is very complicated. I'm not saying he's wrong, right? Right now car parts really aren't bought on Amazon because you have to know what model you have, you have to know the year, the make, the model, you actually have to know something about fixing cars to even begin to find the part. But can you imagine a future where you can ask it a question like, you go to O'Reilly or wherever you go and you say, "My air conditioner is not cold," and it remembers your car models, "Oh, you're going to need X, Y, Z. Would you like me to book you an appointment if you can't do this yourself?" Like, "Yeah, book me one. I don't want to do this?"Stephanie:Yes, please. Yeah. No, I mean, that's where I think the world is headed. And I mean, we did have a good interview, it wasn't our first 50, it was one of our more recent ones, talking about the world of identity and how you should be able to go places and you shouldn't always have to refill in your info, it should know maybe what's your brand of car if you put it somewhere else before. I'm trying to think of what episode that was.Albert:Fast.Stephanie:Oh, yeah, Fast. Yeah, that was such an interesting episode. I mean, now it's coming up right after this one drops, but [inaudible 00:41:10], so interesting where he was going through. Not only are they doing payments and identity, but where the world was headed around you should always have a Buy Now button on every single one of your products and that you shouldn't just make people add stuff to cart and then do the shipping and all that, you should let them buy when they want to buy it. And he was talking about the conversions behind that. But all that gets back to the identity piece, which is what you're talking about, going into an auto part store, you should be able to say, "Here's what I'm looking for," and it should know, "Okay, based on the information I have about you, here's what I'm going to recommend for you," and make it seamless and frictionless.Albert:Yeah, everyone wants that.Stephanie:My future. I don't know what yours is, Albert?Albert:Well, I think it's going to get there. It's not a matter of if, but when, but I still know that NLP... for anyone that's used an AI chat bot yet and been frustrated because you asked a simple question and it's like, "I don't know what you're saying," it's like we're not there yet, but I think it's coming, for sure it's coming. The technology providers, though, are going to be the ones focusing on that the most. I don't know when the merchants can start tapping into that resource.Stephanie:Yeah. That's why it's interesting to kind of keep an eye on these new startups and new tech companies that are launching around this stuff, like Fast, or even like the technologies like GPT-3. When that came out, I was just reading a whole article about how this guy created a program where you essentially can just talk and it'll build a website for you. So, you can say, "Create a red button, have the drop down say this, have the picture do this, grab the picture from here." And it is no code. You are speaking and it is coding for you in the background.Stephanie:I think the world is headed there but you just have to try and stay on top of those trends or the companies and try things out, honestly, experiment with it and see if it could work without bogging things down. I know you have been the first to say that the amount of plugins that you add on your website are just going to bog it down, and website speed is number one, so there is that balance, but I think it's interesting to stay on top of the trends outside of just your current industry.Albert:Yeah. Are we going to get to the part where we all have our own Jarvis? I don't know. But if that happens, it will be cool. Jarvis from Iron Man, for anyone that's not familiar with what I'm talking about, right?Stephanie:I was actually familiar with that one.Albert:Yeah? There you go. Look at you watching movies and stuff.Stephanie:I know. Look at me. I'm so trendy.Albert:It's not trendy. It's definitely very old. I think it's like a decade old now.Stephanie:Yeah. Still great, though.Albert:Yeah.Stephanie:All right. Are there any other forward looking trends that you think are interesting right now. So, we essentially covered the things that were in the 50 episodes, which were awesome and really cool, high level themes, but all the episodes had really good, juicy nuggets in each one. And then we looked at some of the forward thinking themes that maybe weren't covered, but I just think are interesting. But anything else you can think of where you're like, "I think a lot of people aren't thinking about this or aren't paying enough attention to this world that could help an ecommerce store owner"?Albert:Well, we got to do a big shout out to my awesome producer, Hillary, who loves Peloton.Stephanie:She does.Albert:Because Peloton is a very fascinating-Stephanie:[crosstalk 00:44:23].Albert:So, I bought stock in Peloton, and here's the reason why. I've never encountered a brand that I can think of where people so emphatically talk about it. Peloton and maybe CrossFit. Everyone says, "The first rule of CrossFit is you can't stop talking about CrossFit," I think that's also applicable to Peloton, because people who have Peloton love Peloton. So, I think this concept of building community so that your product extends beyond the purchase of the product, meaning like you buy a physical bike but you would stay subscribed to Peloton services. Because I think every brand, or not every brand, because could you do it with a ball? I don't know.Albert:But brands and products companies are probably trying to figure out how do I create a subscription community? I think that is going to be a trend that you can capitalize on now because it doesn't require, I don't think, as much technology that doesn't exist, but it's more like how do you build ongoing services at a price point where customers never want to leave you? So, like, I don't know. Let's use my example of kitchenware. Should fork, and knife, and bowl companies have active cooking communities? I think they should.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, that was our interview with Food52, Amanda Hesser, that's exactly what they did. They built up this huge online community first and then they started reselling other people's products, drop shipping them, and then they created their own brand, and they did it in a way where they're like, "By then we had this huge community that we were doing cooking things together."Albert:Yeah. They could already forecast their sales. They were like, "Oh, we can automatically assume how many people are going to buy this."Stephanie:I know. And that was a long haul for them. I mean, she was the first to say that, however, I'm like, you essentially are launching to an audience that trust you, trust your content, you have this love for just anything that you're doing after you build this community, but trying to figure out how to do that right or figuring out what actually keeps people coming back and how to keep them engaged I think is really difficult without being annoying and without pushing your product too much. When you start in a more content focused way, it seems like it can be a lot more organic to build up those followers to then shift into a product where you have that trust. But it does seem hard when you're launching a new like DTC company and also trying to do content at the same time, it seems hard to figure that piece out.Albert:Yeah. And if we go back in time, right, Michelin figured this out. Michelin figured out that people weren't driving enough, so they created their star review system because they wanted people to drive and experience things all over the world, to the point now where here we are today, people still talk about Michelin star ratings for restaurants. It's still that important. People can't put two together and say, "Why would a tire company create that?"Albert:So, if you have that today, I think that's probably the next biggest trend, and you can already kind of see it happening. I think more products are going to try to create worlds or problems that their products and services solve, or whether it's exploratory or problem solving, I don't know. But when it comes to Peloton, I just think about the community that they've built, the fact that people just rave about the product. We got our buddy Hillary here, she's got a bike, it's not broken. She says, "They launched a new bike. The screen tilts so I can do yoga and then get back on the bike." It had a price point, a really high price point. I mean, Hillary was considering getting a loan to get this thing, which, by the way, they offer, they offer financing.Stephanie:We're going to put Hillary's... her like affiliate code, I don't know if she one. She needs one.Albert:Well, I'm telling you, the brand love that she has... But it's not just her. I say Hillary because, Hillary, we obviously work with her, but people love this product.Stephanie:There you go. Are you looking at our prep doc? She says h_tag24. Peloton all the time.Albert:Okay. If you want to buy, h_tag24. If you want to follow our buddy Hillary on Peloton, not only will she kick your ass in all these calories, or I don't even know what you guys measure.Albert:However you score points, she's scoring all the points.Stephanie:I don't know if that's a thing.Albert:Outputs. I don't know.Stephanie:Okay, outputs got it. This has gone into a bad hole. I'm not sure what we're talking about here.Albert:Well, we were saying like, what's the next thing to be aware of? I mean, I think that is closer than all those voice searches and things like that that you talked about, which I think are coming, I think you're going to see more companies build communities, and I also think you're going to see more companies burning out customers by trying to make everything like SaaS. Because one of my favorite Twitter handle to follow, everyone check it out, it's called the Internet of Shit, it's just non stop products that don't work if you aren't subscribed to their services. So, businesses out there that try to make me subscribe to make my refrigerator work, I'm anti-you. All right? Definitely anti-you, don't want to hear about it. So, follow the Internet of Shit, if you guys are curious.Stephanie:I have follow that one.Albert:But that's the delicate balance, right? How do you build a community of value that you charge for versus, I don't know, putting someone in entrapment where you're forcing funds out of them every month just to use your product?Stephanie:Yeah. I especially think after everything with COVID, people are also going to be dying for that community, even if it has to be online, I think it's going to be bigger now than it ever was before, because people have been cooped up and haven't been able to have that community like they may have been used to or they're actually maybe cherishing it in a different way now and they're trying to look for that. So, I think it'll be a big opportunity.Albert:There you go.Stephanie:All right. Anything else on your mind? If not, I think this was a fun episode. It was a good one.Albert:I hope so. I can never tell.Stephanie:You're really not, yeah. You're almost like, "I'm not sure." But yeah, I think this episode was awesome, it's really fun just kind of reminiscing through all the episodes we did. I can't believe we've already had 50. If you have not given us a review and a rating and subscribed, please do, because that helps spread the word, and we would love to hear how we're doing. We also have some really good interviews coming up, like we were mentioning earlier, the CEO Fast is coming on, we have a really cool company, Handwrytten coming on with [inaudible 00:51:04], Sheets and Giggles, Ring. We've got some big names coming up here, and yeah, I'm excited to do this next recap after the next 50.Albert:Until then.Stephanie:Right. Thanks, Albert.

Every shopping experience is unique, and every shopper has specific wants and needs. That is one of the biggest struggles brands face in the world of ecommerce. How do you create a customer experience that resonates with and meets the needs of drastically different customers?This problem is magnified further when you run a marketplace that sells literally millions of different products to tens of millions of different users. eBay has 180 million active users, which, according to Bradford Shellhammer, means that there needs to be 180 million different eBays to meet each of those users’ exact needs. Bradford is the Vice President of Buyer Experience at eBay, and part of his job is to make every eBay user fall in love with their eBay experience.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Bradford explains what that looks like in practical terms, including how they approached a home page redesign, the importance of testing and experimentation, and the methods they have used to build trust among users.  Main Takeaways:Do You Trust Me?: Trust is an essential part of the buying experience, and these days, companies are finding more innovative ways to establish trust with users. In marketplaces, typical product reviews might not be the best way to build trust with shoppers, instead, you have to find alternative ways to connect with customers and intervene if something goes wrong. Please Rate And Review: Gathering feedback and information from users is a critical method companies use to improve their customer experience. Typically, brands will send out surveys or ask for feedback in an email, but there are better, more strategic and enticing ways to get the feedback you need. And sometimes that means utilizing channels you may not have traditionally relied on or creating brand new customer feedback channels yourself.Test, Test, Test Again: Nothing should be added to your website or brand experience unless it has been thoroughly tested. Both internal and external experimentation is necessary to ensure that when you make a change, or add something to your site, you already know that it is what your customers want and it works the way it was designed to work.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to another episode of Up Next in Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Joining us today is Bradford Shellhammer, the Vice President of the Buyer Experience at eBay. Bradford, welcome.Bradford:Thank you. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on. eBay, such an awesome name brand. I'm excited to dive into all things eBay. I've been a long time buyer there. But first, I want to go into your background of what brought you to eBay? I see that you founded a couple companies, a couple ecommerce companies and I was hoping you can touch on that before we jump into eBay.Bradford:Yeah. I think it's super cool to talk about because it's actually super personal. For me, it's a pretty interesting story. So, it's a love affair, essentially, between myself and eBay. I've been a buyer on the platform since 1999 because we can trace back and see in our internal database how long we've been shopping and when we created our account.Bradford:So, I've been a customer of eBay for over 20 years. And the companies that I started, two of the three were marketplaces. And they were marketplaces that were really founded on two principles, both of them, one was for buyers, helping them find treasure, awesome stuff, unique things, feeling some passion or interest and for seller is propping up the little guy.Bradford:Both of the companies that I found at Fab and Bezar were both heavily in the design space, in the modern design space, so that's furniture, graphic arts, posters, lighting, jewelry, handbags, accessories and things so fashion design, but my personal love affair with collecting.Bradford:I have over 400 pairs of shoes. I have a massive art collection. I have probably more chairs than most people. Most of these purchases over the last 25 years have been made on eBay. And so, for me, I've inspired by the hunt on eBay what we call internally the eBay a power user, a power customer.Bradford:And now, I have this awesome responsibility to help other people fall in love with and use eBay the way that I do. So, I was hired four and a half years ago. I met the chief product officer who had some interest in one of my companies, Bezar.Bradford:Turns out I sold that to another company, an Australian company, and I became a free market... was on the market and I was a free agent. And I'd never really worked at a real company before, a big company, the previous 12 years is doing my own thing.Bradford:And so, they said, "Well, come join eBay." And my first role was the chief curator of eBay. And frankly, it was a made up role. And everyone thought I had great taste. And when I got to eBay, I really thought my job was going to be curating through eBay and surfacing that up to consumers.Bradford:And what I quickly realized is that eBay scale is so much bigger than one person's taste. And that some people are curating parts for a vintage Mercedes on eBay. And some people like myself are collecting design, and maybe other people are just using eBay because they have six kids, and money's tight and buying them all new iPhones is just not possible, so they're looking for great deals.Bradford:And so, I really quickly just became very empathetic to the eBay customer's journey and it said, "Wow. Bradford, this is not about you. Can you help build tools to help other people find the things that they love rather than forcing your point of view or something that you love on people?"Bradford:And then, I moved into our product org, my second year and the first project I took on was our homepage. We redesigned it. We built a lot of new algorithms and it became a science powered hub for you. And the goal was that there's 180 million active buyers on eBay.Bradford:There should be 180 million different eBays because everybody's eBay is different. It's not like other big box retailers or other mass market ecommerce players where we're buying commodity products or everybody's buying the same thing.Bradford:And my team really builds the experience that should adapt and respond to customer's interest and helping them find what they're looking for.Stephanie:That's great. So, taking on the homepage design seems like a lot of responsibility. Tell me a bit about what that looked like. I mean, what are the customer buying behavior look like before and what do they look like now and how did you get there?Bradford:Yeah. That's a good question. So, I inherited an experience that was about five years old and it was called the Feed and that was the homepage. And it was a Pinterest-esque experience. And so, when customers would save things, we have this concept called saving, there's a little heart, you click on it and it saves.Bradford:You can save a search. You can save a seller. You can watch a single individual item. It would populate a visual grid of like products that are related to that. The problem with that is that it required customers to groom their own experience. And so, for power customers, the feed was awesome.Bradford:Because like myself, I have 150 saved searches and it's just this beautiful grid of new products populating every day of hitting all the either brands that I'm following or the sellers that I love what they're selling. But for the normal shopper, not your power customer, they were really missing out on personalized content because we literally required them to do work to curate it themselves.Bradford:So, the project that we decided to do is, was there a hybrid of that? Could you still have some of that content for the power user be front and center on the homepage?Bradford:But could you have machine learning and science pick up behaviors patterns of just what people are clicking on or searching for or which emails they're opening and have that be enough to curate a homepage experience without them having to do the explicit work of saying show me more of this on clicking on a heart or saying I want to save this.Bradford:And so, what happened was more people with as a result of that first product we launched, more people ended up having personalized content which was a win. Because previously, it was personalized content mostly just for power customers. Now, a more casual customer still gets that benefit.Stephanie:Got it, that's great. So, when it comes to projects like that, internally, I'm sure there was a lot of stakeholders and a lot of people had a lot of different ideas. How did you rally everyone around getting a homepage launch without taking, I mean, I could see that project taking maybe like a year at other companies [crosstalk 00:07:10].Bradford:Yeah. Well, first of all, I don't want to give away too much of the sausage making, but eBay is surprisingly entrepreneurial. We move pretty fast. And we don't, I think, have a lot of the bureaucracy that probably a lot of companies of our scale have.Bradford:So, first of all, I almost felt like, "Wow, they gave me the keys to the car." And for the most part, we have a very strong test and learn culture. So, we don't just flip the switch on something and see how it works. We test and learn and we do lots of hundreds and hundreds of AB tests and we're constantly testing everything.Bradford:So, we would never launch anything that didn't resonate with our customers. So, there were safety, I think, baked into all of our hypotheses knowing that you have to actually prove that something that an idea you had is worthy of launch. But I think that that's where I think my entrepreneurial background and my non tech background.Bradford:I've started companies, but I don't have a formal technology education at all. I have a fashion design degree and a communications degree. So, this is where I think just the hitting the pavement and telling a story and crafting a vision and getting people to march along with you whether they're marketers or engineers, or designers, or whatever I think suited me in this role in the early days.Stephanie:Yeah, that's really cool. See, when you were talking about the AB testing, how you guys test everything, were there any surprises of something that you thought was really going to work and it actually failed?Bradford:Oh, that's a good question. I'm trying to think of, you know what, I have to be honest, I don't want to say this because my team is super smart. But I think that the best product managers and the best designers and the best experiences out there are ones that are really rooted in want something super simple, just listening to your customer.Bradford:And so, if you're literally baking all your hypothesis and lit really listening like combing through feedback, we have myriad of surveys on different pages. We do lots of focus groups. We do tons of research, user research. We do tons of dogfooding internally.Bradford:You weed out the things that aren't going to work way before you even start to build them usually. And so, for us, it's like if you have that real commitment to just listening to your customer through the process rather than having someone come in and just say, "I want to do this thing."Bradford:Because when you listen to your actual customers, there's a real great respect for them and you actually don't want to break their current experience, you just want to make it better. And I think a lot of times where I've seen products fail, and I'm not going to go into the details of what they were.Bradford:But I have seen maybe not so much in my team, but I have seen this happen both in and outside of eBay is usually when someone that doesn't really have the customer's voice in their head is just like either taking something that's their personal preference or looking at a competitor that may look like a competitor from the outside, so a lot of companies are compared to eBay because they sell things online.Bradford:But if you really look at eBay and why people shop at eBay, it's a very different customer than a lot of the big players. So, constantly comparing ourselves to, I think, other competitors who aren't really competitors other than they compete for wallets share not with the heart and soul of our customers.Bradford:I think sometimes is where I've seen product managers go off and usually go somewhere that's at the end of the day, it just wasn't what our customers were asking for and that's our job.Bradford:Our job is to literally listen to our customers and build experiences for them, and take the things they love, make it better, and take the things they hate and change it. And I really think that if you ground yourself and your whole organization in that just like real deep customer empathy, you don't make too many mistakes.Stephanie:Yeah. I'm thinking about surveying customers right now. How do you frame questions in a way that will actually get you what you need when it comes to like how to shape an experience? Because I could see framing in a way that actually gives you maybe the wrong [crosstalk] customers tell you something that leads you down the wrong path.Stephanie:Or, it's like, "Oh, someone says they want that." But actually, no one's going to really use that or we see that no one uses it. How do you think about framing questions in a way that will actually be successful [crosstalk 00:12:11].Bradford:It's a great question. We have teams of people that focus on that at eBay. So, the feedback we get is that we actually have feedback forms on specific pages of the site. So, I'll give you example, there's this thing called My eBay. It's like your profile hub thing. But because eBay, you could be a buyer or seller, so you have a place where all the things that you've bought live but also all the things that you're selling or sold live.Bradford:It's like the hub of the eBay customer. If you just sent an email with a survey of how do you feel about eBay or like an NPS survey, you're not going to get the detail feedback they'll make that product better. And so, here are some of the things that we get like very specific feedback like purchase history.Bradford:There are people that literally because they're business buyers or let's just say they're resellers. People that are buying thousands of records a year and then reselling them and we don't have the functionality to let them search through their purchase history.Bradford:So, they can't literally search David Bowie and find the things. And this is a number one complaint of our customers and you only would find that out because then we're literally asking very specific, what would you do differently to this exact experience or page?Bradford:I think that's where you get awesome feedback. You can get that through just general feedback collecting too if you're able to actually come through and pick up the patterns and scour through them. Because you're right, you might get one or two people that are really vocal about something that a lot of people don't want.Bradford:But the things that are like really, really asked for they rise to the top very quickly on eBay. There's also a myriad of forums out there, seller forums, Reddit boards, where people are talking about both pain and opportunities for eBay to be better.Bradford:And oftentimes, those are through the lens of a vertical lens. So, you have these sneaker enthusiasts or watch enthusiasts, or who are literally talking about where eBay fails them. And it might not be something that we'd see if we're looking at eBay just really generally.Bradford:But for very specific customers, there are some things that matter more than others. And so, one of the big changes in our philosophy this year has been to start thinking about what are those enthusiast groups. And oftentimes, they're aligned with verticals or categories, so watch lovers, sneaker lovers, streetwear lovers, stamp collectors, comic book collectors.Bradford:And really understanding like are there unique needs that are outside of just the normal shopping experience that we have to either fix or introduce for those customers too. But it's nonstop, just taking in feedback like we actually need more.Bradford:But I would say probably 10% of my team's job is to literally spend 10% of their week is just combing through that stuff to gleam any insight into what we should be working on or what we need to focus on.Stephanie:Yeah, that's a really good point about going to different sites like the Reddits of the world and looking at what different niche audiences are talking about. Because I've always wondered when I see or I have an issue and I see a lot of people having that issue, I'm like, "Oh, why isn't this company just looking on this Reddit forum and seeing that there's thousands of people all trying to figure out the same thing that's probably like an easy product fix."Bradford:It's an easy product fix. And I'll tell you what else is really super cool about that is that it also makes your competitive analysis because you can see the customers that are buying... your customers talking about you and you also see the customer, the other companies that they reference as competitors, so you really get to see.Bradford:And for eBay, as I said, it's super verticalized. There are people that buy hundreds of thousand dollar watches on eBay there. There are literally people that spend thousands of dollars for watches left and right on eBay. And guess what, they're not going to, I'm not going to say their names, but the big marketplaces to buy that they're more verticalized player.Bradford:So, we also have hundreds of competitors. When you slice it vertically, it's also a great place to just hear them talk about either the good or the bad of our competitors through a lens too, so you can stack, you can see the sentiment of how they feel about you versus them. And they can also see where are we winning and where do we have to be better very clearly in those forums, too.Stephanie:Yeah, that's such a good point. When you're talking about these vertical players and how to think about that, it reminds me of... I read an article about the unbundling of a lot of platforms whether it's Reddit, or Nextdoor, Craigslist, how turning it into separate products.Stephanie:I don't know if you've heard about this, but how do you think about that at eBay right now? Because it sounds like you're doing that with these different niche audiences in a way like pulling them apart to give them a more personal experience.Stephanie:For example, like with Reddit, maybe there's thousands of different conversations going on around different topics. And then, there's a picture that shows, okay, this topic here is all around neighbors and things like that. Oh, what do you know, Nextdoor popped up and pulled that off the platform in a way.Stephanie:And then, oh, they're talking about like gaming here. Oh, here's a gaming platform that popped up. So, actually pulling apart a platform to give it unique experiences for the people.Bradford:Yeah. So, I mean, you can look and see there's I think a lot of... we're the original. We were [crosstalk 00:19:25]. Yeah, we really are, seriously. Before we were the gig economy. We were the niche marketplace. We were the vertical marketplace. We still are like we literally invented or we're one of the originals.Bradford:And so, you can look around. And you can see even fab.com, it was a marketplace for design like some of them come some of them go. Some of them have really great staying power and a few of them have been super successful. Here's why I think we're uniquely positioned and why I think going back to building verticalized experiences.Bradford:And when I say that I want to make sure that it's not niche. It is building horizontal capabilities that can flex and you might need the ability to have high ASP or high payments. Sometimes, you're buying things that are $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, that's our high-end art, that's high-end collectibles, that's high-end watches.Bradford:That's also like business and industrial equipment. Tractors, we sell a lot of this. So, although those like shopping experiences wouldn't be the same beginning to end, there might be a piece of that, like a payment, the ability to have some payment support for large purchases as part of your strategy.Bradford:So, for us, it's about I think building horizontal capabilities that can benefit multiple verticals then you slice up, we're calling them platforms, a vertical platform. You slice up a piece of that and a piece of this one, a piece of that one and suddenly you're basically stacking, it's like a menu.Bradford:For this shopper, you need these five things. And for this one, you need these six things. And so, it's not separate branding. It's not like suddenly, you're in an experience that doesn't feel or work like eBay, but it's just building different kinds of capability into the shopping experience and that's our strategy right now and it's super cool.Bradford:And I think that the great thing about eBay is the scale. So, for small upstarts and small vertical players, they got to spend a ton of money to get people to come onto their platform. I mean, a ton, they have to bleed millions, hundreds of millions of dollars like eBay has an audience. We have traffic.Bradford:We have global reach. We have hubs of really major or an iconic brand in Germany, in Australia, in Israel, in Canada, in the UK. So, there are all these benefits to being this large platform that are mostly traffic I think and just like a giant active enthusiast customer base.Bradford:I think it's on us to just crack what is the end to end product experience. And maybe there's other things that have to change, policy, how we rate our sellers, how we rate our buyers. There's probably other things where we're thinking right now too that's more than just experience. But I don't think it's the reinvention of eBay. I think it is the morphing of eBay for certain types of customers. Yep.Stephanie:Yeah, that makes sense. Have you seen over the past couple years buyer behavior is changing? Are you pretty preparing for something new over the next couple years or adjusting strategy a bit after seeing changes with COVID? I think I read that eBay did pretty well. Is there anything new that you're preparing for now?Bradford:Yeah. I mean, the COVID is a horrible thing. And but what was like got a lot of us through it in the early days at eBay as supply chain was shutting down, warehouses were shutting down, it was hard to get things.Bradford:The one thing that was working was just how distributed the inventory of eBay was and how this sector of the country or the world may have shut down but there's all these parts over here that can ship things around. And it was super cool to witness that eBay worked.Bradford:And it allowed like some people who are home to make some money, come in and sell for the first time. They allowed businesses that maybe struggled during the time, they might have closed physical retail down or something like that, it gave them another channel.Bradford:We have a new CEO. His name is Jamie Iannone. He was an eBay veteran that went and worked for Walmart for many years and he's come back with such a forceBradford:And so, the great news about our new CEO is he is really setting a strategy that honors eBay's past meaning going back and valuing our sellers who without, we literally don't have a company and literally saying publicly that he's focused on eBay being the seller's platform of choice.Bradford:And on the buying side, it's about going back and listening to our enthusiast customers. We're like strategically positioning ourselves to be there for those buyers and sellers more than ever.Bradford:And so, I said in terms of this like what we're seeing right now, we're seeing a lot of people looking at eBay for the first time. We're seeing a lot of people reconsidering eBay, and we're seeing our best customers continue to shop with eBay.Bradford:And it's on us right now to take advantage of this time and I think go back and really listen to our customers, as I said at the beginning of the podcast was not just like... yeah, I was talking about like listening to very specific feature feedback or page feedback in our experience or app feedback.Bradford:But like we as a company are just listening to our buyers and sellers in a way that we haven't during my time and much of our strategy is just emerging from that. And it's super cool to have new leadership that is all about customer, customer, customer.Stephanie:Yeah, that's really great. When it comes to the new customers who maybe still have an old perception of what eBay is like, "Oh, it's an auction site." Maybe haven't visited in a while. How are you appealing to these new people who are starting to think about you?Stephanie:I'm sure you have very different messaging to someone who is new versus your current customers who are sticky. And once they start buying or selling, they're probably going to stay there for a while.Bradford:Yeah. I think that this is a part of what brought me to eBay. I love eBay and I feel a lot of people don't know enough about our goodness. And I think a lot of that is because I think previous years before Jamie came on board, I think we were not really owning what we really were.Bradford:eBay is really an awesome place to buy non new and seasoned merchandise and that means refurbished products that means outlet products, that means used products, that means new and not in box. And so, I think that there was a lot of confusion probably for especially young consumers because I think that there wasn't a clarity of message around what eBay was just externally, it wasn't necessarily clear internally.Bradford:And so, I'm very optimistic that this clarity around where we're going to compete and the buyers and sellers that we value. I think you will see we have to earn it. We have to earn it with every single sale. We have to earn it with every single seller that comes back onto the platform. We have to earn it with a first time buyer.Bradford:But I think that it's less about how we're going to talk to our existing customers versus our new customers, I think in my eyes, because I actually think we need to say the same thing which is there's a lot of magic into eBay and it's not your typical shopping experience and that's okay. That's cool.Bradford:I think about eBay when I'm thinking about comparing Airbnb to hotel chains. It's like Airbnb, there's a little something for everyone there. You can rent a mansion. You can rent a cot in a yurt and everything in between and it's high and low and it's all around the world.Bradford:And there's something that's like I think of eBay in the same way that it's super inclusive and there's something here for everyone. What I don't think people realize is that eBay is full of, I say to the two things, also for buyers, awesome deals and really great treasure which is unique, hard to find or are super interesting stuff.Bradford:And I think that those two things probably appeal to really broad set. It's on us to tell that story. It's on us to tell that story vocally in the press. It's on us to tell that story in our branding, in our marketing. And it's on us to tell our story in our product and I don't know if we've done that well enough up until recently where we're starting to pivot towards that listening to our best customers and buyers and sellers and building things for them.Stephanie:Yeah. So, with marketplaces, there's always a question around trust. How are you guys going about showcasing that and convincing especially maybe new buyers that this can be trusted and our sellers can be trusted. Because I think at least back in the day, that was something, I mean, even on Amazon, people are still worried like, "Is this a good seller?" So, what are you guys doing behind the scenes?Bradford:Yeah. I think that trust is probably one of the biggest things we have to work on and have worked on. I'll just speak a little generally and then I'll tell you about a very specific thing that we're doing for trust, but I think will be super exciting to talk about.Bradford:So, one and it's just loans. So, for trust, I think we're aware that when the scale of eBay and just the diversity of seller of inventory of even condition that we probably have, it's even more compounded, the trust issues at eBay, there's just so many variables here.Bradford:And so, we are taking it very seriously right now through planning for next year especially and talking about all the things that we're going to do to combat trust. So, it's everything from doubling down on some of our policies that protects buyers.Bradford:So, we have money back guarantee. We essentially for most products on the site guarantee that customers are going to get what they want, get what they're expecting. And so, I don't think a lot of people realize that most of the things you buy on eBay are we have this baked in protection.Bradford:But I don't think that's enough. And so, I'll give you an example of why I don't think that's enough. Here, I'll give you example. I'd mentioned it earlier and it's launched and is live now as of a couple weeks ago. If you're buying a watch that's over $2,000 which is a high-end luxury watch, these are like the Rolexes, the Omegas, they can go way higher than that.Bradford:eBay is one of the biggest places to buy these watches, it's massive. It's a business within a business. The biggest concern that our buyers tell us is that they're afraid that like, "Am I really getting a Rolex? Am I getting the real thing?" Authenticity really matters.Stephanie:Yeah. For $3,000, we've got to be real.Bradford:$3,000, I mean, I've seen some of the sales $30,000, $60,000. You don't want to take a chance of, "Am I not going to get it? Is it going to be fake? Is it going to be scratched?" So, we decided to tackle trust through a vertical lens. And it's not just a category because it's not all watches but watches over $2,000.Bradford:We have launched a new program that's called authenticity guaranteed where eBay is guaranteeing that any watch sold on its platform domestically. So, in the United States we have plans to expand. But currently in the United States that's over $2,000 that we will guarantee its authenticity.Bradford:So, what we've done is we've partnered with amazing partners who vet it that can verify and authenticate high-end luxury watches. We force an intermediate shipping. So, the buyer, when they make the purchase, they see very clearly badging program details say this watch is covered under our authenticity guarantee and you have nothing to worry about, it's going to be authentic.Bradford:We have the seller ship the watch to the third party verification service. They look at it. They compare it. If it's not in its original boxing because a lot of these watches are sold with the original boxes. If it's not on its original visual boxing, we repackage it in eBay box and then we express ship it out to the buyer.Bradford:And we catch any problem with counterfeits or other kinds of issues before it gets into the hands of the buyer. And so, it's really meant to stop buyers getting fake products or damaged products. For the seller, it's also a really awesome thing too because oftentimes people will buy a watch and we have buyers that have scammed our sellers.Bradford:So, us being in the middle of both the buying and the return process, it basically is our way of just ensuring that both buyers and sellers are protected and it's third party authentication of luxury goods.Bradford:And so, we rolled it out and we're going to be expanding the program even more. And like that is very real and very different eBay, us literally getting in the middle of a transaction and protecting both our best buyers and our best sellers. And we're going to do more of that next year.Bradford:And when I say more of them, I'm not just talking about more things to authenticate, but I'm also talking about just more picking apart like a very important customer base and their buying behavior and where they have concerns with eBay and a lot of it goes back to trust, frankly.Bradford:It's like, I don't trust eBay as a buyer. I don't trust eBay as a seller because you don't offer these protections. And we're literally going to be bringing those protections through a vertical lens more often.Stephanie:Wow, that's great. I mean, that seems really smart and strategic because, I mean, I trust eBay as a brand and I would trust whatever you guys say, but I might not trust the buyer or the sellers.Stephanie:So, what recommendations would you give to other ecommerce companies around developing trust? What do you think is most important? Is it reviews? Are there things that other companies right now maybe are missing out on that they should be doing?Bradford:Yeah, it's interesting. You bring up reviews and I think that that is also a unique eBay opportunity too. Our catalog, we have so many listings like in every condition. From every year, from all over the globe.Bradford:It's really hard to comb through it all. Reviews I think are interesting.Bradford:But I really love the review of the seller. So, where a lot of ecommerce companies are reviewing an individual product, like an actual item like this cooler or this microphone, or these pairs of shoes. I think that eBay has that opportunity where we have the right catalog and I think that we're leaning in there in certain categories.Bradford:But I think a more interesting eBay opportunity is to really celebrate the seller and to talk about, are they trusted? Because a lot of the stuff that eBay sells, a lot of stuff on our site, you can't actually get a review. Much of it is not that product.Bradford:A good example like comic books like I know I want this spider man whatever it is. The thing that I care about is, do I trust this seller that the condition that they're saying it is as is. And so, I think a concept of reviewing a seller and trusting them, I think is super interesting to lean into. I think it's super interesting to lean into especially where a lot of our... and eBay is a little different all over the world, so I don't know how much you know about that too.Bradford:So, in the US, the business is very different than the way it looks in UK. It's very different than in Australia. So, for some of those places in Australia like I'll give you example. We have a lot of brands and the top brands and top retailers selling direct on eBay.Bradford:So, it's like we are a channel for them. So, there, the trust opportunity is about like is this one of these iconic brands that I trust, I know their inventory. But in other parts of the country, there's a lot of small businesses, a lot of people who have built cult followings on Instagram.Bradford:A lot of people that literally have brick and mortar stores and small towns and main streets. And they have been able to survive in a world of big box retailers and mega malls because they've had this outlet to sell things from their physical location on eBay globally.Bradford:And so, I think we should show that off more. I think if someone knew they were buying a record or a bunch of records from a record dealer who's had a shop since the early '80s in Downtown Buffalo and I'm making that up but it probably does exist. Like that would be a level of trust, right? You know that this person is the real deal.Bradford:And there's something about that that I get excited about, thinking about when you say reviews is leaning in and it's less about reviews, but more about like, "Can I trust this seller? Who are they? Where do they exist?" Like, "What is their point of view? What do they specialize in? What are they experts in? How can I communicate with them?" I get excited about that.Stephanie:Yup. I love that. Because I mean, even from a human perspective, it's like what do you remember? Are you going to remember like you said the product? Or you remember the person, the face like the story behind it and then that would come top of my next, I'm like, "Oh, I want to go to Bob's record store and get another record from him because he did a great job last time versus-"Bradford:[crosstalk 00:42:38]. And that's difference between like us. I talked about Jamie and our new pivot, our new strategy like what you just said is super important. I don't know if you're buying diapers, or if you're buying toilet paper, or you're buying replacement batteries that that person to person connection matters that much.Bradford:It's about price right? Is this the thing I'm looking for and who has it at the cheapest and sometimes it's the cheapest bust the quickest. And I think a lot of times eBay just because of this, like the diversity of our inventory sources, we get to compete there too.Bradford:Because we have all these different sources of inventory and oftentimes, we're the best price. But when you talk about things like collectible sneakers or vintage handbags, or coins, or antiques, or vintage camera equipment, or car parts, suddenly, who you're buying it from matters. It not only matters from the feel of good I'm like helping the little guy community aspect of eBay, but it also matters from the trust.Bradford:And part of people that do have passions whether they're collecting or enthusiasts, part of the joy of that whole thing is not just the accumulation of things, it's the connections to people that come with the process of accumulating those things.Bradford:And that is where eBay, that happens just naturally because it's our DNA, but we need to tap into that way more than we do currently, and we will. And that's the stuff that we're talking about internally right now.Stephanie:Yeah, I love that. I think that's also just such a good point for any new like do they see companies coming out right now that like the story behind it. I mean, I know a lot of people sometimes are like, "Oh, I don't want to talk about myself." But I remember going to certain websites and looking at that page and seeing like, "Oh, it's like a certain family member is behind and here's how it was inspired. "I think like Charles Webb comes to mind and a couple other ones.Stephanie:But you remember that story of why they're doing what they're doing and that's way more of a spot to connect on than maybe just the product. Like you start to have a good product, but I think [crosstalk] some of that story is important.Bradford:Yeah. You're absolutely right. It's not one or the other, it's both. And when it's both it's like, pow, that's where the magic happens. And again, we're coming back to that more than we have probably in the recent history of the company.Stephanie:Yeah. Very cool. So, you were just mentioning earlier about international audiences, like you guys have a global presence. How do you think about developing your website and your offerings and telling the story behind different, maybe like catalogs and things like that, how do you think about approaching that from a global perspective?Bradford:Prior to COVID, I spent I would say a half of my time not in New York City. So, I have a global role and obviously worked for a company that's headquartered in California. But I really, really spent a lot of the last four years on the road and really listening to customers.Bradford:And when I say customers, I mean, also. So, eBay is like we have global functions. So, product and technology is one of the things that are global. It's based mostly although we have people that work on and distributed across the world, it's headquartered in California and that's the epicenter.Bradford:But we also have markets, regional teams. So, because of the scale of our business they're like big companies within a really big company. We have an Australian headquarters. We have an Asian headquarters. We have an Israeli headquarters.Bradford:We have our Russian headquarters. We have German headquarters. We have an UK. And a lot of the business, merchandise, marketing like just operations, the people that are closest to the customers and market are in those countries. And you do see nuance of differences of how people use products like it's super interesting.Bradford:I'll give you an example. We launched the ability to create an account on eBay with Google, Facebook and now Apple. This is nothing revolutionary. It's been around since 10 years, but we launched it finally in eBay a couple years ago. And we've seen a lot of adoption because that's just the normal way a lot of people create accounts.Bradford:They don't have to think about a username and a password remembered for individual websites. They just click a button they link to Google and it's one click sign in. Germans don't want to do that. And you realize that like suddenly, this product that there are parts all over the world, and then you realize that there are very real differences.Bradford:There are very real differences in how people want to pay for things. Germans again don't use credit cards the way that a lot of the west does. There are very specific payments forms in China that we just don't have in the US. And see nuance in the categories they shop globally, country to country often.Bradford:You see nuance and payment choices. You see nuance in privacy. Some countries care a lot less than other countries about it. It is really interesting to see the outliers where something just doesn't make sense or doesn't work somewhere. We test things and sometimes like something is a runaway hit in one country and it's just the... sometimes negative and others.Bradford:And really a fascinating part of our job is how do you launch global product by respecting local nuance. And what we have done is we have actually a team of... it's a pretty decent sized team. But we have a team that actually takes our global product tech platform and sometimes builds newer experiences that are market specific on top of the example is you can buy groceries in Australia on eBay.Stephanie:Oh, interesting.Bradford:Yeah, anywhere else. But because of just the size of the country and the epicenters of where people actually live and partnerships with the top grocery companies there. We actually built like a grocery shopping experience on eBay which no one would ever think of that.Bradford:So, we do sometimes build different things in different markets depending, but by and large, I would say 95% of what we do is global audience is shopping view eBay at the same way, so it's not too much.Stephanie:That's pretty great. I mean, are there any international trends or shifts that you see happening right now that you guys are preparing for or leaning into?Bradford:No. I mean, I think that the shifts that we see are, again, I think this vertical approach, looking at different verticals and really understand that customer's journey end to end, how they landed on eBay. How they browse and shop and search for eBay.Bradford:How they consider what they expect in terms of protections and trust us and how they want to pay for it and what to expect, what returns and guarantees. We're doing that everywhere. What's different is that there may be some verticals that matter here and don't matter there and that's what we're working on right now as like I mentioned the watch business in the United States and that's definitely a global one.Bradford:But there might be some that are more US focused. There might be some that are more European focused. There might be some more that are more APAC focused. But other than that, I think it's just applying the same playbook. It just might be a different vertical or a different category focus in certain countries or regions.Stephanie:Yeah, that is great. All right. So, we have not too much time left, but I want to jump into the lightning round unless there's anything else you want to talk about.Bradford:Yeah, this was great. Thank you. I mean, it's so funny. Like I said, I like really drink the juice of eBay and like just talking about eBay gets me excited. So, thanks for letting me just riff on how awesome place I work is.Stephanie:Yup. Yeah, I like that excitement. That's what I love to talk about and have people come on the show, be passionate about where they work and what they're excited about. So, it's been perfect. All right. Lightning round brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. This is where I'm going to throw a question your way and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Bradford?Bradford:Yeah, okay.Stephanie:All right. So, this one I think you'll have a great answer to, what is the either best or most memorable purchase you've ever made on eBay?Bradford:Oh, my God. Well, I'll tell you what, I just found out what my first purchase was and it's really embarrassing, it was an MC Lyte who you don't even know who that is, I'm sure.Stephanie:Nope.Bradford:An MC Lyte cd.Stephanie:All right. Okay. So, what is this? Tell me a little bit more because I do not know.Bradford:MC Lyte is like one of the earliest female hip hop artists and was very famous in the late '80s, early '90s, did some rap like Queen Latifah. And that was my first purchase on eBay. But I-Stephanie:Well, do you still have it? I hope so.Bradford:I don't still have it. [crosstalk] anymore. I have a Warhol collection and I have bought probably five or six of them on eBay. So, I'm someone that actually buys high-end art on eBay. And those are oftentimes steals.Bradford:I mean, they're not inexpensive, but in terms of just the actual cost that would be out in the market of the art market through dealers and door and at auction and I got great, great, great deals.Stephanie:That's awesome. Yeah, very cool. Well, I have to see some pictures of some of your art.Bradford:I can send [crosstalk 00:54:04].Stephanie:That would be cool. I'd love to see it. So, once we can travel again, what's up next in your travel destinations?Bradford:It's so funny. Right before we're grounded, I just gotten back from a wedding of one of my best friends in South Africa. And then, I went to Rwanda and Zanzibar. And I flew 300,000 miles last year, so this is really hurting that I'm not traveling. My favorite two cities in the world are Berlin and Rio de Janeiro and I am dying to get back to both of them probably especially Rio.Stephanie:Okay, cool. We need to follow you on Instagram or Twitter wherever you are to keep up with where you are at in the world.Bradford:It used to be more interesting. I was at a beach every weekend and not anymore. [crosstalk] and I got to travel to really cool places for work. You get to go to Sydney. You get to go to Tel Aviv. You get to go to Berlin. You get to go to London, it was a really luxury. I don't know, I'm sleeping better now, so maybe it's not all bad.Stephanie:Yeah, there you go less jetlag. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Bradford:Oh, my God, it would totally be like completely not about the covers. It would probably be about music and drag queens and gave up culture. And my first guest I think it would have to be RuPaul.Stephanie:That sounds awesome. Hey, I mean, not all podcasts have to be about ecommerce. I mean, we have the best one. So, [crosstalk] anymore. There you go. You don't want to compete with us. You don't want this. All right. And last, harder question. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Bradford:Obviously, the answer is COVID. I think it's completely changed a lot of consumer behavior. I think it's really changed a lot of the industry. I think a lot of people that didn't sell or buy a line are now doing that. And I think I'm curious as we hopefully pull ourselves out of this globally.Bradford:And I hope get to a place sooner than later some normalcy in the world that I think that for ecommerce, just the playing field has shifted, it's going to be a different game. And I think we have some signs, early signs of what we think that looks like for eBay.Bradford:And I think a lot of podcasts and article I read are pontificating on it, but I don't think we have the answers yet. And that's probably the answer for this life to not just ecommerce life, but definitely COVID.Stephanie:Yup. Yeah, completely agree. All right. Bradford, it's been a blast talking. Where can people find out more about you and your work?Bradford:They can shop on eBay and see it live and flesh most of the things that a buyer touches. And you can follow me on Instagram, youngbradford, if you want. I'm boring on Twitter, I'm a more visual person.Stephanie:All righty. We will try and find you there then thanks so much.Bradford:All right. Thank you. This was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

It is rare that a brand has such reach and such impact that people all over the world can not just recognize it, but have memories of using the product for generations. Crayola is one of those rarities. Of course, Crayola was built around the production of crayons, but throughout its more than 115 years in business, Crayola has vastly expanded its product offerings and worked to build a community of consumers who gather around the idea of creativity. But how do you sell that expanded brand and provide opportunities for customers to find and interact with you in new ways?On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Josh Kroo, the Senior Vice President Brand Marketing and Digital Strategy at Crayola, joined us to discuss some of the strategies he is putting into place to increase brand awareness, expand digitally, and offer experiences for all kinds of audiences. Because whether your company is a century-old or a brand new startup, finding ways to adapt and expand will always be important. Main Takeaways:The YouTube Generation: A recent study reported that 81% of parents with children of children age 11 years and younger use YouTtube to find content for their kids. As more and more children — and parents — find their way onto the platform, brands need to be prepared to invest there if they want to stay relevant, as well in order to achieve relevance. Can I Interest You in Some Apps?: There are a number of ways to use apps, so you have to decide the purpose and KPIs of the app you are building and then deliver the type of experience that will bring the engagement you want. And it’s important to remember that one app doesn’t have to do it all. You can have different apps for different purposes and customers — one to drive discovery and brand awareness, another to drive conversions and sales.Every Kind of Experience Is Available: Physical experiences with brands — whether in store or at an event — have been the bedrock of creating a connection with customers. As the world changes, though, there is more opportunity to connect with customers in a new way – through digital and hybrid experiencesFor an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Today on the show we have Josh Kroo, the senior vice president of brand marketing and digital strategy at Crayola. Josh, welcome.Josh:Hi, good to be here.Stephanie:It's really exciting to have you on. I was actually just playing with some crayons with my two-and-a-half-year-old right before this, trying to get [crosstalk] for the interview.Josh:Excellent, that's good. I like that.Stephanie:Yeah, it's top of mind now, yeah. So, I want to hear a little bit about what led you to Crayola?Josh:Sure. So, I grew up kind of in a traditional brand marketing capacity. I started my career at Kraft and Danon, and had spent a lot of time building businesses there, but when the opportunity came calling to come to Crayola, which is one of the most iconic brands in the world, it's one of those brands where people ... you say that you work at Crayola, and everyone sort of has A, a memory, and then B, their face lights up, and they generally ask you a fun question like, "Oh, who names the colors?"Josh:It's just one of those brands that has touched so many people, and pretty much everybody along the way, and so for me to get the opportunity ... I joined Crayola to lead the marketing communications group. It was an opportunity to be a part of that brand, part of the mission, which I think is really wonderful, which is all about celebrating, and nurturing, and helping to spark the creativity in children, and giving parents and teachers the tools to do that, and then the chance to bring some energy to the brand, and I don't want to say revitalize it, but contemporize it, make it relevant for today's kids and parents, and lead a great team through that process.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. So, I mean, Crayola's been around since, I think it's the 1880s, right?Josh:Yeah, we are over 115 years old. So, started with eight little crayons. Edward Binney, our founder, his wife wanted kids to be able to color the world as they saw it, and so we launched with eight crayons. That's actually where Crayola comes from, cray meaning chalk, and ola is sort of like oily chalk with the colors. So, a lot has happened over the last 115 plus years in terms of the brand, but what's amazing is that the mission and the purpose of the company has still always really remained the same.Stephanie:Yeah, that's really cool. So, what does your day to day look like at Crayola, because I'm sure you've seen a lot of shifts happening over the many years that you've been there, or throughout the brand as a whole I'm sure you've heard of shifts, what are you doing now that maybe was different than a couple of years ago?Josh:Wow, there's a lot for unpack in that, I think-Stephanie:Yes.Josh:... first of all, my role has certainly evolved, but no, I think you can go ... or I personally can go from a meeting where we're talking about ecommerce marketing strategy, to looking at pieces of creative or creative work that we're building out for holiday, to a meeting where we're looking at what our strategy is going to be going forward from an annual planning perspective. I manage our interactive business right now, so it could be a meeting where we're looking at what are the next updates for the plans for our apps, and how are they performing? So, it really it can touch all different parts of the business, and I think that's part of the joy of working for a brand like this, and in my role. It's everything from all the brand marketing, but now most recently digging deeper into the digital and ecomm side of things, and helping to guide the company in that way. So, you never know what's going to come on any given day, but I think that's what keeps it fun.Stephanie:That's great. So, you were just mentioning apps, and I think that would be fun to kind of dive into Crayola's mobile efforts, because I think when I think of Crayola I, of course, think of the crayons that we have in our living room, but I'd love to hear how you guys think about building out apps, and how do you know what's going to work, or what doesn't? How do you think about what you want to invest in when it comes to that area?Josh:So, that's a great question. I think it's been a really interesting journey for us in the app space. We've actually been making apps for over a decade now-Stephanie:Oh, wow.Josh:... but the way that we've been doing it has really evolved. So, this predates my time even, but we had what we called here physical to digital apps, which was this idea of how do you merge physical creativity and digital creativity, and bringing them together in an app. We were working hard at that, we had the first augmented reality coloring books that were out there, we had augmented reality based animation, we had all these products, and I think ultimately what we figured out was we have to be okay with kids being creative in a digital space.Josh:I think overarching what you recognize is that if you look at kids' free time in a pie, they're spending more and more time with technology, depending on the age of the kid it can be upwards of 30 plus percent of their time with technology, and certainly within that, they're being creative. So, what is the best way for Crayola to play there? And we evolved from this kind of idea that you had to do something physical, or physically creative, which is at the core of what Crayola's been about for well over 100 years, to what does modern creativity look like for a kid? And I think that's really where we set out to build from, from an app perspective.Josh:So, looking at it, and then you start to ask yourself, and we've got a variety of different apps today, we've sort of got a flagship app called Create and Play, which is really the premium Crayola experience, everything that you could want for digital creativity that's sort of targeted to younger kids in that three to five space. And then we've got other apps that are out there that are supporting different brands or IP of products that act as a marketing vehicle. I think for our flagship app, what we really wanted was to create an experience that was if you think about opening a crayon box, what is the magical experience that a kid gets from opening a crayon box? I'm sure your two-and-a-half-year-old can relate to the smell of the crayons-Stephanie:I was going to say, the smell, yes.Josh:... the excitement of the color, so you've got all of that there, and how do you bring that into the app space, and how do you also empower kids to express themselves creatively? And what we wanted to do here was help kids learn through creativity, but without really knowing they were learning, so it's all through play. I think from a parent perspective, so two and a half maybe or maybe not be a little bit young for your kid, but parents want to feel good about what their kids are doing on an app, and so how can we give a wholesome experience as well? So, that was really the approach that we took there, and we built out a variety of different apps, and continue to expand on the content, and it's a really great way to foster digital creativity.Stephanie:Very cool. Do you have any tips or things that you found out along the way when you're trying to make sure that you're staying true to the brand that everyone loves, and like you said, being able to do things in the real world, like actually draw on stuff is an important part of it, while also moving forward in this digital arena?Josh:Yeah, so I think the fun part about being in an app is being okay with the fact that there are fantastical things that you can do to express yourself in the app space. So, for us, it's always about staying true to the essence of the brand, but our brand is really all about creativity. So, you can color with a crayon and make marks on paper, and that's wonderful. How do we exaggerate that in the app space so it's delivering that magical experience for a kid? So, you can color with flames in the app, for example, or you can express yourself in different ways.Josh:So, we have a whole area in the app that's all around pets, and pet play, and pet care, and you can dress them up, color on them, make music with them. It's all creativity in a different way, but I think for us it's really it's all about letting kids express themselves, whether it's physical or digital. I think for us, the other thing that is true about any, whether it's physical or digital creativity is there is no such thing as bad creativity. So, we celebrate everything, whether you made a random circle on a paper, or whether you painted a Picasso, it's all celebrated, it all goes into the gallery, and every kid should be proud of what they create.Stephanie:That's great. How do you stay ahead of what kids are looking for? It seems ... I mean, when I think about my kids I'm like, I have no idea, sometimes they like certain things that I'm very surprised by, or I think they're going to love something, and I buy them this really cool gift, and then it's like a flop. So, how do you guys stay innovating in that area and stay inside the kids' heads of knowing what they're going to enjoy and like?Josh:Well, certainly there's an aspect of just being immersed in the world of kids apps, and playing with other kids apps, and understanding what's out there, but then you're also always looking for what's trending, and making sure that we're staying on top of that from a trends' perspective, and you can sort of pick it up by just the amount of research that we do with kids, and talk to kids in general, you can sort of get a flavor for what they're doing. And then we also do a lot of user testing as well along the way to validate the concepts and the content that we're building out.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative), very cool. How do you think about like you're building these apps that, I would say, encourage the kids to play around for a long time, are you mostly focused on having someone really engage with these apps, or are you also building apps that are focused on conversions of maybe selling actual products, or is it kind of a little bit of both?Josh:It depends on the app. So, our flagship Create and Play app, that's actually a subscription app, so you can go into that app and you'll be able to play with, call it, a quarter of the app for free, but if you want the full experience we're monetizing it through subscription, and I think if you look at the app space in general in the kid space it's really moving in that direction from premium and freemium, and it has been for a few years since the subscription. The win for us there, certainly I'm happy that we're monetizing it, but we see kids on average playing 25 to 30 minutes a day deeply engaging in your brand, I mean, that's sort of hard experience to replicate.Josh:And then there are other apps where it is just free, so I think the most recent one we launched was probably nine or 10 months ago, it was called Scribble Scrubbie Pets, which is an IP that we have that's actually a toy-based app, and that really is ... it's a totally free experience. Again, we want kids to immerse and connect with the brand, and we'll see them averaging 20 plus minutes a day with it, and there are different things you can do. So, there's, call it, almost 40 different Scrubbie Pets in there, you can unlock them by either buying the product, and that's a shortcut to unlocking pets, or you can just continue to play and engage with the brand and do activities, and unlock the pets that way. So, the conversion will happen more down the line, and it really is about generating that brand awareness, and brand love.Stephanie:Cool. So, when thinking about your ecommerce and your website experience, what are you guys doing on that front right now, and what are you seeing that's working? Well maybe, what step of, or what stage are you guys in with selling online? Whereas I guess I still think of you as I would go to the store maybe to buy some crayons right now.Josh:Yeah, it's really interesting, it's been a total evolution for Crayola. If you go back 10 or 15 years ago, or maybe even shorter, two of our biggest customers were Toys "R" Us, and Kmart, and you know where they are-Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, Kmart.Josh:Exactly [crosstalk 00:11:59]-Stephanie:Forgot about them, yep.Josh:No, so we made a very concerted effort at Crayola probably three or four years ago recognizing that ecommerce and specifically Amazon were going to be a huge factor in how consumers shop, and we really pivoted the business, built out a totally siloed ecommerce team to grow that that was partnered with my team on the marketing side and the content side, and put a huge amount of organizational effort and resources against growing that part of the business. So, I'd say I feel like we're pretty far along from an ecomm perspective, both from just where our sales are coming from, and how consumers are buying our products, but also internally from a talent perspective, from a process perspective, from a knowledge-based perspective in terms of grabbing growth in that platform. But it's been a three, four year evolution in getting there, and now you see how things are playing out and it's even more accelerated when you look at the onset of the COVID pandemic, and I feel really good about the place that we're in right now to be where consumers are. Ultimately, that's kind of what we have to follow, right?Stephanie:Yep. Yeah so, what platforms did you guys move towards, and which ones are you seeing the most success with right now?Josh:So, we've had a DTC business for maybe close to five years right now, but I think we really prioritized growing with our retailer platforms, Amazon being the number one focus, but not far behind that are the Targets and the Walmarts of the world, and I think in the last six months we've seen just every retailer become an omnichannel retailer. But I'd say we put a tremendous focus on probably, if you can think about where our Crayola business goes through, those three players, with Amazon kind of leading the way obviously from a share of an ecommerce perspective, but I think we've taken the lessons from there and really extrapolated them and leveraged them across all the other selling platforms to put our best foot forward, and be everywhere that consumers are from an ecomm perspective.Stephanie:Yeah. So, what kind of lessons did you learn from Amazon that you're applying on the other platforms now?Josh:I think certainly understanding how to leverage search and paid search was a big one, and understanding how that sort of ... and even organizationally, we're a company that's been built on brick and mortar sales for 100 plus years, just adapting the mentality internally of understanding that there's an endless sea of products, and when you're buying search, or when you're buying those placements, you're basically merchandising yourself, and it's all about, call it "physical availability in the digital space". So, we spent a ton of time learning how to optimize that experience and finding the right partners to help us get there, and then have really leveraged those learnings. And then I'd say from a content perspective too, so Crayola ... I think when you're walking down a store you look at a shelf and you experience all sorts of different connections to the brand and triggers based on the products that you're seeing on a shelf.Josh:When you're shopping online it's a little bit harder, and so from a content perspective we've worked really hard, first of all, from a discovery, just written content, and driving traffic, and a lot of effort there in understanding that, but also from a visual content perspective, and now evolving much more into video content, because we want our products to come to life. At the end of the day, we want a parent or a kid who's looking at our product detail pages or seeing any visual content that we put online to have a connection and inspiration to what they can actually create with our products. So, there's been a lot of effort put around visual and video content to bring the product to life, and drive that conversion.Stephanie:Yeah. So, when you're making this video content are there any specific platforms that are working really well, whether it's YouTube, or what are you guys utilizing to get that content out into the world to be found?Josh:We'll typical host on YouTube, but we've spent more time, especially from a parent's perspective, focused around social platforms to drive a lot of the content, but then I think what we've found is that our consumers, when they get onto the product detail pages, are really looking through all of the images and videos, and now you're starting to see it be more prevalent even played up, call it, before you get to a product detail page. So, the use of videos on Amazon is certainly growing. So, we're kind of ... it really depends on where the audience is and what stage of the funnel they are, but we're leveraging video as much as possible everywhere, whether it's in our paid marketing or organic marketing on social platforms, and throughout ecommerce.Josh:I think YouTube is becoming a bigger and bigger focus for us, specifically from a kid perspective, and if you just look at ... I think there is a recent study that came out, 70% of kids are on YouTube. It depends on the age, obviously, but kids are literally spending upwards of 90 minutes a day on YouTube, and if you want to connect with kids it's kind of hard to say, "You shouldn't be there." You've got to be there, and I think we're seeing a tremendous amount of content focused to kids there, and we're no different in terms of how we think about specifically video content.Stephanie:Yeah. What about TikTok? Are you guys trying out the good old TikTok, or not yet?Josh:No, we actually have. So, most of our products are geared towards younger kids, the real sweet spot of Crayola is kind of in that, call it, four to seven, three to seven range, and I mean, some of those kids are on social media, although they shouldn't be, but we do have a few product lines, and certainly I think with the adult coloring phase that happened, if you remember that in 2016?Stephanie:Yes.Josh:I think it really inspired a lot of adults and teens and tweens to get back into the creative space and sort of find their own creativity. So, when TikTok came out we've been certainly dabbling in that space with a variety of our different brands. We have a line of writing tools called Take Note! that's all about expressing yourself through colorful note-taking, and we've played there a little bit. And I think there is a ton of just organic user generated content around Crayola, and it can be everything from the weirdest product we've ever launched like something called Globbles, where someone posts a video, it catches on virally, and all of a sudden it's selling out on Amazon like crazy. So, I think we're-Stephanie:What is a Globble?Josh:A Globble is a small ... I don't even know how to describe it. Think of it like the size of Silly Putty egg, but it's sticky, you can sort of mash them together and throw them at walls, and they'll stick to ceilings, and kind of just be creative in a weird way, but-Stephanie:That sounds very therapeutic.Josh:It is, it is therapeutic, and you can sort of get creative with them in ways to play with them. But it's the power of these different platforms you can see it in something as silly as that where we're still seeing a spike in search on Globbles on our DTC site.Stephanie:That's great.Josh:But for the most part to reach our audience I would imagine that similar to what we've seen with Facebook and Instagram you're already seeing it throughout the last six months that TikTok ... there're older people getting onto TikTok, and parents getting onto TikTok, and there's a place for us to continue to experiment there, for sure.Stephanie:Yeah, that's what was coming to mind. So, I'm on there, but I follow a lot of other moms, and right now a big trend is trying to figure out ways to keep your kids entertained with all the kids who are home and not going to school. I'm like, "Oh, it seems like a good opportunity to connect with fellow moms out there who are like, 'How do I keep my kids occupied?'"Josh:Well no, that's great, going back to your question about video content, I mean, what we're looking at is what social platforms can we get it out there, and for the last six months the team, from a content perspective, has been really focused on appointment programming, so this idea of, "Hey, we are going to have a creative activity for you every day.", and whether that's Crayola filmed or whether we're partnering with a ton of different, call it micro influencers that are out there, it can be in the crafting space, in the calligraphy space, in kids crafts, adult crafting, and so it's a great point that you raise of folks are at home, whether it's themselves or their kids, and looking for creative inspiration, and we're doing our best to be across all platforms to share that. So, I think it's a great point.Stephanie:So, you just mentioned micro influencers, how are you guys parenting with them, and how are you measuring if it's successful or not? Because that seems like a topic that a lot of people are trying, and we've had some guests say, "Oh, that doesn't work.", and then other guests say, "Oh, it's working really well for us." So, I want to hear how as a legacy brand partnering with someone like that, how are you guys tracking if it's successful or not?Josh:Yeah, I guess for me I don't necessarily look at that as performance marketing, for me it's all about generating brand awareness, and connectivity with consumers. I think part of the job that we have in the marketing group at Crayola is most people do think of us as the crayon company, and so even you yourself said at the beginning of the call, "Crayons.", but we have hundreds of other products in the space, and so for me I look at this as more upper funnel activity. So, we're looking at viewer engagement, video completes, and things of that nature, but I'm not necessarily trying to correlate it all the way through to conversion. I think still, throughout much of the year a large part of our conversion is going to happen at retail, and it's just not big enough necessarily to track back to that performance. But ultimately I want as many eyeballs on it, and watching as much of those videos as possible, because that's generating brand awareness for me.Stephanie:Yep. So, are you guys making an active effort to kind of be known as not just crayons but other things, or are you kind of just okay with being like, "We're being out great things, and if people are using it we're okay with not everyone associating us with those products.", like how are you think about that branding?Josh:I think we'll always be known as the crayon company to a degree, but no, not okay with it, I think our job is really to help consumers understand that we have everything from a full range of arts and crafts products to creative toys. I don't view our competitive set as crayons per se, I think our competitive set is really kids free time, and the more that we can help showcase all the different range of options and great products that we have available the more it will fit into kids' lives. I think when I think about what we're really enabling, and what we're about, we're about self-expression, and creativity, and we're a creativity company. So, I wouldn't want to define that by crayons, as we talked about before, we want you to be creative with Crayola in an app, I want you to be able to paint, or I want you to be able to color, and recolor your Scribble Scrubbie Pets, and be creative and express yourself in that way. I'm good with all of it.Stephanie:Great, yeah. That's a good answer. So, for going forward over the next couple years, or before this call you were mentioning that you were in a meeting talking about how to maybe invest around ecommerce, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on where are you guys headed, what are you looking to invest in, what new things are you trying out to meet the market either now or in the future?Josh:Yeah, so that's a great question. I think in the here and now when I think about the ecommerce space ... it was hard in the beginning to figure out what is the right amount to invest, and you heard all sorts of numbers thrown around, is it just whatever you can carve out of your budget and dedicate it there, is a percent of net revenue, a percent of gross revenue? But I think when you think about ecommerce, and it seems kind of silly looking back on it now, it really is a math model. It's the number of eyeballs you get times your conversion rate. So, how many eyeballs can I get to the product pages, and then what am I converting them at, and then what is my average sales price, or what are the products are they selling for?Josh:And that's eventually going to be how you generate your growth and your numbers, and so the way that I've been looking at it and been pushing the team to look at it has been, all right, what is the traffic that we need to drive, and look at every element in this, what's the traffic that we need to drive, and how are we going to get there? So, I think for us on many of the ecommerce platforms, whether you're talking about Amazon, or walmart.com, it's first and foremost, search is the lowest hanging fruit. How do we maximize that as much as possible? And we have enough historical data over the last few years that we can figure out and invest in that model on what it's going to take to get there.Josh:I think beyond that as we look towards the out years, because eventually we haven't reached nearly a point of diminishing returns there, but we're always trying to figure out, "Okay, if it's ecommerce, how do I drive those page views? Is it experimenting with different tools on Amazon's platform? Looking at them as a DSP, so am I looking at AMQ type tools, addressable TV, what else can I do to drive those eyeballs, but it comes back to the math and the return on ad spend, which certainly in the ecomm world we're very focused on.Josh:And then I think it's also about pulling the other levers. So, if I can move my conversion rate on a big business by a half a point, that's pretty significant. So, what are the areas that we're going to invest in from a content perspective as well to try to drive and pull every lever to ensure that we're continuing to drive growth. And I think broadly the mentality that we have as just a marketing team, I won't call it digital marketing, because I just think it's marketing, we embrace the test and learn mentality, and we're always looking out there, whether that's talking to our peers in the industry, partnering with agencies, just generally being consumers ourselves, what are the things that we're seeing that we should be testing? So, a great example now would be shoppable social, right?Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:If you think about our brand, and we're putting out all this inspirational content, how do we try and shorten that funnel and make the content more shoppable? I don't know if it's necessarily huge yet, but I believe it will be, and so how do we start to build our knowledge base and our skillset in that regard, too? So, I think there's different ways to look at different spaces of investment, but that's kind of how we're approaching it.Stephanie:I really like the point about shoppable experiences. I've actually thought that that seems so behind to me, even right now when I'm on Instagram, I mean, I know Pinterest is doing it now, but it seems like this is something that should've been around a long time ago, and it's just starting to pop up, but the experience still isn't there. Any thoughts on why it's been such a slow transition for something that I think should've been here ... well, it feels like a long time ago.Josh:I think it's all ... it's interesting for why maybe it has or has not caught on, certainly everyone's investing behind it, like interest ... sorry, Pinterest and their partnerships, looking at Instagram and where they're trying to go, I think it's got to be all about convenience. So, I'm curious to see what the consumer behavior is. Sometime you might be in a shopping mindset, other times you might just be looking to scroll through and do you really want to leave the platform. So, I'm sure, and we're seeing it, the investment, and how do we just create a more seamless, convenient experience that doesn't disrupt what you're trying to do?Josh:Ultimately, with anything in the digital space, I think kind of comes back to that, what mentality are you in, and how convenient is it going to be? I think we see that with the general ecomm growth that we're seeing, like the pandemic forces you to all of a sudden adopt new buying habits, whether you're on Instacart or wherever else, and then all of a sudden it's convenient, and so those are the types of things that stick. So, I'm just wondering if from a shoppable social perspective, have we truly hit the peak of convenience and ease, but I'm sure it's going to improve YouTube now investing in this space, so I think it's clearly an area of opportunity, but it seems to be that the industry's moving that way.Stephanie:Yeah, it also seems like there's a strategy there of building content that's focused on conversions where someone's going to be watching it, and they're going to want the things that are in that video, versus like you said, maybe someone goes to a video and they're not really in that mindset, but also maybe the content is not focused towards a conversion, or towards you need the products that are in there to be able to even do this.Josh:Yeah, and I think we're going to continue to see those two worlds blend, right?Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:The idea of sort of that kind of performance marketing mixed with content and converting the content into commerce. I know that's an area that we've been talking about for years from a Crayola perspective, because it's hard to look at a box of, making it up, metallic markers and understand what you can do with it, but if I can connect those metallic markers to a beautiful piece of what we call Crayoligraphy, and then I can connect that to a bundle that will teach you how to do it, now we're really starting to merge those things together, it's engaging from a viewing perspective, and there's a practical outlet for you to now go get creative and do it yourself.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, and I think that also kind of circles back to what you were talking crating daily, in a way, lesson plans, or something to keep someone engaged constantly, but then it opens up a whole thing of like, "Okay, let me get my supplies for this digital lesson plan that I'm going to be following along with.", and it kind of creates a mote where you need to have Crayola's products wield up, go through this lesson plan, and have fun, and enjoy every step with the right products.Josh:Yep, and that's exactly kind of the areas that we've been experimenting in. So, we had a summer craft series with one of our micro influencer partners out there, and we're selling a craft box to get everything you need for that week of crafts along with it. So yeah, I think there's a world where, yeah, those things start to make sense, and the more we can inspire you, that's really winning for us. We want to inspire that creativity and give you the tools to do it.Stephanie:Yep, I love it. So, are there any brands that have been out there for a long time that you guys watch, or that you partner with, to kind of keep tabs on how they're doing things, or how they're going through maybe a digital transformation, or just kind of learning from them and watching where they go?Josh:For me, I think one of the best out there certainly is Lego. I just think they have absolutely mastered it from everything from entertainment, to community building, to best in class content, to leveraging user generated content, and tapping into passion points of consumers. So, I really love what they do, they're probably the number one brand that I would watch out there, and just look at ... I mentioned YouTube before, I think they just eclipsed 10 billion views of their videos on YouTube, I mean-Stephanie:Wow.Josh:... truly doing a lot of things right to grow their business. So, I think they're a really great case study out there of how to build out content, and really surround consumers, both kids and adults, with your brand, and then products to boot to go along with [crosstalk 00:32:44]-Stephanie:Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, even thinking about that Lego movie, which to me is so smart because I mean, it connected with kids, but I think it actually was very sticky with parents as well, I mean, that was the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to content that they were creating. Has Crayola thought about creating something like that, or backing a project like that, that would connect with kids and adults, but then also leave people talking about it?Josh:Yeah, I think it's certainly a place where there's opportunity. We haven't necessarily ventured there yet, but I wouldn't say ... I would say anything's on the table, certainly as, I think, the world of content is constantly evolving. And so, while it maybe is not necessarily entertainment in that sense, we actually have five Crayola Experiences that have opened up around the country, and that's depending on where you are that could be four to five floors of immersive creative experiences where parents and kids are coming in and spending three to four hours there and just delving into the brand. So, there's all sorts of ways from an experiential perspective to connect with consumers, and I think what you'll see from us, certainly in the YouTube spaces, starting to dip our toes into the water of content in that sense. So, I wouldn't say it's anything that is imminent, but certainly, you never know where it's going to go, and I think Crayola's one of those brands that can play in lots of spaces like that.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's a really good point about creating experiences. I think there's going to be a lot of pent-up demand after staying at home for as long as we have, and having places that you can go to experience the brand and the product and have fun, it seems like a really strong strategy going forward after all this kind of calms down.Josh:Yeah, I think when you look at just general consumer sentiment and what they're saying, and it's been trending this ways for years is that people are looking for experiences. What's interesting is they can be physical, so in a store, or in a location like a Crayola Experience, but I do think there's an opportunity for digital experiences coming to life, too. I think I saw the other day L'Oréal sort of introducing a new way to buy your cosmetics and makeup, and making it more experiential. So, I think experience, and what that consumer experience is, and how they can engage with your brand in deeper and deeper ways once they're sort of at that interest point in the funnel, or at various points of the funnel, is going to continue to be an area of focus.Stephanie:Yep. What about community? How are you guys thinking about curating and building on a community to where I'm sure a lot of parents and kids would all want to talk and hang out, and show projects together, and I could see you guys having a really good angle there. How are you all approaching the community aspect of your brand? And building that up?Josh:It's a good question. I think with kids it's a little bit more challenging in that you've got all sorts of privacy regulations there, and so creating a closed community and getting kids to join that is a pretty tall order I think. From a parent perspective, we've actually really been more focused on that sense of community on social platforms rather than trying to create our own, and pushing out our content there, and engaging with consumers in that sense. So, I think we're trying to be where consumers are, versus necessarily building something big and trying to get them to come to us. I think we have the type of brand that can be relevant in all sorts of ways in peoples lives every day, and so following their lead and where they are, and that can be everything, again, from social platforms to native content that we're developing, et cetera. But I'd say that's kind of how we've approached community versus necessarily building it ourselves.Stephanie:That makes sense. So, I want to think a little bit higher level around just the ecommerce playing field in general, what kind of disruptions do you see coming to ecommerce?Josh:I think the demand of convenience will just continue to set the bar higher and higher for brands, and put more and more challenges on brands, and probably more retailers than brands themselves, but ultimately then it starts to come back to the brands themselves, or the suppliers in that in terms of how we supply product, where the inventory's being held, all those types of questions. So, I think we'll continue to see that push on convenience, and I think those are going to be the folks that win. I think Target's a perfect example right now of how they approached it, but I think it'll only continue to expand.Josh:I think ... it's hard to say it's a major disruption, but I think just this change is going to force a lot of organizations to look at themselves a little bit differently. There's all these organizations that have been built on brick and mortar businesses, and how does that ... it's going to continue to evolve, ecomm is not going away, I think to that earlier point of what becomes a part of peoples shopping habits is there, so how do you adapt internally as an organization to continue to put out product and content at the speed of which consumers are demanding it in that space? And then there's, I think, as more and more shopping shifts online, how does buy online/pick up in store disrupt what we're doing? How does a lack of impulse purchase disrupt what we're doing from a company? So, I think it's just going to be an evolution of how we go to market.Josh:I guess the other interesting thing that I've been thinking about recently is just the power of brands in this space, and again, the shift to ecomm, it's always been coming, maybe it's been accelerated, but it's coming more, but can bigger brands ... there's been a resurgence in bigger brands in this space, and is there a renewed emphasis on brand building as everyone starts to move online, will the big brands win? Will they win the search? Will they win the share of space, sort of the infinite shelf space? They're winning in the pandemic, can that continue?Stephanie:Yeah, that's a good point. I think that bigger brands seems like they would, of course, have a leg up, because the people who are coming online who maybe weren't always there before, they're already top of mind, or that's already someone that they trust, but it does seem like there's also a lot of room to kind of gather that new trust, or get that brand awareness out there in a way that wasn't done before.Josh:Yep. And I also just wonder if the standards are going to change for what that experience is going to be that you expect from a big brand. Sometimes digitally native brands can be more nimble, deliver more personalized experiences, so what are those ... is it a more experiential experience that you're looking for, whether that's in store or in the digital space, how do the expectations change from a go-to-market perspective? And I think that'll continue to evolve.Stephanie:Yeah, with so many of these new brands popping up now, I mean, it sounds like ... I mean, there's a lot of new great companies that are popping up, but it also seems very noisy, and that could also maybe hurt the consumer experience if they have a couple bad purchasing experiences with smaller brands. So, how do you guys stay focused, and not kind of get caught up in all the noise, and have like your true north of like, "This is where I'm headed, and this is what we need to do.", without getting caught up in maybe the trends, or the quick things that are going on right now?Josh:Yeah, I mean, for us I think it always has to be true ... our true north ultimately is the mission, and that funnels down into everything that we do. So, what kind of experiences do we want to give to people online, it's going to be in service of that mission. When we think of giving personalized experiences, it's how do we make that a better experience for you, but again, always in service to the mission. The creativity that, or the messaging, or the crafts that I offer up to someone who's coming in that's an adult with no kids versus a parent with a three-year-old, those should be different experiences. So, I think for us ... but it always comes back to inspiring creativity in the best and most relevant way possible. So, I think if you've got solid ground in that regard you can kind of cut through the noise and say, "Hey, these things are extraneous, but these things are in service of a better experience that brings our mission to the forefront.Stephanie:Yep, I love it. All right, so I want to shift over to the lightning round brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question, and you have a minute or less to answer, Josh.Josh:Okay, let's see how I do.Stephanie:Dun-dun-dun. What new ecommerce tool are you trying out and having success with right now?Josh:Interesting. I think one of the tools that ... I don't know if it's a tool. I do think shoppable social is an area that we have been focused on, as I mentioned. So, I think we've seen in our little test and learns some success in that space as we try to merge content and commerce, and we'll probably continue to expand on that.Stephanie:Cool. What is a favorite piece of tech or an app that makes you more efficient?Josh:That makes me more efficient?Stephanie:Or that you just love.Josh:I was going to say, I went to what app do I love right now-Stephanie:Yeah, there you go, what app are you loving right now?Josh:So, I would say it makes me more efficient ... you know what? I wasn't a fan of Teams in the beginning, but I have actually found that Microsoft Teams has really helped from a connectivity perspective during this time, and it really has become a very frequently used tool. The app that I'm loving right now is a tiny little app called Readwise, which I think is super fun, and Readwise basically, if you ever read on the Kindle and take notes, or if you're reading books in general, you will actually take the highlights and things that you've taken out of those notes, or if you've read a physical book it'll just take the most highlighted sections by other people of those books, and serve them up to you in whatever increments you want every day. So, if you wanted five highlights a day, seven, and it just helps to build and reinforce those memory structures of the things that you're reading at there, and that can be whether that's articles, or whether that's books, I think it's a neat app that I've grown to love over the last few months.Stephanie:That's cool, I'll have to check that one out. So, what are you reading these days?Josh:Man, a lot of books during the pandemic, some of the most recent ones were a couple of Brené Brown books, which is sort of all about workplace culture, been reading a bunch of the Tim Ferriss books that are out there, The Lean Startup, is a recent one that I read. So, I don't know, I can probably keep going on a bunch of other ones, but there's ... for whatever reason I've been reading a lot more recently.Stephanie:That's great. What's up next on your shopping list, or ... Actually, no, I have a different question, what is a favorite new product that Crayola just released? What is your favorite newer product that maybe a lot of people don't know about yet?Josh:Oh, my favorite product that a lot of people don't know about yet. So, I mentioned Scribble Scrubbie Pets-Stephanie:Yep.Josh:... I think that would be one of my favorite ones out there, and the other one is a line that we launched last year called Take Note! I mentioned that, that was sort of writing tools for teens and tweens, so it's got erasable highlighters, incredibly vibrant dry erase markers, gel pens, the whole works, and I really have grown to love that line of products and have many, many of them sitting on my desk in front of me and in my office here.Stephanie:Very cool. Well, Josh, thanks so much for joining us on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Crayola?Josh:So, certainly finding out about Crayola you can go to crayola.com. For me, I can't say that I'm a huge Twitter or LinkedIn poster, but @JoshKroo, you could follow me there, and yeah, generally just look for Crayola wherever you'd be looking for creative inspiration.Stephanie:Cool. I love it, thanks so much.

What comes to mind when you think about the relationship with your manufacturers? Chances are you have the same picture in your head as so many other brands. You see a series of events that starts with opening a purchase order, and goes down the line of tasks including paying for your items, getting them shipped and then starting the process all over again. It’s a transactional relationship that has seen very little disruption through the years. But the times are changing, and a company called Italic is leading the charge when it comes to developing a new framework around partnering with manufacturers. Italic is a membership-based brand that gives customers access to products produced by the same manufacturers of the top brands in the world. Jeremy Cai is the CEO of Italic, and he likes to say that Italic is a marketplace-inspired supply chain. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he explains exactly what that means. Jeremy describes new and different kinds of partnerships with manufacturers that, for the first time, makes them true partners in business. Plus, he explains why that partnership is leading to a better end product and happier customers. He also dives into new ways you can leverage manufacturers that many aren’t aware of, and details the metrics and strategies that subscription companies need to be focused on to rise above the competition.Main Takeaways:Getting in on the Action – Traditionally, manufacturers have not had to put much at stake financially when working with brands. But, with a company like Italic, the manufacturers take on a financial risk. In doing so, they also become more involved partners which leads to a better end product.It’s Deeper Than You Think – There is now a partnership opportunity between manufacturers and brands when it comes to designs and in-house pattern design capabilities t In the past, much of the design and pattern work was done solely by brands. But today, many manufacturers have high-quality design and R&D talent inhouse and create showrooms of products that brands can tap into.Meaty Membership Metrics – For membership-based companies, there needs to be less value placed on the traditional metrics that have so often defined ecommerce companies. Tune in to hear which ones are crucial to pay attention to.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce--- Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome to another episode of Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, cofounder of mission.org. Today, we have Jeremy Cai on the show, the CEO of Italic. Jeremy, welcome.Jeremy:Thanks so much for having me.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you on the show. I was mentioning earlier, but I've read quite a bit about you guys. I see you in a lot of the eCommerce newsletters that I follow, so it seems like you're growing in popularity at least when it comes to people writing about you right now.Jeremy:I don't know if that's a good success metric, but we're doing I think a good job on media coverage right now.Stephanie:There you go. I think it's a pretty good one. Tell me a bit about Italic for anyone who hasn't heard about it, doesn't know what it is. I would love you to give a brief overview of what it is.Jeremy:Sure, so Italic is an annual membership that costs $100 a year and our members get access to hundreds of products that we design and develop inhouse, ranging from cookware to bedding to towels to apparel and accessory, footwear and many more coming soon, but the difference is we sell them at prices where Italic it doesn't actually make a profit. This actually results in pricing that is dramatically lower than both direct-to-consumer companies as well as traditional incumbents, oftentimes in the 40% to 50% to sometimes 70% to 80% range. We've been around for about two and a half years, but we've only launched the membership about a month and a half ago, and so far, it's been a pretty good start.Stephanie:Very cool. You have membership and you're not making money on the actual products. Tell me more about what would be an example of something you're selling and how are you encouraging people to sign up for a membership to get access to everything that you just mentioned.Jeremy:Sure. One example of the product that we sell, and this applies to all their products, is let's just take our slumber cotton sheet set, for example. The sheet set sells anywhere from I think ... Actually, I might have to actually look at this for cross reference, but I think it's like anywhere from $80 to $120. Those are prices where we're not actually making money. Those prices do include things like freight and warehousing and fulfillment fees, but generally it still comes out substantially lower than the prices that our competitors would set. Then in terms of how we're actually attracting new members, really I'd say it's from two general ways.Jeremy:One is I think the goal is for our members to be saving money on their first purchase. This oftentimes comes through the lens of product marketing. If we would do a great job of really letting the products tell their own story of saying how great quality they are, the same manufacturers of so and so brands are, which certifications these manufacturers have, what specific details of the products really sell the product itself, I think that actually helps sell the membership for us because we don't really have to say like, "Hey, with this membership, you're saving all this money." instead it's like, "Hey, this product is obviously really great and it's really high quality."Jeremy:Then once you look at the price point, the perceived value is like, "Oh, I'm going to save pretty much the entirety of my membership fee in one or two purchases," which we see in the vast majority of cases. Typically, 93% of our new members will break even on their $100 fee in one order, but on the flipside on the membership, this is different than the standard transactional model in which you have to be a paying member in order to purchase anything. I think we do have do a fair amount of education in terms of showing to our members or showing to our audience who might become members, "Hey, this product, you can only buy it if it's a membership. This is how the platform works. This is why it's different than a brand. I think we have to put out a lot of content in terms of actually sharing like, this is how we were able to put together this offering that doesn't really exist elsewhere."Jeremy:We do a little bit of both, but I would say right now we lean a little bit heavier towards product marketing since we have a lot of new exciting launches coming up.Stephanie:That's awesome. Talk to me through a bit about what was your thinking behind creating a membership program for because I think I saw you started out with it and then maybe you stopped doing it and they started again and feel free to correct me if that's not right, but tell me about what was that journey like.Jeremy:It was not easy. I would say the way I like to view it is the first two and a half years of our business, we've really been focused on the supply side of operations, building out that product assortment, and exactly like you said, we did launch in 2018 with a membership product. Within basically a month or two, we decided very, very early on like, "Hey, we had three manufacturers in three categories at the time, handbags, scarves and eyewear. As you can imagine, those are not necessarily high frequency purchases to substantiate a membership value proposition.Jeremy:We actually never actually charged anyone for the membership. It was always a test to see how the response would be. Overwhelmingly, we saw that the product response was great, the quality was great, but I think the offering was too limited at the time. Instead for the following two years, we ran a transactional model in which we made money through marking up our products, albeit not as much as a brand would. Our products might be marked up two to two and a half times, whereas our competitors will mark them up five, 10, 15 times sometimes. That's how we made our money.Jeremy:Really the incentive was, "How do we build a product assortment that's large enough, so I guess wide enough and deep enough to attract the member to actually convert?" Around, I would say, Q4 of 2019, to be totally honest, I think we saw two things happen. One was the structural, I guess, implosion of the venture direct-to-consumer model in which a lot of brands, I think, who had been raising money and then going out with this one playbook that hadn't been set maybe back in 2013 to 2017, I think suddenly realized, like, "Hey, we are not technology companies. We are a brand and we make money through transactional volume." Basically, I'm just trying to say we saw the writing on the wall if we were to continue that model.Jeremy:Then in Q1, we also took a hard look in terms of our user behavior. We saw frequencies of purchases, our lifetime values get to a place, our product reviews, our NPS scores all get to a place where we felt confident in our product assortment to date. When we first started, we might have had maybe 30 or so skews. Now, we have over 1,000 skews. It finally got to a point where the product assortment felt mature enough to launch a membership product. We tested that, and then basically right when we started testing it, that's also when COVID hit.Jeremy:We figured there's either two options. One was we just pull that and just focus on building the transactional model again and getting it into a sustainable place which is still the goal, right? We don't want to build an unsustainable growth model or alternatively stress test the model in the peak of, I think, consumer uncertainty in which we would see like, "Hey, does this value proposition of saving money resonate in the time when it would matter the most. Thankfully, it did and I think from April to May, June and July, we monitored our cohorts and user behavior really closely and wanted to make sure that the membership was something that we had conviction in.Jeremy:Eventually, we got to a point where we realized like, "Hey, this is ..." I guess the way I like to put it is our customers always liked us, but our members absolutely loved us. We decided to go all in and then finally released the public version of the product in July.Stephanie:That's great. That's good seeing quick pivots and seeing like, "What is the market telling us? Where are things headed?" and trying out different models. How are you going about building out maybe a financial model because I'm thinking if you have only a membership subscription-type model, there's probably only a limited market? You can't scale indefinitely. There's only a certain people who will be on that versus making profits off of each product. I'm sure those are two very different models. How to do think about it financially when trying the two different ones out?Jeremy:That's a very valid point and I think we knew going into it that there is a lot of subscriptions out there and a lot of subscription fatigue and at least the states in the US in which everyone has a Prime membership or a Spotify subscription or Netflix and to add one more to that is always asking a lot. I think we knew going into it like, "Hey, this is all or nothing in which you can't launch a half-baked type of membership product." I think to the financial level, I think two things are worth noting before we decided to do this. One was the fact that we are capping our upside to $100 very literally for pretty much the extent of the year and the incentive in that case is, one, can we launch products and provide a service that our members love so much that they'll stay for years to come in which our LTV or lifetime value in that case would become quite substantial and hopefully our churn would be low and retention would be high and so on and so forth?Jeremy:I guess that's one area is we really were aware of the fact that if we cap our financial upside that the immediate short term would be that we're limited to $100 for the year, but the amount of utility and value that we could provide to a member would be so great that they hopefully stay for years to come in which our LTV would grow to a point where we would actually outperform our transactional type of behavior. Then the second point, exactly like you said, memberships aren't for everyone. We're very well aware of that, but I think something that has been exciting for us to see is if we're able to build this type of product, I think it is genuinely massively different than anything close to us.Jeremy:Whereas most of these direct-to-consumer brands, they're basically providing products and a story to a customer which is an incredibly, incredibly competitive market. We have a product where it's like, "Hey, for $100, you get access to all the products we sell at a price where we don't make money. I think that's a genuinely differentiated product in which we know it's not for everyone, but we think value-driven commerce, it's not sexy per se, but it is something that is very attractive to a very large segment of the American consumer base. I think we were willing to take that bet.Jeremy:Of course, we wanted to monitor really closely so that we weren't losing money on transactions at least and at least that we were breakeven and we were able to accomplish that within the months of the pilot, so we felt confident in rolling it out more broadly, but I think to answer that more directly, if we didn't see user traction, if we didn't see members using the platform or membership or if we saw our NPS or product reviews drop or if we saw an increase complaint rate, increase return rate, etcetera, then I think we would have actually probably returned back to the transactional model, but it was something that we felt confident enough in just off of a couple months of data that we've decided to go all in.Stephanie:That's awesome. I think that's so great, because it really shows a longer term vision and commitment to be around where I think actually a lot of B2C companies right now are missing that. I don't know if it's because of the VC stage where it was like grow really quickly, but it seems like a lot of people are more ready to just quickly make as much money as possible, maybe sell the company off, see what happens afterwards, but I really like the idea of actually telling your customers, "Hey, we're only going to make $100 profit for the year off you that essentially cover some of our costs." I could see that really helping a customer want to also support you guys along with just wanting it because maybe it's a very good service and some platform they use.Jeremy:Thanks. That was pretty much the bat. The reality of the business right now is if you're a direct-to-consumer brand and you're starting out nowadays, you might raise one round of financing, let's say anywhere from $500,000 all the way to like $3.5 million or something of the sort if you want to pursue that route. That's pretty much all you're going to be able to raise or at least assume that's the last capital you're going to raise, and then subsequently, you're going to try to sell. Nowadays, what I've seen whether it's a PE firm or a conglomerate or a larger direct-to-consumer brand that might be interested in acquiring one of these assets, it's now valued off of EBITDA, as opposed to revenues or run rates which is what we saw in between 2014, let's say in 2019.Jeremy:I think the reality is nowadays if you're trying to build a venture scale business in this model, it's really, really tough. I think the actual advantage of doing so is doing so sustainably with growing off the business off of cash flow as opposed to equity raises and going that route. Then, I think for the companies that have already raised that are in this tricky spot where we were for sure, we had to look ourselves in the mirror and just say like, "Hey, what is something that would be significantly differentiated in the market that has technology scale outcomes that would be potentially accessible if we were to do everything perfectly right.Jeremy:I think that's the only reality where we can actually like continue as a venture scale business. I think that's what we had to really just operate with the mentality of. I think in terms of like the customer empathy too, we always knew that our prices were good, that we always came maybe 15% to 20% lower than the next direct-to-consumer brand, but truth be told, if you were to compare our products which were objectively great products next to a brand's products that built all of their community messaging, advertising, copy, etcetera off of that single category, 15% to 20% off might not be enough to sway one of their customers to decide to purchase the value option, whereas nowadays to go much, much lower into the 60% to 70% range, that's a lot more powerful sway.Jeremy:I think for us we knew that it was a risky bet, but I think the customer would ultimately like it a lot more and so would the investors and I guess, business community at large. I know the brands don't like us, but that's another story.Stephanie:Well, that's actually a good segue. I wanted to hear some of the behind the scenes of partnering with these manufacturers and thinking about the psychology behind, "This is also bought," or let's see, "It's manufactured at a factory that also produces Prada." I saw that on your website mentioning like, "It also manufacturers this, this and this," and I was curious to figure out like, "What was the process to partner with these manufacturers and then also be allowed to say, 'These brands are also built or manufactured at this factory as well'?" It seems like that'd be a tricky area to play in.Jeremy:I can't deny that. I think we have a unique value proposition in that case. That's really what drove I think, a lot of our early interest in the brand over the first two years. In full transparency early on, I was personally quite nervous about it since it is a pretty radical statement, especially since like we position ourselves not so much as an individual brand, so much as, say, a platform or a marketplace or a retailer. I think in the early days we were very careful. All these things, it's not to say that we've loosened up on this. We're still very, very careful about auditing all of our partners, making sure that we're working with the best of the best in each category, regardless of where they are in the world.Jeremy:Oftentimes, that comes along with saying, "Hey, this product is made in the same manufacturer as X, Y and Z brands." That's part of the selling points of the product. I think in terms of the tricky part was obviously on the manufacturer side. We have an interesting relationship with our manufacturers in which it's not like a normal brand in which they're a vendor and we're a client, where we just place a PO and then we'll mark up their products and then that's how we profit. The best we can do in that case is like get letters of credit or Net30, Net90, etcetera.Jeremy:Instead we actually have a financial relationship with our manufacturers in which they actually are taking on inventory risk and we're taking on the marketing risk of this inventory in which their incentive is to take inventory risk for a higher yield or higher rate of return on the inventory that they're producing and owning. Then our risk, of course, is making sure that we can sell that to our members at a price point that is still radically lower than the competition, but at a place where they'd be happy with the profits. I think that was actually the tricky part because manufacturing, and this is actually my personal like family background is a really hard business and margins are already razor thin.Jeremy:On a final sale, a DTC brand might take like 80% of the margin and cost might be like 20% and the manufacturer might actually take like 5% of that cost. That's honestly how it works. It doesn't matter if you're like a legacy brand or a direct-to-consumer brand. Manufacturers treat them all the same because it is the same for them. I think on the flip side for the manufacturer, they are not oriented to take capital risk. They have predictable revenue. If you place a PO, we expect payment certain date, whereas on Italic, there is no legitimate end date for a certain PO to be paid.Jeremy:It's a little bit nuanced and that was actually the hardest part I would say of convincing these manufacturers to join. It really wasn't the brand piece. The brand piece we're always very careful of ... We always do very careful audits to make sure that they're factual claims. We always do audits with our general counsel as well to make sure that we're making claims that are factual. On the trademark side and then on the copyright side, we have a development system when we're merchandising that there's at least a number of differentiating points on the product, but we've actually never really run into major issues on this.Jeremy:Perhaps that's because we're a smaller brand right now. As we grow, the issues might pile up, but at least for now, it hasn't really been, that the legal side hasn't been a big issue. I would say it's actually more so convincing the manufacturers to take on this new type of model, but I think now that we've been around, we have over 50 manufacturers we work with. I think we've had a really good relationship with all them thus far. Yeah, I think other brands always come into question, but it's never actually been like a point of contention.Stephanie:I could see that being really beneficial for you having the background in manufacturing for those manufacturers to also feel like, "Hey, this guy gets me he understands. He knows that we don't have big margins." I want to talk a little bit more about that piece. I could see a lot of the manufacturers really liking that you have a background in manufacturing because you understand that tight margins and you're not trying to maybe push them too far. I was wondering, one, had they ever done this model before where they're taking on inventory risk? Then two, were any of them scared to work with you because they didn't want to make the brands that they work with upset?Jeremy:I can answer the second one first, which I think it's actually pretty straightforward. That has never been a reason why a manufacturer wouldn't work with us. I thought it would be, I guess in actual practice, I think it hasn't been. The reality is most of these manufacturers have a number of clients and I think they will readily offer new clients the current client list and say like, "Hey, this is who we work with. You should trust us," as part of the vetting process. What we're doing is bringing that information that all the brands already know and offering that to a customer as well, so one more layer of information that a normal brand would never offer.Jeremy:The bigger issue with the manufacturer is actually more so just capital. It's like, "Hey, you got to fund hundreds of thousands of dollars for this first run and you're not going to see a payback until we start selling it, and depending on when we decide to launch it or decide to really invest in growing that category or product offering, the return might not be immediate." I think that was actually the biggest problem. Every so often what we'll hear that'd come up is like, "Hey, we prefer that not to happen," but with regards to the brand names being mentioned, it's never been a reason as to why a manufacturer wouldn't work with us. It's always been capital related.Jeremy:Then I think to the point of the model itself, I think people have tried different approaches to this over the years. In the States, at least, there is really no one doing anything like us right now because it is an extremely ... I would say like you really have to be aware of how manufacturing works, how to communicate with them, how to work with them, also how to partner with them. That's not something that like the vast majority of American brands will ever understand and for good reason. They really have no reason to because the entire business model of commerce is built on markups, as opposed to us where you can basically just treat them as a vendor. If it's not working out, if you need better pricing, you can always counter source and so on and so forth.Jeremy:The relationship there was always rather fragile, whereas for us it's very strong from day one because we have to be in which we become basically financial partners immediately. I think they haven't necessarily ... We work with manufacturers in Asia predominantly, in Europe, in the US and for the majority of them, these are not small mom and pop merchants or artisanal shops. They are pretty professional large scale production houses for very large runs. We work with like five different public listed manufacturers. I think for them, this model is, I like to call it like a private label as a service in which they can experiment very rapidly if it works.Jeremy:We do all the design and development in house, so we take care of pretty much all the heavy lifting on the stuff that they don't have, but if it works, great. If it doesn't, the downside is basically the capital that they put into it. We haven't had that happen yet. I think it's a new ... We like to think of it as like a marketplace inspired supply chain which none of these manufacturers have encountered before, but it is something that I think has promise.Stephanie:It's so interesting thinking about everything that's going on behind the scenes and I honestly have not even gone deep into the world of manufacturing, so I have so many questions, but one that comes to mind which is probably maybe a more basic one, but how did you even go about finding out who manufactured what products? If I owned Prada, which I do not, I definitely don't, but if I did, and I was like, "Hey, who makes this? This is really nice," I want to find out what factory it's coming from or who's actually behind the scenes making it, how did you even start that process of finding that out and then finding the next one, the next one and maybe getting referrals?Jeremy:Well, you just named it. Sourcing is a weird business in which it's still and this ... Not just sourcing, but a lot of the supply chain is still heavily relationships based in which it's like, "Who do you know? Who do you know? Who do you know?" and that's who you're able to work with. In the early days, I personally met and lived between China and Italy for the first year of the business and I met with hundreds of manufacturers, many of whom are now our partners, but in the beginning, were very skeptical, "Who is this guy? Who is this company?" I think the best way to put it, it's like in terms of sourcing, the best way to do it is through referrals.Jeremy:We've tried everything from digital platforms to sourcing companies to even trading companies just to see what type of quality and price point we can achieve, but ultimately, we've always found the best option would be to do direct sourcing ourselves. We actually have an internal team coming from the likes of Patagonia, Arc'teryx, Zulily and Amazon, really focused on sourcing the world's best manufacturers in each given category. Each time we want to enter a new category, we will always ask for referrals from our existing manufacturers. There's digital products that help you find manufacturers through other sources but generally we found the best have always come through referral.Stephanie:I think I've looked online before looking into, maybe this is a 3PL that I was looking at. Either way, that whole world seems pretty behind the times when it comes to trying to find things online and get details about it. It does seem like referrals would be the best bet in that industry.Stephanie:I was going to ask when it comes to inventory risk, you were mentioning that the manufacturers take on the inventory risk, do they also have a say when it comes to the pricing of the product?Jeremy:Yup, they definitely do. We are hand in hand with their manufacturers at every single point in the development journey, from material selection, color dyes and sample reviews and so on and so forth in which if we are talking about cost structures and cost payments, or sorry, sample reviews, we're always thinking about price and we're always very transparent with our manufacturers in terms of what our research tells us. If we believe a certain price threshold is too high, we'll tell them, and vice versa, they'll tell us like, "Hey, this is getting expensive. Do you think your customers or members will still want that?"Jeremy:Ultimately, the incentive for manufacturers to earn a higher than normal profit margin on Italic sales because they're taking on the inventory risk, so there, we're able to pay them out substantially more than they would ordinarily make. I think they're very in tune with our orders, sometimes even more than we are in terms of the performance. We've also built a lot of internal dashboards that we'll share with all of our manufacturing partners for them to log into, review the performance. Sometimes, we'll need to set price points that are lower, so that will encourage a product to move faster and they're able to cut down on their margin, but still again, it's at price points that are pretty much close to cost.Jeremy:It doesn't really moving the needle too much nowadays that we're past the transactional model. It's easier to do that on the development side when we're actually developing these products, or on the flip side, if a product is actually performing way too well, they might actually ask for us to develop a more premium version or a version that uses a high quality or a more expensive material, not necessarily higher quality, just a different material. For example, we started with cotton sheets. It was sateen. Now we offer percale and we're looking into linen. Then we also offer eucalyptus lyocell sheet set as well. Those were examples of where we saw their consumer demand really expand what our manufacturers want to develop and as a result their price points were able to change quite a bit depending on the product.Stephanie:I was thinking about that these manufacturers probably have a ton of insights into what's selling with their other brands, what consumers are interested in. I'm wondering, are they even allowed to share that and help influence your guys product designs and say like, "Hey, we see this plain shirt with like a lion on it and selling really well with Anine Bing," which we just had on the show?Jeremy:I guess there's two ways to look at it. One way really is from the lens of like, "Hey, the manufacturer has what I call like extraordinarily delayed insights into performance," in which the only time the manufacturer actually knows about how well a certain skew or style is doing. We're primarily talking about fashion and apparel and other soft goods and home for example. It's a little less seasonal or trend driven, but in apparel for example, a manufacturer will only know the performance of the line after the season or after the client comes back and places the reorder in which their insight is already delayed by a whole, let's say six to nine months.Jeremy:By then, it could already be out of stock or out of favor with the client. The second point is actually much more interesting in which this is the dirty secret of a lot of these brands is the manufacturers nowadays have significantly improved and really, really sophisticated design and development inhouse capabilities. Historically, let's say 30-40 years ago, a lot of the design and development and pattern making and so on and so forth was always done on the brand side. Nowadays, I really call it more of a partnership in which the design and R&D talent inhouse at a manufacturer is so great that sometimes, and this is like extraordinarily ...Jeremy:This is not just like startups. This is like huge multinational brands, all the way to brands just starting out in which their buyers and merchandisers or product developers or designers will walk into a showroom that a manufacturer has made for a season. They'll pick like four or five styles from the manufacturer's design books or pattern books and then say like, "Okay, let's make some small tweaks, but pretty much, it's the manufacturer's design that we're iterating on."Stephanie:Oh, wow. I definitely would never have thought that.Jeremy:It saves a lot of time if you think about it because developing patterns from scratch is really time intensive. You have to ship samples back and forth all the time, whereas if a manufacturer already had a lot of these samples ready to go for you and you just had to tweak, let's say, the material or stitching or whatever it is on apparel specifically that it cuts down development time significantly. It happens pretty much everywhere and really the designers at that point in time are not really designers, but they're just iterating on the final versions of products. I think-Stephanie:That's a good secret that I never knew about.Jeremy:[crosstalk 00:33:15].Stephanie:When you're thinking about getting maybe inspiration though and you're looking around at some of the more luxury brands, how much of that can you actually take and use? Because when I'm thinking about, there's certain things that without a logo on it, you probably be like, "Is that from Walmart?" Sometimes the logo makes it where if it didn't have that, I don't know, personally, why anyone would ever buy it. I sometimes don't know why they would buy it either way have you ever had an experiment like that where you've been trying to maybe let a brand or popular brand influence products where then you're like, "Oh, actually, the logo kind of made that one."Jeremy:I think the way I would respond, one thing we really care about a lot at Italic is having a data-driven sense of merchandising in which we're using our customer insights to really drive the product decisions that we're making, both on the technology front as well as the product development front for our physical products. I think what we realized is, to your point of, "Does a logo make a product or does the product make the logo?" which is actually maybe a good way to think about it, is the fact that logos matter to some people and it doesn't matter to other people, but everyone has a specific category in their lives in which they care about having a logo and then vice versa like that same person might not care about having logos on other products that other people might.Jeremy:I guess a better way to put it is let's say you really care about having a logo on your handbag, but you actually, and I don't know if this is true or not, but let's say you don't actually care about having like the top of the line logo on your bedding or all-clad cookware or Le Creuset Dutch ovens or what have you, right? Let's say that's actually the mentality. On the flipside, I think there's a lot of people out there who would actually have the alternative approach which is like, "I don't care if I have a big fancy handbag, but I am really into cooking and I want the fanciest cookware and I need to have like X, Y, Z brands cookware in order to feel good about my purchase.Jeremy:What we found through a lot of our, I guess, our surveying is, one, the main reason why people buy from us is quality in terms of the product and the second is design and overarching, I guess, the main reason why you sign up is because you're getting quality at cost. The price point and the value you're getting out of your products is really, really high relative to pretty much any other option out there because we're not making money on the products that we sell. I think what we found is the people who sign up, if you're a fashionista for example, you're probably not going to buy our fashion products, but you might actually sign up for your home goods and then vice versa, someone who really cares about that specific type of bedding or having really great towels or candles or what have you, but doesn't really care about having a logo or the next trendy thing.Jeremy:The way we look at merchandising is really anti-seasonal in which we're trying to find products that are always evergreen. They might not be always in style or in vogue, but we know that they're consistent things that people will always want to buy. That's why we try not to fall too hard into having a specific branded look on our products. The product should be able to stand for their own.Stephanie:I like that. I'm just going to say quality always matters, I would think and I'm definitely your person because I'm a logo-less person. I don't care about the brand or where they come from. If the quality is good, it doesn't matter to me who makes it as long as the quality is good and something lasts. I like that. When we're thinking about metrics for subscription business, yours is very unique, of course, because right now, you're like, "We're not going to need more than $100 per person," but how are you guys tracking things? What metrics are you looking at right now to see if things are going well?Jeremy:We've changed our metrics a lot as we transition from a transactional model into a subscription basis as you can imagine, but what was interesting for me is because we run this type of membership in which it's not a ... I guess before I get there, in my mind, there's three types of consumer subscription products. One is you get something in a box every month and it's on a set frequency that you can customize. Secondly is you're paying a subscription for a discount. Then thirdly, as you're paying subscription for access to a certain product, whether it's digital or offline or whatever it is. I think we fall into the latter two in which you're paying for Italic because you want a discount on your products, but you're also paying for access to even shop those products in the first place.Jeremy:I think when we actually transitioned into this model, we realized like, "Hey, all this transactional revenue, metrics that we're tracking are actually great indicators of engagement. Now, those are our leading indicators of, "Are these members happy? Are they getting the most out of their membership? Are they unhappy because they're not using it? Are they logging back in? Is the conversion rate high for members? Is our average order value growing as we add new products or is that actually shrinking in which the products we're adding are actually lower price points?" so and so forth. It's a pretty sophisticated, I think, model that we've had to build in order to actually price these products at a price where we're not losing money on each sale but also not making money.Jeremy:It's on the engagement side all the things that historically eComm companies would track, your conversion rate, your LTV, your frequency of purchase, your contribution margins. These are all things that have now become like performance indicators on a membership basis as a cohort of how we track a certain cohort doing overtime, but now what matters on the company side is actually, "Are we adding new annual subscribers happily? Are they staying? What's our opt out rate? We offer like a 30-day period in which if you sign up and you decide not to place an order and you want to get a refund, we'll provide that, no questions asked. Right now, it's 5%.Jeremy:I think like those questions or metrics that we've done a pretty deep dive in terms of like what we actually want to see. Now really that the core metrics are like, "What's our new annual recurring revenue because it's an annual plan?" and then secondly what is ... We don't have retention yet since our first cohort is still seven months out from renewing. The second indicator of that is like, "What are all the engagement metrics telling us? Does that suggest that they're likely to churn or stay?" I think those are like the metrics that we've transitioned towards. There's a lot more that I could dig in there, but that's at a high level how we think about it.Stephanie:That's great. Are there any methods right now that you're experimenting with and seeing success around when it comes to keeping your users engaged or staying top of mind to them or even like different things that you're changing for the website that's connecting more with the customer when they're coming there? Any tests overall?Jeremy:I think we aren't great about testing and I'll be really forthright about that. We don't have much testing infrastructure built in. We don't have the ability to test their pricing. AB test for us are really just like, I think, very, very incremental changes. I think the biggest [inaudible] which is the transition from the transactional model and I guess the best way to really put this is like for example, during our pilot, we saw behaviors and frequency and lifetime value that we would expect on a transactional customer at month 12. We saw that on a membership level between weeks four to six. It was a literal 10x increase in utility activity for that member versus a customer who would otherwise purchase the product as a standalone.Jeremy:I think that's what I meant going back to the point of customers liked us, members really love us. That was something that we really saw. Then I think in terms of metrics that we're looking to test or at least improve with our customer that can improve the experience for them or at least hopefully it will increase our retention rates, I think that really comes in the form of, "What are the products that ..." The main four reasons why people opt out just for full transparency, one is it's international and we only serve the US, so they actually sign up through eagerly and they're like, "Hey, I didn't know that it's US only." That's actually the number one reason.Jeremy:Number two is financial. It's like, "Hey, I got furloughed or I was laid off," which happened a lot in the early days in April and May. Nowadays, it's less common, but the last two are ones that we can directly address. One is, "The product offering is currently not broad enough. You don't have a product that I want to see or a category that I wants to see." Lastly, "The products that I want are out of stock." This are directly in our control. For example, we'll show now in the coming soon page like what products are coming next for our members and that keeps them excited.Jeremy:Secondly is what products are being restocked. We're placing much, much larger orders, so that hopefully we don't have these out of stock issues. Really the reason was like our members just purchase at a substantially higher frequency than the nonmembers did. We actually underordered prior to the membership, because we didn't know what to expect. I think those are things that ... There are certain features like that that we developed for that use case, but really the only thing that we can solve for in a long-term basis is just develop more products, order more deeply, and hopefully as a result, acquire more members.Stephanie:I love that. I think that's a really good point too about how to keep people engaged and coming back to see like, "Okay, what's coming next? What's the new t-shirt that's coming out that I can get really excited about?" because I could see a lot of members maybe, at least in my head, I would think like if I am in a subscription or a membership, I would probably frontload a lot of purchases right away to get that value and then I might forget. I think that's really smart to find ways to keep someone like me engaged coming back maybe a couple months later if I forget, so that I will renew after the year.Jeremy:Exactly. I think for us really, the goal isn't necessarily to make you buy more stuff if you don't need it. The goal is to hopefully show that, "Hey, you're going to get enough value out of this membership, so that you're going to stay another year, or two or three or four or five in which there's a constant drop of new or a constant allure of new products that will be down the line such as products in travel. For example, we just launched our jewelry line last month and that sold out in a week's time. Now we know, "Hey, there's a lot of demand for that. We should order much deeper in it" I think constantly testing on the product side is something that we do a lot, but now that we're not making money on the transactions, we're not trying to force you to use it unless you want to.Stephanie:Very cool. I saw that you guys had a signup list. I think originally it was over 100,000 or something along those lines. I was wondering, how are you going about acquiring new customers? What kind of channels are working well for you right now? What are you finding success in?Jeremy:The hardest question for anyone in eCommerce nowadays. In 2018, we had a strong waitlist going into the membership, and then once we launched, we were like, "Hey, the membership is not going to work. We dropped it in, and instead all those people on the waitlist became our email subscribers and we were ... Fortunately, they eventually became customers as well. That was where a lot of that 100,000 original list went to. Then more recently, we actually had another waitlist. This time, it wasn't for marketing purposes, but it was actually like a legitimate operational waitlist in which we simply didn't have enough inventory to serve all of our members to a great experience in which if you've logged on in the third of all the products were sold out, that's not something you want to see as a first time experience.Jeremy:We have the waitlist up for a while, up until we can restock more deeply to address those issues which we've recently done. In terms of the new customer acquisition, I'll be like totally honest. It's a mix of performance marketing and brand marketing. We internally separate our marketing team into two. One is brand which is everything nonpixel-based or nonattributable to a pixel. Everything growth is pixel-based in which it's pixel through Google and the intention of growth is to grow the membership base. The intention of brand is to keep our cost per acquisition on the growth side low, so that hopefully it's not the first time that you're seeing, let's say, an ad from us, but instead it's actually a recall.Jeremy:Examples of that would be like influencer would be in brand. TV would be in brand even though I know there's pretty good models for tracking nowadays and attributing podcasts we still put in brand. All these things ... I guess I'm being hypocritical because those do have pixels nowadays, but really the intention of those is to get in front of you first, so that by the time that you see a Facebook ad or a Google ad, that you're already aware of where we are, so your interest is already piqued.Stephanie:Cool. All right. We have a lightning round coming up. Before I move on, is there anything that you were excited to cover that I forgot to ask?Jeremy:Well, our basics are dropping tomorrow-Stephanie:All right. Well, tell me more about the basics.Jeremy:We've had a line of recycled t-shirts for a while and those were really, really popular through a lot of quarantine. The number one requested kind of products for us for years has been a line of just great Ts, plain really high-quality t-shirts. It's finally coming out. I've been waiting literally a year for this. I'm super excited, but that's all. That's it.Stephanie:That's great. I love a good t-shirt. Actually, maybe it's always been a trend and I just haven't paid attention, but now it feels like it's really coming back to just wear a normal plain t-shirt or just something like simple on it. It feels like it's coming back strong, but maybe it's always been here.Jeremy:That's not surprising. I feel like a lot of people nowadays ... I'm sure there's a lot more people out there who could speak much more eloquently on why basics are great, but basics are always in vogue and our members have been requesting it very actively, so I'm excited to finally get that out.Stephanie:I will definitely have to check into that when it drops. All right, let's move on to the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Jeremy?Jeremy:Yes.Stephanie:All right. What's up next on your reading list?Jeremy:Well, I actually just got a copy ... This is going to put me in a bad light, but I don't always read business books, but I just got a copy of Reed Hastings new book. I'm excited to begin. I literally just got it right before this interview. That will be next.Stephanie:Cool. What's the title of it? I don't know if I know which one that is.Jeremy:No Rules Rules.Stephanie:I'll go check that out. You have to let me know if you like it.Jeremy:Yeah, will do.Stephanie:All right, what's up next on your Netflix queue?Jeremy:I've been actually watching The Legend of Avatar which is-Stephanie:I don't know if I've actually seen that one.Jeremy:It's an anime, cartoon that used to run on Nickelodeon as a kid and I forgot how good it was, so I just watched that again.Stephanie:That's great. Netflix probably knows not to advertise that to me. They're like, "You just probably won't like that one." All right, if you were to have a podcast, what would the podcast be about and who would your first guest be?Jeremy:I've actually been thinking about doing one.Stephanie:You should.Jeremy:It's been on the list. That's actually why I have this fancy bike here.Stephanie:You do sound great, though.Jeremy:I think I wanted to do like a podcast show where ... I live in Park City, Utah. There's a lot of great ... I took up fishing during quarantine. I haven't really caught anything, but it's really relaxing. I thought it'd be fun to go out and go fishing and then do an interview at the same time. I think guests-wise, there's so many people out there. One brand I've admired for a long time is the, and I like loosely know them, but I've really liked the Buffy team for a long time. I feel like they're pretty unique. They have a lot of success, but they've still been humble about it and low to the ground. I think it'd be really cool to have them. My background isn't just like eCommerce and retail. I think it'd be a mixture, but yeah, that'd be a cool one.Stephanie:I like it. I can only imagine you catching a fish while trying to interview and how that was found. Interesting. All right, what is the favorite piece of tech that is making you more efficient right now or that you're enjoying?Jeremy:Oh, man, that is a tough one. I use a lot and the whole Italic team makes fun of me for it because I always add something new every week. I think the one that stuck with me for years is this company called Missive. It's a collaborative email inbox that allows the entire team to work in conjunction on emails. Let's say it's an email with a vendor or an email with a YouTuber who we want to advertise with, we can collaborate in line without having to go to Slack or take it to another email thread in the same place. Missive and Front in the same vein does the same thing. I think those two products are ones that I really couldn't live without.Stephanie:That actually sounds really good. Can you send it out? If I was one of your employees, could I say, "Send this out under Jeremy's email because he gets better responses as the CEO than I will"? Personal question. This is something I actually want to know for myself.Jeremy:There's actually a setting to do that in which you can share an address and other people, like let's say an assistant can send it for you, so yes.Stephanie:I like that. I'll check that out. Awesome. The last, slightly more difficult question, what one thing will have the biggest impact on eCommerce in the next year?Jeremy:I'm not going to give you the cliche answer and say COVID changed everything, which it did, but-Stephanie:We all know that now.Jeremy:I actually think it happened last year and then I already alluded to this earlier, but I think the biggest change will be the transition from ... People have been talking about these like DTC waves. The first wave was like the Bonobos, Warby, Everland 2008 to 2012 era, and then, the second wave was like everything thereafter. A lot of the direct-to-consumer brands you see nowadays, it's the category leaders per se, but I think now people ... Let's say from, I don't know, 2014 to 2018-2019. I think there's been a big change in the operating mentality of these newer brands in which if you're a new brand starting out, you can't go out and raise these massive rounds that these companies used to off of revenue growth because people have realized now, this is not technology revenue growth. This isn't like an 80%, 90%, north of gross margin product.Jeremy:There is a saturation level to performance marketing. I know I'm sounding like quite cynical here, but I mean that actually in an interesting opportunity in which you can actually raise that money, but I think if you're creative about cashflow and you're creative about how you grow the business, you can build a huge business. I guess Gymshark would be a great example of this in which you can bootstrap to a really large volume without having to raise equity financing. I think you can do it through focusing on cash conversion cycle which is what Gymshark has with its founders or you can have in any case of owned supply chain like House or Buffy does.Jeremy:I think there's different ways that you can frame the direct-to-consumer model that allows you to still grow, but I think the era of venture-backed DTC, getting into the series, A, B, C and onwards is probably over. I think that's already happened and I think that will probably be the biggest impact on the ecosystem.Stephanie:I completely agree with that. If you sound cynical, then I think cynical too, because I completely agree with that. That's a really good point. All right, Jeremy, this has been such a fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and Italic?Jeremy:Italic is on italic.com and I am @jjeremycai, J-J-E-R-E-M-Y, C-A-I on Twitter. I think that's the easiest way, but we'd love to have anyone as a member.Stephanie:Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on the show.Jeremy:Thank you.

Brand loyalty is something that every company wants but few actually attain. To build a loyal customer base, you need to provide the best experiences possible, offer unique products or services, and deliver on quality and in a timely fashion. It’s a tough ask, and for those in the grocery industry, it’s even more difficult since differentiation between product selection is not as easy as it might be in other verticals.  But when it comes to customer loyalty, there are ways to separate yourself from the pack.  And that’s where Rachel Stephens comes in. As the Vice President of Marketing, Digital and Loyalty for Stop & Shop, a major grocery chain with more than 400 stores, she thinks about this every day. Thanks to a new online platform and through a loyalty program that customers actually want to engage in, Rachel explains that Stop & Shop is finally gaining access to some of the dark data it couldn’t access in the past.  On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Rachel explains why that kind of data is a true game-changer for any brand. Plus she reveals some of the consumer psychology that she looks at when building loyalty programs, and she peers into the future at how the use of A.I., machine learning and natural language processing will further advance not just Stop & Shop’s ecommerce experience, but the entire ecommerce industry. Main Takeaways: Is it Actually on the Grocery List?: When building or improving loyalty programs, having an understanding of data is critical. Everyone has to take on the role of data scientist and look at the data analytically, especially as it relates to consumer behavior. Just because a customer says they want something or they intend to make a purchase, does not mean the data will always show that. Word for advice: trust the data and build a program around what is actually happening instead of what customers are saying.   Accessing Dark Data: For too long, grocery stores have asked only for customer phone numbers in order for them to have access to loyalty cards. But if that phone number isn’t linked to a real name or address, and is changing hands faster than an email address would, there is a huge amount of data left in the dark, which makes it impossible to build a meaningful database of customer information. To access that critical data, companies need to build programs that are truly enticing that customers want to share their data with that helps not only the brand but also the consumer. The Psychology of a Discount: Tune in to hear what Rachel saw in the data when reviewing their sales and discounts. Hint: higher is not always better. For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, I'm your host Stephanie Postals, co-founder of Mission.org. Today we have Rachel Stevens on the show, vice president of marketing, digital and loyalty at Stop & Shop. Rachel, welcome. Rachel: Thank you very much for having me. Stephanie: Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on. I saw a little bit of your background before hopping on here and I got very excited when I saw that you have worked at the TJX companies, which I was hoping we could start there with your background. Rachel: Are you a brand fan? Stephanie: Oh, yes. I mean, I love TJ Maxx and when I saw that I'm like, "Ooh, this is my interview. This is the one." Rachel: Yeah, I was actually the assistant vice president of CRM Loyalty [inaudible] within TJX. And that really matched the TJX rewards program ... was a program that fell under my group and my responsibilities included the day to days and ensuring that our customers really wanted to participate in our program, our loyalty program so that we had clean data at the end of the day. And we were able to provide additional value in savings on top of what customers were already saving with the strong value that TJX stores provide. Stephanie: Very cool. How did you first get interested in the world of loyalty marketing, what lead you there? Rachel: I started actually in loyalty marketing at Pet Smart in their corporate headquarters in Phoenix and I think the thing that really appealed to me was marriage of data and customer communications, so understanding what customers say and what customers actually do is vital, I think, to the success of an organization because customers can say, "Yes, I have intent to purchase X,Y,Z." But when you look at the actual data, the data doesn't lie. Rachel: So, loyalty programs give you a vital tool for success within your organization to take a look at consumer data and then apply your marketing tactics really that are from acquisition, retention or reactivation perspective based on what that consumer is doing in a particular moment. So it's really, to me, such a great marriage of a lot of different areas within marketing and it just was something that I developed an immediate passion for. When I started there on the Pet Perks Program and then went to TJX to work on the loyalty program for TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods, [inaudible] Trading Post, and HomeSense, I feel like when I was there honed in on my skills within the loyalty space, so the position at Stop & Shop to really develop the role and develop what the new program was going to look like was incredibly appealing just because of my passion for this space and for retail. Stephanie: That's so much good experience to be able to bring to Stop & Shop. How have you seen consumer behaviors or loyalty programs having to change since you started? Rachel: Since I started in loyalty or since I started at Stop & Shop? Stephanie: I'd say in loyalty program, in loyalty overall. Since you started back in the pets days. Rachel: Yeah, I think there was a transactional nature to loyalty programs in the past. I think it was you give and get and that was usually based in points programs whereas today obviously I think more experiential programs have come about and providing more omni-channel experience, which wasn't really the case back when I first started within the loyalty space. I'd say that there's a number of people that really do a great job at this. I think Sephora's loyalty program is top notch. They do an excellent job at marrying the in-store and the online experience, really making it truly omni-channel tied in with their loyalty program. Rachel: I think that a lot of retailers have caught up and are doing a good job and I still think there's a lot of room to grow. And I think grocery retail was stuck in the loyalty stage of two tier pricing and I think we have a to model grocery loyalty programs more after what a lot of other retailers are doing in the loyalty space and even hotels. Airlines, I think that soft benefits and providing experiential benefits are really critical to the success of a program. Stephanie: Yep, yeah completely agree. Now that we're touching on grocery a bit I would love for you to explain what Stop & Shop is for anyone who doesn't know. Rachel: Sure, Stop & Shop is actually a grocery retailer with over 100 years in the industry. It started out as a very small grocery in the east coast and now we have over 400 stores and of course our online experience at Stop&Shop.com and the Stop & Shop app. Stephanie: That's great. And Stop & Shop, you guys just started moving into e-commerce, right? I think I saw that you launched a new platform just in a couple months ago, am I right? Rachel: We did actually, on July 28th in fact. We launched ... we had Peapod with a partner company. Peapod actually was owned by Ahold Delhaize, which is the parent company that owns Stop & Shop and we have integrated Peapod into Stop & Shop now. So, within Stop & Shop's footprint to order grocery delivery or to get pickup you actually now go to the Stop & Shop website or the Stop & Shop app versus Peapod. That integration occurred again at the end of July, and it's been going incredibly well so far. Stephanie: What was that transition ... what did that look like behind the scenes of not only integrating a current path that people are using but also I'm sure adding on additional functionalities that maybe weren't already there. What was the process behind the scenes or any maybe hiccups that you guys experienced when you were going through all this because it sounds like a big project. Rachel: Yes, yes. In fact, huge project. And all of our sister brands went through the same scope of work at the same time. We work with an internal agency who actually is responsible for all of that development work. And the agency actually had to develop the platform for all the brands. There was Giant Martin's out of Carlisle, Pennsylvania and Giant Foods in Maryland, also went through the same transition. Rachel: And there was obviously ... it requires a lot of work to marry the database, really marry those platforms. There was a Stop & Shop website, a Peapod website and H Brands app, so marrying those together was a huge, enormous undertaking that has taken approximately two years. And when I first started two and a half years ago actually that was really when we had worked on all the business requirements for this project. And it just takes a significant amount of time to match up all the data on our customers and combine those platforms and ensure that everything is running smoothly because if you think about the number of transactions that the Peapod site had going through it before and the number of customers that were going to the Stop & Shop site, you can imagine that there's just a tremendous amount of customers that we wanted to ensure were not left behind in this transition. Rachel: So, there's definitely a lot of work that went into this project and in terms of hiccups, of course there was a lot of those. But I think you try and block out all of the things that went wrong during the launch and you just only remember the good, right? Stephanie: Yep, that's great. And I'm also very familiar with Giant. I'm from Maryland. I'm sure everyone else is like, "What's that?" I know very well what that is. Rachel: Oh, great. That's great. Stephanie: Yeah, so when you guys are thinking about launching this new e-commerce platform, what kind of opportunities were you excited that it would open up? I'm sure you get access to new kind of data and you can have new offerings and you can send that data maybe to your other partners and maybe they can give you deals. What things were you most excited about that you didn't have access to before? Rachel: I think that what I'm most excited about is omni-channel data access. We did not, again, have that before because it was Peapod who really had all of the data for delivery and pickup and Stop & Shop who had all the brick & mortar data. The combination and looking at a consumer from an omni-channel, to me, is what's most exciting. Rachel: If I'm going to do a marketing campaign using digital tactics or any sort of in-store tactics I really need to know what you do as a customer. You could channel switch, you could go from pick-up to in-store to delivery all within a very short period of time. And so, I think the efficiency in marketing, by having that data to me is really what's most exciting. And being able to actually accurately talk to our customers is something that really interests me because how many time have you received communications from a company where you're like, "Wait, I was just in there. I just bought X, Y, Z and now they're sending me an offer for something," or the communication just seems out of left field. Rachel: And I think of years past when Starbucks didn't have a fully integrated data solution. If I was a coffee drinker and I always drank coffee once in a while I'd get tea offers and it just didn't make any sense to me. I think it was just bad use of data. Stephanie: Yeah, I still get that right now. I'll get things marketed to me around pregnancy. I'm like, "I am not pregnant and haven't been for a while." Rachel: You're not pregnant. Stephanie: In a while. Come on, about six months ago, stop that. Rachel: Right, exactly. Stephanie: That's smart. So, what are you excited for omni-channel in general outside of Stop & Shop. What do you think that landscape's going to look like in the next couple of years? Rachel: I think that COVID has certainly advanced a lot of, specifically in retail, advanced a lot of retailers. I think their technology and their offerings, I think omni-channel, to me, has to be that seamless experience in-store, online. And it has to be being able to look at you from a customer lens and understanding that you may channel switch and your experience or the offers that you're given or you're customer service shouldn't change. There shouldn't everybody anything remarkably different about whatever channel you're in. Rachel: So, for me I think that the omni-channel landscape is going to continue improving and COVID has definitely advanced that. Stephanie: To dive back into the loyalty program conversation, because I'm very interested in that, we haven't had a ton of people on the show who've talked about that, so I'll probably keep circling around that for a little bit. Rachel: Sure. Stephanie: I want to hear how you think about developing a successful loyalty program now. How do you get people to engage? How do you get them to be excited about it? Rachel: The most important thing is research. You have to understand what customers want first and foremost of course. That's the first step in any real loyalty program whether you're launching a loyalty program or enhancing a loyalty program or just completely transforming a loyalty program. You have to understand what research, what customers want. You have to look at the data and understand what they actually do. Rachel: So, it's the this is what I say I want and then this is what I actually do. And you rally have to be a data scientist and understand what it is that is bubbling to the top. If I know my to customers are coming in and I'm looking at the data that tells me they come in X amount of times per week and they shop for key products, then I can understand and I can translate that back into transactional offers. I can say, "Okay, these are the top products that I need to make sure are relevant to that consumer base on a regular basis." Rachel: But it doesn't get at really what drives them and motivates them to be loyal to the brand. So, I think that that research is such a critical step in really understanding how consumers really feel about your brand. You don't want to be the brand that customers just feel like you're on the corner and you're convenient so they have to shop you. You want to be the brand that they want to shop at. Loyalty isn't just about the program, it has to be about the total solution that retailer provides and your feelings about that retailer. Stephanie: It seems like there would be a lot dark data out there, especially for maybe grocery stores because I'm thinking, would my local grocery store even know that I go in and out because I don't interact with them online right now. I sometimes put my phone number in, sometimes don't. How would you make sure you have a good sample size of people to use for your research when building that out if maybe you still have quite a few of your customers that you don't even know yet. Rachel: No, I think that's a great question. I think you have to ... There are panels that you can go, usually your consumer insights team has access to panels of customers who volunteer to participate in research studies, so that's typically the first place that I go if we don't have enough data within the database. If there's enough data in the database to start with, usually that does require an e-mail address or a physical mailing address and not just phone number. Rachel: So, if your local grocery store only requires phone number and ... I'll say actually that was the case for Stop & Shop prior to the transformation of our new loyalty program where we really just ask for phone number point of sale. And that gave customers access to that two tier pricing. That doesn't do anything for a company, just having phone numbers and actually going to build off your database of course. Then you don't have a way to really round out that customer experience and understand. You got to be able to tap into that customer and ask them what they want. Rachel: It is really important that you're coming up with a program or if you have a program that it's enticing enough that customers want to give their data, they want to give you the right e-mail address or they want to give you the right mailing address so that they do participate in the program but they also are willing to give your opinion when you ask it. Stephanie: Yep. It also seems like making sure you have a seamless experience when asking for that data is really important because I can think of a number of times different stores have been like, "Oh, can you type in your e-mail?" Or just, "Read it off to me and I'll type it in very slowly." I'm like, "Ugh, just don't worry about it," or "I don't want to use your old type pad that's not really working and I'm going to have to delete it 10 times to get it right." Rachel: Right, exactly. Yeah, you're absolutely right it has to be simple, seamless. I think digital cards is a great way to make it simple and seamless. It's easy enough for a POS to scan a digital barcode that ties back to your loyalty card or phone number, provided the fact that the number actually is tied to a valid e-mail address or valid mailing address. Any way that you can provide convenience for consumers to access their program seamlessly, quickly is really important. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree. When you're setting this up, even If you don't have access to maybe huge amounts of data, are there any unifying themes that people just generally when it comes to loyalty or rewards programs where you're like, no matter where I've been it seems to always get someone to sign up if we have this or this offering. Rachel: Well, I think a based program, it has to be about savings, right? Every program is at it's core about saving, so hotel, airline, you're earning points to get free something or to save on something. And so, at it's core you have to have a savings in the value proposition. And then I think everything else that goes on top of that whether you have a tiered program where you're providing your top tier customers with more of those experiential benefits or more of those softer benefits is really, it's dependent on the industry and your ability to provide different levels of benefits to customers. Rachel: I think in the supermarket industry you don't see a lot of tiered programs. I think that that's mostly because there's not a lot of experiential benefits that you can provide that consumers really are interested in. I think a lot of customers look at grocery shopping as a chore. There are, there's certainly a core of customers who really enjoy it but for the most part a lot busy consumers today do look at it as a chore and I think that lingering in a store is not something that a lot of people are really interested in. Stephanie: Yep, yeah I completely agree. Is there any research that y'all have done when to what really matters from a savings perspective? What percent actually drives someone to purchase something they maybe wouldn't have purchased prior to seeing that savings? Maybe 5% eh, maybe not, 20% probably so. Anything that you've seen around that? Rachel: It's funny that the higher up you go in savings, a lot of times customers say they don't believe that. When you say save 20% or 25% or whatever, it seems somewhat unbelievable and I think a lot of customers question it. With our go rewards program we actually know that customers saved 15% or more. We did a lot of research because the and more was actually the savings is more like an average of 20% but customers really felt like, "That seems high, that seems really unbelievable." So, 15% we're like okay, let's just actually take that down because that seemed to be more palatable percent for customers for some reason. Stephanie: That's really interesting. Rachel: Isn't it? Stephanie: I know. I mean, when you see these shopping sites when it's like 75% off it actually makes you just one be like, "Well, was it ever worth the price that you listed it at?" And then are you going to get a 90% off. So I do question brands that have huge sales like that more than I do with someone who's consistently like, "You get 15 or 20% off no matter what promo code or coupon or anything that you get, it's never going to be higher than that. Rachel: Right, yeah. You start to question the quality and you say, "Oh, geez." I mean I'm sure the average consumer doesn't think in terms of margin but I start thinking about margin. Stephanie: I do too. Like minds, very like minds. [crosstalk 00:22:05]. "How much were you making before this?" Okay. Rachel: Exactly. Stephanie: That's great. How do you think about metrics when it comes to these loyalty programs. Are they unique and very different than maybe metrics for other e-commerce business or other programs that you might set up? Rachel: Well, I think first and foremost most companies will look at sales as a huge metric within their loyalty program because it's an investment for the organizations, so ROI is going to be important. But the ROI actually comes from retention and in some cases reactivation. You know that a lot of times it's true, the cost of getting a customer is equivalent to retaining eight. Rachel: So, I think if you can look at ... most organizations look at sales from the program and incremental sales from the program. I think that that is the real true metric. Engagement of course is also important. And customer satisfaction is vital. Stephanie: Yep, that makes sense. Are there any memorable campaigns that come to mind. You're like, this one was my favorite marketing or any other kind of campaign hat I've done that you want to share? I'm always interested in stories around that. Rachel: Yeah, no I think that I worked on so many great campaigns but the ones that are truly, fully integrated across every channel is that's what's really exciting. When you see a campaign, for example right now this might sound silly or small but we have this pizza campaign. We've got a commercial on air about the best pizza is your own pizza and we've got that campaign in every other channel, so digital, e-mail, social media, through my go rewards program, we throw in extra points when you buy certain products within the category. That's really what excites me is I think when you see it come to life and you see really the full ecosystem within marketing utilized to support something. That's when you really see the power of marketing come to life and you see how it actually makes sense obviously to have one point of view and to be more customer centric in your campaigns. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And it's like a better way to measure things as well if there's this one initiative going across many channels and you can look at it without having a bunch of other players messing the data up. Rachel: Right, right, exactly, exactly. I see some marketing campaigns right now and [inaudible] there's some big players out there that did all of these back to school campaigns and it drove me nuts because it's like we are not back in and it showed all the kids walking down the hall and of course I know that they had all these commercials shot in the can well before a lot of this happened but I feel like you're talking to a consumer base that is in a very different place right now. I think that obviously understanding what consumers are looking for and really being relevant like that pizza campaign. There's so many people who are at home cooking together right now. I feel like that's really where I get most excited is when I see obviously that relevance and then more of that omni-channel and cross channel campaign. I think that that's really where you see some good results from marketing. Stephanie: Yeah, that's as good point about people still running their commercials that they maybe shot a long time ago. The only one that I think has done really well in my mind that I've seen recently is either Trader Joe's or Target that had grab your back to school supplies and it was at a line rack. I'm like, "That's good, that's relevant and I'm going to get some [inaudible] now." Rachel: That's perfect. Stephanie: Yeah, really good. We had someone on this show who was also mentioning you should have different scenarios, especially at a time right now where you don't really know what's going to happen and you should be ready to pull your campaigns and slot something in really quickly. And it seems like a lot of larger brands or especially older brands just didn't think that way or maybe just thought, "Okay, let's just release this and see how it goes anyways." Why do you think that's the case? Why do they still put this out into the world when many of them probably knew it was not a good fit? Rachel: No, and I think it does more harm to your brand than anything to be honest because obviously if you're not relevant and you're not listening to what's going on in the world then I think that it does more home. At the beginning of COVID we did a lot of work around providing at-home solutions. We had a chef who actually did a cooking show within social media. I worked with this chef to come up with a series of cooking shows within Facebook and we did a number of other just activities to do with the kids at home and there was more relevance to our campaigns and it really resonated. Customers really appreciated the fact that we were giving them content that actually was valuable, interesting and just relevant to what was going on in the world. Rachel: You can't be deaf to what's happening and you have to really just make sure you're always paying attention and listening to what customers are saying. Stephanie: Yeah, completely agree. Earlier you were talking about the pizza campaign and how you put on many, many channels. Which channels are you finding are most successful or are there any new ones that you're experimenting with that you're finding some early success in. Rachel: I think that we do a lot within social media and I think that the channels in social media that we're finding some early success in would be Next Door and TikTok to some degree. I think with TikTok, youth are still clear we haven't done a whole lot there but I think that the brands that have been on TikTok and have done some really good work and have seen some great results. And I think the social media channels are probably the ones that give me the most excitement because I think there's such a great way. Rachel: We're working towards integrating commerce into social media. That's a big project that my team is working on right now and it's such a great way to capture an audience when they're just in their downtime. They're in a different kind of mindset and they're more open to maybe looking at inspirational content, recipes, things like that within Pinterest or within Facebook or Instagram. And they may want to buy it right then and there and they may want to say, "I want this recipe, I want it delivered to my house. This is great." So, I think that any of the campaigns that we've done in social have really been my favorites. Stephanie: You mentioned integrating commerce into social media. Are you all taking that initiative on yourself or are you more relying on the platforms to develop the solutions to tap into? What does that look like? Rachel: Yeah, we are relying on platforms. Obviously we have to, there's a lot of work that needs to be done still in this area. And I think that's a little trickier just for a supermarket because you're not going to buy just a tomato. Stephanie: [crosstalk] tomato from Stop & Shop. Rachel: Right, it's not like when you see a pair of shoes on Instagram and you have to have them. You don't really have to have that tomato on Instagram but you may want that full recipe so making sure that there's enough content that is actually worthwhile to the customer I think is the challenge and that's what my team is trying to figure out right now. Stephanie: Got it. When I'm thinking about commerce or social media, has Stop & Shop explored ... or maybe you guys already have this like your own products where it's like you can only get it from here. It's not a generic brand it's actually like ... I mean, that reminds me a lot of what Trader Joe's does. It's like if I want this one, well they discontinued this prune juice I really loved. [inaudible 00:32:00], yep. I love their prune juice, they discontinued it. Anyways, I knew that they were the only ones that I liked it, that's the only one I wanted to have. And so, have you explored something like that of creating certain things that will be top of mind where it's like Stop & Shop is the only one that actually has this kind of recipe of whatever it may be, prune juice. Rachel: Yes, actually in fact we have our own line, Nature's Promise is a proprietary line across the Ahold Delhaize brand. And we have our private label brand of course and then we have Taste of Inspirations which is a really nice higher end private label brand for us. And we are definitely doing more within that space, integrating with go rewards with our new program. When you buy a recipe that is all Nature's Promise ingredients you earn extra go points. Rachel: We have these recipes called take five that were featured within social media and we've got them in our circular and in other areas. And if it's all our Taste of Inspiration products you earn X amount of go points. We have a lot of those types of promotions that we're doing now and that's definitely what we'll be integration into our social media commerce platforms in the future. Stephanie: Very cool. And I feel like there's a lot of interesting opportunities too as you now explore ... you're going to have this new e-commerce platform to get new data and to see what people are really like and what's maybe swaying them to buy one thing versus the other. It seems like there's a lot of opportunity that'll come up around building new offerings that maybe you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Rachel: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think if you look at solutions that's definitely really important to our customers right now. There's so many families that are just so busy and providing meal solutions, even a night, a couple nights or a week of meal solutions is such a huge time savings for a lot of families. Stephanie: Yes, I feel that with three boys now. I'm like anything to not have to cook from scratch would be appreciated. [inaudible] it's frozen, whatever it is. If it's edible it's cool. Where does personalization come into play or you guys? How do you think about showing offerings throughout your e-commerce experience or your apps that really connects with the person who's looking there? Rachel: Well, personalization [inaudible] success, so I think whether or not we get it right 100% of the time I think is something that remains to be seen. I think we have made some huge advances in personalization with the new platform, with our program. The more data we have about a consumer's shopping behavior, what they like, the better the offerings that we'll be able to give them. Rachel: So, if I purchase Doritos all of the time, hopefully I'm not getting a offer for something else, Lays potato chips, I should be getting offers for Doritos. So, that relevancy is really, really important. And that's something with this new program that we're providing customers whether it's through product coupons, which today now that I look in my coupon gallery on my app, I have six products that are relevant to what I purchase every week which is really great, so I know the algorithm is working correctly. Rachel: Then on top of that we also have more of those category offers. So, if I'm somebody that always buys fresh produce now we're actually doing more of the $5 off your purchase when you add a fresh produce. More of those category offers that are relevant to what I purchase every day. I think it's incredibly important. And then through the e-commerce journey this is really where I'd like to see us make some improvements. It's on recommendation engine type of logic, so if I'm putting a pizza dough in my basket on my e-commerce platform then hopefully somebody's going to be recommending some mozzarella and pizza sauce to me. Rachel: That type of a level of personalization is something that we strive for and want in the future. We have some degree of that today but that's certainly where I expect we will be going in the near future. Stephanie: Radical. When it comes to those recommendations are there any tools that you're relying on to build that out or is it everything you did in custom or how is that working behind the scenes? Rachel: Yeah, the recommendation actually is homegrown, so that's where our internal partner actually has been using all of the data from the loyalty program and understanding what customers buy, and there's propensity models that we have in place. So, somebody who has the same profile, who typically purchase X, Y, Z. "We actually build a model to say here are look alike customers and here's what we should recommend to them because it looks like that customer is similar so they may be interested in these types of products." And that's something that our internal data scientists have been able to build out for us. Stephanie: That's great. Is there anything when it comes to machine learning or the world of data that you guys have access to that you're maybe preparing for or different capabilities that you're building out right now that may be other grocers or other e-commerce stores are maybe a little bit behind on? Rachel: Yes, there definitely at the Ahold Delhaize level. I think that AI and certainly machine learning is something that everybody is going to have to be prepared to work on in the near future and be prepared to have teams working on that in the near future. And Ahold Delhaize does. Stop & Shop as a brand doesn't but at the Ahold Delhaize level we do. Stephanie: Very cool. And do they usually come up with something at the higher level and implement it within all of their stores or do they test it out and say, "Okay Stop & Shop you're going to pilot this and we'll learn from you and then we'll have our other brands try it as well," or how does that work? Rachel: That's exactly what it is, yeah exactly. And I see a big trend in experimentation and learning done with artificial intelligence, natural language processing. The first steps into conversational commerce and customer service. I think individually each of those is interesting but when you string it together it becomes really compelling and AI is now being given enough transactional information. And when combined with data science can match and predict customer behavior at a level not previously possible. So, natural language, processing and conversational tools really make it possible to help customers during the purchase journey and even more importantly in many aspects of customer service. Rachel: So, these previously somewhat academic technologies are being put in the hands of digital commerce managers and we begin to see the results. So, I fully expect that within the next couple of years what we're testing at a Ahold Delhaize level will be brought down to each of the brands. Stephanie: Yeah, it seems like there could be an interesting ... that you would get interesting results from the different brands because I can see very different consumers who are maybe shopping at Good old Giant back in Maryland. Rachel: Yes, you're absolutely right. Stephanie: How do you approach that when you're trying out different things and maybe you're like, "Oh, we see this with our customers at Stop & Shop, let's try this at another brand." And you're like womp womp that actually failed at that [inaudible] are so different. Rachel: Yeah, no it's a great call out and I say that all the time. I say what matters to somebody in the food [inaudible 00:40:18], so what matters to somebody maybe in North Carolina is different what matters to somebody in New York City. So, we have probably the toughest competitive market not only from a grocery retail perspective but even just from a media perspective and trying to ensure that our voice is heard within these difficult tough media markets. Rachel: So, for Stop & Shop really it's a little bit tricky and we do have to take a look at every single opportunity that comes our way and say, "Does this resonate with our consumer base?" Because a lot of times it won't. I think that there were a couple of examples of trying out even just a walk-up pickup service. In a city location you can walk to get your groceries handed to you. There've already been shop for you versus the traditional pickup where we load it to your car. That doesn't work everywhere obviously. [inaudible] work in the suburbs, it really only works at urban locations. That's one thing that comes to mind, there's a number of them that come to mind but each brand does have an option to opt out if it's not something that resonates within their base. Stephanie: Yeah, it makes sense. Try and implement that in New York city and all of a sudden these cars are being towed and then they're mad. Rachel: Right. Stephanie: [inaudible 00:41:48]. So, to go a little higher level I want to talk about general e-commerce themes and trends. I wanted to hear what kind of disruptions do you see coming to commerce that are not just from COVID or not just COVID because I think a lot people on here are like, "Oh, COVID's the big disruption." What else do you see happening in the world of e-commerce that's maybe coming down the pipe right now? Rachel: I mean one that's already here really is one stop shopping like Amazon. So, the retailers who adapt and constantly expand their options, shorten the supply chain, enhance customer service and develop great options for delivery and pick-up have the most success. So, I think that the model that Amazon has and Wayfair, the direct to consumer shipping is not as much as a disruption to e-commerce. That's here to stay and I think we have to learn from that and we have to adapt in order to stay competitive. And I think a lot of retailers are going to have to adapt in this new world. Everybody's going to have to be able to figure out how to provide that one stop shop because it's similar to brick & mortar shopping. You don't want to go to multiple locations on a Saturday afternoon. Rachel: It's the same thing, if you're going to pay for shipping you're going to pay for it once from one retailer or get free shipping, of course with a subscription service or promotion. And I think that's definitely here to stay. I think that convenience and the ease of finding everything in one place is that it's that big box retail mentality from back in the 80s when the big box retailers really exploded. Stephanie: Yep. Figuring out delivery and trying to compete with Amazon, man that seems very, very tough. Rachel: Very tough. Stephanie: Consumers have very high expectations now of what they want and yeah, it seems like they are quick to get upset if it's not one, two day shipping and, "Oh, it can't be here within two hours? Okay, I'm going to have to cancel the order." Rachel: Right, exactly. And "Oh, you don't have all the other things I need to? I need my face lotion and my bread. Wait, you don't have that?" Stephanie: Yeah, "Why would you not have that right next to each other?" Rachel: Right, exactly. Stephanie: Yeah, this has been awesome. Is there anything that I missed that you wanted to highlight before we jump into the lightning round? Rachel: No, I don't think so. Stephanie: Okay, cool. Well, I will pull us into the lightning round brought to you by SalesForce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready Rachel? Rachel: Oh, boy. Stephanie: All right, first one, what does the best day in the office look like for you? Rachel: Best day in the office today is at home. Stephanie: There you go. What does your virtual best day look like? Rachel: My virtual best day is when I actually have time between meetings to go get something to eat [inaudible 00:45:01]. Stephanie: That is actually a big problem I've heard from a lot of my old coworkers and talking about their whole day is now filled with meetings that maybe would've taken just a couple minutes to have a quick catch up and instead it's like, "Okay, 30 minute slots to discuss maybe one question." Rachel: Absolutely and you use your hour to the fullest extent and you're not moving around from meeting room to meeting room anymore. You're literally just sitting at your desk all day, so my best day is when I actually have a break to get up and go get something to eat because food is important to me. Stephanie: That seems like a crucial part of the day, so what's up next on your Netflix Queue. Rachel: That's a great question. I've actually blown through almost everything. Stephanie: And what was your most recent then? Rachel: I just watched the Enola Holmes. Stephanie: I'm watching that now, it's so cute. Rachel: Oh, it was excellent, I loved it, it was really great. I love Millie Bobby Brown, I think she's fantastic. Stephanie: Yeah, she was really good. Highly recommend that one. What's up next on your travel destinations when you can travel again? Rachel: Oh, gosh I want to go to Scotland so bad. Stephanie: Oh, fun. What do you want to go there for? Rachel: I want to golf. I love the countryside, just looks amazing, beautiful. I want to go hiking there. I have a lot of grand plans for Scotland and Ireland too as well. Stephanie: If you were to have a podcast what would it be about and who would your first guest be? Rachel: It would definitely be about true crime because I'm obsessed with true crime, which I know everybody is right now but I really do find it fascinating and I always have. This isn't just a fab for me, I always really liked it. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). You started it, everyone else followed. Rachel: Yeah, exactly. I'm a trendsetter of course. Stephanie: Yes. And who would your guest be then? Will it be a serial killer? Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. I would love to interview a serial killer. I just want to know what goes on. I want to get deep for sure with a serial killer, name any one. Stephanie: All right, I mean I would listen to that. I hope they're behind bars when that happens. Rachel: Yes, yeah. I could do the interview behind bars for sure. Stephanie: There you go. And if you were to pick a virtual event right now for your team or if you already had one that you've done recently, what would it be that you think is engaging in these times? Rachel: I think there's a women's conference coming up in Boston that I would love for my team to attend. I just attended a women's leadership conference that was really amazing. It was very inspirational, even virtually I was really surprised at how well done it was and how just thought provoking the virtual conference could be. It was really fantastic. Stephanie: That sounds awesome. All right, and then the last one, what is a favorite app on your phone right now that you're loving? Rachel: This is bad but I have the CARROT app, which I don't know if you know, CARROT is the weather app. Stephanie: No, I actually don't. Rachel: It's a weather app that actually gives you a really sarcastic, snarky message every day when you open it up, so ... Stephanie: Oh, my gosh. That's great. I like that, that's really good. Well, Rachel this has been such a fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and Stop & Shop? Rachel: So, Stop&Shop.com Stop & Shop app and me, my LinkedIn profile, so Rachel Stephens, S-T-E-P-H-E-N-S. Stephanie: Awesome, well thanks so much for joining the show. Rachel: Thank you very much for having me.