The Modern Retail Podcast

R+Co has established itself as one of the premier players in salon haircare -- and over the years it's been slowly expanding. At the same time, the brand takes great pains to stay true to its roots -- and won't be straying far from its salon partners.For example, the brand, which is owned by Luxury Brand Partners, recently launched a hair color line. According to R+Co president Dan Langer, this latest foray was due to feedback from its community of hair stylists and professionals."We want to build [the color business] out with the same philosophy of our heritage line, R+Co, which was involving a collective so that every shade of the line could be best in class," Langer said. "We're always in dialogue and conversations with different hairdressers, mainly because they're our friends -- and they're part of our own communities."Langer joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the brand's journey. It first began 10 years ago; "we wanted to build a brand that was based on a collective perspective," Langer said.So he brought together a group of experts -- the top haircare professionals in the industry -- to form the original line. From there, R+Co has grown mainly via its salon business. That remains the company's primary business model.But over the years, R+Co has expanded into new areas. Beyond the new color brand, it launched a premium haircare line focused on sustainability called R+Co Bleu. Langer described it as the company's "couture collection… really focused on sustainability, performance, and design."With all of these new sub-brands, however, Langer said the core remains the same. R+Co uses its collective of experts to make sure the products are quality -- and then taps them and their networks to get the word out.At the end of the day, it's the salons that remain the biggest evangelists for a brand like R+Co. That business-to-business channel, Langer said, "is a huge part of our marketing."

On this week's Modern Retail Rundown, two Amazon Style stores are closing after the company tested selling apparel physically. Meanwhile, Walmart is revamping hundreds of its stores as part of an ongoing $9 billion investment. Last, we look at the new MakerPlace by Michaels -- which the company is positioning as a more seller-friendly competitor to Etsy.

Home goods brand Coyuchi has been around for 30 years and has seen the industry transform.Its core focus is on providing organic cotton products. It's perhaps most well known for its bedsheets, but has expanded into other areas like loungewear and napkins. But the focus has always been to grow keeping its promise of organic products that speak to its target consumer in mind -- which it considers its competitive advantage against the ever-growing DTC home goods space.CEO Eileen Mockus joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about Coyuchi's growth and strategy. The company first launched before DTC was a buzzword -- and as such grew via wholesale. "It was a lot of small retailers," she said. But over the years, the company invested more and more online -- and its e-commerce presence is now its largest sales channel."It's a big shift," Mockus said.Mockus said that one of the ways Coyuchi was able to grow its online presence so much was by establishing its brand via these retail partners. Through that, the company was able to let customers know about its focus on sustainability.The marketing behind its organic focus has also shifted. Sustainability-focused marketing a decade ago, she said, was "almost a scare tactic." That is, telling a customer about all the perils of using non-organic products. But now, the brand has realized it's better to use this focus as a way to explain why the product is enhanced. "We were really able to shift the conversation," she said.But Coyuchi isn't the only brand having such a conversation. Search for DTC bedding on Google, and you'll be presented with dozens of different options. But Mockus said that Coyuchi being an early arrival -- as well as its focus away from the target millennial demographic most DTC brands go after -- has helped it stand out."It has definitely been a crowded space in the bedding market," she said. "We have always had a view to who our customer was."

On this week's Modern Retail Rundown, the team discusses UPS's acquisition of reverse logistics startup Happy Returns from PayPal. Then, we go into Unilever offloading Dollar Shave Club, which it bought for $1 billion in 2016. Finally, It looks like Sears may be trying to revive its store count by reopening a location that closed last year.

Forty-seven-year-old Rudi’s Bakery is on a quest to reinvent itself -- and it's bringing in a CPG veteran to lead this charge.The Denver-based company is known best for its gluten-free breads. And while it is well-known in this space -- with national distribution in major grocers like Whole Foods and Kroger -- Rudi's is now expanding into new categories like frozen items like breakfast sandwiches and other bread-focused foods. At the helm of its product innovation is Justin Gold, the founder and former CEO of Justin's Nut Butter, who is now Rudi's chief innovation and strategy officer.Gold joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about why he joined Rudi's, as well as what he sees in store for the brand.

This week on the Modern Retail Rundown, the staff discuss TJX announcing plans to shut down the e-commerce site of HomeGoods -- just two years after launching it. Meanwhile, Walmart is aiming to add more sellers to its third-party marketplace in time for the holiday season rush. And after years of cultivating a luxury image, Goop will sell a line of clean skincare on Amazon and in Target.

August is using its social media prowess to talk about period care.Over the past two years, August -- which sells organic period care products -- has grown from an idea into a national brand selling at stores like Target. It has been able to grow that quickly in part because of its TikTok following. Co-founder Nadya Okamoto decided early on that she would grow August via TikTok and while she didn't have a following in 2021, today she has 4 million followers."I was not on TikTok at all," she said. Okamoto was a featured speaker at the Modern Retail DTC Summit this week, and her interview is this week's Modern Retail Podcast.One of the big things she focuses on is making relatable content -- and a lot of it. During the early days, "for like six months I posted 80 to 100 videos a day, personally," she said. This was both so that she could train herself to be a good TikTok personality -- but also because audiences evolved and August wanted to be constantly testing and changing the content it produces. And the company has found that real, unvarnished content that talks about periods is what usually resonates the best.This strategy helped propel both Okamoto as an online personality, but also August as a brand -- and she is quick to note that she built August so that its content and its branding would stand on its own. "I don't want it to be Nadya equals August," she said. "I wanted it to be like I am top-of-funnel -- I'm the August number-one fan."But there's another layer to August's digital strategy to goes beyond engaging millions of followers. The company has had an online community built on the platform Geneva since it started. This, according to Okamoto, was a way to grow its power users and make a space for the company to directly connect with customers. Today, the group has more than 5,000 members.One big thing she constantly keeps in mind is that even though her brand is very prevalent on social media, it needs to understand that the community aspect goes much deeper."Social media is not community to us," she said. "[It's] an audience."But for that audience, August is focused on making sure it is staying true to its authentic roots -- talking plainly and openly about period care and menstrual issues. But that it isn't going too far.As Okomoto put it, it's about "making sure that we're not provocative for the sake of being provocative."

Digiday Media and WorkLife is proud to present season two of The Return, a podcast about what it’s like for Gen Z to enter the workforce for the first time in a post-pandemic world.In season one, The Return followed an Atlanta-based advertising agency as the company returned to the office after a two-year pandemic hiatus. There were clear challenges among this population of workers who knew what a “normal” office used to look like. But what about a generation that is entering the workforce post-pandemic and has nothing to compare it to? That’s what we uncover across eight episodes in season two of The Return.We see headlines repeatedly accusing this generation of being lazy, unmotivated, quiet quitters. But what's the real story behind this generation's attitude about work?In season two of The Return, we speak with Gen Zers across the country to lift the lid on what motivates and inspires this young generation of workers, and how they’re not as work-shy as they’re often depicted. We also speak with seasoned workplace experts who can put the changing expectations of these young professionals into context.We dive into why values are so important to Gen Zers, whether or not they are loyal to their employers, how they use TikTok for career advice, what it means to be a young professional who is a boss to older workers, and so much more.Season two of The Return is hosted by Cloey Callahan, a Gen Zer and senior reporter at Digiday Media’s WorkLife, and produced by Digiday Media's audio producer Sara Patterson.Subscribe to the WorkLife podcast now on Apple Podcasts – or wherever you get your podcasts – to hear the first episode on Wednesday, Oct. 18.

On this week's episode of the Modern Retail Rundown, we start with news about Netflix taking a stab at physical retail -- announcing it will open real-life immersive experiences as tie-ins to its library of content. The second Prime Day event of the year also took place this week, with some positioning it as the official start of the holiday shopping period. Additionally, food makers and retailers are already bracing for a potential decline in sales due to weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

At first glance, children's apparel brand Monica + Andy looks like many other digitally-native businesses. It launched during the DTC heyday, in 2014, most of its sales are online and it's been growing and expanding sales channels every year.But the company has had an interesting trajectory that bucks many of the trends. For one, while it is a digital brand, one of the first things it did was open a store. And for the first few years, its Chicago store was the brunt of its business."We didn't pay for a single online acquisition maybe until almost 2018," said Monica Royer, co-founder and CEO of Monica + Andy. It was there that Royer learned how to connect directly with shoppers and build a community.Another difference is that while other brands focused on growth at all costs, Monica + Andy has spent years focusing on its bottom line. "The moment that Covid started… our board was like, profitability -- that is going to be the most important thing in the future."These two things have helped the company grow. Today, Monica + Andy has expanded its presence into stores like Walmart and Target, and has continued to grow its online sales. It's also fostered a community of parents via in-store and virtual events, which remain core to its growth strategy. Royer joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about her brand's trajectory.One of the early trends that Monica + Andy tapped into -- without even really knowing it -- was that people are looking for ways to connect with brands beyond buying things. The company has held events for years and has taken great pains to make sure it was speaking directly with its shoppers, but Royer said it wasn't considered a way to achieve growth. "We didn't realize we were onto something -- we didn't realize that was an acquisition tool at the time," she said.Similarly, Monica + Andy has been honing how it uses events for the past few years. While it held many virtual events during the early days of the pandemic, it's now been focusing on a more hybrid model.It all points to a strategy of testing and learning, which Monica + Andy has taken to heart. Every year, Royer said, "you have to kind of put your ear to the ground and say: 'All right, how have things shifted, and what's the right mix?'"