The Modern Retail Podcast

Things got scary for Neighborhood Goods in 2020."We went through layoffs and furloughs -- all sorts of challenging things," said co-founder and CEO Matt Alexander. "And we had just come into the year on a real tear, and it was just really gut-wrenching to suddenly be in that moment."But business has returned, and his updated department store model -- which has retail space in city centers like Manhattan, Austin and Plano and hosts a variety of brands in exchange for a revenue share -- is doing numbers once again. "Sales continue to grow and we continue to add more brands," Alexander said on the Modern Retail Podcast.Alexander joined Modern Retail for a live podcast recording at his New York City store in Chelsea Market during Digiday Media's Commerce Week. There, he spoke about changes to the business and how he's preparing for the future.While sales obviously dropped during the pandemic -- and the company had to close all of its stores for an extended period of time -- Neighborhood Goods was able to see some glimmers of light via its digital services. "Our stores are ostensibly their own warehouses. Local delivery, same-day deliveries, in-store pickup, things of that nature, we were able to offer that for products that were otherwise going to take weeks -- if not months -- to arrive with customers," he said. "And so that actually became a real driver for us."But now, digital is no longer the focus -- it's all about the store. Traffic, Alexander said, has picked back up to pre-pandemic levels and stores are more productive than ever before. In fact, he said the real issue he faces is too much traffic. "We're just getting an absurd amount of people to the point that it creates like a lot of challenges as to how you operate with it," Alexander said.Still, it's a good problem to have. Now, the focus is on growth. That could mean more stores, though Alexander he's still trying to figure out where that may be. It could be California, Atlanta, Nashville or even a smaller suburb, he said.But he's optimistic about the future of his business -- as well as the state of physical retail itself. "At the end of the day, the fundamental picture continues to improve," he said.

The e-commerce portfolio model has been getting a lot of press of late. And OpenStore thinks it may have cracked the code for finding and acquiring DTC brands.OpenStore launched in 2021, and the idea was the use proprietary technology to suss out which online brands have the most upside. It's raised over $130 million both in venture capital and debt. E-commerce brands can go to OpenStore's website and share their Shopify sales data with the portfolio company."We've built an engine, powered by data science, that is essentially looking at the historical financials and the order history of the business, and allowing us to come up in relatively real-time with a price for the business, which we then present to the founder," said co-founder Michael Rubenstein. He joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the current state of e-commerce portfolio companies and why he thinks OpenStore is poised for success.According to Rubenstein, OpenStore is focused on aggressively growing its portfolio. Last year, the company said it had ambitions to make an acquisition a day. Rubenstein wouldn't confirm exactly how many purchases this company has made, but said "we have done dozens of acquisitions... We're buying companies very regularly at this point."So what is an ideal candidate for an OpenStore scoop up? According to Rubenstein, it's usually brands whose GMV is between $500,000 and $10 million. He sees OpenStore as a way for serial entrepreneurs who are tired of the current business to make a profitable exit. "They're ready for liquidity -- there's whatever it is that they want to go do next," said Rubenstein.It is, admittedly, a more difficult time for e-commerce businesses than it was a year ago. E-commerce growth is stagnating and inflation is making sales growth difficult for many brands. Still, Rubenstein thinks OpenStore is more than just a business glomming onto a recent bubble. Our plan is to own these businesses, grow these businesses, develop them and help them to realize their full potential," he said.

The key to DTC towel brand Weezie's success is staying in its lane -- or, bathroom.That's according to co-founder Lindsey Johnson who joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast. The company, which makes luxury bath towels along with other bathroom-related products like bathrobes and bathmats, has seen year-over-year growth and said late last year that it was on track to hit eight figures in revenue in 2021."The bath towel is the hero product of Weezie, and we are going to stay in that world," Johnson said.According to Johnson, what has helped Weezie grow is the company's relatively conservative approach to growth. Other than a seed round, Weezie has remained bootstrapped -- and it's been very intentional about every expansion or new sales channel into which it's dived.Some of that is because of the very nature of the business. Weezie offers custom embroidered towels -- all of which are made and fulfilled in its own U.S.-based facility. Scaling such an operation is difficult, to say the least. "[Wholesale] is something we've always struggled with... because customization is such a big part of the business," she said. "While, of course, our products are wonderful on their own, it doesn't tell the whole story."Now, thanks to growth from the last few years, Johnsons is trying to figure out how to grow these channels while remaining true to Weezie's roots. Meanwhile, she's also trying to figure out where to expand to next geographically.Weezie currently has one store in Atlanta, which she says has been a successful sales driver and brand booster. With that, Johnson is also thinking about opening more stores, but added "it's not in the near-term roadmap."Put together, Johnson has big plans for the next few months -- but is also trying to make sure Weezie stays by its North Star. "I think it's a big year of just investing in the future," she said.

General Mills is known for being the company behind household name brands Wheaties -- but it's also trying to build out a robust DTC strategy.At the Modern Retail DTC Summit, held last week in New Orleans, General Mills' global e-commerce lead of DTC Carter Jensen took to the stage to talk about how he approaches his role. That conversation was recorded for this week's Modern Retail Podcast.Jensen isn't the usual CPG conglomerate leader -- he only joined the company about two years ago. "I come from a weird hodgepodge of startups and consulting and agency land for the last 10-plus years," he said. But this variety of hats worn has helped Jensen better conceptualize how such a big company can go about direct-to-consumer strategies.General Mills brought in about $4.5 billion last quarter -- and direct e-commerce represents likely a tiny fraction of that. This year, General Mills is on track to launch DTC campaigns with about 30 brands -- which he described as "exponentially" more than the launches from the previous two years. Still, Jensen said that DTC is an increasingly important part of the overall program at the company."The vision of DTC from the top has shifted and changed," said Jensen. And a lot of that was thanks to the pandemic-led e-commerce boom. "We look at DTC now as not necessarily the end all be all, but a really important part of what we call the connected commerce journey."Different brands have different needs. For example, General Mills has upstarts from its incubator program -- and the company uses DTC tactics to gain helpful consumer fit data. The conglomerate also launches standalone websites for product drops, like it has for limited-edition Wheaties boxes. While General Mills does use e-commerce as a revenue driver for some brands, it is still very small compared to the company's vast distribution channels.And, at the end of the day, the company's playbook depends on each brand. "We lean on our brand teams, they are the brand experts. They're the ones who know their products, their partnerships, their consumers the best," said Jensen. "We come in with the DTC capability of knowing the tech stack, knowing what works, knowing how to ship products... we're the coach versus the quarterback, and we let them take control."

Bokksu, which connects U.S. customers with Japanese snacks, is still bullish on subscription boxes, according to its founder and CEO Danny Taing.The company, which first launched in 2016, began by offering a subscription box that featured Japanese snacks that were never before available in the U.S. Growth for the first few years was on the slower side, as the company remained mostly bootstrapped. Two years after launching, the company really started to hit its stride. And is now expanding beyond subscription boxes and launching its own marketplace."In early 2018, we had about 1,000 subscribers, and in just one month, we grew that to over 3,000," Taing said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "It was because of this viral Facebook kind of campaign."With that growth, however, came some struggles. "The warehouse in Japan was not equipped to deal with triple the amount of orders," Taing said. "And that was way before I had a logistics team or director."But Bokksu was able to roll with the punches and still grow. The company has doubled its revenue and customer base every year since 2018. This came as other subscription box brands like Birchbox faced major headwinds. But, according to Taing, Bokksu never experienced subscription fatigue. "I think what helped was that we have a very strong underlying product that changes every month that a lot of people get a lot of value from," said Taing. "It's not faddy."Earlier this year, Bokksu closed a $22 million Series A round of funding, giving it a $100 million valuation. That happened after years of receiving nos from VCs. For Taing, it was validation that his company had staying power. With this cash infusion, Bokksu is focusing on its marketplace expansion.Still, Bokksu remains focused on its hero product. "Subscriptions are still the majority," said Taing. "That's our core thing."

For the kitchen brand W&P, it's been a good time for the home products space.This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, W&P president Kate Lubenesky spoke about how the company has evolved and grown. "We had great growth in 2020 and 2021," she said.W&P first launched 10 years ago with its first product: a mason jar-inspired cocktail shaker. Now, the company has expanded a great deal, with hundreds of different products including cups, cutting boards, cocktail kits and ziplock bag alternatives. "We've really refined our point-of-view to be equal parts function and design," said Lubenesky. With that, W&P has figured out exactly what its brand voice is; "We don't want to be everything to everyone... we're really singularly focused on kitchen products."Lubenesky joined the company in early 2020, right before the pandemic began. She hailed from kitchen product stalwarts like Oxo. "When I walked into the door, we were really at this fantastic inflection point as a business where we had this great portfolio of products that was really starting to click and hum in the marketplaces and with our retailers, like Crate and Barrel, Sur La Table, William Sonoma and just all these wonderful culinary retailers," she said. But then, of course, the coronavirus spread around the world and changed everyone's plans.Even so, W&P was able to switch revenue gears and continue growing. Many wholesale accounts -- including independent gift shops and department stores like Nordstrom -- had to pull back on their partnership with W&P in early 2020. But other sales channels began to grow. The brand's Amazon sales, for example, went through the roof. Additionally, W&P's corporate gifting revenue skyrocketed."Having that really healthy platform -- and a balance -- allowed us to thrive in 2020," said Lubenesky.Now, the company is focused on growing even more. That includes inking more wholesale partnerships -- if, of course, the retailers are a good fit. And there's also always product expansion."We're really focused on product development and innovating and inventing new categories that consumers aren't even aware of that they need," Lubenesky said.

It's been a big year for TalkShopLive -- and for livestream commerce in general.The livestream commerce platform has been around since 2018. Until 2021, it was completely bootstrapped -- but it took a $3 million seed round a year ago this past February. Since then, TalkShopLive has been ramping up partnerships with major publishers and retailers, including Walmart and Condé Nast.Co-founder and CEO Bryan Moore joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the platform's growing presence. "2020 was when we started to see a lot of people come on with their books and music and have these blockbuster sales," he said. "It proved the model and proved the value for creators."Unlike other livestream commerce apps, TalkShopLive focuses on offering embedded streams. While customers can go to its website to see what programs are airing -- which, according to Moore, many people do -- brands and publishers can also host the streams on their own websites. In Moore's description, that makes for a better relationship for retailers working with publishers -- along with creators trying to launch their own commerce lines. "One of the things that we've consistently heard across the board from the creator front is that they really appreciate having a destination outside of their traditional social platforms to use as their shopping destination," Moore said.This comes as the livestream commerce space as a whole has seen big gains. Apps like Ntwrk and Whatnot have raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years, and many experts say that North America is finally beginning to adopt the medium. According to Insider Intelligence, livestream commerce is a $300 billion market in China and western countries are increasingly testing it out as well.One of TalkShopLive's biggest recent successes is with Walmart. The big-box retailer tested out a few livestream programs in late 2021. Apparently, the company liked it -- Walmart has upped its programming by about 420%, said Moore, and has booked livestream commerce programs through the summer."The brand experiences team at Walmart is really phenomenal and completely understands the value of this space and how to really maximize it for their customers and their suppliers," said Moore.For now, Moore is focused on growing TalkShopLive's partners and getting more retailers and creators testing out its offerings. "You're going to see a lot of other retailers launching over the next quarter," he said.

Couplet Coffee, which sells both coffee beans and coffee-related products online, is only a few months old and is trying to enter the market with a bang.Currently, it's available online as well as at select partners like Lotto.com's Players Cafe. Founder and CEO Gefen Skolnick joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about the launch."Couplet was my side project in college," Skolnick said. "I've just been obsessed with coffee for over ten years now."For the last year, however, Skolnick has been testing out to see if the brand could become a viable business. Much of this was done via limited-edition drops, as well as one-off retail partnerships at pop-ups like a recent Bumble-sponsored NYC cafe. In the beginning, Couplet's landing page was a barebones cashdrop site that sold a small amount (for example, 30) limited-edition coffee bean bags or products like french presses. These drops sold out quickly -- much of that driven, according to Skolnick, by social media buzz -- which gave more credence to the brand.Now, Couplet is trying to take things to a new level. While it still has small-scale partnerships with artists and drops limited edition products, the brand is trying to grow its permanent presence as well. It is currently in 17 retail stores nationwide. In addition to its online offerings, which went live earlier this year, Couplet is opening over 20 coffee cart locations at Players Cafe. Skolnick said more expansion announcements are on the horizon.Growing this type of company was new terrain for Skolnick. Despite only being in her mid-20s, over the last few years, Skolnick had worked in a variety of capacities -- from software engineering to DTC marketing to investing. But, she hadn't really honed in specifically on coffee before. So Skolnick grew her network to get a better understanding of the space."I spent all of last year... figuring out how operations work, figuring out how DTC brands do what they do, figuring out how coffee companies do what they do and creating an advisor and investor ecosystem that could help me figure it out," Skolnick said. All this helped Skolnick raise a seed round of funding in 2021.This education isn't over now the Couplet has officially launched -- but the plan is to continue growing the company. While Skolnick is seeking out more coffeeshop and retailer partnerships, she's also hoping to grow the product line and keep Couplet true to its roots.Even with the growing amount of external partnerships, Skolnick said, "we're primarily a DTC brand."

Lightning-fast delivery services are taking cities like New York by storm. And Gorillas is trying to be the leader of the pack.This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, Adam Wacenske, Gorillas' U.S. head of operations, spoke about the online grocery service's growth plans and strategy. Gorillas is a grocery delivery app that began in Europe, but is currently only available in New York. Its main value proposition is that it can give customers their items in the blink of an eye -- usually in less than 15 minutes.Last year, it raised nearly $1 billion in funding, and only a month ago the German-based company announced plans to raise an additional $700 million. That's because competition is stiff. There are a bunch of other delivery apps out there -- from GoPuff to Jokr -- that offer similar services of stocking dark stores with products and having couriers at the ready to deliver them to customers' homes. Though Wacenske said that Gorillas is focused on giving the best possible experience and having the fullest assortment of groceries."From day one Gorillas has been focused on a full assortment," he said. "We've always had what was akin to a medium-sized grocery store."Wacenske knows a thing or two about being part of a fast-growing startup. His last job was at WeWork, and he spoke about how his past experience lent itself to this current role. "There's a lot of similarities to WeWork," he said. Specifically: both companies focused on growing physical presences and making them more convenient for their customers.Meanwhile, the beginning part of this year was difficult for some players in the fast delivery industry. Two companies, Fridge No More and Buyk both closed down U.S. operations in the course of a week. "It's super unfortunate," said Wacenske, adding that both companies' closures were "out of a lot of people's control."While those companies certainly faced difficulties with growth, Wacenske is optimistic about the future -- both for Gorillas and the fast-delivery space. "This is a really young industry in the U.S.," he said. "I can't fully predict as to what's going to happen, but there's certainly going to be more space for more opportunities and for more than one company in the future."

It may seem simple to order a bouquet of flowers and have it delivered to your home, but a lot of work goes into such a task.On this week's Modern Retail Podcast, Seth Goldman, the CEO of online flower and plant delivery service UrbanStems, discussed the ins and outs of the e-florist business.Over the last two years, UrbanStems saw year-over-year growth in both 2020 and 2021 -- even after the company shut down its local delivery services in March of 2020, which resulted in a 60% decline in its business at that time. But when things reopened in July, the company was back on track and "revenue growth continued to scale," said Goldman. Indeed, sales grew 130% in 2021.Now, with these two years in the rearview mirror, Goldman says he's figuring out what parts of the business to invest in. "For all brands, it's about starting to make sure that all of those customers that tried us out are sticking," he said.Venture funding is helping with that. Last year, Urban Stems raised $20 million, giving it a valuation north of $100 million. This year, Goldman is trying to continue figuring out how to best use that money.One of his focuses is on building out the infrastructure that allows the company to deliver its flowers. Meanwhile, Goldman is also investing in both the technology and user experience side of things. Lastly, the company is also investing in its team and growing its headcount.Goldman spoke about all of those aspects of the business -- infrastructure, technology and talent -- and how he's thinking about prioritization. "There's a lot of work to continue to do across all three," he said.