The Modern Retail Podcast

On this week’s Modern Retail Rundown, the editorial team discusses the latest Levi’s earnings, including the potential sale of the under-performing Dockers brand. Meanwhile, QVC struck a deal with the USA Pickleball league for the rights to stream matches with and other shoppable pickleball content. Finally, this week also saw a major food acquisition, with PepsiCo buying Mexican staples startup Siete Foods to add to the conglomerate's better-for-you snack portfolio.

Grove Collaborative thinks it has found the way to become the Chewy of sustainable home products.The company has been around since 2012 but has gone through many iterations. For years, it was focused on being a subscription service that delivered curated baskets of its products -- such as paper towels and soaps -- to people's homes. It has tested out private labels as well as wholesale partnerships in stores like Target.The company went public via SPAC in 2022 and has faced some difficult terrain -- including a delisting threat. Last year, Amazon veteran Jeff Yurcisin joined as CEO. His focus has been getting the company on a solid footing."The goal was profitable growth," he said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "But we felt like we had to start with profitability."For the last four months, Grove has reported positive adjusted EBITDA. Similarly, the company announced a recent investment to help it pay down its debt load. Still, at its most recent earnings, it posted a net loss of $10.1 million. According to Yurcisin, these are the initial steps to get the company to become an online leader in natural and sustainable household products.He spoke about how he's been approaching this transformation and what's on the horizon.The first big change implemented as getting rid of mandatory subscriptions. "from my point of view, I wanted to enable subscription but I wanted to create an incentive for customers to subscribe -- not to force them to subscribe," he said.Similarly, Grove has focused on operational changes to streamline its business. It focused on improving its customer experience to make checkout more seamless as well as paying down its debt. It has also been refocusing its tech stack, which has included moving onto Shopify. According to Yurcisin, these changes are now beginning to pay off. The focus now, he said, is adding more customers to the fold so Grove can reach its potential."We believe it's a 57 million-person addressable market in the United States," he said.

On this week’s Modern Retail Rundown, the editorial team starts by discussing a new lawsuit filed by American Eagle against Amazon, in which the retailer alleges that counterfeit versions of its Aerie products are being listed on Amazon. Meanwhile, publicly traded e-commerce startups Grove Collaborative and Stitch Fix have provided updates on their latest progress in narrowing losses and becoming profitable.

Soccer is having a moment, and that has meant online destinations like Soccer.com are seeing newfound growth.But according to Soccer.com CEO Mike Moylan, this has been a long time coming. When Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami last year, bringing the Argentinian soccer star to the United States, it was clear that the sport was becoming a mainstream pastime for Americans. But there were times before that also brought soccer to the mainstream U.S. -- including when the U.S. women's team won the World Cup in 1999 or when David Beckham joined the LA Galaxy in 2007.Ever since the U.S. hosted the World Cup in 1994, "[there] has been sort of the meteoric rise of soccer from an interest perspective," Moylan said.Moylan joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and discussed the rising U.S. interest in the sport and how the company has grown and changed.Soccer.com has been around since 1994 (technically, it began before that as a catalog business, but it acquired the single-word domain in 1994). It's been a destination for people to buy the jerseys of their favorite players along with equipment like soccers and uniforms for leagues.But as soccer has continued to grow in popularity, Soccer.com has grown out other parts of its business. This includes white-label partnerships with organizations like FIFA as well as stadium tie-ins.For now, Soccer.com is focused on capitalizing on the current U.S. soccer fervor. And it is already in the throes of planning for the next World Cup."That moment in time will define soccer in the United States," he said.

On this week's episode of the Modern Retail Rundown, the editorial team dives into some of the updates announced at Amazon Accelerate, the company's annual sellers' conference. Then, we discuss two prominent bankruptcies: Tupperware and Red Lobster. The Tupperware news was just announced this week, and Red Lobster has emerged from bankruptcy with a new owner.

"I'm like a dinosaur," said Reggie Milligan.While literally hyperbole, there is some truth to his claim. Milligan is the founder and CEO of Mantry, a male-targeted food subscription box. Mantry, which is available in the U.S. and features up-and-coming American brands, has been around since 2012 -- it experienced the precipitous rise of subscription boxes and its fast decline. But the company is still around, still seeing growth and has some plans for expansion.Milligan, a Canadian entrepreneur, joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about the rise and fall of the subscription box industry. He was one of the first in the space, and Mantry got prime media placements in magazines like GQ and shows like Good Morning America. But in 2017, he said, "the bottom fell out."While Mantry has received acquisition offers over the years, he's focused on continuing to bootstrap the company and still sees growing demand -- especially during gift-giving seasons. And Milligan also believes that while his business won't become a billion-dollar unicorn, the subscription brands that focused on profitability and speaking directly to their customers are the ones that can be around for decades."A lot of the smaller bootstrapped ones that were always profitable along the way kind of stuck it out," he said.

On today's Modern Retail Rundown, the staff kicks things off with the latest on Big Lots' Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, including a private equity takeover bid. With a valuation of $2 billion, Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty is reportedly pausing plans to sell the 4-year-old company given the current instability of M&A activity. Finally, Amazon sent out a notice to sellers that it plans to sell ad space for its AI assistant Rufus, which launched in beta in early 2024.

Many department stores and apparel retailers are facing industry headwinds. But one New York-based retailer has been able to buck the trend.Menswear retailer Rothmans has been around for decades, and continues to see sales grow every year. It's also become a well-known destination for media personalities and entertainment industry designers.It also helps that Rothmans is in a part of retail that's especially hot right now. "I don't know if I'm the first to say this, but menswear is the new womenswear," said Ken Giddon, the president and owner of the company.But it's not enough to just be selling products in a popular sector. According to Kiddon, vibe and assortment are even more important. "I would say the key is hospitality. Think of it as a restaurant or a hotel," he said.Similarly, while other stores focus on trimming down their inventory, Rothmans has gone the opposite way. "As a small business, we watch our cash flow very carefully, but we believe in inventory," he said.Still, Giddon said, being ahead of the trend curve also helps. "People care about what they're wearing now, and young people are so into it," he said. "That's probably one of the benefits of social media."

On the Modern Retail Rundown this week, the staff discusses three retailers' latest growth roadmaps. First, Walmart Marketplace announced a new partnership with sneaker bidding site StockX. Then, the founding Nordstrom family is bidding to buy out the retailer to take it private. Finally, nearly a year after Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy, the now privately-held drugstore has a new CEO and plans to operate fewer stores.

Croissant believes it has found a way to get more retailers and brands excited about resale.The business isn't a resale platform, per se. Instead, Croissant users can go to any retailer or brand's website and see a guaranteed resale value price that they would recoup if they bought the product new and then resold it to Croissant sometime later."We describe ourselves as the first shopping tool that provides guaranteed resale values at the point of sale and beyond," said co-founder and CEO John Howard. He joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about how it's growing its offerings and reaching new customers.Croissant works in a few ways. It works directly with retailers, in which, on their e-commerce listings, they publish both the retail price as well as the guaranteed buyback price. Croissant also has an app and browser extension that automatically provides buyback values for products that aren't within the company's existing retail partners.The idea, Howard said, is that "it's not just the out of pocket money that you're spending up front that should be as part of your purchase consideration." Instead, "a lot of what we buy is a value-retaining asset that has ongoing value after you purchase it." In essence, Croissant is letting shoppers know that they could probably make some money back on a higher-ticket item.According to Howard, conversion rates go up when shoppers see an item's estimated resale value.  But, for now, the focus is on getting more people onto the Croissant platform. That involves marketing, including on new channels like Substack, to make sure people know about the program."We're benefiting consumers," Howard said. "And we're benefiting the resale ecosystem, writ large."