The Jason & Scot Show - E-Commerce And Retail News

EP064 - 2017 Predictions & 2016 Review 2017 Commerce Predictions Jason Retailers truly embrace Omni-channel  (Attribution/Inventory/promotion/pricing) A/I - Bots for Customer Service but probably not for transactions, lots of buzz on big data AI but no game changing new experiences Personalization - to eliminate friction, not drive new demand.  Data integration not some new product or touchpoint Laggard categories will discover digital (Grocery, Luxury, QSR) Microservices - 50% of new platform implementations will be cloud, and Micro-service based solutions will start to emerge Bonus - Digital Wallets - Something other than Paypal/Amazon will achieve 10% of US e-commerce transitions (not occurring on Amazon).  Potentially a mix of vendors wallets (Chase, Walmart, ApplePay in Safari, etc...), or the W3C Web Payments standard could gain traction. Scot The IPO market is going to be open, but the e-commerce companies will get crowded out by the big tech unicorns like Uber, Snap, pinterest, airbnb, spotify and the like Amazon will start to chip away at the Fedex and UPS’s of the world with a service like this in the US.  From there (potential 2018) Amazon could expand into p2p and reverse logistics, ie "we're already at your house, do you have any other stuff to ship?" Machine learning is the new ‘network effect’ - everyone has caught onto the power and competitive moats available from ML and that’s going to be a big theme.  Every vendor you work with from carts to images to upsells to recomendations to search engine results to whatever is going to HAVE to have a ML capability to stay current and keep YOU competitive  We’re going to see e-commerce growth accelerate pretty materially in 2017.  We’ve been in this 15% band and I think we will see there was a move up in 2H16 to high teens and we could see 20’s in 2017  eBay - it’s a do or die year for ebay, they could potential partner with Alibaba. Bonus - Amazon will release another phone. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 64 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday January 3rd, 2017. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

Scott Morey is the EVP of GGP, one of the largest mall operators in the US.  We spoke with Scott about a Mallageddon, Omni-Channel, Millennial shoppers, and the future of Malls. Selected links: ICSC Mall Data Recommended book: Experience Economy by Joe Pine OpinionLabs survey of Millennial shoppers Deliv on-demand delivery service that Scott mentioned Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 63 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday December 7, 2016. http://retailgeek.com/podcast Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP062 - Deep Dive Amazon-Go Store concept On Monday 12/5/16, Amazon surprised the industry by debuting a new retail concept called Amazon Go.  The 1800 square foot brick and mortar convince store’s most notable feature is that it requires no checkout.  Just put your items in your shopping bag and walk out of the store when you are done.  Payment is handled implicitly (similar to paying for an Uber). The store is for Amazon Prime members only (requires a mobile app to act as a key and let you in the store), and uses a combination of camera and sensors to track shoppers and the items they put in their bags.  The store is open to Amazon employees only for this month, and will be open to all prime members “early next year.” Amazon has a website for the store, and a demonstration video Context and History In the video and on the info site, they talk about having been working on the store for 4yrs The store likely leverages image recognition technology Amazon acquired via Snaptell 2009 The store clearly leverages elements of two patents Amazon filed in 2013 and 2014 USPTO20150012396 TRANSITIONING ITEMS FROM A MATERIALS HANDLING FACILITY USPTO20150019391 DETECTING ITEM INTERACTION AND MOVEMENT  This is one of several retail concepts Amazon is testing in the Seattle area this year. The store is located in downtown Seattle on the edge of the Amazon Biodome (their new HQ complex) at  2131 7th Ave Two other grocery pickup store concepts are under construction are in Balard and Sodo (north and south of downtown), and appear close to completion. Amazon has an open bookstore open in University Village, 4601 26th Avenue NE  (North of downtown) The store is offering a number of new (to Amazon) products including ready to make meal kits (similar to Blue Apron), made to order food, and freshly prepared food. Technology The video the explicitly call out computer vision, deep learning algorithms, sensor fusion, “just walk out technology” #JWOT Computer vision is likely used for  people tracking (patent even talks about using microphones to track peoples location and cell triangulation).  This likely means the store has to be designed to have no blind spots for the camera.  That would mean no restrooms for example, and may make the technology harder to retrofit into existing stores. Sensor fusion using a combination of LIDAR (laser based radar) and cameras for detecting and tracking products Deep learning for product recognition and training.  One insider has said that they can see 30% of a product and accurately recognize it. Amazon makes the analogy to self driving cars which use a similar combination of AI/Cameras/and Sensors for example. The store may or may not use RFID.  The patents reference RFID but the video (and unconfirmed reports from insiders) to give any indication of RFID use.  This is a big deal, as requiring every product in the store to have an RFID tag adds significant operational costs.  This store is a much bigger game changer, if RFID tags are not required. Although Amazon emphasized the huge customer experience benefit of not having to checkout.  The store would also offer other advantages such as inventory accuracy (which would assist BOPIS, Out of Stocks, etc…) The store doesn’t appear to use any form of digital price tags.  This is interesting as Amazon’s previous store concept (Bookstore) uses online prices in the store (which change frequently).  If the prices are truly printed on paper on the shelf, it’s unlikely Amazon is offering the same prices as it’s website. Open Questions: How well does the technology work (what edge cases can trip it up) How well will customers adopt the new use case and which elements will be most compelling How will the store handle families shopping together, parents with kids, etc… How will Amazon address all the privacy concerns and issues with tracking shoppers in the store Will the store carry alcohol and/or tobacco, how will it handle age verification Does the store in-fact depend on RFID Implications for the Industry This is not the first self-checkout concepts.  Grocery stores have been experimenting with full cart scanners for years, Apple has self-service checkout, Walmart has scan and go checkout, and startup Twyst has a “smart bag” that adds up purchases as you put them in the bag.    What’s unique here is they aren’t just making checkout easier/faster, they are eliminating it.  In fairness, IBM made a concept video with the exact same checkout experience in 2009, but it was based on RFID and never went further than the vidmazon has made it real, and is letting customers experience it. All the technologies Amazon is using have been around (and in the retail industry for a while) but no other retailer has built this store.  This is largely due to Amazon’s unique culture… failure is encouraged and Amazon employees are free to experiment.  Most legacy retailers would quickly make a list of reasons not to do the store and move on, Amazon did it anyway. Regardless of the specific technology, operational issues, scalability etc… customers are likely going to love the experience.  Once they have experienced it, they are going to want and expect it everywhere.  For the busy Mom, lower friction experiences usually win, and taking checkout from something that has to be done explicitly to something that happens implicitly is going to be very popular with shoppers.  Once again, Amazon is setting the customer experience expectations that the rest of the retail industry must try to live up to. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 62 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday December 7th, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP061 - Cyber 5 Holiday Recap 2016 Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving generated $1.93 billion in e-commerce sales (Adobe) Thanksgiving e-commerce sales from Desktop was up 17% (Comscore) Macys was open on Thanksgiving, and had 16,000 people waiting to get in to it's flagship Harrod Square store Target & Kohls set e-commerce sales records for Thanksgiving day BestBuy experienced stability problems with it's website and had to throttle traffic Black Friday Black Friday generated $3.34 billion in e-commerce sales , 21.6% YoY Growth (Adobe) Black Friday generated $1.2B billion in mobile e-commerce sales, first $1B mobile day ever (Adobe) Mobile was 36% of sales (33% y/y growth) and 55% of traffic (Adobe), Mobile conversion 2.4% vs Desktop 5.5% 70% of Walmart traffic was mobile, 60% of Targets revenue came from mobile. Black Friday e-commerce sales from Desktop was up 19% (Comscore) 10 million more shopped online than in-store this Black Friday Store traffic was down down 3-4% y/y (Cowen) down 1% (ShopperTrak) down 5% (RetailNext) Is Black Friday even relevant anymore? Black Friday shoppers trash Nike Outlet Cyber Monday: Cyber Monday set the all time US record for e-commerce sales at $3.45 billion , 12.1% YoY Growth (Adobe)  Mobile 56% visits / 37% sales. Mobile Conversion 1.9% vs Desktop Conversion 4.3% (Adobe) Macy’s had a significant site outage for 8 hours. William Sonoma, Victoria’s Secret, Express and Pier 1 also had interruptions. IBM Realtime e-commerce dashboard Conclusion Black Friday has become a major online shopping day (only $110M smaller than Cyber Monday) and growing much faster (likely to pass Cyber Monday next year).  Black Friday is the busiest Mobile shopping day of the year.  Cyber Monday set the all time US record for e-commerce sales.  Mobile traffic is over 50% over the holiday but mobile conversion is close to half of desktop conversion, but the conversion gap is narrowing. Store Traffic is down which likely means a mediocre overall holiday. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 61 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday November 28, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP060 - Holiday Preview w/ Adobe's Tamara Gaffney Tamara Gaffney is the Principal Analyst and Director for Adobe Digital Insights (ADI).  ADI aggregates data from all of adobe's products and customers, and is able to provide insight about various markets.  In particular, Adobe Analytics (formerly Omniture) is used by over 5400 e-commerce sites, representing 55m skus, and tracking $7.50 out of every $10 spent on e-commerce in North America.   Adobe is forecasting that e-commerce will grow 11% this holiday season (November and December).  This is a lower forecast than a number of other sources: eMarketer: 17% e-commerce, 3.3% all retail Deloitte: 17-19% e-commerce, 4% all retail NRF: 3.6% all retail (no e-comm breakout) Comscore: 16-19% Forrester: 13% Tamara attributes the lower forecast to slower spending coming out of the US election.  In particular heavily populated states like New York and California that strongly supported Hillary Clinton (who ultimately lost the election), are spending at a much lower rate than the forecast models would predict.   So far this represents over $800M in lost e-commerce spending (as of Nov 17th), that Adobe believes will negatively effect the overall holiday season. We also discussed mobile, omni-channel, singles day, and a variety of other interesting topics. You can follow the Adobe Digital Insights website, and subscribe to their newsletter for frequent updates throughout the holiday season. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 60 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday November 17, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP059 - Double11 Recap with Andrea Wasserman Double11 (aka 11.11 or Singles Day) is the largest online shopping day in the world.  A shopping holiday largely invented by Alibaba.  This year Double11 generated $17.8B US GMV in sales (32% YoY growth).  82% of that GMV was via mobile devices.  It took 5 minutes to generate the first $1B in sales, with a peak order volume of 175,000 orders/second.  Cainiao, the largest shipping network in China processed 657 million delivery orders.   For comparison, CyberMonday (the largest online shopping day in the US) generated $2.3b US GMV, and UPS will ship 700m packages for the entire holiday season. Andrea Wasserman is a retail veteran (Nordstrom, Sole Society, Hudson’s Bay and 9West), who was in a guest of Alibaba’s in Shenzhen, China for this years event.  You can read more from Andrea on her blog, CaptainCustomer.com Episode 59 is the one year anniversary for the Jason & Scot show.  Scot and I would very much like to thank all our listeners for your support and feedback.  We are both very grateful. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 59 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday November 17, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP058 - Puma VP of E-commerce, Chris Hardisty Chris Hardisty is the VP of E-Commerce for Puma.  We spoke with Chris about the history of Puma, the challenges of being a sales Chanel and the Brand Ambassador, Amazon, Demandware, and their state of the art fulfillment center leveraging the Autostore picking system. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 58 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday November 3, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP057 - CDW VP and GM of E-Commerce, John Seebeck John Seebeck is the GM of E-Commerce for CDW.  We spoke with John about his B2C e-commerce background (Crate & Barrel) and the unique B2B challenges and opportunities for a firm like CDW.  We spoke at the Shop.org digital summit 2016. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 57 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday September 26, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP056 - Steve Madden, President of E-Commerce Mark Friedman Mark Friedman is the President of E-Commerce for Steve Madden.  We spoke with Mark about challenges of being both a brand and a direct to consumer operation. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 56 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday October 27, 2016.. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

EP055 - Uncommon Goods, CEO David Bolotsky David Bolotsky is the founder and CEO of Uncommon Goods.  We spoke with David about being a pure-play e-commerce site, and balancing business objectives with social values from the Shop.org digital summit 2016. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 55 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday September 26, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.