Future Commerce

feat. Alexa Lombardo and Candace Stewart

Alexa Lombardo and Candace Stewart co-host this week breaking down the intersection of female athletes, beauty, and commerce. Learn how female athletes are revolutionizing both the sports and beauty industries through authentic storytelling and strategic brand partnerships. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• Female athletes are leading the charge in authentic storytelling, making them ideal partners for beauty brands.
• Collaborations between beauty brands and female athletes are reshaping traditional beauty standards and enhancing product credibility.
• Investment in emerging sports like rugby can yield significant returns as these sports grow in popularity.
• Thoughtful and authentic brand partnerships, like SKIMS by Kim Kardashian, can effectively support and promote female athletes.
• Brands can benefit from aligning with athletes' lifestyles, creating authentic and relatable connections with their audience.
• [00:10:11]: "Female athletes are just really better storytellers, versus their male counterparts." - Alexa Lombardo
• [00:39:54]: "SKIMS by Kim Kardashian... She's done it right. She's included the athletes. The athletes are centered in that." - Candace Stewart
• [00:42:29]: "Sports are part of a lifestyle, and brands thinking about how they can fit into the lives of these athletes can create really natural and impactful partnerships." - Alexa Lombardo

• Learn more about Alexa Lombardo and Candace Stewart
• Read Game Face: How Beauty Brands Are Scoring Big with Women's Sports
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Feat. Aaron Sheehan

In this rewind episode, we discuss a key topic: the analyst ecosystem and the influence of reports like Gartner's Magic Quadrant on the eCommerce industry. We explore how these reports are created, who they benefit, and their role in shaping market perceptions. Aaron sheds light on the complexities behind the rankings, the criteria used, and the nuances often overlooked in the widely shared 2x2 graphics. Whether you're a seasoned industry professional or new to the world of eCommerce, tune into this conversation of how market analysis shapes strategic decisions and what it means for the future of commerce!

Key takeaways:

• Analyst reports like Gartner's Magic Quadrant use specific methodologies to evaluate platforms, focusing on business viability and innovation, not just the technology stack.
• Engaging with analysts can be crucial for eCommerce platforms, but it’s not mandatory. Those who opt out may still be evaluated based on publicly available data, which could impact their positioning.
• Platforms can fall off these reports not only by going out of business but also by de-emphasizing certain product lines or failing to grow in line with market expectations.
• [00:10:06] "It's not pay-to-play. The analysts have a methodology around evaluating solutions... It’s about the business, not just the technology." - Aaron Sheehan
• [00:29:52] "Why wouldn’t you just build the things that are required to perform well on the platform... What are the forces that keep you from performing really well?"  - Phillip
• [01:06:52] "It's one thing to have a well-built eCommerce platform. It's another thing to be successful with it, which is like getting people to that platform to buy." - Phillip
• [01:10:15] "The Magic Quadrant isn't just a chart—it's a signal to the market about who’s driving innovation and who's falling behind."  - Aaron Sheehan

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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In this episode of Future Commerce Rewind, our summer series where we compare today's news against episodes from the archives, we are revisiting Episode 341 with friend of the pod and cultural theorist, Matt Klein, to discuss the findings from his annual META Trends Report. Today, we're not just talking about trends and data. We're talking about a deep human need that's driving patterns and how businesses can begin to sense those patterns and tap into and address the core desires and anxiety of people, and that's what it's all about.

Key takeaways:

- A key takeaway from analyzing over one hundred trend reports spanning several years: many of the reported trends remain unchanged year after year after year.

- Language used to describe disruptive changes often relies on established nomenclature instead of introducing new terminology.

- There is an opportunity to hack trend reports by strategically seeding ideas and language that can shape future trends.

- The ranking of meta-trends in reports can differ between what is frequently mentioned and what exists in cultural data, creating a discrepancy and an opportunity for manipulation.

- Understanding the deeper human needs beneath trend manifestations is key for organizations to find success in addressing cultural shifts.

• {00:04:50} - “It's quite cliche, but it's a call to action for a little bit of bravery of not what's already being reported and said and what's comfortable, but what do we want to see, what does not yet exist, and how do we put our neck out there and really speak about the things that are uncomfortable, fringy, edgy, and strange because after all that is where change emanates from.” - Matt
• {00:12:57} - “The problem is the scant few people that are actually doing this type of work and research and will put the quantifiable and qualitative mind to analyzing trends is a small group of people that are all highly self-referential because they're all analyzing the same cohort of data because they're all kind of tapped into the same algorithm.” - Phillip
• {00:19:47} - “The meta trends act as trailheads for understanding all else within culture. When you acknowledge what's trying to be desired here… you understand beneath the surface what people actually need, that's where organizations find success.” - Matt
• {00:26:59} - “There's certainly importance and maybe I'm saying that because there's a livelihood or a career anchored or tethered to it, but I would say there are some implications and serious business consequences that come from this, but it is also fun. It is entertaining to be talking about these things and to be dissecting and analyzing.” - Matt
• {00:30:39} - “It's all from fear. No one wants to be disrupted. No one wants to be the disruptor either. That goes back to this idea of bravery, being the first to say something or sticking their neck out or reporting on the thing that no one else has reported. So you operate from a sense of, "Well, we wanna be the first to be second."’ - Matt
• {00:39:42} - “Every business is unique, everyone has their different challenges, everyone has their different audiences, and those audiences or those products interpret each of the meta trends uniquely. So what this really is is the starting point, not the answer key.” - Matt

• Learn more about Matt Klein
• Read the 2024 Meta Trends Report
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• The MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.com
• Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Parasocial Relationships Will Change Retail Forever

Welcome to Future Commerce Rewind, our summer series where we compare today's news against episodes from the archives. Today, we revisit our historic 300th episode from 2023, where we explored the future of commerce shopping experiences through parasocial relationships. We also cover how the chat interface, a UI prediction we made just a year ago, is influencing commerce today. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• [00:02:07] Phillip: "In London, print reading is still a cultural staple and independent eyeglass retailers are thriving. It's a fascinating blend of old-world charm and modern retail innovation."
• [00:05:19] Phillip: "Imagine shopping with JFK Jr. as your style advisor – that's the future we're heading towards with parasocial relationships and AI."
• [00:24:51] Brian: "Livestream shopping in the West is a tough sell because our attention spans can't handle the mundane. But if you can make it entertaining, you've got a shot."
• [00:47:04] Phillip: "We're on the cusp of a new shopping experience where your favorite celebrity or even a virtual influencer can guide your purchases, creating a deeper, ongoing relationship."
• London maintains a strong print culture while simultaneously seeing a boom in independent eyeglass retailers, highlighting a unique intersection of old and new retail practices.
• AI-powered interactions with celebrity personas, like JFK Jr., are emerging as a new trend in shopping, blending entertainment with personalized recommendations.
• AI and parasocial relationships are creating more personalized shopping experiences, fostering deeper consumer connections with brands and influencers.

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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We’re back exploring the intersection of technology, payments, and consumer behavior with guests Michaela Weber from BigCommerce and Sanjeev Gill from Stripe Live from VISIONS Summit: NYC. The conversation covers how modern ecommerce platforms and payment solutions are transforming the retail landscape. Join us to discuss the shift from traditional retail hours to 24/7 online shopping, the importance of seamless checkout experiences, and the role of personalization in driving consumer engagement. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• [03:26] Mikaela Weber: "Shopping is everywhere. Shopping is 24/7."
• [07:10] Michaela Weber: "There's a monoculture in the sense that if we are from similar demographic groups, we probably see similar pushed ads."
• Consumers now shop anytime, anywhere, increasing the pressure on brands to be present across multiple channels.
• While algorithms create personalized experiences, there is still a collective aspect driven by shared demographics and interests.
• Technologies like AB testing in checkout experiences enable brands to optimize payment methods and enhance the user experience.

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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These show notes were written at a time before LLMs were available to the public, if that's any indication of 

In this episode from 2017, we covered:

• Lord and Taylor started selling on walmart.com with their own special homepage.
• Also, remember how Walmart acquired Bonobos and Modcloth? The world has changed, people.

• Walmart's upmarket aspirations clashed with the working-class market. Perhaps this is still true?
• Brian's unfailing optimism about the future of technology and the working class, with technology enabling efficiency and providing better products and better services.
• Robby Berman posits that AI will serve and make life better for humans, but only the top 1% of humans.
• A Princeton study on bias in bots explores how AI has the problematic ability to target people for committing potential crimes based off the bias and prejudice of the bot creators.

• Chris Gardner from Forrester predicts that automation will eliminate 9% of jobs in 2018.
• "These jobs are not low-end jobs, they're white-collar jobs being replaced."
• Brian is again optimistic: a whole new host of jobs will be created for creating and servicing AI.
• Reuters reported that a son used data to recreate his dad as a chatbot. 

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In this episode, we explore the dynamic interplay between traditional and new media with insights from retail analyst Heetha Herzog and culture writer Kate Lindsay live from VISIONS Summit: NYC. Moderated by Phillip, this conversation covers how media consumption shapes our reality, the influence of monocultural events, and the generational shifts in media platforms. We examine the evolving roles of traditional and new media, the impact of AI on marketing, and the rising significance of authenticity and community in consumer behavior. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• [03:03] Kate Lindsay: "The barometer for when something has hit monoculture is when Twitter is just unusable if it's something you don't want to talk about."
• [05:00] Heetha Herzog: "There's a whole part of the population that still watches nightly news. They might be older, but they still consume that and watch it."
• [11:08] Phillip: "You also don't need someone's permission to post a TikTok, but there's still some prestige around the permission-gate kept media."
• [19:55] Kate Lindsay: "With tools like TikTok and Substack and Twitter, where you're seeing everyone talking at once, trends are really more what these gatekeepers pick up on and decide to elevate."
• Events like the Trump trial and Taylor Swift's album release dominate media, creating unavoidable online conversations.
• Younger generations gravitate towards platforms like TikTok, while older generations remain loyal to traditional media, indicating a shift in how content is consumed and trusted.
• The desire for luxury items and the rise of "dupe culture" reflect deeper psychological needs for identity and community, influencing consumer behavior.
• The prestige of traditional media is challenged by the authenticity of new media influencers, reshaping how trust is built and maintained in the digital age.

Links & Resources:

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Live from the Retail Innovation Conference and Expo, feat. Dan Murphy, SVP of Marketing at Liquid Death

In this episode, Phillip has a conversation with Dan Murphy, SVP of Marketing at Liquid Death, at the Retail Innovation Conference and Expo back in June about how the Liquid Death team does more with less by infusing comedy and incredible creative and employing nontraditional marketers and nontraditional marketing techniques to get earned media in their business. Dan shares how this allows them to have massive impact with very little spend. He says any brand can do this. Listen now and let us know if you think he’s right…

Key takeaways:

• {00:04:46} - “if you're idling. You're inefficient. You're in the red line, you're burning the engine up, but actually that proper torque curve is somewhere a lot closer to red line than you think. And I think most organizations are kind of chugging along close to idle. So there's a bit of the, dare I say, chaos or intensity is probably the better word, that really helps us. It helps us go that extra 10% from the 90% idea to the thing that, like, "Oh, yeah. They're going to write about this.’" - Dan Murphy
• {00:13:16} - “Our litmus test for it to go out, again, our lane is comedy, did it make us laugh? If it makes us laugh, if it holds true to our brand values, our weird comedy, SNL world, we push it out…” - Dan Murphy
• {00:19:46} - “I've had a marketing career with a lot of major brands, and it's, "We'll just hire so and so celebrity," who is probably super saturated that does 100 deals. Pay a ton of money, expensive director, do all this stuff, it goes out, and the reality is it probably didn't move the needle with those millions of dollars. Meanwhile, 30 grand divided by a million equals a lot of different small bets.” - Dan Murphy
• {00:30:00} - “We view the people that are part of this brand and their time as precious. We don't waste it for a minute. Every email we send should be funny, laugh-out-loud funny. - Dan Murphy

• Learn more about Dan Murphy and Liquid Death
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Recorded live at VISIONS Summit: NYC 2024, join Alicia Esposito for her sitdown with Seb Reetz, Bloomreach’s Solutions Consulting Lead of the Americas. They dive into the fascinating intersection of AI and art, exploring how AI is transforming both the creation and consumption of art discussing the ethical considerations, creative opportunities, and practical applications of AI in the artistic process. Seb shares insights from his current projects, including a thought-provoking video game that leverages AI for ideation and voice generation.

Key takeaways:

• AI tools aid in ideation and proof of concept, helping artists and writers like Seb generate and refine ideas.
• AI has the potential to revolutionize customer experience through personalized, cross-channel interactions.
• [00:30] Seb: "I sell AI on a day-to-day basis. I also am a writer for video games. So I definitely think about AI and the sort of ethics around it."
• [10:00] Seb: "AI is a really powerful tool to help with that. So again, I go back to the you're the air traffic controller as the marketer."

• Bloomreach
• 11 Labs
• Prague Arts Festival
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Recorded live at VISIONS Summit: NYC 2024, join Paul Canetti as he sits down with Reggie James and Ruby Thelot. We explore the concept of being "too online" and whether the dichotomy between digital and physical worlds is still relevant. Ruby and Reggie share their thoughts on the cultural shifts driven by our online presence, the importance of physical spaces, and the impact of digital status-seeking on our everyday lives. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• The line between digital and physical worlds is increasingly blurred. While there's a fascination with the physical realm, the digital world offers unparalleled opportunities for status and connection.
• The pursuit of online status can drive people to act differently in the physical world, often using public spaces as stages for digital content creation.
• As technology evolves, so do our cultural norms. The value of images and digital content is changing, prompting a re-evaluation of what we consider real or trustworthy.
• Looking ahead, there's potential for more personalized, artisanal digital experiences. This shift might move us away from mass-produced technology toward bespoke digital solutions.
• The future of software and digital experiences may lie in highly personalized, artisanal creations rather than scaled, mass-market solutions.
• [00:02:30] Reggie James: "We tend to hit these just accelerated, you know, Internet superhighway vibes mentally, and then you step outside and you realize, actually, the pace of this environment is significantly slower."
• [00:03:30] Ruby Thelot: "There is certainly this fascination that we now have for the physical realm. As soon as we're allowed to go online, suddenly we're like, oh, no, wait. It's gotta be analog or it's gotta be we wanna go back to the physical."
• [00:05:30] Reggie James: "Utilizing public space as a playground for digital status creates this weird, just using up of this previously shared social resource."
• [00:09:00] Ruby Thelot: "Once we are able to generate images that have the semblance of reality, the value socially of images erodes. We can think of it even in a judiciary context where we start to question the veracity of the images that are presented."
• [00:27:00] Paul Canetti: "It might be that when it's all said and done, there was this 50-ish year period of humanity where we spent a lot of effort creating these kinds of interfaces and these new ways to accomplish things. And then in the end, we'll come back to something that looks a lot like it did pre-computer.”

Links & Resources:

• Ruby Thelot's new book on design and beauty theory
• Nathan Jurgenson's essay "The IRL Fetish"
• Eugene Wei's insights on online status optimization
• Martin Guerre (movie) featuring Gérard Depardieu
• Maggie Appleton's discussions on home-cooked software
• William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube‍
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print‍
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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