Future Commerce

• Boosted Commerce is an eCommerce platform working to distribute the most up-and-coming brands on a global basis.
• “We started Boosted really as a way of identifying these amazing businesses and brands that people have created.” -Keith
• Amazon is the world's largest shopping mall, and its importance is only going to increase over time. By getting a spot in this shopping mall, Boosted will be able to create great long-term success. 
• What should a brand look for in terms of the future? Durability, packaging of the product, and the brand elements created. 
• “What's unique about this ecosystem is maybe the speed at which you can get profitable doing that.” -Keith
• “We're 25 years into the digital commerce revolution. There's a lot of things that have yet to even happen, we're right at the very beginning. What an incredible time to sort of amass a critical mass of all of these capabilities.” -Phillip
• Retail is changing every day and we’re learning that the stories behind the brands matter.
• “The story matters more and people are wanting to believe and believe that they're buying a product with a greater vision or sense.” -Keith
• eCommerce is going to get more and more satisfying as a consumer and grow exponentially, those things are just fundamental. No one is going back to the way it was before.  

• Learn more about Keith Richman and Boosted Commerce
• Subscribe to Insiders
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

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• Pela is a waste innovation platform. Selling the world's first compostable phone case along with eyewear, countertop compost systems, and haircare.
• “We design waste out of the human experience. We’re a weird combination of commerce DTC, while also investing in material science, and figuring out how to get waste out of everyday products.” -Matt
• “One of our core values at Pela is community. Community is taking care of the whole. We have this belief that you should leave the campsite better than you found it.”- Matt
• There are a lot of ways to build consumerism without waste. One way Pela is working on building this is by creating their product, Lomi, a compost machine. Throw in your leftover food at night, go to sleep, wake up, and you have compost. 
• The idea behind Lomi is to have distributed waste management: to have innovation and waste be consumer-driven rather than government-driven. 
• “If every home in America had a Lomi, 80% of their food waste would be reduced. Not only is that reducing food waste, but the carbon footprint for all waste management would drop dramatically.” - Matt
• “It would be great if more entrepreneurs started looking at innovations as a legit competitive advantage. Yes it’s risky, but if you’re trying to build real value, it’s the way to go.” -Matt 
• DTC and eCommerce brands are at the starting point of major innovations for the future of commerce and how we experience products that better our lives and society. 

• Learn more about Matt Bertulli and Pela
• Episode 178 with Jack Defuria from Parade
• Subscribe to Insiders
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

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Building for the Future of Ecommerce Logistics

• ShipBob is a full service fulfillment platform coming out of a remarkable Series E that clocked in at $200 Million. ShipBob has been a partner of Future Commerce for a while now and we couldn’t wait to talk about this incredible raise.
• There are a lot of different shipping solutions across the buyer journey, and it can lead to a bit of confusion. ShipBob is  helping break this confusion by being the one solution, which is what customers, merchants, and consumers want. It does this with integrations to multiple labelling and order management systems, all available through an integrations marketplace.
• “One of our goals is to continue to build a solution that works for people who are just getting started that can scale up like mentioned with international B2B, so you don't have to look elsewhere.” -Casey
• How do retailers determine what an operator's capabilities are and what they could do specifically for your brand?
• “It's something we've already been investing in for a while, and we are seeing these people as direct to consumer and just eCommerce continues to evolve that have worked at a lot of companies that have scaled well. I think we're just going to see more of that. And again, it's going to be tough. People make some of the bad hires just like they will for any role.” -Casey
• There’s a beauty to this industry, and there is a lot of opportunity for growth and complementary solutions.

Associated Links:

• Learn more about Casey Armstrong and ShipBob
• Let us know what you think the future of all things shipping looks like at [email protected]
• Subscribe to Insiders
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

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• With almost a million and a half associates in the United States and 150 million customers in stores and online, it's safe to say they’re one of the largest retailers in the world. But what are they doing in health? A lot, it seems.
• Walmart has been in the healthcare world since the 70s; they realize that they have a significant role to play. With 90% of Americans living within 15 miles of a Walmart, they’re aiming to address the care needs of people and help get access to basic healthcare in an affordable way.
• “How do you engage customers in healthcare? … By building robust omnichannel experiences that aren't about one channel but are about how all these various channels can come together to create something far more robust.” -Marcus
• With omnichannel systems coming online in healthcare it’s providing more opportunities for personal monitoring systems, taking a proactive approach to healthcare. 
• You take your car to the shop and get an 84 point check on maintenance; why not an 84 point check on humans? “I'm not looking for one size fits all. I'm looking for a solution that is one size fits one.” -Marcus.  This approach brings a personalized experience for every person, creating a revolution of diagnostics. 
• Not only is healthcare being affordable broken, but also the speed of care. Patients have to go through multiple doctors, specialists, and tests to get the answers they need weeks later, while also not knowing how much it will cost them in the end. This revolution of diagnostics will ultimately result in a more efficient healthcare system that most Americans can afford. 
• COVID helped accelerate healthcare as we know it today, showing us that speed of care can happen. If it can happen in an omnichannel or a parking lot, then it can happen in the office as well. 
• “We as consumers deserve to be treated better than the system has treated us, and we deserve to have more access. We deserve to have things be more convenient and we deserve to be treated better and have things be simpler.” -Marcus
• Walmart Health is on the road to greater access for all Americans. One of the ways they're doing that is by looking at the communities with greater demand, a net health need. This method is what has driven them to open in cities in Georgia, Illinois, and more.
• A consumer and a patient are one in the same. Consumers want high quality, for things to be affordable, convenient, simple, and they want a choice. Patients want all the same things. 

• Learn more about Marcus Osborne and Walmart Health
• Let us know what you think the future of healthcare looks like at [email protected]
• Subscribe to Insiders
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

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• Wait. What exactly is CDP? Customer Data Platform.
• Wielding CDP well means brands can provide a freaky-personal experience for customers.
• Customers will freely give brands their first-party data if it means their experience will be better. Don’t blow it by making their experience worse.
• “If the expected behavior is convenience, then not only it's not freaky, it's what they're hoping and expecting you to do and they reward you with that with more activity and more loyalty over time.” - Josh
• CDP can power personalization and segmentation efforts. How do we know if this is too “big-brotherish?” Look at your open and click-through rates.
• “If your open rates are suffering, then, hey, something's wrong with your messaging strategy and what you're personalizing around.” - Houman
• Click-through and open rate metrics are direct indications of how much your customer is enjoying your content.
• You can’t manage privacy compliance issues only through email anymore. CDP’s are important in helping manage privacy issues, etc.
• “When customers opt into giving you data, if they never see the net benefit of that and it only benefits your business, then the customers aren't going to keep giving you data.” - Brian
• The writing has been on the wall, regulatory changes are coming in customer privacy. Houman is combating this by doubling down on Carparts.com’s first party data strategy.
• CDP should ultimately be used to build a meaningful relationship and loyalty with your customers.
• “The future of customer engagement is real time relevance at scale” - Josh

• Learn more about Josh Francia and Blueshift at Blueshift.com or Blueshift on LinkedIn.
• Learn more about Houman Akhavan and Carparts.com at Carparts.com or Carparts.com on LinkedIn.
• Subscribe to Insiders
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce!
• Our mini-series, Step by Step
• Our sister podcast, Stairway to CEO! 

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

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• “Brands are like cows because it’s very easy for them to understand how things affect them, but it's very hard to see how things in the world affect others.” -Brian
• Technology can act as a containing—or limiting—factor. It can enable cost savings, but it can also be an enabler of more meaningful interactions.
• Shopify is looking to the future as a global empowerment of a merchant class
• Digital channels for legacy retailers boomed during the pandemic. Why? Default behaviors are latent. We will always regress to defaults, especially in a retail context. Best Buy is a great example of this; as are Lowes and Home Depot. Digital success was bolstered by physical defaults.
• For the first time in a decade, eCommerce is facing headwinds. Why? Because traditional brick and mortar retailers are experiencing tailwinds due to reopening. The roaring twenties will prove to be difficult for eCommerce businesses.
• Where is luxury headed? Luxury is the silence of money and not constantly being barraged with ads.

• Check out Brian’s Insiders piece: How Now Brand Cow: On Operational Efficiency in Ecommerce Tech
• Subscribe to Insiders
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce!
• Our mini-series, Step by Step
• Our sister podcast, Stairway to CEO! 

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

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• Congratulations to friend of the show, Ian Leslie, and to Industry West for ranking on 2PM’s DNVB list and for Adobe Experience Maker Awards. Phillip and Brian talk about the Adobe Experience Maker Awards, the rankings, and ask the question of how some brands are ranked so highly. 
• Millennials didn’t invent meal prep delivery. Schwann foods, and catalog delivery — even the milkman — are all examples of modern reimagining of pre-existing retail models.
• In eCom news, Shopify continues to eat the world, bringing in another investment of Stripe, and launching payments buttons across Google Shopping and Facebook — without the need to be operating a Shopify store. 
• The BNPL ecosystem has stratified into much clearer offerings, as Phillip lays out the roadmap for Afterpay, Affirm, and Klarna.
• “The world is reopening… New York City no longer has any covid restrictions. San Francisco opened up officially yesterday; the biggest cities are coming out of covid and physical retail is back. I feel like Afterpay is the big winner here in the latter half of the year, if I had to bet the way that people would be using this like everyone, every channel has to deal with the fact that physical retail is coming back.” - Phillip
• “The internet is held together by spider webs.” - Brian
• Most people’s first ecommerce purchase was probably a digital property. 
• Paula’s Choice is the original direct to consumer brand, and predates what we know as the modern web. Launched in 1995 it was one of the first beauty brands online, and predated Google by 3 years. 
• The first-ever secure online purchase was a copy of “Ten Summoner’s Tales”, a solo album by Sting. 

• Insiders #088: Paula’s Choice: On Blind Spots and Phase Cancellation
• Industry West
• 2PM DTC Power List
• Adobe Experience Maker Awards
• Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: futurecommerce.fm/subscribe 
• Check out our latest research piece, Service is the New Storefront

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

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• Domm gives the story behind the creation of Fast, how a family member forgetting a password sparked an idea for easier checkouts across all platforms.
• “Our goal is to build a consumer network” -Domm
• The challenges faced as a leader and facing polarizing feedback.
• “It’s our job to protect consumer data, and consumer payments. This is typically the default relationship that consumers have with businesses, it’s a default trust.” 
• “It's the logical place where those three need states and those three very broken things about the sort of stateless being of the web converge.” - Phillip 

• Learn more about Fast here: https://www.fast.co/
• Get our latest report here: Service is the New Storefront
• Listen to more episodes of Future Commerce! 

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• Are we in a Shipping Inception or are 3PLs and 4PLs really that complicated? 
• Identifying where your customers are is key in choosing the right 3PL solution for warehousing and shipping. 
• “Despite the Amazon narrative, not everyone needs everything in 30 seconds… I think it's critically important for brands to manage customer expectations, meaning if you don't have the infrastructure to do two day delivery, then don't promise to do delivery.” - Nima
• Having a 3PL like Whiplash can help smaller businesses scale and keep shipping costs lower.
• “I really am confident that retail is going to see a rebirth... We're getting a lot more brands asking how can you support these smaller shops, maybe two or three per quarter over the next year?” - Ryan

• Get connected with Shippo!
• Check out Whiplash.
• Listen to our other Step by Step seasons
• Find our Future Commerce episodes on our website.

Have any questions or comments about the show? Contact us at Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

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The Post-Purchase Experience

• Consumer expectations are almost unfair for smaller businesses. But that doesn’t mean brands can’t continue to provide a great post-purchase experience. 
• Many brands have turned to 3PLs to help meet the demand of fast shipping and to keep shipping costs lower. 
• “Brands have to be more transparent with customers. They need to give customers a choice around what services they offer and the price. A lot of brands are starting to use 3PLs to meet the customer demand, which means they're storing inventory somewhere else throughout the country to get shorter deliveries. Brands need to communicate with shoppers after the purchase in a way that conveys the brand message differently than just an email saying your order has been shipped.” - Matt Crawford
• It’s more than just shipping, it’s about creating a memorable post-purchase experience. It’s about connecting the “front office” with the “back of house.” 
• “I think of the post purchase because I try to make it a marketer's problem, not a person in the warehouse problem.” - Matt
• “When you improve shipping and you offer different options around shipping, it's almost like having additional products on your site.” - Brian

Associated Links:

• Get connected with Shippo!
• Listen to our other Step by Step seasons
• Find our Future Commerce episodes here: https://futurecommerce.fm/future-commerce-podcast

Have any questions or comments about the show? Contact us at Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.