Future Commerce

By Phillip Jackson, Brian LangeSociety & Culture Business Entrepreneurship Philosophy Marketing

Future Commerce episodes

November 19, 2020 [Step by Step] How Does CX Address Modern Customer Expectations?
Customer Experience is about anticipating needs. For Native shoes, leading with their values helps them to do just that. Their brand promise - to live lightly - is woven into every interaction they have with a customer. To do this, they're using blended teams to help blur the lines between online interactions and offline interactions, creating a seamless, even channel-less, view of interacting with the customer. Listen now!

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39 min
November 18, 2020 [Step by Step] How Does CX Drive Lifetime Value? (feat. Melanie Travis, CEO at Andie Swim)
How do you scale truly personal customer experiences? One-to-one CX takes time, talent, and experience. But when you train your customers to be your frontline CX team, that's where the magic happens. In this episode of Step by Step, CEO and Founder of women's swimwear brand, Andie, unpacks how they use technology to scale their brand promise while making every interaction personal.

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31 min
November 17, 2020 [Step by Step] How to Move From a Contact Center to a Revenue Center?
Step by Step continues with Episode 2!
"Selling is Good Service" says Kate Showalter. She should know - Kate is the Senior Director for Customer Service at Crate and Barrel, overseeing global CX for the storied retailer. Since COVID under Kate's direction, Crate and Barrel has nimbly transitioned their once store-bound frontline sales operation to a fully-digital-capable organization. In this episode we'll learn how she did it, and how you can too, Step by Step.

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44 min
November 16, 2020 [Step by Step] How Do We Evolve from Customer Support to Customer Experience?
Welcome to Step by Step Season 3 by Future Commerce, presented by Gladly.
This season of Step by Step is all about customer experience. Consumers have reimagined the customer experience, and they expect far more from a service interaction than issue resolution. The service experience is now as important, if not more important, than the product experience. As customer expectations are evolving faster than ever, customers are rapidly moving toward brands that are engaging the way they want to engage, and away from brands that are not. Companies that can keep up with these ever-changing consumer expectations will be the ones driving long term revenue and winning over customers for life. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
for information about our collection and use of personal data for
advertising.
41 min
November 13, 2020Content is King, Channel is Queen, feat. Michelle Grant, Salesforce
Who is Michelle Grant?
Michelle got her start studying the retail industry in 2015 with Euromonitor, focusing on overall global strategy.
She started this year at Salesforce in their Strategy Insights group with a focus on technology in retail and consumer goods.
Michelle just launched Becoming Retail with Rob Garth—a content series focusing on executive interviews to understand the digital transformations behind brands; how they’re enacting digital change, what they’re learning, what their barriers are, etc.
“It’s really getting to know the people behind these changes that we’re seeing in the news, essentially.” - Michelle Grant
Michelle points out the major change in the last 5 years—a shift from a product mindset in retail to customer centricity.
“If content is king, then channel is queen. It’s essential.” - Brian Lange
In Becoming Retail and via Salesforce’s blog, Michelle is pushing out content about customer centricity.
Shipageddon 2020
Michelle points out that Salesforce has already seen the logistics system operate at capacity or overcapacity because of the unexpected spike in demand.
Fourth quarter during holiday is usually peak season for digital commerce anyway, but it’s expected to be much higher in 2020 than any other year.
“Your performance comes back to reflect on the brand, not necessarily on the environment in which the package is being shipped.” - Phillip Jackson on brand’s performances during holiday season 2020.
“Retailers are definitely hedging their bets by getting more third party quick last-mile delivery providers on-boarded for the holiday season.” - Michelle Grant on DoorDash, Postmates, Uber, and Instacart.
“I think people are more forgiving in the scrappiness of their local retailers.” - Michelle Grant on small, local businesses and their inability to meet the same delivery demands as larger businesses.
“You’re not necessarily [shopping locally] for the convenience. You’re doing it to keep that business alive in your community and people working there and spending money within the community… Consumers have a much higher threshold for inconvenience when they opt to shop at smaller stores than the big box retailers or Amazon.” - Michelle Grant
Prime Day and Live-stream Expansion
With Prime Day 2020, Amazon had a 71% increase of customer base over last year. But other retailers also grew by 21% during the same period, so this wave of digital transaction benefited businesses outside of just Amazon.
Amazon and other online retailers have pushed into nurturing the digital shopping experience into an entertainment experience.
Twitch, owned by Amazon, has moved beyond gaming and has now become a popular space for live streaming—especially in the beauty industry.
On Twitch: “We’ll see if they’re successful in enabling other types of live streaming communities to build up around different categories. And if they’re able to help those communities monetize through commerce.” - Michelle Grant
“If you slept on Tik Tok, don’t sleep on Twitch, because this is going to prove itself out.” - Phillip Jackson
Tik Tok just partnered with Shopify to make Tik Tok a shoppable platform.
Future Tech and Channel Investments in Retail
“I think first point of order for all retailers is to get their fulfillment as efficient as possible.” - Michelle Grant on future supply chain investments
Walmart has been testing new front-end innovations for their stores to be more efficient with fulfillment.
Michelle predicts that 2021 will see new store formats due to the pandemic, fewer stores overall because of the rise of digital commerce, and in general, more digital initiatives from retailers.
Links
Check out Michelle and Rob Garth’s content series, Becoming Retail.
Check out Salesforce’s blog.
Find Michelle Grant on Twitter!
If you have any comments or questions about this episode, you can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels. We love hearing from our listeners!

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45 min
November 06, 2020The Magic of Logistics? Data and Optimization, feat. Jason Murray, Co-Founder and CEO of Shipium
Shipping is extraordinarily complicated
Shipium helps businesses by providing the tech behind the complicated processes of shipping to consumers.
Jason says that shipping is a series of events that needs to be coordinated well to give customers the optimal experience: “Our belief is that coordination should happen with good technology.” - Jason Murray
Jason had a long career at Amazon in which his career mostly focused on the merger between logistics and technology - eventually leading him to help launch FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon).
Jason and the other co-founder of Shipium, Mac, both started working at Amazon together in 1999. After leaving Amazon, they both subsequently built similar software stacks for the businesses they were working on in managing their supply chains.
They reconnected in 2019 and started discussing the idea that there was a gap of missing software in supporting the booming eCommerce industry.
This gap could be solved by paying someone to do everything for you, but Jason and Mac wanted to solve the problem by building a platform that could enable partners and companies in eCommerce to run their logistics operations efficiently and cost-effectively.
Logistically Speaking
“Once companies reach a certain size, the physical properties of what they’re shipping become an important part of how the customer experience works and their cost structure overall.” - Jason Murray
Jason says that once that size threshold is reached, businesses have to find a custom solution to fit their particular needs. Depending on the product and its specific needs, it becomes more cost-effective to build your process yourself which requires software for coordination.
Companies like Amazon and Walmart are becoming increasingly vertical, owning everything from their warehouses to their 747s. There’s a lot more competition in the smaller business spaces which creates a need for smaller operations like label printing, for instance.
“Logistics is much more than just the FedEx label you put on your box. It’s the entire linear sequence of making and delivering products. The key insight is that the linear sequence is very different for eCommerce and has its own areas to optimize… The bigger the company is, the more optimizing each link in the chain matters to the success and scale of that business.” - Jason Murray
Most businesses focus on front end experiences, but it’s actually fulfilling that purchase and everything that happens after a sale that makes customers happy - so optimizing your logistic processes and continuing to improve them over time is recommended.
Shipageddon 2020 and the New Way of the World
In fairness, networks like UPS and FedEx didn’t have time to plan for the increase in shipping and eCommerce in Q4 - when reviewing capital expenditures in 2020, there was no way of having the hindsight to include a global pandemic in their plan for the year.
Most carriers have been playing catch up since the beginning of the year: “There’s going to be a bigger supply problem than we’ve seen almost ever because of the combination of the pandemic and the holidays meshing together.” - Jason Murray
Jason predicts that eCommerce isn’t going to return to its previous levels but will continue to grow much higher than its mean after the holiday season. After the 2008 recession, Amazon took a disproportionate amount of the consumer spending volume into eCommerce and it didn’t subside after—people shifted to eCommerce permanently.
On the shift into eCommerce in 2020 not being temporary: “[Companies] should think about it as a need to strategically put energy into solving our eCommerce challenges because this is the new way of the world.” - Jason Murray
Jason predicts that in 2021, we’ll see a lot of growth in local carriers and alternative shipping methods to compete with those that already exist or have not been able to rise to the occasion of growth we’ve seen in 2020.
On logistics: “I would urge people not to think about it as a cost center, but to think of it as a living, breathing thing that’s part of the growth and dynamics of the business… There are these different stages you go through in all aspects of your business. And logistics and fulfillment and planning are all part of that.” - Jason Murray
Jason’s prediction for the next 18 months or so: “Companies that were omnichannel and neglecting their eCommerce channels are going to either not survive or they’re going to invest in them - which is going to introduce more competition into the market. Delivery experience will become more and more important because consumers now have multiple options to choose from.” - Jason Murray
Links
Check out our new report with Gladly: The New DIY
Check out Shipium

If you have any comments or questions about this episode, you can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels. We love hearing from our listeners!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
54 min
October 30, 2020There's a Nerd For That - Farfetch, Instacart, and Connecting Shoppable Experiences
We discuss digital shopping experiences, their experimental evolution, Instacart, CARLY brands, and more.
The New DIY
DIY used to have a connotation of poor quality or poor craftsmanship but today, it’s more indicative of participation.
Online marketplaces are booming with consumers and creators having more meaningful connections with items that could otherwise be more easily purchased.
Partnering with Gladly, we’ve created a new report: The New DIY: Creators, Crafts and Commerce.
“There is a cycle of inspiration that leads to education online, that leads to participation, which ultimately shapes the purchases that a person makes, which leads them back to inspire others into that same virtuous cycle.” - Phillip Jackson
Digital Shopping Experiences
Kendall Jenner just released a $23 toothpaste on StockX. StockX has pioneered a drop platform called DropX. StockX was part of our Nine by Nine report as a brand introducing a new type of luxury to a new consumer. Since our report, StockX has constantly been pushing into new categories.
Farfetch is moving into experimental shopping: partnering with Bambuser, they’re doing a six month trial to create more entertainment-focused digital commerce experiences.
Shopping online is less entertainment than shopping physically. Farfetch is piloting the change in online shopping to a more entertaining experience.
Immerss does live video shopping and trunk shows - both live streaming and pre-recording content, making online shopping a more entertaining experience.
Shoptalk was different this year, being online and being less content-driven: “To me, this was the most successful Shoptalk ever. Period. Hands down.” - Phillip Jackson
Instacart
Instacart is launching a senior support service to help boomers (age 60+) create accounts and shop online.
Instacart is pivoting to doing a lot more than just groceries. They are also mentioned in our Nine by Nine report for their help in closing the gap with everyday brands and Amazon Prime.
There has been criticism of the bifurcation of the consumer during COVID-19 in which its been said that the upper class worked in their homes while the middle class became deliverers of consumer goods.
Regardless of controversy, Instacart has made these delivery methods more available and accessible to everyone. Instacart has a lead over retailers’s own efforts in deliveries even if they are an intermediary for the experience.
According to Instacart, there’s traffic of 2000 senior customers a day that specialists are spending 20% more account support time with on average.
Seniors represent a major growth potential for online retailers because (according to eMarketer) 62% of baby boomers will make at least one online purchase this year.
Aldi has made EBT available via Instacart. This is providing tech mobility and accessibility to those in different income classes.
CARLY Brands
On media becoming commerce: “By nature of being a new psychographic, stuff that tries to address the psychographic isn’t always going to land.” - Brian Lange
There’s a sense of self and importance of the self as a brand, which we refer to as the Existential Brand: “If you are a good brand that isn’t entirely self-focused, you actually create your identity through your community and your customers.” - Brian Lange
Thredup is a brand that is true to the digital shopping paradigm of heightening the real life experience via eCommerce: “If you look at in-store thrift[ing], there’s a different person who’s dropping off stuff than the person who shops there… [Thredup] is making a marketplace that you can participate in on both ends of the spectrum.” - Phillip Jackson
Links
Check out our new report with Gladly: The New DIY
Check out our friends at Surge for your consumer research!
Immerss’s Crunchbase profile
Grocery Dive article: “Instacart has introduced 60K seniors to online grocery shopping in the past month”
Future Commerce Insiders #058: “The Existential Brand Part 2”

If you have any comments or questions about this episode, you can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels. We love hearing from our listeners!

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54 min
October 26, 2020 The New DIY: Retail Opportunity in the Passion Economy
Today we acquire skills online, and those skills shape our purchasing habits. Our newest report dives deep into the Passion Economy, and the era of "do it yourself". We explore what this means for brands, and what retail stands to gain. Get the report today: https://futurecommerce.fm/thenewdiy

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3 min
October 23, 2020“I Wouldn’t Allow Our Business to Become Dependent on One Channel" feat. Damian Soong, Co-Founder and CEO of Form Nutrition
Damian Soong, co-founder and CEO of Form Nutrition joins us to talk about Form and building a B-Corp brand that serves a wide audience.
The New DIY
DIY used to have a connotation of poor quality or poor craftsmanship but today, it’s more indicative of participation.
Online marketplaces are booming with consumers and creators having more meaningful connections with items that could otherwise be more easily purchased.
Partnering with Gladly, we’ve created a new report: The New DIY: Creators, Crafts and Commerce.
What is Form Nutrition and who is Damian Soong?
Form is a plant-based B corporation, built around the belief that you can be the best version of yourself while being mindful of others. They are the first UK protein brand to achieve B-Corp status.
Damian studied engineering and worked six years as an investment banker and analyst before getting his MBA, getting involved in startups, and running a contract manufacturing company. Damian was athletic while growing up so he was always interested in nutrition and eating well. This combined with his interest in the plant-based movement, Form Nutrition was born.
“... the important thing about Form as a brand is that we recognized early on that nutrition and wellness, by definition, [is] about the self. So we just thought, let’s turn that on its head and make it about others.” - Damian Soong
Form Nutrition’s Focus
Form created a protein that wasn’t only plant-based, but was branded around the idea that protein is more than just a subculture of performance gains; it’s not just a protein shake after the gym. It’s how you nourish your whole self.
“I think when you start to broaden the definition of nutrition to be more than just what you’re eating, but rather how you’re nourishing your whole self, it gives a brand a license to talk about a lot of other things like mindfulness, nutrition, education.” - Damian Soong
Form creates content to fit with their brand and their brand’s message of having a performance mindset in all areas of your life.
inForm is their email newsletter that caters towards those that perform not only in the gym, but in work, raising a family, etc. These newsletters empower individuals in being ethical, taking care of the planet, and doing everything to the best of their ability.
Form focused on building a community with their brand - in their articles promoting healthy, performance lifestyles and in their customer service habits.
Form started as a pure DTC brand. They were only eCommerce starting out but quickly had retailers wanting to stock them - starting with Planet Organic, one of the best retailers in London.
They wanted to keep control over how their product is priced and displayed, so they’ve chosen their retailers carefully: “[We chose] places that fit with our brand where we can add value to them, and they can add value to us.” - Damian Soong
Form Nutrition as a B-Corp
Damian describes B-Corps as businesses that use business as a force for good, focusing on people and the planet.
To become a B-Corp, the business has to go through an audit that inspects all aspects of your business - from supply chain impact to how you treat employees to what you do with your waste. B-Corps are re-audited every 2-3 years.
Everything from documents and employment contracts to employee handbooks have to address their goal in protecting people and the planet as a requirement for B-Corp status.
More on Form Nutrition’s Product and Plans
Form went with stand up pouches versus plastic tubs because they wanted sustainability and they wanted to create something different than their competition - again, focusing less on the “gym bro” customer and more towards a lifestyle consumer.
During COVID, Form has focused on their online presence in the US. Form is engaging in marketplaces like Amazon UK and Amazon US, but Damain would prefer that they don’t become dependent on marketplaces.
Form has subscription plans that are popular in the US. Having a background in engineering, Damian is invested heavily into data.
As commerce is now very omnichannel, Damian doesn’t want Form to have too much of a concentration in one customer or one segment.
“I’m in for the journey to create something lasting as a brand and as a sustainable, profitable business.” - Damian Soong on business sustainability versus business acquisition.
On raising capital: “...an interesting point is raising capital and how you do that and remembering that resourcefulness is just as important as capital. And sometimes constraints around capital really create creativity. We didn’t start with a big sum of money and I think that was a really, really good thing for us.” - Damian Soong
On competitive markets: “Sometimes crowded spaces are very easy to stand out in because they’re full of people doing the same thing. Sometimes a crowded space isn’t necessarily a scary place to enter. It can be an exciting place to enter if you’re able to stand out. That’s what I like to think that we managed to do with Form.” - Damian Soong
Links
Insiders #057: “The DIY Economy”
Check out Form Nutrition’s articles and newsletter, inForm.
Check out Form Nutrition’s website, Twitter, and Instagram
Find Damian Soong on Twitter
If you have any comments or questions about this episode, you can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels. We love hearing from our listeners!

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52 min
October 16, 2020A Tale of Two Recoveries: Popshelf, The K-Shaped Recovery, and Spending Power
In this episode, we talk about marketplaces, subscription services, the K-Shaped economy recovery, and more.
“The Future of Every Brand is a Marketplace”
In Future Commerce #041, Sucharita Mulpuru said that marketplaces are where businesses are going to thrive.
“Consumers want more in their online shopping experience and they want to be able to transact more often with the brands that they know and love in products that aren’t just the core.” - Phillip Jackson
Moving towards a marketplace strategy has a lot of moving factors—operations, partnerships, capabilities. “Implementing and managing a marketplace is not just about technology. It’s about strategy.” - Phillip Jackson
Marketplace is becoming more normalized for eCommerce brands, in the same way that AR and VR have taken time to normalize and implement.
K-Shaped Recovery
Marketplace shipping times haven’t been trusted recently and there’s a movement back into stores due to poor customer service in the rise in eCommerce during the spring.
There’s an expectation of a 25-35% increase in eCommerce sales for the holidays, compared to 1-1.5% increase in retail. This is going to cause problems in supply/delivery chains for eCommerce and in social distancing and capacity limitations in retail.
Customer service will be the most important thing for eCommerce during the holidays. With shipping delays and product supply challenges, merchants will need to proactively communicate with their shoppers.
Walmart+
11% of Americans have subscribed to Walmart+, Walmart’s subscription service for free deliveries and other benefits.
Walmart+ is a direct competitor to Amazon Prime and Walmart has spent a lot of time strategically trying to “catch up to” Amazon. Different services have different appeals (for example: Walmart with fuel and groceries, Amazon with Prime Video) and Walmart is trying to see what sticks.
Twilio/Segment Acquisition
Twilio acquired Segment, a standalone CRM tool for eCommerce. Bundling and integrating the subscriber information from Twilio with a CRM like Segment is notable and could be powerful.
Tanay Jaipuria, via Twitter: “Surprised Segment didn’t go public - could’ve been worth $5-7B in this market.”
“[Segment is] doing 150-200 million in revenue… how much more powerful are [Twilio and Segment] together to have that much actual information on huge segments of the population?” - Phillip Jackson

Dollar General Launches Pop Shelf
Dollar General is launching a five dollar chain that’s in competition with Five Below.
Target market is millennials and individuals with up to $130,000 income. This has potential to tap into a “Woke” section - like organics and fair trade.
Due to inflation, the buying power of a single dollar has gone down 20% over the past 10 years. Due to this and competition with eCommerce and the digital transition of retail businesses, Pop Shelf is stepping into the next tier and growing there with the current market.
Links
Check out Sucharita Mulpuru on Future Commerce #041: “Technology, for Technology’s Sake”
Insiders #057: “The DIY Economy”
Insiders #046: “The New Formal”
Check out our new report: “The New DIY: Retail Opportunity in the Passion Economy” and subscribe to Future Commerce Insiders
On K-Shaped Recovery: Deloitte’s report “A Tale of Two Holiday Seasons”
Tanay Jaipuria on Twitter

If you have any comments or questions about this episode, you can reach out to us at [email protected] or any of our social channels. We love hearing from our listeners!

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

About Future Commerce

From the publisher's feed

Future Commerce is the culture magazine for Commerce. Hosts Phillip Jackson and Brian Lange help brand and digital marketing leaders see around the next corner by exploring the intersection of Culture and Commerce.