Future Commerce

What makes a brand meaningful? We sought to answer this question in our recent report, Nine by Nine: 81 Brands Changing Our World. In this episode, Part 2 of 2, we sit down and reflect on the report and the categories included.

See Part 1: Episode 165: What Makes A Brand Meaningful?

• Purpose driven brands are focused on having alignment with their worldview. They state a purpose behind their brand and provide that to their customers. They make it clear what kind of world they want to build and are actively working to achieve that world.
• For these consumers, they base their purchasing on their lens through which they see their world, which is especially true for Gen Z and millennials.
• CEO and co-founder of Good On You says in the report that “It just goes back to having a core purpose and a core connection to the person that your brand is intended to serve and the problem that your brand is intending to solve.”
• REI is number one on our list because they’re doing so much more than just sustainability and ecology - even if they are a retailer and not a DTC brand.
• Bowery Farming is on the list - they do indoor farming without pesticides. Bowery Farming is tech centric and tech forward, using less water and producing more food in a more sustainable way.
• Sunday, who was recently on the podcast, gives a better understanding of home and garden from a philosophical perspective.

• As retail has developed, we’ve seen more companies move to capture attention through subversive techniques, FOMO, etc. for conversion rate optimization.
• From the report: “These retail heroes are seeking to uplift underserved communities, create and market sustainable products, pay their employees a living wage and treat their suppliers ethically and fairly. They’re the founders of numerous DTC brands who are focusing on sustainable and ethical products, B Corp certified companies and even members of the Business Roundtable, which recently redefined the purpose of a corporation that speaks directly to our Future Commerce values.”
• Patagonia is at the top of this list for many reasons - they have stood against the encroachment of federal property on native lands, they’ve stood for Black Lives Matter, and they’ve led the movement of countercultural anti Black Friday events.
• This category is all about doing right by all people all the way across the board - even to your own detriment.
• After releasing the report, Everlane has undergone heavy criticism because of their practices - which in rethinking our list, they should not be included.

• This category belongs to those brands who create an audience and then market products, goods, or services to them - like Kanye and Yeezy, Emily Weiss and Glossier, Virgil Abloh and Off-White, Ryan Kaji and Ryan’s World, Marie Kondo, and of course, five different Jenner/Kardashian brands.
• Joanna Gaines and Magnolia stands out - truly leading with content and then taking the steps to give their audience ways to buy in.

• Chick-Fil-A tops this list. We wanted to cover more than just venture-backed or private equity backed brands. Chick-Fil-A, as a franchise model, has a great record in investing into its local communities. They’ve given an incredible amount of money back towards COVID relief.
• Ace Hardware is another on this list, allowing for local ownership just as much as Chick-Fil-A.
• Thistle Farms, with Becca Stevens, have created a brand carried in a lot of retailers including Whole Foods. Thistle Farms creates products that give work to survivors of abuse, having a 100% female employee base.
• Costco made the list for being a pioneer in wages and supporting their local communities.

• These businesses are defined as having raised no outside capital in exchange for giving up an ownership stake in the business. These businesses are on the long path to prominence.
• Many businesses in this category have been on our podcast, including - Industry West’s CMO Ian Leslie, Frank & Eileen’s Founder Audrey McLoghlin, and Farm Girl Flowers’s CEO and Founder Christina Stembel.
• “The 100 Club has the ability to stick to the core tenets of your brand and not sacrifice them for a bunch of suits.” - Brian Lange

• Check out our Nine by Nine report: 81 Brands Changing Our World
• See our webinar with Klaviyo on Nine by Nine: 81 Brands Changing Modern eCommerce
• Check out where our Nine by Nine report was featured:
• GQ: Not So Vain: C.A.R.L.Y.s Love Crocs, Memes and Social Justice
• Adweek: These 81 Brands Are Shaping the Future of Commerce
• Business Insider: Meet the ‘Carlys’: The meme-loving young shoppers who ‘can’t afford real life yet’ - but will soon enjoy the biggest cohort of spenders in the US
• Morning Brew: Meet CARLY: Gen Z’s New, Socially Conscious Shopper
• Independent Retailer: Meet The New Customer Demographic: C.A.R.L.Y.
• Women’s Wear Daily: New Report Asks What Makes a Brand Meaningful?
• Sourcing Journal: New Cohort of Young Consumers Values An Iconic Brand Aesthetic

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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Listen to Part 1 of the Nine by Nine Retrospect here

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In this episode, we chat with Kyle Hoff, co-founder of Floyd Furniture. 

• Floyd started from looking at the amount of furniture consumed and thrown out after its use and the idea that furniture can be sustainable, adaptable, and kept for long periods of time.
• They began with a Kickstarter campaign based around their core idea and kept it simple with one product at a time.
• There are few DTC furniture brands. Floyd focuses on connection with their direct consumers in sticking with a product, improving it, and evolving it over time.
• Furniture manufacturing is saturated around Detroit - so most materials are sourced as locally as possible, with the goal of supporting those local communities. Pride in those communities results in better work and building a stronger community.
• Floyd doesn’t only focus on the sustainability of the furniture itself, but sustainability all around - in US manufacturing, ethically sourcing materials, leaving the smallest footprint for its entire manufacturing process, and being able to adapt more quickly to changes - especially during COVID.

• Originally had a drop in business in March, but since then, people have spent less money on experiences and more money on their homes - which includes furniture.
• As an eCommerce DTC brand, Floyd’s business has always been focused online, which is the only viable option during COVID.
• Priorities might be placed on different products, but because of the long-term investment of furniture and the constant demand, Floyd’s plan is remaining unchanged for the most part.

• Check out Floyd’s website or Instagram
• Floyd’s Crunchbase listing
• Retail Rebirth report
• Future Commerce Insiders
• Stairway to CEO

Have any questions or comments about the show? 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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• Profitero is a platform for eCommerce performance, measurement, analytics, and optimization for brands primarily in Europe, North America, and Asia.
• Profitero isn’t an agency, though it has similarities. Profitero doesn’t actually perform the work for the brands, but does create data and create tech to make that data valuable.
• Agencies have seemed to be expendable or interchangeable in the past. Profitero comes in to perform the “know-how” of an agency, but allows the work to be performed in-house. This allows for better visibility into the processes and its effectiveness.
• Some brands that Profitero works with are working with agencies that are managing their eCommerce DTC, their Amazon presence, their paid media, etc. and Profitero’s data helps to inform and optimize all of those processes.

• “Everybody that was doing eCommerce is doing much more of it. Everybody that wasn’t doing it wants to do it. Either way, everybody needs to know: how do we do it and is it working?” - Keith Anderson
• CPG brands (Pepsi and Heinz, for example) have pushed into having their own DTC platforms. During COVID, CPG brands that traditionally relied on retailers had to push into having their own domains in order to have that direct connection value due to supply chain disruptions or limitations on “non-essential” items.
• “We need to de-risk our dependency on others for fulfillment of demand.” - Keith Anderson

• First-party data about customers is valuable - knowing who they are, how they’re behaving, and having direct lines of communication.
• In having your own DTC domain, loyal customers have a place they know they can receive your full selection and in displaying that selection, you have full control over the way those products are presented and priced.
• Both Indirect (retail) and Direct eCommerce presences have value. Typically, these two branches lack communication with each other. COVID has pushed the realization that these organizational structures should be simplified so that brands can quickly and effectively adapt to a changing market.
• Brands should recognize that moving into DTC is a way to get closer to their consumer, get more control over their brand and customer experience, and be more personal with their consumer instead of looking to DTC as a singular pathway to your consumers or as a way to get discovered by new consumers.
• Anderson advises focusing on sustainability for long-term exponential growth: “The sooner you do the right thing, the better the outcome.” - Keith Anderson

• Profitero hosted a webinar conference to help discuss the uncertainties of the global pandemic and what brands can do to stay ahead.
• “All of your scarce resources really have to be revisited during times of volatility, uncertainty and crisis.” - Keith Anderson
• CommerceLive wasn’t opportunistic, but very community-centric and community driven.

• Jackson Jeyanayagam’s appearance on Future Commerce, Episode 175: “Around You, On You, In You”
• Profitero’s CommerceLive video replay gallery
• Visit Profitero’s website
• Connect with Keith Anderson on Twitter

Have any questions or comments about the show? 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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DAILYLOOK is a personal styling service that sends you a box of hand-picked fashion items right to your door every month. In this interview, Brian shares with us how he started his first business at 15 years old, created and then sold a newsletter with over 450k subscribers to a poker company, and then raised over $11M to build his company DAILYLOOK. Brian uncovers the challenges he faced from pivoting his business and shares some important red flags he looks out for when hiring.

dailylook.com

“I think there's a lot to be gained in experience from working with great teams and great people.”

“I definitely recommend having and surrounding yourself with as many experienced mentors as possible.”

“People that didn't have positive experiences with other coworkers in previous jobs will still tend to give a mediocre or medium type of reference check.”

“When you start a business, I do recommend that, depending on the business of course, that you have a co-founder.”

“I think the mental game is a challenging one. And with time and experience, I've learned my ways of how I cope with things in challenging times.”

“As an entrepreneur, self-doubt can creep in from many different angles and places and times.”

“I try to maintain the perspective and mindset of being a lifelong learner and always intellectually curious and open to learning new things. Learn from new people around you.”

futurecommerce.fm/stairwaytoceo

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What makes a brand meaningful? We sought to answer this question in our recent report, Nine by Nine: 81 Brands Changing Our World. In this episode, we sit down and reflect on the report and the categories included, and even talk about what is coming up in Part Two.

• Nine by Nine is our report that asks the question “What makes a brand meaningful?” Spoiler alert: There are nine answers! Nine categories and nine brands that exemplify those nine answers.
• The report was sponsored by Klaviyo - they made the report possible and lent a lot of creative energy into making it.
• 9x9 was our first time being featured in GQ, Women’s Wear Daily, Sourcing Journal, Adweek, Morning Brew, Market Insiders, Business Insiders.
• Nine trends, nine answers to “What makes a brand meaningful?”:
• Community Driven
• New Luxury
• Hundred Club
• Prime Challengers
• Audience First
• Purpose Driven
• CARLY (Can’t Afford Real Life Yet)
• Late Stage Retail (or Anti Late Stage Retail)
• Local Heroes

• The things that consumers value most about a brand differ, depending on what stage of life they’re in, what their income is, and many other factors. So in order to answer “What makes a brand meaningful?” we have to answer “What is a brand?”
• Sucharita Kodali, who has been on the show many times, said that a brand is a promise. What makes a brand meaningful is when the brand fulfills that promise and the value they’re providing helps a business or consumer in a specific way - for instance, with Prime Challengers, helping businesses/consumers part ways with Amazon.
• “This report is for a brand operator who is trying to take in the entire total landscape of everything that’s happening in eCommerce, retail, direct to consumer, and everything that’s digitally enabled in the retail environment. What is meaningful to a consumer? It depends on who the consumer is.” - Phillip Jackson
• We didn’t want to just create another list of brands. We have created a system with weighted rubrics within each category, and our scoring system is open to view. On top of this, we received our information from many different angles of different types of operators.

• Amazon comes up in a lot of conversations about retail. Aman Advani, on Merchant to Merchant, said that there are a lot of brands who stand for more than transactional commerce and that the spirit of that is moving away.
• “We’re moving into a world that’s more soulful. We’re moving away from transactional commerce as a culture and brands need to stand for something bigger. Rather than calling out Amazon directly, there’s a deepening and a hunger from the consumer to have a better experience… the brands that are noted on Prime Challengers help accomplish that.” - Phillip Jackson
• Target and Shipt come in at number one - because they are using a much more targeted brand strategy, playing by the D2C playbook, and have a more community centric model versus Amazon’s top down approach.

• To understand New Luxury, we have to define Old Luxury: exclusivity, quality, ‘white glove’ brands.
• New Luxury is about current times, being in the know, and information. New Luxury is tied to drop brands - knowing when the drop is happening, knowing the right people, being involved in the right thought processes and cultures, and understanding ‘hype’ cycles.
• Everyone is a retailer. StockX is our number one, which some would be surprised to see: “Just because something is resale doesn’t mean it’s not luxury.” - Brian Lange
• New Luxury is about discovery - an introduction and orientation to an elevated experience: “Aêsop is helping a millennial man discover gender neutral skin care and self care. Lord Jone is introducing CBD to the upper middle class. Haus is introducing aperitif culture to millennials.” - Phillip Jackson

• CARLY is a consumer psychographic from the acronym “Can’t Afford Real Life Yet,” that might be Gen Z but not necessarily constrained to it. It depends on sharing expenses with other people - and the way CARLY spends its money is deeply personal and considers every purchase very highly.
• “Starface is interesting in that it’s taken skincare - and where skincare in the past would be used to conceal the blemishes you have, Starface celebrates them and draws attention to them rather than drawing attention away from them.” - Philip Jackson
• Starface resonates with the CARLY ideal of seeing the world as fundamentally flawed and celebrating those flaws for the sake of authenticity.

• These brands aren’t only prioritizing their relationship with their customer, but their customer’s relationships with each other - giving them the space and environments and safety of being able to embed themselves with each other.
• Peloton is at the top of this list because they’ve done a great job of building a ‘tribe’ that can relate and connect their consumers with each other.
• These brands have the ability to make and survive missteps because of their community support.

Listen to Part 2 of this episode: Episode 168: Rethinking Everlane on the Nine by Nine Report. 

• Check out our Nine by Nine report: 81 Brands Changing Our World
• Phillip’s original article on C.A.R.L.Y.: Insiders #018
• See our webinar with Klaviyo on Nine by Nine: 81 Brands Changing Modern eCommerce
• Check out where our Nine by Nine report was featured:
• GQ: Not So Vain: C.A.R.L.Y.s Love Crocs, Memes and Social Justice
• Adweek: These 81 Brands Are Shaping the Future of Commerce
• Business Insider: Meet the ‘Carlys’: The meme-loving young shoppers who ‘can’t afford real life yet’ - but will soon enjoy the biggest cohort of spenders in the US
• Morning Brew: Meet CARLY: Gen Z’s New, Socially Conscious Shopper
• Independent Retailer: Meet The New Customer Demographic: C.A.R.L.Y.
• Women’s Wear Daily: New Report Asks What Makes a Brand Meaningful?
• Sourcing Journal: New Cohort of Young Consumers Values An Iconic Brand Aesthetic

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.

Local commerce is making a comeback and the digital realm is crucial to its success. OfferUp strives to create a platform that enables anyone to buy and sell locally. Nick Huzar, CEO of OfferUp joins the show to discuss how they're evolving with local commerce.

• Nick loves to build and create things. While having a baby on the way, he needed to clear a room and was frustrated at the time and effort it would take to sell his belongings. The idea for OfferUp sparked.
• When he started OfferUp in 2011, there was no Android phone - but there was the belief that everyone would have smartphones.
• He began OfferUp slowly with a lot of research, finding out that 25% of U.S. households with a two car garage can’t park in their garage and 10% of the population rents storage units.
• OfferUp has become effectively the fastest growing marketplace in the U.S. OfferUp has been installed over 90 million times.
• Nick says that OfferUp is really a platform for local commerce but has many phases in its evolution: “Today, I think the primary use case of OfferUp is definitely peer to peer, [but] long term it definitely doesn’t have to be. We have a growing segment of stores that are using OfferUp as both online commerce and local commerce.” - Nick Huzar
• “Early on, we moved to more of a C2C approach with the idea that if we could get consumers to use the product, then we would have a huge base of users that we could then layer on other businesses. C2C was very intentional.” - Nick Huzar
• Nick says that OfferUp has been focused on simplicity and product experience to bring trust and because of that, OfferUp’s growth has mostly been word of mouth.
• During COVID, OfferUp saw a 90% increase in overall engagement - nonessentials like fashion trending downwards, but fitness equipment and entertainment spiking.

• Local businesses have a more difficult time getting in front of customers due to their lower budgets for advertising.
• Local car dealerships have been offered a monthly subscription in return for special detail pages, badges in their profile, increased promotions, and analytics to see what’s working and what’s not.
• The challenge with local businesses was that the initial app was designed for an individual to use to sell items, so OfferUp has helped redesign to accommodate having thousands of items and the ability to plug in their CMS system.
• OfferUp wants to create more tools for local entrepreneurs to use to get their products on the platform.

• Customers have been more accommodating during COVID, realizing that buying/selling C2C comes with less exposure than going to a physical store.
• Customers are trusting each other more with in person exchanges and OfferUp’s shipping option is up 100% statistically.
• It’s unfortunate, but many people have liquidated items in their home to help with financial stress during COVID. Nick is happy that they’ve created a service that can help with that.
• “This is a perfect example of how commerce connects people and demonstrates that people still have the ability to interact with each other in good ways in crisis.” - Brian Lange
• LetGo and OfferUp had different markets where they were doing well, so they decided to come together to offer a more cohesive service and accelerate growth as a unified marketplace.

• OfferUp’s focus has always been on removing friction in the buying/selling experience as possible.
• There’s a lot of opportunity left in local commerce from moving goods to payments, and there’s plenty OfferUp wants to do in helping professionals get integrated into the platform.
• “We want to be a platform that enables anybody to be able to buy and sell things locally. It can be a business. It can be an individual.” - Nick Huzar

• Check out Future Commerce Insiders #033: We’re All Retailers, Now
• Check out OfferUp, available on all smart devices.

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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How was Sunday born? 

• Lawns are the 3rd largest crop by land area: 40 million acres of land.
• “You can’t purport to have a deep care for carbon sequestration and soil and the way we treat land, runoff, and environmental issues and not think about [lawn care].” - Coulter Lewis
• A typical managed lawn gets 5x the amount of pesticides per acre than an industrial farm.
• In starting Sunday, Coulter saw these statistics as a hole in our ethos. We spend time being conscious about what we’re putting into our bodies but not the yard that our bodies spend a lot of time in. This is where Sunday comes in to align our lawn care with our values.

DTC Experience of Sunday Lawn Care

• Sunday is 100% direct to consumer through their website.
• Sunday starts with your address. They pull soil data, climate history, and current weather in order to create a custom plan that takes all the guesswork out of the equation for you.
• Sunday’s first kit comes with a soil test to get the exact chemical makeup of your property which gives an accurate evaluation of what nutrients your soil is sufficient/not sufficient in and uses that to give you tips and guidance on how to maintain your property sustainably.

Your Yard is Your Own National Park

• Sunday is on the same trajectory that they were on before COVID and during the pandemic, they’ve seen even more growth due to their business model being based around having a healthy space at home.
• “There is an incredible spectrum of emotional connection people have with their lawns… This is a vast part of our experience and landscape. In some respects, it’s your own national park.” - Coulter Lewis
• Customer service is top priority at Sunday - in encouraging communities to learn more and engage more with their properties, as they spend massive amounts of time at home.

Links

Check out Sunday’s website.

Have any questions or comments about the show? 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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