Future Commerce

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

Future Commerce episodes

February 27, 2020[Step by Step] What Happens After the Buy Button? feat. Grant Van Kirk, Head of Finance at ROKA
Main Takeaways:
Grant Van Kirk, the Head of Finance at ROKA, joins Brian and Phillip in this episode of Step by Step.
A single, all-encompassing tech solution is not always the best choice for your business and diversifying your tech stack can minimize integration demands.
How do you decide when it is time to add a piece of software to your tech stack?
Fulfillment expectations are higher than ever, but streamlining your operations can meet these demands and boost customer lifetime value.
The ROKA Story: A Quick Overview:
ROKA started in 2013 when two former Stanford swimmers entered a triathlon to get back into shape but were disappointed with the options of gear available to them.
They invented a wetsuit that didn't feel or perform like a traditional wetsuit and quickly became a staple in the triathlon community.
The brand has expanded beyond just being triathlon gear and is now available for a large spectrum of sports.
Triathalon gear is typically expensive so the average customer tends to be older and more affluent than other fitness consumers.
Some Background on Grant: The Journey So Far:
Grant started out as a tax CPA and after a while decided that he wanted more from his career.
He then went into the real estate industry in Dallas but had no company growth potential at his company, so he wanted to find somewhere that would allow him to grow and present him with more professional challenges.
His search eventually led him to find ROKA where he was attracted to the infinite professional runway that came with the young, growing brand.
Going beyond the responsibilities of a typical Head of Finance, Grant is additionally very involved with the operations side of ROKA.
An Evolving Position: Changing With the Times:
How are senior finance roles evolving in the realm of retail?
It is important to not only be an expert in what your position is but also to be knowledgeable about other positions within your company.
You won't be able to fully understand if your financials are correct unless you understand all of the systems that are supporting them.
From day one, Grant had to make sure that he was heavily involved in operations and logistics to make sure that the finances where correct and to be able to identify areas in which the company wasn't spending enough or could increase its expenditures.
Decoding the Attribution Model: From a Financial Perspective:
Different platforms will highlight different numbers to present brands with the most positive spin on attribution costs.
How do you translate different attribution data across disparate platforms?
Aggregating your data across platforms for comparison will allow you to correctly assess if a marketing tool is effective.
Once you have attracted customers to your site, the next steps are equally important to convert those visitors into customers.
Looking Under the Hood: Breaking Down ROKA's Tech Stack:
For its eCommerce platform, ROKA is currently running on Shopify Plus and pretty much everything that the consumer sees is also run through the platform.
To accommodate more features, ROKA is also using several custom modules such as a module that allows customers to design their own sunglasses.
After the purchase, all data is fed through ROKA's ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Brightpearl and from there is sent to one of three 3PLs (third party logistics) that ROKA divides its orders between.
For international orders, ROKA uses Shopify to provide local currency sales, but this can be a big headache because of how much manual effort is required to keep things updated.
Scaling With Growth: Selecting the Right ERP for Your Business:
ROKA started with Quickbooks for its initial ERP, quickly jumped to NetSuite, and finally settled on Brightpearl because it is a retail-specific ERP.
Brightpearl is the source of truth when it comes to data collection for ROKA.
ROKA has adopted the stance of not trying to have one package that does everything but rather relies on individual software options that are the best in their category for various operations.
Spending the time customizing an all-in-one solution can be better spent on other aspects of your business when separate software already performs at optimum levels with less customization.
Potential Challenges of a Diversified Tech Stack: Trials and Solutions:
One of the potential challenges of using several software solutions when building a tech stack is the inevitable task of integration.
ROKA has two rules when it comes to integration:
1. Don't integrate if you do not have to.
2. Your ERP has to be your source of truth.
After a customer makes a purchase, the information goes straight to the ERP for processing and that customer is also enrolled in the follow-up process.
ROKA uses about 10-15 pieces of software in its tech stack.
What are some best practices for automating your operations post-purchase?
Digging Deeper: Other Parts of the Tech Stack:
How do you know when to add a piece of software to your tech stack?
Due to customers being shocked about duty charges, ROKA had to implement a way to get cash upfront on purchases to not take a total loss when the package was not returned.
One of Shopify's pain points is managing exchanges and returns, so granting your customers the ease of returning products is a powerful way to boost customer lifetime value, which ROKA manages to do using Loop Returns.
Tools can not only serve the purpose they're built for but can also boost your customer acquisition by giving your consumers a positive experience.
Looking Ahead: Identifying Opportunites:
Grant highlights that there is an area for improvement in the software that ROKA's customer experience team has to use.
The nature of returns and customer experience are two parts of the same coin, so in contrast to the rest of their tech stack, the customer experience software could be consolidated.
Customer experience is a difficult job that presents unique challenges separate from the rest of the tech stack.
What are some ways that you could improve your tech stack to benefit your customer experience team?
Raised fulfillment expectations set by Amazon are making it more difficult to meet the demands of consumers.
Spreading Thing: So Many Channels, So Little Time:
There are different channels that consumers visit first when it comes to discovery, purchase, or entertainment, so how do you diversify your marketing strategies for such different platforms?
Most people go to Amazon first when it's time to shop so if you are not at the top of Amazon's search, it is going to be hard to get there.
You need to have a social presence and there is a lot of pressure to not just be on social, but have many more touchpoints for your brand.
Amazon intentionally makes it difficult to track customers, so it's hard to see what is actually your customer that is just purchasing through Amazon.
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
ROKA
Shopify Plus
Brightpearl
Quickbooks
NetSuite
Amazon
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What are some ways that you can improve your tech stack by diversifying the tools that you are currently using?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!
Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
49 min
February 26, 2020[Step by Step] What Role Does a Tech Stack Play in Customer Retention? feat. Alida Sholl, Director of Operations at Rep Fitness
Main Takeaways:
Brian and Phillip are joined in this episode of Step by Step by Alida Sholl, the Director of Operations at Rep Fitness.
Rep has tackled the unique challenges of setting up a warehouse for larger than average products and has perfected processes to handle these items.
What are some tools that your brand can leverage to better your customers' post-purchase experience?
Arming your customers with knowledge and guiding them through the purchase process not only builds their trust of your brand but encourages them to be repeat customers.
A Little Bit About Rep Fitness: And A Little Bit About Alida:
Rep Fitness is a complete fitness supplier that sells anything from pull-up bands to high-end power racks and all the weights that come along with that.
Alida started with Rep Fitness about two and a half years ago when she found out about the local equipment company when she moved to Denver; she reached out to see if they needed any help, and Rep Fitness just happened to have a position that was a fit.
Without a background in eCommerce, Alida started her career in manufacturing with a focus on process engineering.
Rep Fitness was preparing to move into a new warehouse, a task for which Alida was uniquely qualified.
Larger Than the Average Product: Warehouse Setup Challenges:
With products that are larger than average, what are some of the specific challenges when it comes to setting up a warehouse?
With items that require a lot of space, Rep Fitness relies on palette racking and a large floor stack area to meet its warehouse space requirements.
Rep Fitness sorts and labels everything in the dock area, so they also need a dock area that is larger than average to accommodate those needs.
When boxes can weigh up to 100 pounds, it is best to avoid any extra touches and make the shipping process as simple as possible.
Diving Deeper: Who Is the Rep Fitness Customer?:
The idea of a home gym does not have to be a big garage, so ideally, anyone can be a rep fitness customer.
The majority of Rep's customers are somewhere between the ages of 25 and 44, typically married, own a home, and a lot of them are parents.
Giving people the option to regain their freedom and live active and healthy lives without being tied to an external gym is one of Rep's goals.
It is becoming much more common to be fit and lead a healthy life, which Rep is allowing parents to demonstrate for their children and lead by example.
Putting the Gears in Motion: What Happens Post-Purchase?
Rep has a fantastic customer service and sales team that all personally know the equipment to give customers the best experience possible when purchasing.
Having a real human touch and a sales and service team that go above and beyond to make genuine connections with customers makes those customers feel welcomed to the Rep family.
Rep Fitness will soon be launching chat on its website that will enable customers to get their questions answered on the spot and eliminate the need to leave the site.
Already using Help Scout for all of their email requirements, it was a natural choice for Rep Fitness to choose to implement Help Scout's chat capabilities.
Bringing Them Back: Capturing Trends:
Most home gym owners will say that their home gym is never done, so they are always looking for new equipment to add.
Consistently creating new products that are items that everyone needs to have is a great way to ensure repeat business.
Customers like trendy things even in a space where there are tried and true methods along with more traditional clear paths to success.
When you are in a community-centric space, if members are using a particular product, then others in the community are more willing to want that product.
How To Earn Return Customers: Trials and Challenges:
Digitally marketing can play a significant role in capturing repeat business.
Remarketing email campaigns can be sent to customers that have not engaged with your content or made a purchase for a while.
There is a vast online community in the home gym space, and amongst that community are bloggers that are regularly reviewing products and boosting product awareness.
Rep keeps their product line broad so that customers can return and complete their home gym and supplement their fitness journeys with other Rep products.
Leveraging Social Proof: Harnessing Customer Created Content:
Rep has used Yotpo for all of the reviews on its site for a long time and has just recently started using Yotpo's digital marketing suite.
Yotpo's digital marketing suite allows Rep to pull in content from social media and display it on the homepage and product pages.
Customers want to see not only the studio images of products but also what that product looks likes in the homes of consumers like themselves.
Rep likes highlighting their customers, and the best influencers are customers that posting things about your brand, unprompted, that others can believe and trust.
Designing the Customer Journey: Deciding Where Your Customers Go:
Rep's site does not follow a cookie-cutter eCommerce model and takes its customers on a tailored purchase journey when buying products.
How do you decide what the best path to purchase will be for your customers?
There are two very different types of shoppers that Rep caters to along the path to purchase: those who like premade packages of products, and those who want to customize what they are buying.
Guided selling that empowers customers to find the options that they need gives them precisely what they want and makes your customers happy.
Post-purchase is often determined by upfront education and guidance.
What's Next for Rep Fitness: A Look at the Roadmap:
Rep is starting to dig into data and to find ways to track and leverage the data they collect in more effective ways.
Using Brightpearl, along with other analytics tools, will inform rep and guide them to make better decisions when it comes to reaching their customers.
Rep is retroactively going through all of their processes to make sure they are capturing actionable data.
Another goal is to get a full handle on return rates by finding better ways to track return information and finding ways to minimize returns.
Rep will also be migrating their website to a new platform, which will allow them to dig into how the site functions.
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
Rep Fitness
Help Scout
Yotpo
Brightpearl
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What are some ways that you can improve the path to purchase for your customers, and what information can you give them to educate them around your products?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!
Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
39 min
February 25, 2020How Do I Acquire New Customers? feat. Andy Zuro, President at ZLINE
Main Takeaways:
Brian and Phillip are joined in today's episode by Andy Zuro, the President at ZLINE Kitchen and Bath.
ZLINE has grown over the years to be a brand focused on innovation and providing customers with unique products that they cannot get anywhere else.
With so many channels available today in which to acquire and convert customers, how do you know where to focus your efforts to get the most substantial returns?
How do you decide what tools to add to your technology stack?
What is ZLINE?: A 15-Year History:
About 15 years ago, Andy started ZLINE in Columbus, Ohio, around the time when he was building his own home.
During the process of selecting appliances, Andy was shocked by how expensive some of the appliances were and knew that there had to be a better way.
On a trip overseas, Andy scoped out some factories and started manufacturing a basic ventilation line.
Over the years, Andy saw where peoples' were when it came to kitchen remodeling and expanded to cover the entire line of items necessary when completing your kitchen.
Who Shops at ZLINE?: A Customer Breakdown:
The customer path has evolved over the years but started at identifying with customers who had price-driven shopping and saving money in mind.
As ZLINE found there was a demand for specific aesthetic options of products, they expanded their options and innovated for people who were looking for more customized options.
ZLINE started as a direct-to-consumer brand, and its low prices in comparison to large brands in the space are what grew their customer base.
As the ZLINE brand has grown, the direct-to-consumer portion of the business is still there, and they don't distinguish between their sales or sales made through a partner.
Shifting Strategies: From Value to Innovation:
Andy has always wanted to be innovative and do things that no other brand has done before.
With the push for innovation and allowing customers to customize their purchases, the SKU count starts to get very high.
Variety brings brand value back to the ZLINE name and shows its customers that the brand is trying to do something unique and not just be a cookie-cutter company.
Acquiring and obtaining customers is attributed to ZLINE's product innovations and by differentiated itself from competitors in the space.
Differentiating from Competitors: Marketing Necessities:
Galen Bradford, the CMO at ZLine, joins in to give some more details on the marketing effort.
Having a great and unique product is critical from a marketing perspective because it makes your job of promoting your product much more straightforward.
ZLINE has noticed a unique avenue of storytelling that they have discovered through Pinterest marketing.
What is the feeling the customer feels when they interact with your brand?
Once ZLINE established an online presence, they were then able to put their product in big box stores like Home Depot, Lowe's, and Best Buy.
If you have the best product and the best content, then you are going to have the best brand.
Growing From Zero: Challenges Along the Way:
As you become more segmented in your channel strategy, how does that change you as a business?
ZLINE doesn't differentiate between its channels when it comes to gauging for success, but there are different operational requirements per channel.
Fundamentally, a brand should be asking what value add they are bringing to the table when it comes to delivering your product to a customer or a retailer.
A lot of big-box retailers are always looking to expand their offerings, so finding your unique value add can help you get your foot in the door.
A Channel Breakdown: Where is ZLINE Selling Its Products?:
On the direct-to-consumer side, ZLINE is using Google Shopping, PPC, and social media advertising to reach its customers directly.
The direct-to-consumer strategy is a mix of old school paper advertisements and then more modern targeted digital advertising.
PPC has become exponentially more expensive in recent years, and when a channel no longer proves to be cost-effective, then people begin to search elsewhere for channels that are a better value.
Consumers change their shopping habits, so you have to be prepared to change your channel strategies to go where customers are.
The eCommerce Marketing Toolkit: How To Exceed In Today's Saturated Market:
From a PPC standpoint, SEMrush allows you detailed online visibility of how your customers are interacting with your site.
ZLINE is pushing YouTube and Pinterest when it comes to getting their content in front of the right consumers to reach their ideal prospective customers.
Director of Content Development Drew Pearson joins in to point out the value of data and how it allows you to identify new customer segments.
What can you do to make your content more relevant?
Understanding the Google Ads environment is an essential first step to knowing your best PPC strategies.
How to Convert Customers: Going Past the Traffic:
There is a whole separate set of tools available to you to get a customer you have brought to your site to convert and make a purchase.
Adding reviews has been one of the things that has generated the most conversions for ZLINE, and some companies that do this are Trustpilot and Bazaarvoice.
Creating legitimacy for your brand is imperative, and any tools that you can find that do this can prove its value when it comes to boosting conversions.
What are some ways you can boost your brand's legitimacy?
Choosing Your Toolkit: Supporting New Technologies:
There is no use in having an excellent toolkit unless you have a brand that resonates with the customer.
Your brand needs to be able to support any channel that you add, and if it can't, then you shouldn't purchase a piece of software that implements that channel.
Technology additions can be a powerful boon to your brand, but there are questions you need to answer before making the leap and purchasing them.
It's not just about what a tool can do but more about how it affects your organization and growth.
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
ZLINE
Pinterest
Home Depot
Lowe's
Best Buy
SEMrush
YouTube
Trustpilot
Bazaarvoice
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What is a channel that you currently do not use to acquire or convert customers, and what are some tools you could employ to make use of that channel?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!
Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
39 min
February 24, 2020[Step by Step] How Do I Build an eCommerce Tech Stack? feat. Scott Hill, SVP of Product at Brightpearl
In the first episode of Season 2 of Step by Step, Scott Hill, SVP of Product at Brightpearl is on the show to talk about Brightpearl, the technology ecosystem, and how this season of Step by Step is going to teach our audience how to build an eCommerce Tech Stack!
Main Takeaways:
Scott Hill, the SVP of Product at Brightpearl, joins Phillip and Brian in this episode of Step by Step.
What are some of the topics that will be covered in this season of Step By Step?
Brightpearl empowers retailers by automating all of their back-office operations and allowing them to focus on growth rather than problem-solving?
Where do you start when it comes to building your technology stack?
What is Brightpearl?: A Brief Rundown:
Brightpearl is a retail operations platform that helps retail brands, retailers, and wholesalers automate all of their back-office operations.
Essentially, Brightpearl takes over everything after the consumer presses the buy button.
Once the order has been made, Brightpearl takes care of order management, inventory management, integrated financials, and workflow automation.
Brightpearl creates excellent efficiencies for its customers do they can focus on growth and not worry about the logistics of operations.
Scott's Story: The Journey So Far:
Scott has been with Brightpearl for about seven years and is in charge of all product management within the company.
Some of his responsibilities are taking the product to market, working with customers and partners, and figuring out how to build and what to build.
His first position at Brightpearl was a very brief stint in technical support, but he moved very quickly to pre-sales (but he was always going after product).
Before starting at Brightpearl, Scott was academically looking into computer game design and found that product design was mostly game design (but with fewer aliens).
The Reason Behind It All: Why Is Brightpearl Behind this Step By Step Season?:
Brightpearl is focused on the technology ecosystem and wants to work with and highlight the other technologies that its customers might want to use for all of the activities that Brightpearl doesn't cover.
Brightpearl has found a common theme in the fact that technology is essential to the success of a business. Still, even the most technologically savvy merchants don't know how to navigate the complex world of the technology market.
There is so much innovation happening, so how do mid-market merchants navigate through the market?
It's challenging to run a business today because of just how many technological factors and channels need to be considered when setting up your technology stack.
Goals for the Series: What Can You Expect to Take Away?:
The hope is that this series will equip people with the knowledge of how to navigate their way through the market.
This is not a vendor recommendation series but rather an agnostic overview of the experience that likeminded retailers go through when trying to grow their business.
The series will also be a great starting point for retailers and brands to be able to go off and do their research to find what works for them.
This series is the first part of Brightpearl's project, which will then lead to the launch of a new study of mid-market merchants in the United States.
High-Level Topics: A Sneak Peek at What's To Come:
Selecting what to sell and product sourcing can be considered where the story starts as it is choosing the right product and finding ways to grow efficiently.
Different seller profiles have different motivations, and finding a way to differentiate amongst your competitors is another topic that will be covered.
Collaborations are a new way to introduce new products in a low-risk way by partnering with other brands to diversify their product portfolio.
When is the return not worth the risk when expanding your product offerings?
Winning the Content Game: Diversifying Your Portfolio for Niche Audiences:
Content adds to the value of your product and differentiating it, which then benefits your assortment.
There are a lot of things happening right now that are focused on creating an audience first and then selling products to that established audience.
Bloggers are turning into billion-dollar retail powerhouses, and we are now at a point where anyone who can amass an audience around a niche topic can create a brand.
If you have the right tools, you can stay lean in your operations and be very successful.
The Ins and Outs of Order Fulfillment: The Brightpearl Process:
The two main reasons why this portion of your business is so essential are efficiency and increasing customer lifetime value.
The more efficient someone is at managing and shipping their orders then the less money they will have to spend on inefficiencies.
With the cost of acquisition going up, there has been more focus on increasing customer lifetime value.
Merchants need to make sure they deliver on their promises, and you need to be equipped on the backend to live up to your word.
Diving Deeper: More On Customer Acquisition:
The main challenge regarding acquisition is its cost, which is only going to keep rising in the future.
Once traffic hits an eCommerce site, then your customer acquisition strategy needs to be spot on to most efficiently acquire your customers.
Everything should be built to increase the order value and basket size through branding and messaging with zero friction.
This is the main topic in the series where there is the most saturation, so how do you figure out what is going to deliver a return?
The Power of Data: A Crucial Part to Any Business:
Everyone wants to know how well they're doing, so they need support to prove that their decisions are lucrative.
Data allows brands to understand what they need to ask themselves and what questions they are answering with the data they collect.
Knowing what you should not be doing is just as important as knowing what is working.
A significant problem that merchants see is the overall completeness of the data they have.
The Post-Purchase Process: Increasing Customer Lifetime Value:
It costs about five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to earn repeat business from an existing customer.
Most brands focus on customer acquisition, but the focus should primarily be shifted to customer retention.
Technology is saturated on the front end when it comes to acquiring but tends to be less saturated when it comes to winning the repeat purchase.
How do you execute such a positive experience for a customer that you then get them to purchase four more times?
Support has become the new sales when it comes to customer retention.
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
Brightpearl
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What is a step you can take today to improve the knowledge regarding your technology stack?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
48 min
February 20, 2020Buy Better: Empowering Customers to Know the Impact of a Brand (feat. Sandra Capponi - Founder, Good on You)
Main Takeaways:
Brian and Phillip are joined in today's episode by Sandra Capponi, the co-founder of Good On You.
Good On You is a brand rating system that evaluates brands in the fashion industry based on their impact against material, social, and environmental issues.
How does Good On You quantify a brand's impact against various sustainability and social criteria?
Every choice we make as consumers can have a positive effect on the future, so arm yourself with the knowledge of what brands are fostering positive change.
What is Good On You?: The Purpose Behind the Movement:
Good On You is all about empowering people to know the impact of brands and to buy better.
Good On You has been around since 2015 when they launched an app in Australia that helped people make educated and ethical shopping decisions.
Users can use Good On You to research how their favorite fashion brands are impacting on the issues they care about.
Information, guides, and tips are also available for users to drive change toward a more sustainable future.
Good Under the Hood: What Happens Behind the Scenes at Good on You:
At its core, Good On You is a brand rating system with technology that aggregates publicly available brand data that assesses a brand's impact against material, social, and environmental issues in fashion.
An increasing number of shoppers are becoming aware of the issues in the world and want to use their influence positive change.
It's hard to know which third-party certifications are real, and Good On You provides a credible source of information that solves just that.
Making informed decisions usually takes a ton of work from consumers, but Good On You takes the effort out of making meaningful and impactful choices.
The Criteria for Change: Quantifying Social Good:
How are the criteria for Good on You defined, and what are some things that make a brand score well in the Good On You rankings?
There are hundreds of certifications in fashion alone, and Good On You navigates all of this to pull out the most relevant rankings.
Public data holds brands accountable, and consumers have the right to know how brands are impacting the issues that people care about.
There are over 60 sustainability indicators that are fueled by hundreds of data points that measure impact.
The three significant factors are a brand's impact on the environment, a brand's impact on people, and finally, a brand's impact on animals.
A Force of Constant Change: Ever-Evolving Criteria:
As new information on a brand's human impact comes to light, does the criteria evolve?
Good On You balances new information with internal expertise that continually scours what is happening in the industry and has a deep understanding of best practices.
There is also a formal consultation process where Good On You actively engages with leading experts on specific issues.
The Good On You ranking is an accurate representation of what experts in the industry say are best practices.
Sandra's Story: Some More Personal Background:
Hailing from Melbourne, Sandra has been concerned about the future for a long time, and she has always remained hopeful that there is a role that we can all play in bettering the future.
She worked for many years in supply chain management, where she became particularly interested in sustainability issues and eventually corporate responsibility.
Sandra noticed that there was a significant opportunity to use business as a force for good and, in particular, leverage and shift the flow of capital toward creating positive change.
She met her co-founder Gordon Renouf who had done interesting research on consumer change.
They saw a merger between their goals and Good On You was founded on their like-minded approach to change.
Some Brands For Reference: Who's Doing Well?:
There is no silver bullet to supply chain transparency and sustainability, so no brand has done things perfectly yet.
Some brands have built themselves from the ground up with these issues front and center like People Tree, Veja, Reformation, and Armed Angels to name a few.
There's also an exciting trend around recycling that is present among high fashion brands.
Improving the relationship people have to their clothes and to their favorite brands also comes along with backing positive change.
Establishing Consumer Trust: Celebrity Support Boons:
Last year, Emma Watson publicly spoke out in favor of Good On You and praised its efforts to promote positive change.
There has always been a group of people that are highly engaged in ethics that have tried to push social change.
Campaigns like Fashion Revolution have sparked a yearly movement for consumers to question brands on where their clothes come from.
Celebrities, along with organizations like Good On You are empowering people to use their influence to push for social and environmental change.
Striving For Betterment: Helping Brands Seeking Positive Change:
How can a brand set out to meet customers' expectations of social and environmental change?
Good On You gets approached by brands all the time that want to get on the platform to connect with a sustainability-focused audience.
At the other end of the spectrum, Good On You is approached by mainstream brands that are realizing the power of the Good On You Community and want to change to address new consumer values.
How does Good On You educate brands and foster a strong community that is steering significant changes in the fashion industry?
Growing Good On You: Plans for Spreading the Word:
Content marketing has always been and will continue to be a focus for Good On You.
They have been able to leverage that content and naturally grow by attracting people that are searching for ratings and information that Good On You's content provides.
Social media (especially Instagram) is where the community is conversing and is a great place to nurture those relationships.
Partnerships with brands that share a similar mission will always be crucial in expanding.
How Can You Get Involved?: Taking Things Further:
There are people around the world that are concerned about the future and services like Good On You are perfect tools for us to arm ourselves with knowledge on how to make positive change.
Start by checking out the Good On You App, where you can find thousands of brand ratings and make more informed choices.
There are also tips and guides plus tons more information on the Good On You website.
Join the conversation and stop and recognize that our individual choices matter, and every step we take has an impact over time and creates change.
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
Good On You
People Tree
Veja
Reformation
Armed Angels
Fashion Revolution
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What are some changes you could make today that will better align your brand with a more sustainable model?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!
Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
46 min
February 14, 2020"Affiliate Is A Very Tricky Word" w/ Nilla Ali, Senior Vice President of Commerce at Buzzfeed
Main takeaways:
Brian and Phillip are joined in today’s episode by Nilla Ali, the SVP of Commerce at BuzzFeed.
The role of publishers has shifted in recent years when it comes to commerce, but is the attribution model in need of an update?
The latest updates to consumer privacy protection are changing the way publishers are acquiring consumers.
How are brands reaching and connecting with younger generations like Gen Z?
What is BuzzFeed Today?: Evolution Through the Years:
Nilla has been at BuzzFeed for three years and describes BuzzFeed today as a cultural soundboard that has made huge strides with its news organization.
Commerce has become a big part of BuzzFeed’s business and has seen success in helping people with shopping and making shopping decisions.
BuzzFeed recently had a viral article about Millennial burnout and are covering topics that people want to hear about with a very fresh perspective.
BuzzFeed’s investigative journalism is solidifying them in history as opposed to just a fleeting cultural relevance.
BuzzFeed has used its cultural relevance to contribute to real journalism and to promote social welfare for us to be better as people.
Nilla’s Story: A Meteoric Rise:
Nilla has had a meteoric rise to where she is in her career at a very young age by comparison to others in her position.
She started her career at Ann Taylor as a merchandizer but very quickly found out she was interested in the other side of commerce and how people make their buying decisions.
She started a position at Time Inc., where she focused on affiliate business and how content can drive commerce.
Towards the end of her time at Time Inc., Nilla got the opportunity to work under Ben Kaufman, and from there, her career has taken off.
The Scoop on Affiliate Commerce: A Modern Model?:
Affiliate is a more so a tool that powers commerce and lead generation as opposed to its commerce channel.
From a consumer’s perspective, it has become much more common to see publishers creating comment that drives you to take action from that content.
The acquisition of The Wirecutter by the New York Times was a significant shift in the industry that showed publishers that affiliate commerce could be a serious business.
Affiliate commerce has evolved, but the model and structure has stayed the same and is how most publishers are currently powering their commerce business.
The Role of Content: Shifts in the Path to Purchase:
Given that most businesses have mostly shifted to digital, there is an increasing need to curate the best of the best products.
Content is increasingly driving discovery or helping validate a purchase ushering in a new era in which content plays a more significant role in development.
Frequently there are instances in which BuzzFeed has to work directly with partners to get appropriate attribution due to the outdated last-clicked model.
Measuring the impact of content has proven to be an ongoing challenge, and the attribution process does not reflect how customers shop.
Technical Hurdles: Protecting Consumer Privacy:
Cookie changes, and the idea of putting the power of privacy back in the hands of the consumer can directly affect the attribution for attribution models.
Nilla states that the changes that are happening in regards to user privacy are to the benefit of publishers like BuzzFeed, whose visitors are interested in content that is beyond targeted personalization.
The big question is whether or not publishers will be able to track attribution in a cookieless world.
How do you get visitors to return to your site without personalization?
The Power of the Publisher: Empowering Retailers:
How can consumers make direct purchases through BuzzFeed without needing to leave the content that drew them to the site in the first place?
Nilla finds that there is a lot of power in publishers empowering retailers due to the retailer’s expertise in upselling, cross-selling, and guiding the customer through the path to purchase.
The consumer trusts retailers, and it can sometimes be problematic if the publisher tries to step into the role of the retailer.
It is exceedingly important that the process of discovery is smooth on a publisher site to best lead consumers through the path to purchase.
A New Approach: What Does Commerce Mean to BuzzFeed?:
To Nilla, commerce is understanding what your consumers are in-market looking for both from an entertainment standpoint and a shopping/action standpoint.
It’s essential to think about curation as BuzzFeed plays a large part in curating what people are watching on popular streaming services.
Helping consumers navigate through decisions in a saturated world is a goal of BuzzFeed’s when it comes to their commerce decisions.
Shoppable recipes are an example of getting people to take action and convert when researching recipes online.
New Expectations: Weaving the Customer Journey Through Disparate Properties:
BuzzFeed is weaving the customer path through many different properties to make the path to purchase easier than ever before when it comes to integrating content and commerce.
With modern technology like the Tasty App, you can schedule a grocery delivery curated directly from the ingredient list of a recipe video you are watching online via various grocery retailers.
What are the further implications of linking separate properties with a single path to purchase?
Content brands like Bon Appétit could have limitless commerce potential with integrations like this.
The Content Game: Is Doing It Yourself the Best Choice?
How can retail brands partner with a content provider like BuzzFeed to better improve their content strategy?
Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your space is extremely important, and content can help you achieve this.
Consumers can sometimes be skeptical when content comes from the brand itself and is intended to drive conversion.
BuzzFeed has found a lot of partners that boost publisher content on social because content has become a reliable acquisition channel.
Capturing Gen Z: Untapped Potential:
BuzzFeed is very focused on Gen Z since it has already succeeded in capturing that Millennial audience.
As a publisher, you always run the risk of trying to do too many things too well.
The best way to capture a young audience is to have people from that generation be a part of your team and advocate for what they want to see.
What are some ways in which you can reach younger generations?
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed News
Ann Taylor
Time Inc.
Bon Appétit
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What are some ways that you can leverage content to promote your brand and maximize your commerce potential?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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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55 min
February 07, 2020What Can Retail Learn from the Performing Arts? - w/ Aubrey Bergauer, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Phillip & Brian are joined by Aubrey Bergauer to talk about marketing in the arts. Aubrey discusses that orchestras need to better serve the general population by making orchestral music more approachable by the general population. Not a change in product, rather a change in presentation.
Show Notes:
Main Takeaways:
Brian and Phillip are joined in today's episode by Aubrey Bergauer, Vice President of Strategic Communications & Executive Director of the Center for Innovative Leadership at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Chief Executive Officer of Changing the Narrative.
Aubrey is changing the narrative of orchestra direction and bringing arts management into the digital world.
When the product is not the problem, how do you pinpoint and address issues in customer retention and sales?
Reaching new audiences should take priority over catering to your most loyal customers when it comes to designing your marketing.
Aubrey Bergauer: A History:
Phillip met Aubrey at the 2019 Magento Imagine Conference.
Aubrey is a self-proclaimed classical music nerd and has wanted to run a classical music program since high school (which no one ever says).
When she was in high school, her orchestra went through a management change, and that is when the lightbulb went off that that was what she wanted to do.
She has been combining her degrees in performance and business for fifteen years in a career in arts management.
Digging Deeper: Some More Detail on a Passion of Music:
Believe it or not, Aubrey played the tuba, which is such a large instrument that she had to sit on phone books to play when she was younger.
Aubrey liked the feeling of breaking the mold when it came to playing the tuba, a trend which continues into her current life.
The tuba wasn't developed until much later in comparison to other instruments in the orchestra, so Aubrey's favorite music correlates with the time of its development.
Sergey Prokofiev is one of her favorite composers, and his 5th Symphony is one of her favorite pieces.
Instigating for Change: Redefining the Orchestra Playbook:
The playbook for orchestras has existed for decades, and the art form as a whole has been around for hundreds of years.
Orchestras were founded at a time when arts and culture were synonymous with entertainment, and about half of the revenue comes from ticket sales, and the other half would come from donations.
As the 20th century progressed, loyalty became more fleeting, so the subscription model dwindled in comparison to patrons buying single tickets.
Aubrey points out that the subscription model isn't dead, but how do you achieve loyalty amongst your customer base?
Music is What We Do Best: Perpetuating Through Advancement:
Classical music has survived as an art form for hundreds of years because the music is so good.
There is an oversupply of musicians, which means that everyone in an orchestra is at the top of their field.
The enduring level of talent in musicians highlights that the problem regarding audience attendance doesn't lie in the music itself, but rather in the customer base.
How do you program towards audience behavior that contrasts with more traditional orchestra models?
Attracting New Audiences: Shifting from the Paradigm of the Past:
Aubrey states that the website for the San Francisco Conservatory of music is the most public-facing ambassador in their organization.
More people visit their website than will ever visit the orchestra in person.
When thinking about the digital experience, many first-timers did not return because their digital experience was awful.
Website visitors would give feedback stating that they did not understand the terminology used on the site, which provides Aubrey and her team with actionable changes.
Reaching Beyond the Insiders: Widening Your Acquisition Nets:
In general, orchestras have traditionally designed their websites, assuming their visitors will have a baseline level of knowledge that doesn't exist.
The people who do have this level of knowledge are already your subscribers, so stop designing for them and focus on the vast majority of people that don't fit into this category.
How do you facilitate change in a world that is based upon tradition and established values?
Jargony words and technical language is a gatekeeper that deters an audience that you have not reached.
Going Further: The Product Is Not the Problem:
When you have a good product, and people enjoy, you need to take a step back and analyze what is causing your brand not to be successful.
Amazon Prime is changing expectations with product discovery by providing a new experience when it comes to the process of finding new products.
Who is the tastemaker in an orchestra?
There has been a movement that has evolved the typical curated experience in which orchestra attendees prefer to have more choice in what they experience with their orchestra.
The Long Haul Model: Solving Traditional Problems:
How do you pay homage to a traditionally elevated experience yet still update that experience and make it fun by modern standards?
Aubrey explains the Long Haul Model, which is a new paradigm that solves the problems of audience attrition, churn, and aging.
No matter who you are in relation to an organization, the model says that there is just one next step for you to take as an attendee.
Instead of separate departments, Aubrey created one patron loyalty department that executes the Long Haul model.
Non-Profit Boards: An Outdated Model?:
Non-profits have boards with people who have roles at for-profit businesses who then govern an institution that is not a for-profit business.
For-profit employees typically haven't been trained to manage non-profit businesses and represent 1% of dedicated orchestra-goers.
As leaders in the arts, data should be used much more in regards to making business decisions because your audience is an essential part of your organization.
How do you leverage data when it comes to appeasing a board?
The Future Commerce Sendoff: Challenges in the Next Five Years:
The changing demographics of this country are a big challenge to overcome when it comes to classical music organizations that are typically "super white and play a lot of music by dead white guys."
Orchestras are over-indexing on white audiences and trying to design for them when that is a shrinking percentage of the population.
How do orchestras become more inclusive, more welcoming, more inviting, and less elitist?
The arts have to make a case for support when there are so many more social justice causes that are also asking for help.
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Changing the Narrative
Amazon Prime
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What are some actionable steps you can take today to increase your customer retention based on the insight provided by Aubrey in today's episode?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!
Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

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1 hr 3 min
January 31, 2020The Skill Set of the Modern CMO (w/ Ian Leslie, Industry West)
This week, Phillip talks with Ian Leslie, CMO at Industry West on topics that every CMO needs to know.
Show Notes:
Main Takeaways:
Ian Leslie, the Chief Marketing Officer at Industry West, joins in on today's episode.
The modern CMO goes beyond just driving awareness for your brand and relies on your knowledge of the tech stack and how to leverage that tech stack to reach customers that you need.
Ian gives some insider perspectives on what is working and not working when it comes to marketing for a successful ecommerce brand.
How can you best arm yourself to be a successful marketer in a world that is oversaturated with content and noise?
What's the Story?: Some Background on Industry West:
Industry West is an eCommerce furniture company that has been around for about ten years and was founded by Jordan England and Anne England.
Jordan and Anne were looking for chairs for their house and went straight to the manufacturer, where they had the idea to sell those products to consumers.
Ten years later, Industry West has furnished many spaces owned by name brands, and you have probably sat on Industry West furniture without knowing it.
Ian has been with Industry West for about five years now.
The Nuts and Bolts: What's Inside Industry West's, Tech Stack?:
Industry West is running Magento 2.3, which is tied into Netsuite that pulls order in real-time into Magento.
Salesforce is being added to the sales team very soon.
On the eCommerce side, Industry West uses Nosto for personalization, onsite search functionality with Klaviyo, dotdigital for journey building and consumer-side email, ShipperHQ, and TaxJar.
Now that they are breaking into brick and mortar, Industry West is using ebizmarts for its POS (which is just a skin for a Magento store).
The Modern CMO: How Times Have Changed:
Ten years ago, CMOS did not have an in-depth knowledge of their tech stacks that is required to be successful in our current climate.
For someone who was raised as a digital native, technology has become engrained in the language of an omnichannel marketer.
Being on the ground with technology and genuinely understanding the functionality behind it is critical in knowing how to implement that technology best.
How can you get to know your tech stack better?
The Trade Market: Acquiring Brands as Customers:
The trade market uses a lot of the same digital platforms that are on the B2C side of the business.
Primarily, trade customers shop as if they are a regular consumer and have a lot of the same questions regarding the products.
Once the trade customer is acquired, the focus shifts to the retention of that client and getting the buyer to purchase for additional clients or locations.
The trade market is still an old-school industry when it comes to the tech stack, and there are emerging companies that are serving this vertical.
New Ventures: InFavorOf.com:
Industry West just launched a new venture called Favor.
Two holiday seasons ago, Industry West noticed a massive uptick in the interest of homewares, so they created Favor to serve this interest.
Favor is a different aesthetic than Industry West and focuses on an altruistic effort of working with real people who work with textiles.
When you are very broad in category, you begin to lose the nice that initially made you stand out, so branching off into a sister company could alleviate that dilution.
What Works and What Doesn't: An Insider's Perspective:
Industry West has seen significant wins with personalization regarding what is being recommended to customers to changing the homepage depending on the buyer.
One to one chat has also proved exceptionally fruitful, and people that chat with a rep online are much more likely to place an order.
There have been some large one-off buys with larger publications that have not proven to be an effective use of funds.
What are some efforts that have proved lucrative to your brand, and why do you think they worked?
The Industry West Outlook on 2020: Projected Wins and Potential Battles:
Industry West is growing quickly but is still entrepreneurial and has a consistent forward push across all employees of the company regardless of position.
The ability of the founder to source products and getting designers to want to work with Industry West is another great strength of the company.
A weakness (but more so an opportunity) is that Industry West is entirely bootstrapped, so everything goes back into the company, which is a fantastic opportunity to not answer to any investors granting a nimble and agile ability to adapt to change.
Industry West is profitable, and a lot of the unicorns that have received tons of venture capital will prove not to be profitable.
A Potential Economic Slowdown: Are You Prepared?:
Is Industry West prepared for a potential economic slowdown within the next 18 months?
Industry West as begun accounting for tariffs by swallowing the costs on some of the pricing.
There is always a swing in the economy during an election year, and Industry West keeps tabs on loan rates and interest rates.
They are so fluid in how they operate at Industry West, but that doesn't mean that they aren't worried about the potential repercussions on an economic shift.
The Next Five Years: What Does the Future Hold for Industry West?:
Strategic growth for both brick and mortar and online business are consistently on the horizon and part of the strategy for Industry West.
For the first time, they are beginning to understand the levers and seeing particular outcomes for actions taken.
Brick and mortar expansion is a goal, and they are looking at presence in Los Angeles within the next few years.
Everything that comes in for business is primarily inbound, and Industry West is going to start exploring trade shows as a potential method of acquisition.
The Future Commerce Wrap Up: From Chipotle Child Slaves to Exciting Newsletters:
Chipotle was fined $1.4 million in a recent child labor case for having dozens of 16 and 17-year-old employees work for longer than 9 hours a day and more than 48 hours per week.
Brian and Phillip think that there will be much more third party validation so that consumers can see what is going on at chains like this in regards to their labor force.
Phillip is consistently impressed by a weekly newsletter from Sari Azout called Check Your Pulse, a tech and startups newsletter designed to make you feel human.
If you're not subscribed yet to the Future Commerce Insiders Newsletter, then you should do that right now!
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
Industry West
Netsuite
Magento
Nosto
Klaviyo
dotdigital
ShipperHQ
TaxJar
ebizmarts
Favor
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! As a marketer, how can you arm yourself with knowledge of your tech stack to take your business to the next level?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!
Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

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1 hr 12 min
January 21, 2020Monoculture is Dead: LIVE from NRF 2020
Is Omnichannel really dead? How are niche brands reaching an entirely new (or not so new) generation of customers? And does Coty know what to do with Kylie Cosmetics? Find out during our LIVE NRF 2020 episode where Phillip and Brian are joined by Ingrid Cordy!
Main Takeaways:
Brian and Phillip are joined by Ingrid Cordy live from NRF 2020!
The Future Commerce Vision 2020 Retail Report is out and contains tons of predictions for where commerce is heading in 2020.
The Filter Bubble restricts people from ever seeing content from outside their social circle, but how do we expand our social awareness?
What brands are going to be making exits in 2020 and why?
Is Monoculture Dead?: What is Monoculture?:
There will never be another Michael Jackson in regards to his pop iconography, as many more content creators create content and media.
As the world is becoming more fragmented and more niche, you begin to find your niche community that provides its unique perception of reality.
Forty years ago, everyone shared the same media experiences (such as the moon landing), which became cultural moments of the world.
The visuals we have from mainstream media of pivotal moments in history would never occur today because we now view events through Snapchat and Instagram stories.
The Filter Bubble: The Power of Influence:
Download the Future Commerce Vision 2020 Retail Report to get more insight on the Filter Bubble and other predictions the team has made.
Almost 2.5 billion people participate in the properties that Facebook owns, and with those numbers, Facebook has the power to influence an election.
Television was the first disruptor in politics, and the debate between Kennedy and Nixon swayed the vote in Kennedy's favor and served as a turning point between media and politics.
Facebook will not fact check ads going into the political season, which is an example of a stance that social media platforms can take when it comes to delivering content to their users.
Positive Shifts: Sorting Through the Noise:
How do aspirational brands reach no customers if the world views of potential clients are so limited due to the filter bubble?
Getting people to explore outside of their bubble is a big challenge.
Your social circle and the people around you affect the way that you see the world, so smaller niche brands enjoy an audience that is outside of the mainstream culture.
Aspirational brands can be effective, but Phillip predicts this will be based on word of mouth and the trust you have from your social circle.
Ingrid predicts an increase in the need for social proof and refinement in the next generation of influencers.
Looking Ahead: Shifting from Growth to Staying Power:
We are coming out of a period of brands going through explosive growth, but Brian predicts we are entering a period where brands want to become something that sticks with people for a much more extended period of time.
Everything today seems to be ephemeral, and what happens today doesn't matter tomorrow.
Consumers are starting to get tired of brands always focusing on the "new" and are tired of continually discovering what has changed.
Staying power is proving to be more and more desirable from the consumer base, so brands are shifting their approach to be more dependable.
The Power of Niche: Finding Your Tribe:
The things that matter to you and that you put a value on will become more niche and more local to your tribe.
The social community value of niche brands can be more valuable than broadly recognized brands that everyone has heard about.
If we trend towards how communities interact and care about each other, we will automatically create places for sharing things beyond your internet bubble.
Each city has its own Chamber of Commerce, which is a great place for brands to share their experiences and advice with other brands.
The New Local: Virtualizing the Physical World:
Local isn't just a physical location; it is wherever you happen to be.
There's an emerging trend of very young kids in school who will log onto Fortnite, not to play the game, but to be with their friends for hours at a time in a digital locale.
Taking local online to digital locations virtualizes and redefines everything we know about local.
Most of our shared experiences are very short experiences, and meme culture is rapid and happens in an environment of fleeting recognition.
Coty Buys Kylie: An Enormous Acquisition:
Back in November, Coty Inc. valued Kylie Cosmetics at $1.2 billion and paid $600 million for a majority stake in the company.
Ingrid has doubts that a big legacy brand like Coty knows what to do with a trendy brand like Kylie Cosmetics.
How can Coty leverage their expertise to make the most out of Kylie Cosmetics, and what can they learn from Kylie's ability to capture the attention of a sought after consumer base?
Just because a brand sells the same type of product does not mean that it does the same thing as other brands in the same space.
Commerce Current Events: Rapid Fire Hot Takes:
Casper just filed to go public, and Coty just bought Kylie Cosmetics, but what other large brands could be making an exit this year?
Ingrid predicts that Everlane could be exiting because they have been around for a long time and are doubling their brick and mortar presence this year.
Brian predicts that Cuyana will be purchased or make an exit this year.
Phillip thinks that Glossier has a tremendous amount of brand awareness and thinks that expanding their reach will be easy with their VC money.
A Virtuous Filter Bubble: Changing the Future Through Choice:
Over the next ten years, Phillip predicts that we have the opportunity for technology to enable the consumer to tell the brand how they want to be talked to.
Allowing customers to experience things how they want to experience them is a filter bubble that is virtuous.
If you don't want to see anything that uses animal products while shopping, there should be a filter that applies across all of your online shopping that removes that content.
A more venerated way of the customer telling brands how they want to be interacted with is a future we can strive towards.
Observations and Wishes: NRF 2020:
Omnichannel has shifted to be consumer-focused, and that is the new (and better) way to describe what omnichannel was.
Amazon has not exhibited in as large of a way as they did at this year's conference ever before and are petitioning themselves as a technology stack for retailers to take advantage of.
Ingrid wants to see an interaction with a regular consumer in which they comment on what is happening at the show to get an outside perspective.
Phillip wishes there was a section of the show that was dedicated to sustainable solutions.
And finally, Brian wants to see a metric that shows what solutions or brands are gaining traction at the show.
Brands Mentioned in this Episode:
Snapchat
Instagram
Facebook
Fortnite
Coty
Kylie Cosmetics
Casper
Everlane
Cuyana
Amazon
As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! Do you agree with the predictions made by Brian, Phillip, and Ingrid? What do you think the next year holds for the world of commerce?
Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.
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!
Retail Tech is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster.

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1 hr
January 10, 2020Vision 2020: A Future Commerce Podcast on the State of Retail, presented by Gladly
Download the Vision 2020 Report Right now
The next phase of the growth of your business will be based on your ability to plan for the changes coming over the next 10 years. Things like outsized customer expectations, online behemoths and marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon, Generation Z coming of age, aging of the Millennial population, and a whole lot more there are things to consider in the 2020s that will either put you ahead of the pack in your DTC or retail business or at the back of the pack. In this podcast, we break down what you need to succeed in the next 10 years, from our perspective as analysts.
Show Notes:
Main Takeaways:
It's our annual predictions episode, and 2020 is going to be quite a fascinating year for retail
Relationships between company and customer are crucial to consistent retention
Phillip and Brian cannot go a week without making predictions
GenZ is all about building relevant and exciting skills, even if they can't afford life yet.
Consumers are going to start having expectations that the products they purchase are going to improve their health, and brands are going to have to meet that demand.
Future Commerce partnered with the customer-service platform Gladly to create a report on the future of retail, and it's crazy good.
Vision 2020:
Future Commerce partnered with Gladly to create a comprehensive report on what 2020 retail will look like, and it's available for download.
The report is a buffet of Future Commerce predictions all in one place
Want this report? Of course, you do, click here →
Brian and Phillip cannot go more than a week without making predictions
This is the year where profits are king
Brands Are Going To Have To Better Your Life To Retain Your Business:
Something we've seen at Future Commerce is that the relationships that retailers build with their customers can indicate if they can retain those customers long-term.
And brand trust is super important because it allows brands to take risks and loyal customers to follow that journey.
It's a new world: Zebras > Unicorns
The evolution of health and wellness is going to evolve beyond what we can currently understand.
How can the products that you purchase help make your life better?
Sustainable Skill Learning: Why You Need to Tune In To CARLY:
GenZ is a totally different generation, and GenZers are interested in a very different world than Millenials.
We covered this in our Future Commerce Insiders #18, where we talked about CARLY (Can't Afford Real Life Yet), as the new generation of shopper.
And while CARLY might value a new experience, they're also natural creators, seeking out new marketable skills.
And as Brian said: "CARLYs are learning skills because one, they care about sustainably doing things. They care about the environment. And so they're patching their clothes, and they're making their art, and they're doing things for themselves. We live in a Minecraft world where people want to build out things for themselves and build experiences for themselves and use those experiences."
The Future of Retail: Sustainability is Everything:
As we learned in 2019, sustainability is a lot more than just a buzzword; it's the path forward for retail.
Second-hand commerce is more sustainable, it allows for less waste, and resellers can capitalize on this.
The story for sustainability has to continue in the 2020s
Brands that are leading the way are public-benefit corporations or B Corporations, which is always a significant focus on our show.
Want to hear the rest of the key trends for 2020? Check out our report on the Vision of 2020 with Gladly, it has all of the info that you need to be able to indeed stay on top of the future of retail.
Download the Vision 2020 Report Right Here!
Show notes

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1 hr 7 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.