• Everything and everyone is all about the metaverse right now. Brian is starting to think that the “metaverse is just the internet now.” Maybe it is, hence why some think NFTs, crypto, and bitcoin are part of the metaverse as well. 
• When we think about DTC we have to remember what the entailed vision was: “to disrupt the existing industry or category with a product that is equal to or better than the existing products that are available and make them more affordable and get them to you quicker.” -Ingrid
• Everyone is capable of doing everything because there is an audience
• “Crypto bros are basically just this generation's example of extreme couponers.” -Phillip
• A company-curated around being highly curated and centered around good company culture, and innovation will beat out money every single time.
• “The biggest opportunity in this current market is right now, everything that is going to be worth anything is entirely based on curation.” - Ingrid

• Future Commerce’s 2022 Predictions Episode
• Tune into Infinite Shelf Season 2!
• Subscribe to Insiders and Senses to read more of our hot takes! 
• Listen to other episodes of Future Commerce

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

• HigherDOSE strikes an interesting balance between Wellness, Biohacking, and Tech. Their products are rooted in research to help their customers really get the most out of HigherDose products.
• We all know that the new iOS privacy updates and decrease in Facebook and Google analytics is a huge problem for marketers. Ingrid offers her advice as a three-pronged approach.
• Prong 1: Don’t just look at CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), look more broadly at client relationship management. The iOS privacy update is not just a story about CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs), it's a combination between CAC and LTV (lifetime value).
• Prong 2: Invest in Good Influencers. In the age of tightening data and heightened iOS privacy updates, influencers are going to become a highly valuable channel.
• Prong 3: Invest in Channel Diversification. Client Relationship Management is Everything. Don’t ignore your CRM!
• How should brands allocate funds between Influencers and traditional channels such a Google and Facebook? Well, that depends, and it’s not the same for every brand.
• If you want to understand the full customer journey, you need to use a multi-touch attribution technology. You might have one-click conversions for products with a lower price point, but when you have more expensive products, customers will most likely require multiple interactions with your brand.
• Ingrid gives Katie & Lauren advice on what content she thinks would really resonate with HigherDOSE’s customer base.

• Check out Yotpo
• Check out Gladly
• Check out Gorgias

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

• Gabi is an Amazon guru, and the VP of Amazon Strategy for Garden of Life, a wellness company on a mission to empower extraordinary health
• “The great thing about Amazon is it is the window into the mass market.” -Gabi
• There are some perks to selling products on Amazon. Many individuals are typing and searching for products, they’re spoiled for choice. While on the other hand, it can be incredibly hard to not just be buried in the search results
• “Amazon is moving more into this social commerce of building the brands on Amazon, rather than allowing these brands to build their websites on Amazon.” 
• By allowing the brands to build their brand on Amazon, it disrupts the sequence of a consumer leaving Amazon to go learn more from the brands website
• You don’t necessarily need your brand to go viral, you just need to have strong presence on social media 
• “Never get into a level of complacency that you [feel you always] know what's going to happen next.”- Gabi
• The algorithm is constantly changing, so be willing to change with it 
• “Have the willingness to be open to have your mind changed or have your perspectives changed, and have this collective thinking in conversations.” -Gabi

• Learn more about Gabi Viljoen and Garden of Life!
• Amazon for CMOs by Kiri Masters and Mark Power

Stay in the loop with Infinite Shelf!  Let us know your thoughts on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook. We love hearing from our listeners!

• Joe Fisch is the CEO of Wine Access, a web platform that makes it easy to discover wines through expert curation and their satisfaction guarantee.
• Wine Access is all about curation, content, and customer service. Joe believes that these three things are the core to Wine Access and everything else builds around it
• “Any time I'm meeting with anyone on my team, I always ask how they see the world? Is it through numbers? Is it through sounds? Is it through words? Is it through feelings? And have always tried to guide people in that way.” -Joe
• How they took a fast approach to scaling, and the appropriate steps they chose to follow from where they were going top line, how many bodies they would need, and how looking at a variable method could sometimes damage the infrastructure.
• “We said, OK, if we keep beating the drum and we hit the same core things of curation, content, and customer service, and we hit those over and over again, we can be a really successful company.” -Joe
• Joe and the Wine Access team are looking at the future on how to continue scaling and working with a new structure, so it’s time to workshop!
• To begin workshopping, it's important to look at the organization rationally, taking out the names of people in the positions, and just looking at the position
• When looking at each role independently, you can start to see the gaps in where an employee might need more help, or where they can create a separate new role in a different position, and bring on another strategic employee to fill the gaps
• “As your company grows and as your priorities change, it's really important on both sides, the employer and the employee, to take an honest look and determine whether what the company is doing is serving both parties.” -Ingrid

• Learn more about Joe Fisch and Wine Access
• Think Again by Adam Grant

Stay in the loop with Infinite Shelf!  Let us know your thoughts on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook. We love hearing from our listeners!

For the last episode of Season 1, Ingrid is joined by Michael Bower, the Founder and CEO of Nyla. They talk about everything from the false dichotomy of the brand and conversion tension, how to look at the future agency models, DTC technology, and so much more. Listen now!

• {00:06:20} “But there's a language also in the thought process and the way that we address problems. And I think that there's a similar but distinctly different language that founders and retail merchants have to create and cultivate on their own.” - Ingrid
• {00:11:36} “The communication, while having that communication actually be more compelling, which is what conversion requires.” - Michael
• {00:19:16} “So like your brand, people probably are brand people because they care about the brand. Conversion people are probably conversion people because they're going to kind of lean that way, so that they'll acknowledge the other side. They won't necessarily see the other side, as the main reason or rationale.” - Michael
• {00:26:49} “So conceptually, I think eCommerce companies will have to key into something bigger than just everything that they've done so far. So is that their storytelling? Ok, great. Well, that's going to have to ratchet up a few notches.” - Michael
• {00:34:31} “They should be thinking about brand. They should be thinking about the future. They should be thinking about the human side. But, I think anybody in development in eCommerce knows that back end dev is not really a thing anymore, it's more front end dev.” - Michael
• {00:40:58} “There's lots and lots of incredible agencies, so many that I look up to and aspire to be more like, honestly. But I think that having the alignment between the merchant and the agency is the main thing that takes that from being dysfunctional and completely amazing.” - Michael

• Learn more about Michael Bower
• Check out the Nyla app
• Love your new host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

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

Ingrid is joined by Arielle Knutson, former VP of Marketing at Nuun Hydration. They chat about her time at Nuun, building cultures and working environments, to building brands that people love and don't want to live without. Tune in now!

• {00:09:21} “But I think some of the things that I always tried to stay mindful of, that I think really made that difference and that impact for Nuun as a brand is look inside before you look outside.” - Arielle
• {00:10:47} “But I think the magic really happens when an internal team that's working together to collaborate, to create a brand, it's like when they have that kind of brand and culture internally, the way that they bring it to consumers is just incredibly, incredibly authentic. And it's not a mission to make it seem authentic to consumers.” - Arielle
• {00:17:30} “And I think that the culture of giving people, like celebrating people trying their best and scaling up versus, like everything is for the win has actually created a safe environment for people to try new things without being afraid of failure, and I think that that has been a major game changer and enabler…” - Ingrid
• {00:24:03} “So if as leaders were going to ask our teams to, you know, launch programs successfully and achieve results and do more faster, better, that's what we're all always asking, then the utmost servant leadership approach is in order to do all of that, your team needs something from you as well.” - Arielle
• {00:33:17} “And I have to say that in almost all cases, that has served me and the team really well because I think that it is so much easier to teach a candidate or a new person joining the team, "This is how we x y z," because the reality is for most job functions, every single company, most companies, are going to do things differently.” - Arielle
• {00:39:44} “And so to really think about how your brand functions internally before you think about how it functions externally is the right order of operation to make sure that the team is sound and that the culture and the brand and the mission really, really are scalable.” - Arielle

• Check out the latest on Arielle Knutson
• Learn more about Nuun Hydration
• Love your new host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

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

Today, Ingrid is joined by Issac Newton, Co-Founder/CEO of Pattern. Tune in to hear their conversation about what it takes to have trust in our partners. From hiring, to becoming servant leaders, and creating a safe environment. Listen now!

• {00:11:31} "Hey, maybe we should do something together. We still have great chemistry. We love working together, we respect one another..." - Isaac
• {00:20:58} “Because the match means everything and they're not going to be happy and you're not going to be happy. And then on the other side, when there is a match, then that's really where the magic happens. I think that's really important.” - Ingrid
• {00:21:09} “And a lot of it just takes trust, right? And which is a whole other conversation that we'll dig into, hopefully when we talk about, like the founders and the brands that we work with.” - Isaac
• {00:27:10} “When starting a brand, you have to be passionate. It has to be a reflection of who you are as an individual. And so with that comes great responsibility of all the partners to make sure that they're seeing the vision through.” - Ingrid
• {00:32:49} “I'd say the last thing, and I tell this to everybody and I even tell this to prospects where I'm like, I'm 90 percent sure we are not going to work together. Speak with recent references. It is so critical.” - Isaac
• {00:35:53} “Yes, totally. Yeah, with teams and things like that, you're not doing anyone any favors by keeping someone on who isn't performing and the same thing with agencies as well.” -  Ingrid
• {00:39:35} “Yeah, I mean, it's all about, in our opinion, differentiation and storytelling. Really. And also being authentic. So if you can find the right balance of those things, that's where the future is.” - Isaac

• Learn more on Pattern’s website
• Learn more about founder Isaac Newton 
• Love your new host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

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

Today on the pod, Phillip and Brian are back joining Ingrid in chatting about their mid-season favorite episodes. Tune in now!

• {00:02:14} “He actually listens to the episodes with a pen and paper and a notepad next to him so that he can write down some of his thoughts as he's listening so he doesn't forget when we are talking about it later.” - Ingrid
• {00:05:32} “What struck me here is it reminded me of a conversation that we had in a simpler time, Brian, of the The Age of Clienteling and how digital can bring clientele to anyone. And yet so many brands don't even bother.” - Phillip
• {00:11:59} “Yes. Ok, so the next one was my favorite episode. That's why I wanted to do it. So I think that the episode with FindMine and Michelle was so eye opening to me about how organizations actually accomplish innovation.” - Brian
• {00:14:54} “Yeah, that might be some of the best advice I've heard in a long time, too. It's great, great, just like teasing out of the details there with Michelle, Ingrid. Nice job.” - Brian
• {00:22:07} “That's the other thing I think we always miss for every twenty great marketing interactions, they're only meaningful if you have a great product at the end. Ingrid, always great hearing you sort of lend your expertise in the context of another conversation.” - Phillip
• {00:34:57} “Like literally everything happens because people can't stand being bored. And so by the time when we kind of cycle through technology and we've done it long enough, we have to do something new. We have to. We literally cannot even.” - Brian

• Love your new host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

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

Today we are talking Blockchain, Metaverse and Web3. Michael Janiak, the Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director at Pattern joins us to talk all about it. Tune in now to hear this enlightening conversation!

• {00:04:53} “What it means to me at its core is essential that rather than being based largely on private servers, Web3 is largely, the idea is to largely base it on public Blockchains. That is the core fundamental difference between where we've been and where it could go.” - Michael
• {00:07:38} “And as I walk into stores, they welcome me because they know who I am and what I am, because my identity is sort of like splayed on myself without me explicitly saying, ‘Hey, here's who I am, and here are the things that you should know about me.’” - Ingrid
• {00:13:48} “And so, in my opinion, it's like everything else with new technology. The technology's awesome. But until you find creative people to use it in really interesting ways, it doesn't do a whole lot.” - Michael
• {00:21:39} “So now you can buy an NFT and remember, because it's in your wallet and because it's on a publicly distributed Blockchain, you can take it wherever you want.” - Michael
• {00:34:47} “…if you look at their screen time, they are spending between school and private life and all of that, they're spending 10 hours a day having screen time. They already live in the Metaverse to some extent.” - Ingrid
• {00:43:16} “And so you, Michael, are someone who enjoys and thrives in the positivity and happiness that connectivity can bring. And I think you're going to find that place in the physical world and in the Metaverse.” - Ingrid
• {00:50:04} “And you also really touched on something that is very, very core to this whole notion of Web3 and decentralization and things like that, which is you had mentioned like interacting with government and taxes and things like that.” - Michael

• Check out Michael Janiak’s work on LinkedIn
• Learn more on Pattern’s website
• Love your new host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

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

Ingrid’s good friend and colleague, Garrett Bluhm, joins the pod today to talk about all things Amazon. There are a lot of things going on within the Amazon world at all times, but this episode is dedicated to what it means to be a brand, quote-unquote on Amazon, what that looks like going into 2022, and the epic growth of Amazon consolidators aggregator machines. Listen now!

• {00:04:16} “And one of those things that I've been interested in following is just all of the consolidators and aggregators and just the amount of, frankly, money and capital that's being poured into these companies that are ultimately buying up smaller mom and pop shops on Amazon and brands and then consolidating them into a bigger machine for profitability and just understanding what is growing.” - Ingrid
• {00:08:02} “The real question is like, I'm like, struggling, like, OK, so how do you build your labels? What is your branding like? How do you build brand awareness?” - Garrett
• {00:13:54} “Rule number one, two, and three in any type of consumer facing business is please don't assume that your consumer is stupid.” - Ingrid
• {00:17:53} “And what that means is that the trends that are happening on Amazon are going to directly reflect everywhere else.” - Garrett
• {00:20:25} “It really comes down to focusing on your products and your brand and being differentiated. If you're a brand that is hoping that your Alibaba white labeled product with your logo on it is going to be there forever, you're not thinking clearly because that is not going to last longer than that life cycle of when that timeline happens, right?” - Garrett
• {00:26:21} “And this is why we're seeing tons of investments starting to flow into incubators into what are like traditional accelerators, where they invest in a brand that's small and then they provide services to kind of help them grow. I mean, that space is booming right now.” - Garrett
• {00:34:35} “The ones that are driven by consolidators are probably going to see lighter discounts. They'll probably continue to do them. Subscription's a big thing.” - Garrett
• {00:36:21} “There's just so many. We keep saying this, but capital has become a commodity, and it's just so true. And so that's why there is all this competition for being an aggregator, consolidator.” - Ingrid

• Take a look at the Drafted Commerce website
• Check out Garrett Bluhm’s LinkedIn
• Love your new host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

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