If you are curious like me, You’ll thank me later that I took this journey into the Metaverse Inner Circle (MIC) for you. While it wasn’t quite like Dante’s 7th ring of the Inferno, it was not a trip to the park either. What is the MIC, tell you in a minute.

Let’s back up. Who am I. I am Christine Russo, Industry Analyst in Retail Tech encompassing the digital and physical retail, the consumer industry, brands, real estate , urban development, logistics and more. If goods and services move, sell, are made, sold or housed – I talk about it.  Well, not just talk about it. I specialize in the explanation of complicated topics and make them understandable to executives, C-suites, Boardrooms, Academics, Developers, Marketers and more. How do I do this? I host roundtables, invite-only Executive interviews, moderate panels for the NRF, shoptalk and more, provide commentary in the retail media and serve on Advisory Boards.

I once had a tech founder say to me their solution is not digestable to a bumper sticker phrase – ok, fair. But it also doesn not have to be a droning diatribe of long-winded jargon-filled explanations only for people to lose the interest and zone out. That’s where I come in and ps I am good at it.

So I decided to venture into Metaverse Inner Circle. How hard could that be? Well, it was brutal but I survived and learned and Im here to share. I definitely took one for the team because I was not afraid to ask rudimentary questions. The same exact questions Executives would want to know. There was a bit of of disdain and it felt like, the in-the-know inner circle scoffed at my questions. This did not stop me. Let’s get into it.

So What Happened?

Justin Hochberg, CEO & Founder, Virtual Brand Group David Lucatch, CEO President and Chair, Liquid Avatar Technologies Sam Englebardt, General Partner, Galaxy Interactive Marc Loeb Global Sales, ByondXR  

Roundtable discussion on Metaverse, Brands, Commerce, and The Creator Economy.

What is Perfect Corp? The technology behind most leading beauty brands digital makeup try-on technology. They also cover skin diagnostics and other try-ons like jewelry and more. This is what you get when an engineer via NVDIA runs a retail tech SAAS company!  Wondering what Wayne Liu has to say about Perfect Corp. - The industry-leading technology provider for True to Real try-on tech used by brands (like Nars, Ulta) and tech (like Google, Snap) - yeah, me too! I Got You.  www.perfectcorp.com

The is the first company that injects customer centric minute attribute back into the entire e-commerce value chain. And so you can keep the customer truly at the center.   If you are in ecommerce it's your Go-To technology to amplify your current: - search - discovery - personalization - demand forecasting - allocation  Purva Gupta www.Liliy.ai.

What Just Happened covers breakthrough technology solutions for all forms of commerce from airlines to bowling alleys and especially including direct to consumer ecommerce, brick and mortar and more.

In this episode, listen to Christine Russo discuss Greenlist - the waitlist for returns - with Founder, Jess Owens. What is Greenlist? 

Greenlist returns SKIP the trip back to the

Retailers increase revenue

Shoppers get new-with-tags (“NWT”) items at a discount

We all reduce the negative environmental impact of returns