Explore every episode of The Jason & Scot Show - E-Commerce And Retail News
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Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Episode 6 covers Commerce in Korea, a Holiday Update including the shape of holiday peaks and the risk for holiday shipments, Gilts potential sale and the overall state of Daily Deal Sites, Nordstrom E-commerce investment strategy, Hoverboard fire problems, and a few Amazon and Alibaba tidbits..
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
13 Dec 2019
EP203 - Shopper insights from NPD Checkout
00:47:27
EP203 - Shopper insights from NPD Checkout
NPD Checkout is a product from NPD that scan physical and digital receipts from a panel of more than 100,000 users to get a unique look into consumer purchase patterns in a variety of product categories.
Jeremy Allen, Group President of Checkout, and Patty Altman, SVP Client and Business Development at Checkout join us to discuss what we can learn about the holiday from their dataset.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
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Episode 203 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday November 16th, 2019.
12 Oct 2017
EP103 - Amazon Private Label Deep Dive
01:19:39
EP103 - Amazon Private Label Deep Dive
This episode is a deep dive into Amazon's Private Label activities:
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
06 Dec 2019
EP202b - Cyber 5 Recap with Adobe's Taylor Schreiner (audio repaired)
00:36:32
Support the Show:
The Jason & Scot Show as been nominated for "Best Retail Media Resource" by the VIP awards. We'd appreciate your support, if you could take a minute to vote for us.
Adobe Recap
Taylor Schreiner is the Director of Adobe Digital Insights. He uses Adobe's data to give us a recap of the Cyber 5 (the five shopping days from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, this year Nov 29 - Dec 2).
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
12 May 2018
EP131 - Industry News, Walmart, FlipKart, Amazon
00:52:24
This episode catches up on the latest e-commerce news
Walmart News
Walmart Acquires 77% of India E-Commerce Site FlipKart
AllswellHome.com launch
Website Redesign
New Delivery Partners Doordash, Postmates
Amazon News
Sears Tire Partnership
Kohls traffic is up at Amazon Stores
Chicos says presence on Amazon is driving more store traffic
Other News
Google IO
Facebook F8
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Episode 131 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, May 10th 2018.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
01 May 2018
EP129 - Amazon Q1 2018 Earnings Hot Take
00:49:06
EP129 - Amazon Q1 Earnings Hot Take
This episode is a hot take of the Amazon Q1 2018 earnings
Amazon Q1 Earnings Highlights
$51b, which is a 43% y/y increase - 39% constant currency, 27% ex- Whole Foods
NA was up 46% y/y which drove $1.1b in profits (26% ex WFM)
Intl was up 21% constant currency and lost $622m
AWS had a material acceleration up 48% y/y constant currency and profits were $1.4b
Amazon Prime fee increasing to $119 (20% increase)
Amazon Ads - $2B quarter 132% y/y growth (72% y/y growth before accounting change vs. 60% last quarter)
Increasing possible Amazon becomes first $1 trillion dollar company
Bezos Annual Letter
100M Paid Prime Members (likely 60M in N.A vs. 124M Households)
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Episode 129 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, April 30th 2018.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
In this interview with Larry, we discuss many of the brands covered in the book including Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, eSalon, Mohawk, Anker and Tuft & Needle, as well as many of the ecosystem companies that developed to enable the DTC movement including Facebook, Quiet Logistics and Locus Robotics.
We discuss the trends of DTC companies turning to brick and mortar. New ways to leverage data to identify product niche (what Larry called the "money-balling of DTC), and what the future may hold for DTC.
We also cover events that happened after the book was published, including the FTC's blocking the Harry's acquisition, Caspers IPO, management challenges at Away.
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Episode 207 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020.
http://jasonandscot.com
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
An interview with Bryon Colby (@bcolby6), SVP of Digital Commerce at Cornerstone Brands. Cornerstone Brands is a billion-dollar omni-channel retailer comprised of multiple leading home and apparel brands including Frontgate, Ballard Designs, Garnet Hill, Chasing Fireflies, Grandin Road, Improvements, and TravelSmith. Cornerstone is a business unit of HSN, Inc.
We spoke with Bryon about his background, where digital commerce sits in the Cornerstone organization structure, how Cornerstone benefits from it's catalog heritage, the challenges and opportunities of customized products, and the future of personalization.
Bryon mentioned a custom product configurator for furniture on Ballard Designs, which can be found here.
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Episode 104 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, October 11th 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
23 Feb 2020
EP208 - Elliot CEO and Founder, Sergio Villasenor
00:48:27
EP208 - Elliot CEO and Founder, Sergio Villasenor
Sergio Villasenor (@sir_gee_ohhhhh) is the CEO and Founder of Elliot. Elliot is a modern, mobile first e-commerce platform that describes itself as: "The easiest way to sell there, there, there too, yes there & yes all the way over there. No-code e-commerce platform for every there & where you want to sell."
In this interview with Sergio, we get a great overview of Elliot's features, what sets it apart, and what their vision for the first is. Sergio also breaks some news about the platform. As of April 1st, they will offer a free SaaS version (except for payment processing fees), and will open source the entire platform.
You can join Elliots WhatsApp group by sending a message to 347-715-0728, and get early access to new features.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 208 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, February 20th, 2020.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
26 Apr 2020
EP217 - OfferUp CEO Nick Huzar
00:50:42
EP217 - OfferUp CEO Nick Huzar
Episode 217 is an interview with Nick Huzar (@nickhuzar), the Founder and CEO of OfferUp (@OfferUp). OfferUp is the largest mobile marketplace in the U.S, facilitating consumer to consumer sales of second-hand goods.
In this interview, we discuss OfferUp’s recent fund raise, the acquisition of LetGo, and the state of C2C Marketplaces during Covid-19.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 217 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, April 23rd, 2020.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Transcript
Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 217 being recorded on Thursday April 23rd 2020 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo.
Scot: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners we are still recording during this fun pandemic shelter at home period and because we normally when we’re not she’ll bring it home have day jobs record the podcast late late at night it really restricts people that are crazy enough to come on the podcast so we’re using this opportunity to go through what I would call our Marketplace bucket list. So today on the podcast we have another bucket list guess this is pretty exciting. One of the biggest Trends in US market places that’s kind of under the radar and if you go to like a lot of trade shows and stuff but it is if you look at traffic data you realize there’s a really big movement here, is what I would call a new family a new innovation around smartphone app based consumer to consumer or some people say person-to-person marketplaces. So today on the show we are really excited to have the CEO of what I believed to be the largest one of these these new kind of mobile market places we, the CEO of offer up Nick who’s are welcome to the show Nick.
Nick: [1:43] Thanks for having me it’s great to be here.
Scot: [1:45] Do you prefer person-to-person consumer-to-consumer or do you use some other lingo.
Nick: [1:50] I think it’s I think it’s all the same that the the main idea is you know leveraging this technology that’s in all of our pockets to kind of reimagine local Commerce as we know it.
Jason: [2:05] Awesome and Nick we may be the only ones in the planet that have a Marketplace bucket list but we’re we’re.
Nick: [2:14] Everyone needs one.
Jason: [2:15] Yeah everyone should have one but I feel like we’re the only ones that are cool enough to actually have one so thanks for helping us check one one off but before we jump into OfferUp in marketplaces we always like to give listeners a little bit of color about your background so can you tell us what you’re doing and how you came to OfferUp.
Nick: [2:35] Yeah happy to so I’ve always been in the I’d say the Internet space pretty much since I graduated college.
[2:42] Kind of dating myself now but I used to I remember coming out of school I had to explain to people on companies why they needed a database connected to their website so that’s kind of gives you an idea of when I graduated college. But I’ve always been fascinated by I think the the endless possibilities with the internet so in some way shape or form of. I’ve been in at various startups you know throughout most of my career I did some briefs tents at T-Mobile. Spend a little bit of time at Microsoft you know I’ve done a few different companies my previous company too, OfferUp was called connects most people have no idea who the heck we were I’m not surprised but we started.
[3:26] Connects pre Friendster and so sometimes I’ll server after remind people what the heck was Friendster or Friendster came before my space and my space came before Facebook so we were very early I think I’d like to say I learned a lot of a. Mistakes kind of how to build a company and a startup. And you know ultimately I had no plans on doing another startup there a lot of work but I had a daughter on the way and I was so excited I went into this room full of stuff. That I had in my house and I was going to turn it into her nursery and that became the spark, and that ultimately turned into OfferUp and you know for me would you know I had I didn’t jump on it right away I mean clearly you know I think there’s a long as a graveyard of companies that have tried to.
[4:15] Compete locally but. I think what what what drew me to this opportunity was this device that is now in all of our pockets but back when we started off her up you know very few people had smartphones in fact there was no Android phone. So you know what I what I could imagine at the time was like look I just wanted to make these. I just wanted to clear out this room like quickly and there was no easy way to do that so, again looking at this device that had was now in my pocket I just kept wondering to myself can we is it time to reimagine what local can be. You know through these devices so that’s what ultimately you know created this spark for me to want to you know pursue this this this opportunity.
Jason: [5:07] That that’s awesome and it’s it’s probably a coincidence I feel like I probably shouldn’t even lump the two of you together but there’s a prolific track record of entrepreneurs coming from T-Mobile and being very successful at raising funds and I know this because, the the guy I’m thinking of has the same name as me Jason Goldberg fab.com so. That may not be good news for you but you’re following in his footsteps.
Scot: [5:37] So what year did you found OfferUp is this like 2010.
Nick: [5:43] I lose track of time and to be honest I thought like.
Jason: [5:46] We’re all doing that now.
Nick: [5:47] I’ve years ago I think 90 now yeah.
Scot: [5:50] Okay so yeah right when the iPhone one came out so I was good timing talk us through the funding history I looked up on crunchbase and they were very specific they said you’ve raised 381 million that was funny they couldn’t round up anyway congrats on that that’s that’s always you know, fundraising isn’t the best measure of success but it is one so congrats on all the fundraising walk us through kind of the funding history there.
Nick: [6:17] Yeah well I mean you know going back again to that that moment in my doorway in a room I wanted to clear out I think like like any entrepreneur you have this big aha moment and then reality hits that you have to actually go build it and that’s when it gets hard and so. You know again just you know why and I like to remind a lot of people that it people kind of tend to put us in this bucket of oh it’s mobile classifieds and I think. That’s a fine public perception today but that’s not to be clear not at all what I set out to build what we set out to build was you know to become the largest local Marketplace period and that’s you know we what I saw as an opportunity was just unlocking local value and what I mean by that is you know 25% of. Us households with the two-car garage it can’t park in the garage you know our homes are 30% larger than the 50s but we’re having less kids and so, just so much stuff stuck in in our homes if you look at storage you know 10% of our population our at storage units but even beyond that and especially now what about local retail what is what is in these stores like you can never you can’t visualize those things today and I think the opportunity that I saw was you know again how do you. Unlock all this value and my belief was it’s locked up because there’s a lot of friction in that experience and so.
[7:43] Anyhow that’s my long way of saying it took us a while to raise funds like the first year we only had a hundred thousand dollars raised, and we just you know luckily I can code and design and my co-founder could you know set up AWS and set up the back end so between the two of us we pay ourselves literally nothing. And just coded for basically a year straight. Um and then year to we had to figure out how to get scale and I’ll spare all the details because I could go on for hours and all the failed experiments that we tried but that was very hard I was a very very hard time so ultimately.
Scot: [8:23] Scale from a technology standpoint or scale from a user buyer-seller son.
Nick: [8:27] Yeah buyers and sellers and so you know I used to show up to people who pretend you attend to your. You posted your couch and OfferUp I used to show up and I’d buy it from you, because we had very few post back then and I wouldn’t tell you that I worked at OfferUp I just wanted you to believe it worked and then I’d bring it back ultimately we had a small office I’d stick it in her office so you can imagine Five Guys coating it a few desks but just junk everywhere that’s what it looked like for a while, you know it’s one of those fake it till you make it moments but it took us almost two years before we raised our series A, and I think that was you know I think it was it was very hard I think a lot of people thought we were just trying to replicate, and what had been done on the desktop you know I think, you know we are all so early that was another lesson like you know we started really early and so there was no Android phones for a while and so I think that was another.
[9:24] You know I think it was one of those things where we just had to see smartphone adoption take off and then clearly we had to prove to investors that we actually could get the flywheel to move in a Marketplace we could get buyers to potap by and sellers to post and just continue to get that final to work and so you know and when we raised our series a we were only in Seattle it was very very intentional there was a handful of competitors at the time and I think they were probably really smart folks but, on the technical side that I don’t think they were met you know really measuring and thinking about what is success and success is like its liquidity that’s everything and so, we stayed in one ZIP code until we got that flywheel to Mu conversely we had competitors that were then launching, they launched an app and so you can use it anywhere in the country and I you know I thought that was disastrous I thought that you know they were not going to. Have success on liquidity so I didn’t worry too much about them so. You know where as we raise more Capital over the years a lot of the focus has been early in the early days we just launching new markets you know we stayed in Seattle for a year you’re so and then register a and with that Capital we wanted to prove that, we could then roll into numerous other.
Scot: [10:38] Yeah so you’re very knowledgeable out Marketplace is to just grind this out yourself or did you know how did you learn so much about marketplaces.
Nick: [10:47] Yeah I have I have zero history in marketplaces that and so I actually think.
Scot: [10:51] Scar tissue.
Nick: [10:54] Benefit you know I remember hearing a podcast once with Reid Hoffman talking about. Why PayPal was such a success and he said like look I didn’t come from banking like I didn’t know any better I just and I think that was the same. The way I looked at this like I literally I can’t think of any time where we ever pulled up any desktop websites and marketplaces, as an example of how to design OfferUp, it was all just what what was the experience we wanted to create and let’s just design what that is a good example would be, you know if you open up OfferUp today it’s going to show you items nearby you with some personalization. And just like this infinite list of pictures when we launched nobody was doing that I mean this was pretty Instagram right so it was a it was kind of a novel idea at the time and you know we wanted to kind of simulate this treasure hunt right we wanted to have this I just want to visualize what’s in my neighbor’s garage or what’s in a business down the street so you know I think we’ve taken a lot of just approaches completely different and. And back to your question I think that’s it’s probably just because we didn’t know any different.
Scot: [12:11] Um so I noticed on the crunchbase list there you had some of the some of the late-stage guys some of the mutual funds that have kind of gone early that’s interesting and then I saw Max election so he’s a co-founder of a firm and then also part of the PayPal Mafia has that has he been a good good addition to the team.
Nick: [12:29] Oh yeah Max I’ve known Max just you know over the years and he’s always been very generous with his time and thoughts and. Clearly very knowledgeable about payments and you know. So I leaned on him periodically just to kind of pick his brain on what’s happening in the world and how he thinks about. Your transactions and payments overall.
Jason: [12:56] That is terrific Nick for listeners then might not be totally familiar with OfferUp can you kind of walk us through the basic buying and selling flow and kind of what pieces you you help facilitate.
Nick: [13:11] Yeah for sure so I think on the buyers you know as I mentioned just briefly a moment ago our our view has been, you know we want to you know we want to build the simplest largest and most, trusted local Marketplace and that’s that shows up a lot in the product so you know when you open up the product think of it like walking into a retail store. And we wanted to make it a very visual you know visual experience and luckily over the years one of our our. Our beliefs was the cameras would constantly get better and we could you know really show these beautiful pictures you know it within OfferUp and that that has been true and so you know that’s the first thing I think you notice is a buyer that it is a very different experience than going to a lot of traditional say desktop. Marketplaces and that’s very intentional we wanted it to be kind of the treasure hunt we wanted it to, be some elements of serendipity where you maybe are looking for a car and you end up buying a pair of shoes that that happens quite a bit you know on OfferUp, and so you know our our average buyer you know is on OfferUp like three times a day they engage in OfferUp more like they engage in social media than they do in the traditional.
[14:32] Commerce and so yeah so if you’re a buyer and say for example you’re looking for, I don’t know what’s popular right now like a lot of things are like like fitness equipment is on fire right now and think a lot of people are stuck at home and they can’t go to the gym, let’s so let’s say you’re looking for some weights you scroll through you find something there by you then can then you can then read the profile about the cellar like how many radians do they have how far away do they live do you have trusted connection through friends to that Cellar and you can read through just some overall profile information to make sure that there’s somebody that you trust and her wanting to do business with and then the process of engaging on you know say those weights is actually very straightforward you can if it is a shipping item you can just hit a button and have it shipped to you if it’s a local item you can just send them a message and say hey can we meet up tomorrow and, you know the whole idea from the buyer standpoint was to make it you know a really simple experience but also back to this trust element having a profile and understanding who you’re interacting with, not giving out your phone number like you know I think in a lot of traditional local market places you have to get your phone number to close the transaction, um you know OfferUp is really Commerce wrapped around chat so you can communicate all the way to the point of cell without having to give it out personal information.
[16:00] And then on the seller side it’s literally as easy as taking and sharing a photo so like this chair that I’m sitting on right now if I wanted to sell this on OfferUp I would just pop my phone I would take a picture I would give it. You know a price and maybe a short description and hit post and and less than 30 seconds my chair is now available for the local community to discover and we tend to find that, people get engagement extremely quickly you know we’ve heard people that you know taking pictures and within a minute you know they get a whole bunch of Engagement. And you know itself things very quickly so you know like I said that’s that’s a big focus of the product and will continue to be which will be removing, friction and in the experience and so I think we’re far better today than I think the desktop players just because we’re leveraging. The power and the smartphone but I still think there’s plenty of plenty of ways we can reduce friction for buyers and sellers.
Jason: [17:03] Awesome so so your to set the marketplace buyers sellers can list items buyers can find items they negotiate amongst themselves on pricing, do you offer an option to facilitate the transaction or do you get into the payment element at all.
Nick: [17:25] We do if you enable your item for shipping so when you post an item as a seller there’s a toggle on there to enable shipping or only do local that is a very fast growing part of our business we launched that in 2018 especially right now with, with the people stuck at home it’s growing very very fast so you know and that case we take a small percentage, of the transaction to be able to facilitate payments between buyers and sellers.
Jason: [17:55] Gotcha and by the way you made me super nostalgic in the beginning when you said imagine walking into a store because that we haven’t been able to do that in a few months and it’s like you know it seems trite now I know it was like a much bigger bet in 2010 when you jumped on it but like the the Insight that, The Experience on the mobile phone would be dramatically different and lower friction than than the traditional desktop one is kind of big and I feel like. Your. Optimism around the camera I like it keeps paying dividends because I know the new Apple phones that have lidar enem I could imagine you’re gonna be able to get the dimensions of that that desk or chair that you’re selling. Now or in the in the near future up those kinds of devices.
Nick: [18:46] Oh yeah I like I said I think there’s. We will continue its I always say that we’re kind of Reinventing herself every year so we’re going back and we’re going yep we can make this process better we have let’s save some time here so they’re just so much more we can continue to layer on the marketplace that we have but back to the point. You know it’s just these devices continue to get more and more powerful and we can leverage that to make it a better better experience for our customers.
Scot: [19:17] Wrinkle so you guys recently announced with your last round that you’re acquiring one of your competitors called let go tell us about that and how that’s going and why you’re doing it and. It’s always imagine you’re in the midst of integration that’s always fun.
Nick: [19:36] Yeah so I mean you know I think the there’s a huge opportunity in the US and I think any time you’re going after a large Market you’re going to have competitors so as I mentioned even when we started we had a handful of competitors, but I think we were the first to really start to get meaningful scale in a pretty big way. We tried to stay as quiet as we could for as long as you could we delay doing press for a number of years we just kind of. Hung out in our office which is in the swamp in Bellevue Washington and didn’t really tell a lot of people what we’re doing but ultimately, you know we saw that go enter the US and. You know I think what became interesting over the years was just kind of how we approached you know the market we’ve gone very deep into many of the top 30 dmas and the country, as you know as OfferUp we have markets like Phoenix and La where over 17 18 percent of the adult population in those markets is using OfferUp every single month.
[20:41] Um and with let go they you know they are as I said have more of a presence and other parts of the country and then so I think that right there made it. Pretty intriguing to explore working with them more as we think about how do we how do we grow in other parts of the country even more how do we kind of drive a local adoption where we’re already strong. So we thought there were quite a few synergies and not a ton of overlap I think people tend to gravitate. To the market places where they have the most success I don’t think most users are going to use you know a whole bunch of these I think they’re just really going to focus on the ones that, is producing the best value for them so you know I think that right there was you know as we spent more time with them it became more intriguing that there was a good you know Synergy in our in our businesses. And then on top of that you know as we wanted to come together we just have a lot of you know I think, product development ahead of us and things we wanted to build so you know raising capital on top of that was was intriguing it as well and so we’re feel fortunate that their investors invested and, you know we have I think some of the best investors on the planet and OfferUp and they also participated it in this financing to.
Scot: [22:06] Are you going to there’s one strategy and mobile apps to have kind of two apps out there because it’s almost like more virtual shelf space are you guys going to have kind of two apps a little bit of different flavor are you going to consolidate them into one.
Nick: [22:19] Yeah well we think there’s a lot of opportunity ultimately in having one experience but we are definitely going to, tread lightly and into as we explore integration with them the best way to do it so we don’t want we really want to make sure that, you know we’re taking care of the let-go users and taking care of the OfferUp users as best we can but we’re, I guess the point is we’re not going to just flick a switch we’re going to spend quite a bit of time and making sure we’re being thoughtful about how we how we come together.
Jason: [22:51] Yeah the mobile app stuff is always very tricky because obviously like it’s super hard to get customers to download an app and be and particularly its even way harder to get them to be a regular user of that app and so. Fragmenting your audience amongst multiple apps you know comes with some baggage but first God’s Point like it also potentially. Boost your visibility in that App Store. A random side no just because it’s so sad it’s funny but one of my big clients is Walmart and they’ve had this. This multi-year debate about if they should have two apps general merchandise and grocery or one and I’ve always strongly felt they should have won, a few months ago they finally agreed to do that and then a month before they merge the two apps covid-19 pandemic hits and the way it 10x is downloads of their grocery out.
Nick: [23:46] Yeah you can’t you can’t predict that.
Jason: [23:49] No no so I briefly thought I finally won that argument and then the the community the world spoke. But I do I noticed that you like to increase the level of difficulty you were just having a kid and you decided to throw in a start-up and like you decided to do a big round of funding and a merger in the middle of a pandemic so. Props to you for that. Um the you know to set of marketplaces are super interesting from a marketing standpoint like there’s a lot of debate one big debate is do you expand geographically or not and it sounds like you guys made a. Intentional decision to get a concentration in some Geo’s before you expanded but the other big question is. Can you know can you really lean into marketing to one side or the other right so are you no do you try to in hand. Entice Sellers and then that will like pull in the buyers or do you and try to you know do you try to get buyers and that’ll pull in the sellers like has there been a. A strategy that’s been particularly effective for you or how do you think about that.
Nick: [24:58] Yeah so you know in the early days if I was to say what was one of the harder periods and. It’s going OfferUp it was definitely getting the flywheel to move and I’ve heard a lot you know a number of people say building marketplaces are really hard and then they’re also really hard. To kind of break down and you know I know that pain because not only did we figure that in Seattle but. Every time we entered a new market essentially we were creating a brand new Marketplace so you know what I used to know what we used to spend a bunch of time on was looking at kind of the overall metrics that really mattered and I used to always say hey we need to get neighborhood sick we need to create the zombie apocalypse like how do we get you know how do we get you know how do we get the flywheel to move where the seller post something then the buyers there and the buyer has an amazing experience and then they tell their friends and family and it just kind of keeps going and going and going and you know, what what are those attributes of those markets that are really material and what we found early on was. Population density definitely matters to a certain degree.
[26:04] You know whether matters like do you really want to move a couch and in Chicago, in the dead of winter we actually you know we’re thinking about that and then we said no like nobody wants to do that and, and so luckily we found markets that that we thought you know just had the right attributes and we really over invested in those markets and Allah is a great example I mean I always had massive Market a lot of people have cars they can move Goods around the weather’s nice most of the year it’s very viral most of OfferUp s’ growth is we spend dollars on marketing but to be clear most of it is word of mouth and I think that’s it goes back to the obsession over the product and, created a really simple experience between buyers and sellers and and because of that you know most people I run into ask them how they heard about OfferUp and it’s usually friend friend or a family member. So
[27:02] Yeah those were I think some of the harder learnings in the beginning you know today where I you know I really give kudos to my marketing team like a lot of the work they do I mean we do all of our marketing in-house a hundred percent, um you know and that team. All kind of works together external marketing internal Communications and we’re constantly call them day Traders they’re constantly um you know looking at markets differently and sometimes they’ll try to drive more Supply and Target sellers more sometimes they’ll pull back but they are constantly iterating all throughout the country sometimes at a national level but many times on a local level to kind of make sure that, supply and demand balances is where it needs to be.
Jason: [27:50] Awesome and then we talked earlier about like when they check that that available for shipping option that you potentially can facilitate payments, I forgot to ask. Right is that exclusively through I could traditional credit card processor or do you guys offer like I imagine consumers could do this outside of you but do you guys facilitate any kind of digital wallet like a PayPal or something along those lines.
Nick: [28:18] We don’t today but again this is a big growth area for us and I think there’s a lot of opportunity. To make a much better payment experience in the US. Especially now if anyone’s gone shopping recently who the heck wants to carry cash around anymore who wants to touch these POS systems at now like the one at the store down the street from me has like a piece of Saran Wrap over it, and then it and then it right next to it it has a bunch of hand sanitizer so an egg.
Jason: [28:54] Was already unappetizing now it could kill you.
Nick: [28:57] Yeah now I can kill you right and so. If you look to the rest of the world I feel like we are so far behind in the US and you know I’ve had people ask me well why is that and my response is usually you’re asking the wrong question to be asking who what company. You know is going to be the one that helps to drive this and and I think you know because of our local presence and how many millions of monthly meetups we have and. You know we have more kind of merchants Now using OfferUp you know I think there’s a big area there in the US but I get I get more and more frustrated. Week after week of trying to figure out you know another new POS system I could go in there well if I put the chip in all y’all do the chip and then you hit this button why did I gotta do this and I’m. I just want to pull your hair out every time it’s not a great experience and it needs to needs to evolve.
Jason: [29:49] Yeah I actually have an Instagram feed that is exclusively pictures of handwritten notes on POS terminals explaining how to use them.
Nick: [29:58] I gotta I gotta I gotta follow you then because I hear hear.
Jason: [30:00] It’s Saturday it’s not hard to find.
Nick: [30:03] Yeah.
Jason: [30:04] Now how to find material and yeah it’s funny because it’s like people forget but PayPal and the US and Ali pay in China they you know their original purpose was not necessary to digitize cash it was, to you know create a more robust trust system for peer-to-peer transactions and so I could certainly see that playing out.
Nick: [30:28] That’s and that’s a big part 2 I mean that is that is a big part is really, bringing trust into local transactions you know and and online you know it’s, it’s already there anyway if you’re shipping things it’s already you know that’s that path has been proven again and again so this is definitely an area where we’re pioneering and there’s still a lot to figure out but something I’m definitely passionate about.
Jason: [30:53] Nice and then unfortunately is like it’s things start opening up from the pandemic we’re likely going to be in a. Some flavor of recession and you know a lot of consumers could be tighter on credit so you know I could even imagine things like like the installment model and things having a. Having a role but in addition to that the other thing that would. Maybe fit at some point is do you guys think about ever helping to facilitate that shipping when that’s an option.
Nick: [31:25] Yeah so so today we as I mentioned we introduced this in 2018 we have payments and we’re presently enabling shipping for items under 20 pounds and under $500 so you know part of that was simply just to kind of get the foundation and get the Kinks figured out and there’s been a lot of work, as you can imagine when we first launched that but over overtime like I envisioned that anything on OfferUp should be, deliverable in some way shape or form so I think there’s a lot of work to figure out how to do that the right way, so that will continue to explore different ways to do that.
Scot: [32:09] So if you’re if you’re not in the payment flow then unlike a traditional Marketplace like an Amazon or Ebay then presumably you’re not taking at a crate so explain to us what is the business model where are people paying the list or our walk us through kind of the different areas where you make money.
Nick: [32:31] Yeah so there’s there’s two different I’d say kind of buckets for monetization today at OfferUp and the first one is promotions and the second one is paying so you know when it comes to Promotions our Focus there simply to help sellers to be more successful. So you know we have first party ads for example where you know you could come in as a seller and you know you can pay it increase your visibility on the platform just helps you sell things quicker there’s also a reoccurring subscription model there where you could say okay myself quite a bit you know I’m going to I’m going to pay a monthly fee and I’m just going to keep rotates a five items into that into the feed and we and we help to that seller to sell those items faster, we also have a Autos business where you know this this was I’d say a vertical that just blew up on us that we had we had wasn’t like we were Geniuses I swear there was probably just a convention one year and I think Vegas and I think somebody must have stood up and said hey I’m selling a lot of cars on OfferUp and all said and this vertical just beginning.
[33:46] Huge for us across the country and so in the last few years you started to spend more time thinking about how we can help auto dealers to be more successful so that is another promotional tool where we integrate with their their dealer management system so they don’t always have to use the app you know if a car goes on the lot the magically goes on OfferUp. We also give them advertising analytics they get a special badge on their profile there’s a handful of things we do to make sure that this they stand out and so we have thousands and thousands of paying car dealers and that’s growing very rapidly, and then on the payment side it’s you know today mostly shipping as I mentioned. And that’s that’s why we’re taking a small percentage of transactions there.
Scot: [34:36] I’ve also seen some ads like a big Star Wars fan I see game stock advertisers bunch of cool stuff in the Star Wars category is that is that if you guys built your own ad Network or is that pulled from like another ad network of some kind.
Nick: [34:49] Yeah so we incorporated you know the third-party ads that you see in there are a number of years ago primarily because it was easy one and two it actually. Helped buyers and it was one of those where I was saying we’re never going to put ads in there it’s going to ruin the feed. But I found actually the opposite was true where buyers were finding that hey maybe if I couldn’t find that kids bike down the street that I wanted but maybe I could see one you know, from a you know some local retail store and have it shipped to me or go go buy it. The other thing that it did was also enabled people to do some pricing comparison right so they maybe they see that brand new bike and they see one very summer, in the feed and they realize they’re getting a really good deal on that so we do do some third party advertising which you can kind of see through out the feet as well.
Scot: [35:47] Yeah I think you guys do a great job at it there’s a price and it’s very clearly an ad where it’s not like you know someone named other marketplaces where you’re kind of like you know Max why is this showing up and you’re targeting is really good to other ones you’re kind of like why am I seeing this random iPhone accessory when I’m over here looking for couches. So so that’s super helpful you mentioned earlier a bunch of kpis to get the liquidity going give a give lister’s any metrics you can share and you know I don’t want you to get it any uncomfortable space but anything you can give us about the scale of the business to help them understand I think that would be interesting.
Nick: [36:26] Sure yeah so I think the you know what I would say you know going back to. Be buying things from people in the beginning liquidity and my mind is everything you know the switching cost to join to try any marketplaces, is not not that high so we wanted to make sure that we were we were the best Marketplace we could be for local buying and selling so, you know what I could say around that is you know on a monthly basis we have billions of dollars in GMB, from transactions happening on OfferUp and so it’s great to see that we’re providing that value and success for buyers and sellers. You could also probably glean this from the App Store but you know the OfferUp app is now but installed over 90 million times we’re only focused on the US. So we’ve been a top I’d say we’ve been a top-10 shopping app for many years now so I’m pretty proud of that considering. You know we’re up there with giants you know multi billion dollar publicly-traded companies so it’s pretty happy to see that. You know people have been telling others about OfferUp at such a high rate that it’s kind of. You catapulted us to the top and we’ve been there for for such a long time.
[37:45] And I think I think the other thing again but I’d share is kind of what I said before is we have markets a lot of our special you know top markets where you know we’re close to 20% of the entire adult population using Opera every month and I think that’s only going to get better as we continue to improve on the product experience and drive more, you know adoption there.
[38:09] Let’s try to think again maybe something worth sharing with listeners around just what’s happening you know with the marketplace today and so, you know if anything you know I really feel for.
[38:22] You know a lot of people and what they’re going through out there right now I think a lot of businesses are hurting not just for additional but also tech companies and. Fortunately for us it’s the opposite like we are we have been growing so quick over the last number of, months and the categories are really changed like I think part of the challenge is people can’t you know they can’t go to the store down the street so how are they going to get certain Goods, and so our shipping business or seeing a lot more people shipping things electronic specially videogames I think video games are very you know trying to keep the kids busy. You know locally we’re seeing a lot of what I call kind of porch pickups where people said hey let’s stay stay stay safe as socially distance but hey I’ll just leave the you know just leave the dresser out on the.
[39:17] On the on the on the patio or the door and just leave my knee or the matter. Ring the doorbell and show me that you’re leaving the money there so I think there’s, you know I think people are behaving differently but we’re definitely seeing a shift in categories where like I said like Fitness is way up household goods Electronics tools, things around the yard so not I don’t think surprising for most people but definitely seeing it’s been great to see how OfferUp during this time is able to really you know help help people and how those categories have changed.
Scot: [39:57] Sprinkle the so we saw such an advisor when I say we is interesting we saw the the stimulus checks hit like starting on the 15th and it’s we saw this kind of overall lift this is all public from webinar we saw this overall lift and then like this really interesting kind of taking off into another gear around then, did you guys see anything around that stimulus check time.
Nick: [40:23] Yeah so the you know this is an interesting time of year for OfferUp heart of it is usually spring cleaning, and that’s definitely happening quite a bit but we’ve also noticed around stimulus and and tax time it definitely a lift you know you can you can tell when people are getting their taxes or tax refunds and stimulus check so by the day as you can see like this huge, step up and overall engagement.
Jason: [40:55] Yeah like on the flip side of that are you finding any extra challenge like you know a lot of your goods were we’re sort of handed off person a person and I imagine there’s extra trepidation about. Social distancing and stuff like that are you having to take extra steps to make people comfortable with with person-to-person transactions right now.
Nick: [41:19] So we you know we spent a lot of time just kind of thinking about this and we have a Blog where we posted kind of our overall points of view and guidance on that I think the challenge clearly is it say, it’s a local city by City, decision and it’s still shocking to me that there’s still a number of cities that haven’t really quarantined so you know I don’t think it’s our call to be specific. On exactly what you should and shouldn’t do but we did have some overall high-level guidelines and encourage people to pay attention to what you know your city and officials are saying locally and try to adhere to those. But I think it’s a definitely a kind of a, get a thread the needle lightly because we want to be able to help people but we want people to be safe and especially when stores and resources are close like where can they get things right now and so, I think in one level we’re providing a service to help people but we want them to be safe and adapt.
[42:26] You know we’ve seen auto dealers for example selling cars right now and you’re kind of like well how is that working and what you’ve seen them do. You know the post an item on OfferUp and they’ll communicate around it and then they’ll jump on the phone with the the buyer and they’ll do title and they do all the paperwork and financing. And they just bring the card I just bring the car to the buyers house and they just wave at him out the window here’s your car congrats and I’ll leave the key right here for you and. So this you know you’re seeing people you know adapt during a time like this to figure out how to how to make it work.
Jason: [43:05] Yeah that’s fascinating and you mention Auto which is a an interesting category to me like you you don’t necessarily think of that as a. Peer-to-peer ton of play but it really is right like is that a category you guys entered intentionally or was that a pleasant surprise or how is that played out.
Nick: [43:27] Yeah so as I mentioned a little bit earlier it was it was a pleasant surprise I would love to say we were Geniuses and really figured something out there but, um I think it’s again back to, trading this this very easy to use local experience I think a lot of dealers started jumping on our platform because it was so easy to list cars and attract a lot of buyers, and so we just move clearly benefit benefited from that so you know I think I definitely think today we’re probably one of the top places in the country, to buy a car I mean we sell. Millions of millions of millions of cars on offer up every year and so you know it’s definitely a big vertical for us that will continue to invest in.
Jason: [44:15] That that’s awesome the like another one that I’m just somewhat curious about so I try to follow the Platforms in China pretty closely and obviously you don’t taobao is, is a huge consumer to Consumer platform there and one thing I’ve noticed over the last like four or five years is. They have dramatically pivoted from being super product-centric like being a catalog of product to being very content set direct so they’re like really leaning into the microblogs and the short video and all those sorts of things, like I haven’t seen that as much by anyone in the u.s. like do you think that could work in the US or do you think there’s just a different sensibility or.
Nick: [44:58] And just to elaborate on what you’re saying are you are you talking about where people are showing off products and are these short videos.
Jason: [45:07] Yeah yeah it gets it’s like a seller would you know now is likely to have their own page on you know I like think of it like a microsite on taobao and they’re they’re doing like HSN Style, you know what a little 60-second product demo videos to sell their goods.
Nick: [45:26] Yeah I mean I think that’s definitely interesting you know I think that’s something that we could continue to explore and play with overtime, you know I think there is a time and place for that especially if you’re a power sellers selling you know a lot of items and you want to build some Affinity around what you’re doing you know today at least you know the majority of OfferUp is really kind of overall, you know peer-to-peer so. I wouldn’t say your I could see your average seller doing that and depth but I could definitely see I think more powerseller spending the time to do that and then again like I said before these, phones keep getting better right the quality is getting better all around and so I think it’s just a more engaging experience versus what, you know what it may have been in the past.
Scot: [46:18] That’s a good let’s let’s explore that so you obviously spend everyday kind of marinating and the e-commerce juice of marketplaces and transactions or anything where do you think things are going to go in the next three to five years or we’re going to have like. AR VR or do you think it’s just going to be better kind of experiences along the lines of what we’re having here.
Nick: [46:39] Well I mean I definitely think there’s a big there’s a big movement happening it’s already been happening but I think because of covid it’s probably going to move quite a bit faster and that is just the overall again unlocking of local value in my mind you know 85% of Commerce, it’s still not online today it’s local and I think for everyone that’s in Tech we’ve kind of scratch our heads and like Oh I thought we all used you know the big e-commerce players that are out there and, um I think they will continue to evolve and probably grow and chip away at that number, but I think there’s just a lot of Locked Up value all around us and you know part of our vision is how do we create the best experience and help. You know sellers to bring those those things online so I think that that moment is going to happen, at an accelerated Pace especially right now you know I think there’s a lot of struggling businesses that, you know soon as covid hit and their physical store closed then the answer was like well now what do I do and so, you know if they can bring product online we can help to facilitate those those transactions in the pretty meaningful way so.
[47:59] My vision for OfferUp has always been I just I just want you to open up the app and for almost anything you need locally we have it and we’re able to help you facilitate that in the easiest possible way that we can do that, so you know again it’s great to see that we already have you know huge percentage of the population using the product and buying and selling things you you know billions of dollars worth of goods every month but I still think we’re in the first inning I think there’s just a lot more we can do, you know for our customers.
Jason: [48:30] Cool nigga you know one thing that we haven’t talked about yet is, our friends at Facebook like they obviously have this Marketplace platform is that a direct competitor is that like how do you think about Facebook Marketplace and is that getting any traction.
Nick: [48:46] Yeah I mean to be clear Facebook has had some type of Commerce even before we started OfferUp I mean you know I think, Facebook has definitely been, you know a large Network and there’s there’s a zillion different things you can do on there including Commerce so you definitely have to take them seriously you know as a competitor. You know I think the other thing that I think gives me you know some level of comfort is just how many different things they have to focus on as a company like it seems like. For every competitor that comes out they immediately have a solution or they’re trying to create their own there so I think they have many different things they’re trying to do and we have one and we’re going to go very deep and do that thing. The best that we possibly can and obsess over that but you know definitely a competitor and as I mentioned. Anytime you’re going after a large Market you’re going to attract competitors so. Yep they’re the out there and definitely definitely spending time on Commerce for sure.
Jason: [49:55] Yeah it’s usually a bad sign if no one else on the planet ever wants to go after the same Market you see.
Nick: [50:00] Yeah your idea is probably not a good one.
Jason: [50:02] And Nick that’s actually going to be a great place to wrap it up because we’ve used up our allotted time but if listeners have any comments or questions we encourage you to continue the conversation with us on Twitter or on our Facebook page and I really want to thank you for taking time out from this crazy pandemic to talk with us about marketplaces.
Nick: [50:26] Thanks for having me it was good to finally talk to someone else because I’ve been hunkered down in my Den now for seven weeks so thanks for getting me out of the office mentally.
Scot: [50:39] So we really appreciate it and then if folks want to follow any of your thought leadership or anything do you are you a Twitter or you still on prinster you mentioned that was that earlier.
Nick: [50:51] Yeah you can find me on Twitter at Nick huzar.
Jason: [50:56] Awesome and we’ll put that in the show notes so everyone be safe and well out there and until next time happy commercing.
31 Jul 2018
EP138 - Amazon Q2 2018 Earnings Hot Take
00:52:11
EP138 - Amazon Q2 2018 Earnings Hot Take
This episode is a hot take on Amazon Q2 2018 earnings
Amazon Q2 Earnings Highlights
$52.9B, which is a 39% y/y increase
$2.98B in operating income
$21.8B in Free cash flow, less $11.4B in capex, $6.2B in lease repayments = Net $4.1B Free Cash Flow
AWS had a material acceleration up 48% y/y constant currency and profits were $1.4b
Amazon Web Services – came in at $6.1b – 49% y/y growth (an acceleration from last quarters 48% growth)
North America – $32.2B up 44% Y/Y, operating income of $1.84B
International – Revenue increased to $14.6B (+21% Y/Y) for a $0.494B loss
Increasing likely Amazon becomes first $1 trillion dollar company
Jason & Scot will at eTail East in Boston next week.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 138 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, July 30th 2018.
Join your hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Melissa Burdick is the president of Pacvue, and a former Amazonian who was involved in Amazon’s entry into the CPG space. She’s one of the most popular guests on the show, so with all the changes Amazon has been going through it’s a great time to have her back.
We caught up with Melissa at the PathtoPurchase Summit, where she gave a key-note on selling on Amazon. We covered a variety of topics including:
Melissa’s new company Pacvue and their Amazon advertising automation tools
Brands strategy on Amazon
Amazon private label
Advertising on amazon
Amazon SSPA – Self Service Performance Advertising
Brick and mortar retail
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 119 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, March 12, 2018.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
13 Oct 2016
EP050 - Magento's Mark Lavelle CEO, and Peter Sheldon VP Strategy
01:00:59
EP050 - Guests Mark Lavelle CEO, and Peter Sheldon VP Strategy at Magento Commerce
Mark Lavelle, CEO, and Peter Sheldon VP Strategy at Magento Commerce. Magento is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world, and after being owned by E-Bay for several years, was recently spun out as a separate entity. We spoke with Mark & Peter about the current status and future plans for Magento at the Shop.org digital summit 2016.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 50 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday September 27, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
09 Apr 2019
EP170 - ThredUp President Anthony Marino
00:42:09
EP170 - ThredUp President Anthony Marino
Anthony Marino (@amarino) is the President of thredUp (@thredup), the nation's leading online marketplace for women's and kids' like-new apparel. Over 25,000 brands, ranging from Gap to Gucci, are listed on thredUP.com at prices up to 90 percent off retail.
In this interview, we cover the basic thredUp value proposition, challenges and opportunities for the re-commerce business model, the dynamics of operating a two-sided marketplace, customer acquisition, reverse logistics, and the dynamics for brands in the re-commerce space.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 170 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday, February 22, 2019 from the eTail West tradeshow in Palm Desert, CA.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
03 Oct 2018
EP148- Amazon 4-Star Retail Concept Store
00:42:44
EP148- Amazon 4-Star Retail Concept Store
Amazon 4-Star, Amazon’s latest brick and mortar retail concept, opened in the SOHO neighborhood of New York City on Thursday, September 27th. The premise that its assortment of merchandise available in the store is rated 4-star or higher, curated by customers, a top seller or is new and trending on Amazon. Jason was on-hand for the grand opening and gives a first-hand account. "What Competitors Are Missing About Amazon's New 4-Star Retail Concept" from Forbes.
Overview of Amazons brick and mortar formats to date
Join your hosts Jason "retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
08 Nov 2019
EP197 - Personalization Deep Dive
01:02:39
EP197 - Personalization Deep Dive
This episode is a deep dive into Personalization.
Definition and Level Setting
Best Commerce Practices
Future Opportunities
Conclusion and Recommendations
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 197 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, September 30. 2019.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
17 Sep 2017
EP100 - Get to Know Our Listeners
01:16:58
EP100 - Get to Know Our Listeners
To celebrate our 100th episode, we decided to put the focus on the most important element, the listeners. So we invited three of our most active listeners to be on the show.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
27 Jul 2016
EP038 - Pokemon GO DeepDive
00:43:02
EP038 - Pokémon GO DeepDive
Pokémon GO is a new mobile game sweeping the globe. It launched in the US on July 6th, and has already become the biggest mobile game in U.S. history, and has surpassed Twitter in active daily users.
This episode is a deep dive in what retailers and shopper marketers need to now about Pokémon GO. Including:
Background of the game
Overview of game concepts
How it impacts retailers
Advanced Concepts
This episode is sponsored by the National Retail Federation. The Jason and Scot show will be live podcasting at the NRF/shop.org digital summit 2016 which is in Dallas September 26-28th this year. We have a custom discount code for our listeners. The code is JASON&SCOT, you will get a 10% discount on the full conference fee. Visit retailsdigitalsummit.nrf.com to enter the code when you register for the show and we’ll see you there!
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 38 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, July 25th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
14 Nov 2018
EP151 - Tyson Food E-Commerce VP Tim Madigan and Samir Bhavnani of 1010data
00:41:15
EP151 - Tyson Food E-Commerce VP Tim Madigan and Samir Bhavnani of 1010data
Tim Madigan is the Vice President of eCommerce at Tyson Foods. Samir Bhavnani is the Vice President Consumer Insights at 1010data. We caught up with Tim and Samir at the 2018 GroceryShop tradeshow in Las Vegas.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Announced the messenger bot platform, included several early e-commerce examples. Most reviews of the early shopping bot experiences were poor, but Jason remains optimistic about the platform. Danny Sullivan sends Mark Zuckerberg flowers via Chatbot.
Launched ChannelAdvisor Product Intelligence for Brands which gives brands actionable insights about online assortment, merchandising and pricing across multiple online channels to ensure a consistent customer experience.
Expanded Where to Buy product to include new Buy Local functionality for brands allows consumers to find your products on retailer websites and nearby stores.
ChannelAdvisor CEO, David Spitz, predicted that "Amazon GMV will surpass Walmart's GMV (w/o grocery) this year."
eBay's Hal Lawton announced that eBay is returning to TV advertising which will be based on seasonal marketing campaigns.
Googles Vineet Buch announced that "Purchase on Google" (Googles BUY button) is current deployed with 25 merchants, and that is likely to grow throughout the year, and open to all retailers by the end of 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
09 Oct 2020
EP239 - Retail Sales Data with US Census Bureau
01:04:29
EP239 - Retail Sales Data with US Census Bureau
Paul Bucchioni is Branch Chief and Scott Scheleur is a Supervisory Survey Statistician, both with the Retail Indicator Branch, Economic Indicators Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. In this interview, Paul and Scott walk us through the real sales data products that the US Census publishes and gives us advance about how to interpret the data.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
18 Mar 2019
EP166 - Shipsi CEO Chelsie Lee
00:34:20
EP166 - Shipsi CEO Chelsie Lee
Chelsie Lee (@ChelsieAnnLee) is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shipsi, a software solution for aggregating and managing last mile delivery services.
In this interview, we cover a wide range of topics including last mile solutions, curbside pickup versus delivery, changing customer behaviors, and the Amazon effect.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 166 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, February 20, 2019 from the eTail West tradeshow in Palm Desert, CA.
Join your hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Dominique Essig is the Chief Experience Officer at Bonobos. Bonobos is a men's apparel retailer that sells direct to consumer through their E-Commerce site, and a chain of company owned GuideShops that deliver an innovative retail experience but do not stock inventory. Bonobos Co-Founder Andy Dunn coined the phase Digitally Native Vertical Brands, to define businesses such as Bonobos. Dominique sat down for an interview live from the NRF Big Show, and we covered a wide range of topics including Guideshops, and their customer service Ninjas.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 70 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday January 16th, 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
03 Dec 2015
EP004 - Post holiday recap, mobile, top products, Amazon news
00:45:17
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. EP004 - Post holiday recap, mobile, top products, Amazon news
Complete show notes are available at http://retailgeek.com/podcast
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
04 Feb 2016
EP012 - Amazon Retail Stores, Google Earnings, Subscriptions, and Marketplaces
00:42:40
EP012 - Amazon Retail Stores, Google Earnings, Subscriptions, and Marketplaces.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
18 Feb 2022
EP287 - Amazon Supply Chain Deep Dive with Marc Wulfraat
01:04:02
EP287 - Amazon Supply Chain Deep Dive with Marc Wulfraat
http://jasonandscot.com
Marc Wulfraat is President of MWPVL, a global supply chain and logistics consulting firm, and one of the foremost experts outside of Amazon, into Amazons supply chain.
In this episode to do a deep dive into all the elements of Amazon's supply chain, how it compares to other third party logistics providers, and most importantly if and how other retailers should think about competing against the enormous advantage that Amazon's logistics infrastructure provides
Episode 287 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday February 17, 2022.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
26 Aug 2016
EP042 - News, Amazon Grocery Pickup
01:00:40
EP042 - News, Amazon Grocery Pickup
Amazon News
Rumor: Sellers are saying they are being notified by amazon they are going to stop doing FBA off amazon.
Project X - a New Grocery Pickup Store from Amazon
This episode is sponsored by the National Retail Federation. The Jason and Scot show will be live podcasting at the NRF/shop.org digital summit 2016 which is in Dallas September 26-28th this year. We have a custom discount code for our listeners. The code is JASON&SCOT, you will get a 10% discount on the full conference fee. Visit retailsdigitalsummit.nrf.com to enter the code when you register for the show and we’ll see you there!
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 42 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, August 24th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
19 Nov 2018
EP152 - Salesforce.com Shopper First Research with Rick Kenney
00:55:01
EP152 - Salesforce.com Shopper First Research with Rick Kenney
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
12 Aug 2016
EP040 - Jet.com and Dollar Shave Club Acquisitions
00:55:13
EP040 - Jet.com and Dollar Shave Club Acquisitions
We've seen two major e-commerce acquisitions in the past 30 days.
We discuss both acquisitions, with their implications for the involved parties and the industry as a whole.
This episode is sponsored by the National Retail Federation. The Jason and Scot show will be live podcasting at the NRF/shop.org digital summit 2016 which is in Dallas September 26-28th this year. We have a custom discount code for our listeners. The code is JASON&SCOT, you will get a 10% discount on the full conference fee. Visit retailsdigitalsummit.nrf.com to enter the code when you register for the show and we’ll see you there!
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 40 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, August 8th, 2016.
http://retailgeek.com/podcast
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
24 Feb 2016
EP015 - eBags Peter Cobb, Co-Founder
00:52:01
EP015 - eBags co-founder Peter Cobb, Google SERPs and Amazon
Peter Cobb, co-founder of eBags and e-commerce pioneer shares his insight and learnings from 17 years of growing a profitable pure-play e-commerce site
Our discussion includes, the founding of ebags, shop.org, the future of pure-plays e-commerce sites, brands going direct, private label and the evolution of mobile.
Google has made changes to it's SERPs which will effect many e-commerce sites.
Amazon opened it's 11 fulfillment center in the UK / Amazon increased FBA prices
Amazon raises shipping threshold for non-prime to $49
Amazon private label apparel is already live (Franklin & Freeman, Franklin Tailored, James & Erin, Lark & Ro, North Eleven, Scout + Ro and Society New York)
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Full Transcript:
Announcer:
Welcome to the Jason and Scot Show, your source for the latest news and trends in the ecommerce industry, featuring host Jason Retail Geek Goldberg, SVP of Commerce at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor.
Here is Jason and Scot.
Jason Goldberg:
Welcome to the Jason and Scot Show! This is episode 15, being recorded on February 23rd, 2016. I'm your host, Jason Retail Geek Goldberg, and as always, I'm here with your cohost, Scot Wingo.
Scot Wingo:
Hey Jason, how are you doing?
Jason Goldberg:
I am doing terrific. I am out here in beautiful Palm Desert for the eTail West trade show.
Scot Wingo:
Awesome! I could not make it. We have a lot of folks at Channel Advisor out there. Give me some highlights.
Jason Goldberg:
Yeah. A bunch of interesting speakers. The CEO from Barnes and Noble, CEO from US Auto, there's a great presentation from Lane Bryant. One trend that we've talked about a little bit on this show that kind of rubbed me the wrong way is always the case in these shows. There's a lot of conversation about Amazon as the great enemy and how folks can compete with Amazon. There's guys up on stage suggesting that we all move off of AWS, because that's somehow going to make them less competitive with us.
Frankly, I felt like I heard from multiple CEOs at this show that tried to put Amazon in this pigeonhole of primarily being a dominant price competitor and their only competitive advantage is price. Therefore, their solution to competing with Amazon is to compete on customer experience or customer satisfaction or curation, or all these other things. As I'm hearing those things, I want to throw something at the stage because I feel like that's way oversimplifying how significant a competitor Amazon is. I feel like they're excellent at a lot of categories of business that the CEOs are taking for granted.
Scot Wingo:
Yeah. Yeah, I run into that a lot. A lot of people feel like, sure, Amazon does compete on price, but what about the shipping infrastructure? The other one I don't think people bring up enough is selection. Amazon has over 400 million items available. I would challenge any of those CEOs to kind of think about that, and how do you deal with that level of selection, because if you want it, pretty much Amazon's going to have it.
Jason Goldberg:
Yep. Frankly, I don't think they do exclusively compete on price. I think they're very strategic about price, and they compete on price when it's in their economic interest to do so. They recapture margin when the opportunity presents itself, and I think we have a couple news items this week that sort of highlight that.
Scot Wingo:
Yeah, absolutely. What else is new at eTail?
Jason Goldberg:
One thing I did want to mention, not necessarily eTail news, getting a bunch of buzz this week is that Google has made some pretty fundamental changes to the search results. This will probably not come as a surprise to any of our listeners, but Google is still a very significant source of traffic to most ecommerce sites. Most ecommerce sites are getting in the ... Mid-20% of all their revenue is coming from organic search results in Google.
This week, they announced that they would stop showing ads on the right hand side of the search results. Superficially, you'd read that and go, "Oh, they're decluttering the page, they already didn't have ads on their mobile page. That's not necessarily a bad thing." By the way, we're also going to add a fourth ad on top of the search results for highly commercial terms. Traditionally, they would put up to three ads on top, and then they'd put a few ads beside. Now what they're saying is, they'll have three or four ads on top, they'll have no traditional pay-per-click ads on the side, but they will still have the Google product listing ads, which we've talked about on the show are kind of the fundamental ads unit of ecommerce.
You add all that up, and essentially what they're saying is, "We're adding more ads and we're making them more prominent on the page," and on many popular browser resolutions, four ads on top means you actually won't see an organic result above the fold. This is potentially alarming news for some folks that rely on organic traffic. I'm not sure it's an earth-changing thing in and of itself, but it's definitely something to be aware of.
The one-two punch is that Google also gave us a hint last week that they really don't like cluttering up the search results with too many what we call "rich snippets." Rich snippets are another super important feature to ecommerce sites. That's the visual stars that you might see on a product result that shows you what your rating is or pricing information or inventory information. Some of these extra pieces of information that you can embed in your product detail pages and then Google shows in the search results, when those extra bits of information show up, the click-through rate on that search result is much higher, so ecommerce sites are really careful to take advantage of all those rich snip features. Google has always decided how frequently to show it. It seems like they're turning down the amount of rich snippets they show quite a bit.
Most alarmingly, the review, the number of stars, has disappeared off a very significant number of organic search results in Google. Some people are frankly speculating that it's a mistake or a bug, and that Google didn't intend to be so drastic, because it is so prominent, but at the moment, the organic search results are getting pushed further down the page and the rich snippets are coming off of the page, which means that a lot of ecommerce sites are going to see a meaningful decrease in their organic search traffic.
Scot Wingo:
Just so listeners understand, how much do you think this really kind of is going to impact? Because we've kind of crossed over the 50% mobile. Mobile didn't already have, doesn't do four ads to the right. Is it more just the snippets will be on mobile?
Jason Goldberg:
Yep. The snippets absolutely fit both. The rating snippets are huge. Traditionally, you'd see, like, 70% of all the click-through are going to be on that first organic result, and then it exponentially goes down after each additional result. If the second result has rich snippets and the first result doesn't, the second result can actually get more click-through than the first. That's a significant driver of click-through, and if they're going to permanently turn off those stars, that's going to be a game changer, especially for sites that really rely on organic traffic. The site you immediately think of that this would have a prominent derogatory effect on is someone like an eBay.
Scot Wingo:
Yeah. Yeah, they've been in this kind of battle with eBay for a while, so it would not surprise me.
I know you always love to hear Amazon news, so I have a couple things there to share. If you're Retail Geek, I'm the Amazon Fulfillment Center Geek, and they slipped in a little announcement this week that they're building a smallish, only a million square foot fulfillment center in the UK. It's in Colville and Leicestershire. Along this lines where they're talking about job creations around fulfillment centers, they announced they're going to have 500 jobs over three years there. A fun fact, this is the 11th fulfillment center in the UK, which is about the same number of fulfillment centers that Walmart has in the US. They're very dense in the UK with fulfillment centers.
What's interesting is most of the things they've done in the UK recently have been kind of for deploying into London. Some of its Prime Now type stuff, or same-day delivery. This is a big new footprint for the UK.
Also in fulfillment center news, and this didn't get a lot of press, so I don't know how well this is known out there. The only area I am aware of where Amazon raises prices, everything else Amazon does lowers prices, especially if you do Amazon web services and that kind of thing, is Fulfillment by Amazon. Even in the marketplace, they haven't really changed the prices since the beginning of time, I think. With FBA, what they constantly do is kind of tweak the economics. There's a couple pieces in there. One of them is the per-package fee that they charge for FBA. It's going to have an increase from, I think it's $0.30 to $1.07, and on average, it looks like, from a model I've seen, it'll be about $0.45 an item increase.
That's one of the fees. The other one is called a storage fee. If you have inventory at FBA, it doesn't sell after x days, I think it's 30, then you get kind of the stump where they take the dimension of the volume of what they're storing for you and have a fee. That's going up. It's pennies, it's like $0.02 to $0.04, but that's kind of times the volume that you have. That's another one where they're constantly working the economic model to incent sellers to have the right behavior of focusing on faster-moving items that are in FBA. That's interesting.
As a result of that and some comments that have kind of come out in management meetings, what I've seen a couple Wall Street analysts do is raise their fulfillment center buildout this year from kind of middle single digits like seven to kind of mid-double digits like 15. It's going to be interesting to see how that comes out. We already have ... This UK one, I believe, is the first one that's been announced this year, so it'll be interesting to see what that looks like.
Another thing I'm sure you probably saw is, for those people that aren't on Prime, you can still get the free shipping. It's not two-day shipping, but the free Super Saver five-day shipping. They raised that from $39 to $99, now. Then, the last-
Jason Goldberg:
You mean $49?
Scot Wingo:
Yeah, sorry. $49.
The last piece was, we had talked about this last week, actually. This is kind of how fast Amazon moves, where there was news that Amazon may be considering doing private label in fashion. It turns out they are actually out with it. They have some fashion private label brands out there, and they're kind of a mouthful. Let me see if I can do this without stumbling through it. Franklin and Freeman, Franklin Tailored, James & Erin, Lark & Ro, North Eleven, Scout + Row, and Society New York. What is that? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven different private label brands. Some of these are men's apparel, some women's apparel. Very interesting that there was rumors they were going to do this, and now it's actually out there. You can search, we'll put it in the tidbits on the website. You can actually go search these brands and see what's available there, which I thought was pretty interesting.
Jason Goldberg:
Yeah. I think that was a pretty big revelation to a lot of folks that were following the rumors that they might do it, and then, you know, bam, surprise, there's already a ton of skews on the site a lot. I look across all that Amazon news, and my two big takeaways are number one, raising the shipping threshold is interesting. Amazon shipping costs are a very meaningful portion of their business, they're like 12% of their revenue, and so it certainly looks like they're trying to make a profitability move by recovering a little more shipping fees. The big thing is, this just seems like another very overt effort to push more people to Prime, and I suspect it's going to be effective in doing that.
Raising the rates on the FBA is interesting. To me, that's inevitable, that as Amazon grows its business and has more strain on those fulfillment centers, that shelf space becomes more valuable. They just need to charge more to maximize it. I think if you're a seller, you probably shouldn't expect this to be the last increase that you see there.
Scot Wingo:
Yet when I talk to customers, it's still very, very competitive to any other 3PL. Even when you kind of look at a multi-year model, you have to kind of look at it over two or three years because of the accounting. It ends up being relatively cheap compared to having your own fulfillment center.
Jason Goldberg:
Yep, and you get the huge kiss of being Amazon Prime-eligible.
Scot Wingo:
Yeah, and as they do Prime now and whatever else they're going to do around all these things, you ride along with all that investment, which is ... I don't know how you quantify that, but it's a pretty good value.
Jason Goldberg:
Yeah. I think the one exception I've heard there is if you're in a category that's predominantly oversized or unusual-sized items, that the economics get a little more challenging on FBA because they've really optimized the pricing model for their typical package size.
Scot Wingo:
Yeah, that drayage fee, because it's volumetric, really hits you hard with oversized items. Yeah, absolutely.
Jason Goldberg:
Did Etsy have their earnings call this week?
Scot Wingo:
They did. It was actually today. A couple highlights out of the call ... Etsy went public and had a great public offering, and then has really struggled since then. A lot of it was mobile. They had a huge challenge when mobile kind of accelerated right around their IPO. It was kind of like Facebook had the same problem, but Facebook recovered pretty quickly. It looks like Etsy is seeing the light in the tunnel. They had pretty strong results. They exceeded expectations. Then they actually came out and said, "For the next three years, we're going to have 20-25% growth," so kind of pounding their chest, feeling pretty good about the future. I think a lot of it is around ... I think they feel like they've solved some of their mobile challenges.
A couple of other interesting metrics: 1.6 million sellers. I think that's interesting, because Amazon reports 2 million sellers. Etsy definitely has more seller density than in Amazon, but because it's handmade, you would need that, right, because you can only handmake so many things. I thought that was interesting. 24 million active buyers. The Amazon question did come up on the call, and the CEO said that, "We" ... By this, I mean Amazon has launched a competing category and seems to have Etsy in their crosshairs. The CEO at Etsy said, "We have no reason to believe that any of the competitors are having an impact on us." For the 4th quarter, Etsy had $750 million in GMV, which, when you look at the run rate, that was a Q4, so it's not pretty fair to really do this, it's not going to be their run rate forever, but it's interesting to think that they're at about a $3 billion run rate.
I remember in the early days of Etsy, everyone in ecommerce was kind of like, "God, what a niche. This handmade stuff, maybe that gets to be $50 million." It really kind of shows ... I think what's interesting about Etsy is, some of these things that seem like niches and they're going to be really small, when you look at them on a global basis, they can be pretty big. $3 billion in homemade items, that blows me away, and they're anticipating it growing 20-25% for the next three years. They see a path to $4 billion or $5 billion, which I think's pretty fascinating.
Jason Goldberg:
It's almost like pure play is not really in fact dead.
Scot Wingo:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good little kind of teaser for what's coming next.
Jason Goldberg:
Well, let's get to the really exciting news. We have a guest today.
Scot Wingo:
That is true. It's episode 15, we're really settled in here at the Jason and Scot Show, so we thought we'd do something you and I had talked about way before episode 1, which was have a special guest. I think it's going to be a new tradition here on the Jason and Scot Show if it goes well, and I'm sure it will. I'm thinking every third show or so, we'll have a special guest to kind of help mix it up.
Today, we're really excited to have as our first guest ... I don't want to put it out there yet, I'm going to build some suspense. This is someone I've known probably for at least 12 if not 14 years. He's one of the founding fathers of ecommerce. If there was a Thomas Jefferson or maybe Alexander Hamilton of ecommerce, that's who we have on the show today. It's kind of a privilege to have someone that has been in the industry for so long but is still right on the cutting edge. He started a company back in '98 that is one of the successful pure plays that's out there.
If you haven't guessed yet, it is Peter Cobb from eBags. Welcome, Peter.
Peter Cobb:
Hey Scot, hey Jason. Thanks for inviting me. You guys are doing a great job.
Scot Wingo:
Thanks. We're super excited to have you here. I tried to keep your intro kind of brief. To start out with, maybe tell us a little bit about how you got into ecommerce. You're at eBags still and you've had an interesting journey there, so maybe a little highlight of that. Let's just start with that, just to orient everyone that hasn't known you for 15 years, on how you got into the industry and what you do on a daily basis.
Peter Cobb:
Yeah. Back in 1998, well, prior to that, there were a couple of us that worked at Samsonite. I led the marketing for Samsonite, and a couple of us execs at Samsonite saw what was going on with people buying books online, music, gardening equipment, toys, etc. We just said somebody is going to own and pioneer the category that we knew so much and love, and that's luggage and handbags and backpacks, business cases, etc. We peeled off from Samsonite in 1998.
Actually, kind of took the idea of my cofounder, John Nordmark. John took the idea to the president of Samsonite and said, "Hey, why don't we buy some domains, discountluggage.com, and so forth?" Back then, you could just make up a domain and you could buy it. We owned about 25, actually. The president of Samsonite said, "I get email, I can't imagine anybody buying luggage from an email. Go back to your cubicle." John called me up and said, "Let's do this. I think it's ripe," and both of us were into the internet and watching what was going on. That was in 1998.
We pulled it together. It was our own money for the first six months or so, and then we actually went the traditional route with angels and to friends and family, and raised some money from Silicon Valley and raised $30 million in 1999. That's the last time that we've raised money. We haven't had any down rounds since then. It's been cashflow positive, really, since 2002.
Scot Wingo:
Cool. That's around the time when Amazon did their IPO. They were in '97, if I recall. Was that kind of an impetus for you? Was that kind of the wake-up where you said, "Hey, we need to do something. There's this bookstore going public. This is kind of going to be a thing."
Peter Cobb:
Well, you know, I was just explaining to somebody at eBags today about the early days. There was cooking.com, garden.com, mothernature.com, and Amazon was there. Amazon's really the only one that's alive today. eToys. Really just kind of across the board, we just looked at it. Back then, Amazon was just books. We felt like in our space, right out of the gate ... Our model is somewhat unique from a lot of these guys in that we don't want to own product. Our model is drop ship. We knew at Samsonite, who's the global luggage leader, at Samsonite, 75% of our orders out the door were three pieces or less. Somebody owns a piece of luggage at Aspen Luggage, they sell a garment bag. We were selling them one piece at a time from Samsonite.
We convinced Samsonite and many other brands to ship directly to our customers. Took a little bit of time and some arm-twisting, but here we are today with 70,000 different bags and accessory items from 700 brands. Obviously, from a cashflow model, and that's primary to why we're alive today, is somebody buys on eBags.com, we get the cash immediately from the credit card, and pay our brands. It could be 45 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever's negotiated. You get positive flow versus having a warehouse, and you imagine a warehouse with 70,000 individual units, but then you need to go 105, 100,000 deep on each. It would be $100 million of inventory we'd have to keep, and we wouldn't be alive today. That was really one of the key decisions early on. We were one of the first to drop ship, and actually, it isn't that common. You have marketplaces today which accomplish the same thing.
Scot Wingo:
You guys start a company, you raise money, it's all exciting, you're driving into the future, and then the dotcom bubble burst. What was that like? I lived through it, and it was quite painful. I can only imagine what it was like for you guys. What I recall is people are going out of business left and right. Pets.com and all these other things were just flaming out. You guys not only survived but thrived. What was that like, getting through that nuclear winter?
Peter Cobb:
It was brutal. It was really tough, because one side of you is saying we're homesteading, we need to claim our territory. Back then, portals were so big, and somebody like AOL could commit $1 million for something the size of a postage stamp, but you would own luggage or handbags on AOL and you just had to occupy that space because so many people came through some of those old portals. You did burn through cash.
Not only was it dotbomb, but for us, what really hurt, I think even more than dotbomb or as much, was the 9/11 tragedy. Just didn't have a lot of people traveling after that. We all were cocooning. Of course, they shut down airlines, and people just said, "You know what? I'm just going to stay home for a while." That really hurt our sales. From a positive standpoint, it really highlighted the fact that we need to diversify. We cannot survive by just being a luggage or even travel goods company. That got us into backpacks for school, women's handbags, fashion accessories, and watches is a big category for us now ... Branch out in business cases and business accessories.
In a way, it kind of poked us a little bit to say, "Okay, you're thinking too narrowly here." It's been an amazing 17 years, and in fact, just last week, we announced we passed 25 million bags sold, which is really a nice accomplishment. We're really proud of that, because if that was a chain of stores, it'd be hundreds of stores nationwide that do that kind of business.
Scot Wingo:
For our listeners, can you give us a little idea of the scale of eBags? I don't want you to divulge any confidential information, but maybe your IR rank or whatever you're comfortable letting us know. How big is the scale of eBags at this point?
Peter Cobb:
Yeah. We're 110 people, and as I said, 25 million bags. I mean, something that I'm just as proud of is that we have 3.2 million customer reviews, so it's a big part of the DNA of eBags.com, of leaving that virtual Post-It note. From the IR, we're in that kind of 100-150 range, kind of depending on the year, but we are a pure play, which is a critical part of this. We don't have stores to get that PR and help offset some of the expenses. We don't get traffic in the door, we don't eat. It's a constant survival for us.
We just had a meeting today with our executive team, and the primary message was, "We need to stay hungry, we need to be paranoid." This thing can change. You mentioned it, Scot, early. There are things that can happen that are out of our control that can pop up. Cash for us, cash is king. We have no debt. We don't plan on raising any more money. We've got to really live within our means. There's a lot of people out there doing some crazy things from a marketing standpoint, or willing to lose tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. That's an area where we're just ... I actually love it, and we bring people on that accept that challenge and relish it. It's pretty competitive right now.
Like you mentioned, I could have said that in any of the past 18 years.
Jason Goldberg:
Peter, I wanted to ask you a question. You mentioned that you're a pure play, and you've been a pure play for more than 15 years. It's interesting, because a lot of the talk today is pretty negative on pure plays. I mean, you've got Scott Gallaway at L2, and he's got a whole campaign around "Rest in Peace, Pure Play," and you've got a bunch of these buzzy new companies like Warby Parker or Bonobos or Nasty Gal or, even I think Blue Nile now is opening some stores. It's a big trend that these pure plays are now shifting to stores. Then, of course, you have a couple of huge pure plays that flamed out. You have the fab.com and Gilt just sold for a disappointing valuation.
I think there's this buzz that, "Hey, pure play isn't a long term sustainable model, or maybe it used to be, and its time has come." It always drives me nuts when I hear that, because I feel like you're the best example, but there's a bunch of people in your class that are long time pure plays that have been able to grow based on their own revenues. I'm just curious, what's your take on the whole viability of the pure play model?
Peter Cobb:
Well, obviously with what we do, it depends ... Honestly, it depends on the category, it depends on products, it depends on factors such as ... We're fortunate in that for the most part, people don't need to try it on. It's a piece of luggage, it's a kid's backpack, it's a soccer bag, on and on and on. Our return rate is very low. Really, I think it lays out well for us to be a pure play in that we really feel like we want to be ... I mean, to have 70,000 bags and accessories on our site, and we'll probably pass 100,000 products in the next 120 days, and venture out into even doubling that in the next year or two. We really feel like we want to be a house of brands, as well as something ... For us, it's travel and fashion. If you want a bag or something related to travel and the travel experience, go to eBags.
No store can have the assortment and selection that we have. Picking a brand, one of our better brands is Tumi. It's a premium luggage and business case line. We'll carry 500-plus pieces of Tumi, and a typical store, because a physical space in luggage or business cases, they may carry ten pieces of Tumi, maybe 15, if they're lucky, and we have over 500. That's where we love where we are in the space. It lines up quite well, I think, for long-term viability. There's really no store out there ... I mean, obviously you've got the bookseller in Seattle that does a great job. They've got a broad and vast assortment, but for what we do in our category, there's a lot of brands, actually, that don't want to go down that path, let's just say the marketplace path. We demonstrate to them that we're a specialty store interested in travel and fashion, and that really resonates, especially with brick and mortar having some challenging times right now.
The last thing I'll say is, within our space, retail is still around 10% online, so 90% brick and mortar, and yet, you have stores closing every month in our category. I think it's only going to accelerate. We really love where we're positioned, and I think a lot of categories can say the same thing. To your point, Jason, on a brick and mortar, it just isn't ... You have to really focus on something, and focus on something that you're excellent at. I don't think brick and mortar is an area for us today that we should be venturing into. I think there's so many other opportunities out there within the ecosystem of what we're already working on.
Scot Wingo:
Cool. One follow-up on the pure play thing. Amazon's invested hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, in their fulfillment center, and you guys don't have a fulfillment center. Does it ever feel like doing the drop ship thing, that you don't have control over that customer experience, and that's a negative?
Peter Cobb:
You know, I think it gets down to are you getting products to people in a timely manner. With our, we have 700 brands, as I mentioned, the average product leaves that door in 0.7 days. Within a day, our goods are out the door. We actually spent some time ... One of our board members did a tour of Zappos, and came back ... At the time, it was 17 football fields, 800 employees, and came back and said, "It's unbelievable what they have. We should move to that model." I remember in the board meeting saying, "What would we gain? It already goes out the door in six hours. Okay, so, we would gain maybe two hours, if we're really, really good."
For us, that part of it ... I think that's the primary part of this. The other part of it is, a lot of our products, they actually are shipped from Asia in the boxes that gets delivered to the customer. In a lot of cases, just thinking in a piece of luggage, we just put a label on it, our brands do, and then ship it to the customer. It's in a box that may say Tumi, Samsonite, or Delsey. That experience is ... It probably could be better to your point, Scot, but I think we just have to make some choices and go that route.
Now, that being said, I will say our number one brand on our site is actually our own private label brand at eBags. It's 24% of units and 20% of revenue. It's unbelievable. I mean, we're product guys when we started eBags. That's what we did at Samsonite, and we just love product and we just have really told the team, "Make product that you would want to carry." Actually, right as we started the business, we got into it, so it's not like it's the last couple years. In a lot of ways, it's really built out this competitive mode. That's a big reason why we're as profitable as we are and that we have some kind of staying power within the space.
Scot Wingo:
That's good to hear, because Jason and I both get asked by a lot of what I would call multi-brand retailers, in other words, like a Macy's or something that doesn't really have their own brands, what one of the best strategies they can do. I always go back to private label. Earlier in the show, in the news segment, we talked about some of the stuff Amazon's doing there. It's interesting to hear that that's such a large part of what you guys are doing.
Unsponsored ad here. I love the cubes, the packing cubes you guys do. My wife loves to organize, and she's a huge fan of the eBags packing system there.
One other thing I just wanted to kind of introduce. You introduced me to shop.org. I had been going to the summit, and really enjoying the summit. When I was earlier in ecommerce, though, I didn't really kind of understand that there's an organization behind the summit that we all go to in the fall. You introduced me to that, and you were one of the early folks there. All three of us are on the board there. We'd love to hear how you got involved with shop.org, and how you describe it to folks.
Peter Cobb:
Yeah. It's ... You know, this industry that we're in, online retail and digital retail and so forth, it is made up of some amazing people, of some amazingly bright people. It's also, we're undergoing so many challenges, and it's changing so fast. You were talking about chat commerce and even now with what's going on with Facebook Messenger and Snapchat and so forth. Sometimes you need a network of people that you can reach out to to compare notes and share stories and really pick their brain. We're really good at drop shipping, so I'll field some calls from people interested in getting into drop shipping. Other people maybe have more expertise in social media marketing or some other areas.
The thing about shop.org, it's really a trade association made up of a community of people within the digital retail space that gets together several times a year, but also shop.org provides thought leadership pieces, whether it's a think tank, white papers, research, several conferences ... Also works on behalf of retail as part of National Retail Federation, NRF, as a team in Washington DC, working on issues important to all of retail, not only digital, with things like trying to promote legislation to limit patent trolls and things like that.
The big part of it is providing a space where you can learn from others but also network, and, as always happens, you end up developing pretty strong friendships as well, which makes it even more enjoyable.
Jason Goldberg:
I'm the new guy amongst the three of us, I think, at shop.org, but I would just absolutely echo that one of my favorite parts is the camaraderie and the opportunity to network and share in an adult beverage with folks that face a lot of the same challenges and opportunities every day that we do. Inevitably, when you get together with other ecommerce folks and you start having conversations, the topics pretty quickly turn to the things that are keeping you up at night or the new trends that you're most excited about in terms of upcoming opportunities. I wanted to ask what was kind of front and foremost in your mind right now, in terms of new trends or new challenges in the ecommerce space?
Peter Cobb:
Well, I think a challenge that all of us are facing, and I know we're all getting our arms around it, but it is a challenge, and that's the move towards mobile and smartphones. It's not a surprise. We all use them in our personal life. I think retail, frankly, was caught flatfooted. You have OpenTable and Uber and so many other apps that were built for the smartphone, and I think with retail ... I mean, two years ago, our traffic would have been single digits coming in on smartphones. You knew it was coming, the wave was coming, but there's just so many other things popping that you need to put your resources towards. We're really actually really happy with our mobile experience, but it's kind of one of those ... You just need to continue to invest and spend the resources, and when you think you've got it figured out, something else comes along.
Right now, a great example is, the big obstacle in mobile is payments. Credit card and so forth. Obviously, Paypal is a great provider helping with mobile. It's a big part of our mobile efforts, but there's other wallets popping up, Chase Pay and Masterpass and Visa, etc. I know you guys have talked about that in the past. That's a big challenge, of, okay, who do you partner with, where do you play on a mobile device, how does that all work when you only have so much space and so much real estate?
I think with mobile is, I know in the past, you guys have talked about average conversion rates, and if you just said a PC is 3% or 4%, and tablets 2.5-3%, and mobile is 1%, if not 1.5% ... You know, as your traffic continues to grow towards mobile, and it could be up 50%, 60% year over year, well, that means your weighted average conversion rates are under some pressure. A lot of times, you think about 100 people come into your site and only one or two purchasing. Well, with whether that's Google or Facebook or whatever affiliate partner you have, that's pretty expensive traffic, if you're only getting a 2% conversion. That's a huge challenge that I think a lot of people are facing.
The other part of that that people don't talk about is that usually, you know, on a PC, we'll get 1.5 units per order, and on mobile, it's really kind of one and done. It's about 1.1. You have your average basket size lower, so conversion rate's lower, basket size lower. You really need to just kind of think through how to optimize mobile. I think we're all slowly figuring it out. Our mobile sales ... Actually, our traffic last month up 40%, but our mobile sales are up 70%, so we're going in the right direction, really feel good about it. We always are thinking if we're redesigning parts of the site, it's mobile first, because then PC will all fall behind.
Then, I think another trend that I think is interesting is, you've got brick and mortar as well as brands developing websites, and those are obviously competitors, but I'm going to focus just on the brands. I think an interesting trend is that the brands are realizing, hey, building and maintaining and keeping a website up to speed is not for the faint of heart. It's super-expensive. You need expensive personnel. The whole resource requirements of a brand. I mean, it's one thing for a retailer, they're kind of familiar with the direct marketing model, but for brands that went into it maybe two, three, five, eight years ago, and now are realizing what I was just talking about with mobile and all the resources required, it's really a challenge. Then, they're under pressure for their own brick and mortar stores that many brands bid off. Now they're looking at us and, "Gosh, I got my website, should I update that? Should I send people into my stores? Should I have returns into stores?" I think a lot of retailers as well as brands are really being challenged right now. Those are some key challenges and opportunities I think we all face.
Jason Goldberg:
Yeah. Peter, the brands going direct is really interesting, because frankly, a lot of my clients are those brands that either already went direct, or maybe they're in a category of retail that's kind of a digital laggard, and they're just now talking or thinking about going direct.
It's funny, because my opening line is usually, "Hey, you're always going to be the worst place to buy your product. You're not going to have any of the third party accessories or add-on sales that consumers want. You're going to be the only retailer on the planet that perfectly complies with [MAP 00:43:33]. In general, there's a small subset of users that want to buy direct from you, and it certainly makes sense to capitalize on those users, but that you're not going to materially hurt your wholesale partners' business." I'm just curious, from your perspective, is that how you feel? When Tumi goes live and starts selling bags from their own site, which I think they did a couple years ago, did you look at that as, "Oh, a cute effort from Tumi," and maybe it taught Tumi to be a little more sensitive to some of the content issues that make them a better partner for you, or did you feel like that was a material threat to your business?
Peter Cobb:
Well, we actually ran Tumi's website for them globally, US, UK, Germany, and Japan, between 2002 and 2010. We had a great eight-year run with Tumi, and then they said, you know, as it was growing, they said, "You know what? It's time for us to take it on our own." I think even ... it's been a challenge. It really has been a challenge, like a lot of brands. They have to decide, does the website exhibit the brand essence, or are we in this to have ecommerce and generate revenue? There's that continuum they have to decide, and I think for a long time, Tumi kind of came out of the chute and said, "We need to promote the brand Tumi. This is part of going public," and so forth, but then realized, "Gosh, our sales are not nearly as strong as we thought they could be." Plus, building out a global ecommerce effort, multiple countries, and then you've got changing marketing messages in 15 or ten or 20 different sites, languages, marketing messages, all the same night, it's pretty challenging to do that for somebody like a brand like Tumi.
To your original question, we just think of that as, "Hey. Tumi's going to get into it," or Samsonite, or so forth. Sure enough, I know they're great partners of ours, and we actually talked to them about some of the challenges. I know they're scratching their heads just like some others say. By the way, this was something, especially when you're talking about global websites, it's something that's pretty challenging for them. I think in a lot of cases, they end up, somebody at the top ends up saying, "You know what? We need to go back to making great product and not pretend we're a technology company." Then they call you, Jason.
Jason Goldberg:
We're more than happy to pretend to be a technology company on their behalf!
Peter Cobb:
Exactly.
Scot Wingo:
Cool. We're up against time, but I have two kind of lightning round questions to ask you. One of the things that's fun about ecommerce is there's always some weird thing that you would have never guessed. For example, when we look at our data, we always see these weird correlations between people buying things that you would never think those would go together. Any insights like that, like from your time at eBags, of strange insights that you've found of consumer behavior?
Peter Cobb:
You know, I think ... There's something happening now which is, I think, pretty interesting, in that the power brands are not doing as well as one might think. What I mean by that is, think about anchor store brands, brands you would find in a Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, etc., are really, I think, undergoing some pressure. You've seen it in the designer handbag category with Michael Kors and Coach posting some numbers which were pretty challenging over the last three to five years. What happens, then, is you've got ... The thing that I love about it is, you've got kind of these small brands that, given the light of day, actually do really well. On our site, it could be Osprey backpacks, Fall Raven backpacks. Very cool products that now then we can show to the world of, "Hey, you probably wouldn't know where to find this in Chicago or LA or San Francisco, but you can click a button and have this sent directly to you."
Scot Wingo:
Cool. We call it, on the Jason and Scot Show, we call it "the hoverboard effect," kind of the disimportanting of brands. One last one, and I know this is hard to answer quickly. You don't survive 17 years in business without really investing a lot in the culture of your business. I've been to eBags and seen ... You invest personally a lot of your time as a founder into the culture of the company. If there's listeners out there, and maybe they're an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur, any quick tips on how you keep that culture and calcify it and all that kind of thing?
Peter Cobb:
Well, I think it starts with once you lock into a solid business model, then you hire great people, don't skimp on people. It's all about getting people that have a history of success, and then letting them run with, of course, guidelines. I think on our end, we were super transparent, we reveal all P and L, we reveal cash on a monthly basis and say, "Look, we're all in this together." Every employee gets stock ownership in the company, so we're all owners, and we think in terms of, "Treat the customer as you would want to be treated." You know, we just have things, too, I mean, a lot of people do, with dogs in the office and things like that, but just really making it a great place to work and making it fun. We're there for ten, 12 hours a day in a lot of cases, and just having it be ... Have it be a place that is fun. Not so serious, but people that are willing to work hard and have fantastic teamwork. You just have to make it fun for people, otherwise there's a lot of other options out there in the world.
Jason Goldberg:
Very cool, Peter. I know you're based in Denver, Colorado. Is it safe to say you're always on the lookout for great ecommerce talent?
Peter Cobb:
Absolutely. It's really challenging, I think, finding over-the-top talent. I think it's one of the biggest challenges. It is not necessarily somebody that gets straight A's in school. It's why I even talked about a history of success, of doing things that maybe are not right down the fairway all the time. It's okay to be a little bit quirky, because we're doing things that people have never done before in this space. You need people willing to take risks. You can't slap the wrists if they fail. They fail a second, third, fourth time, yeah, absolutely you need to sit people down, but you want people that are willing to get out there and make a calculated risk.
Jason Goldberg:
That makes perfect sense, Peter. Listen, that is all the time we have for today, but I want to remind everyone that our guest today has been Peter Cobb, who is one of the co-founders of eBags. You can follow him on Twitter. I think your Twitter handle is @PeterCobb, C-O-B-B.
With that, I will say until next week, happy shopping and thanks very much to all our listeners.
Scot Wingo:
Thanks Peter. Thanks, everyone.
Announcer:
You've been listening to the Jason and Scot Show. For all the latest news and trends on ecommerce and shopper marketing, subscribe to us in iTunes and please leave a review.
08 May 2016
EP025 - Retail Apocalypse, NY Store Visits, and Other News
00:54:20
Episode 25 - Retail Apocalypse, NY Store Visits, and Other News
NY Store Visits:
Ralph Lauren - Magic Mirror (Oak Labs)
Barney’s - Chelsea
Macy’s One Below (and Etsy)
Samsung 837 \
LuluLemon Lab
Retail Apocalypse
TSA filed bankruptcy and is liquidating
Aeropostale filed for bankruptcy, closing 5 stores asap
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
20 Oct 2016
EP052 - Talbots, SVP Ecommerce Rob Schmults
00:41:49
EP052 - Talbots, SVP Ecommerce Rob Schmults
Rob Schmults is the SVP of eCommerce and CRM at Talbots, Rob is also the chairman of the NRF Digital Council. We spoke with Rob about the state of e-commerce and omni-channel from the Shop.org digital summit 2016.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 52 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday September 28, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Episode 246 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, November 20th 2020.
02 Jun 2017
EP086 - Dorel Juvenile Group Bob Land and Jamie Dooley
01:06:56
EP086 - Dorel Juvenile Group Bob Land and Jamie Dooley
An interview with Bob Land is the VP Consumer Engagement and Jamie Dooley is the Head of E-Commerce at Dorel Juvenile Group. Dorel Juvenile is the world’s leading juvenile product company and has over 11k employees globally. They have a portfolio of 11 brands include Cosco and Safety 1st.
In this interview, we discuss Dorel's to to market strategy, including:
Wholesale
Direct to Consumer
Marketplaces
Physical/Popup DTC
B2B
In particular Dorel is a hybrid seller (1p and 3p) on both Walmart and Amazon's marketplaces.
Jamie will be one of the speakers at "Amazon & Me" an all day workshop on Tuesday June 6th at IRCE, hosted by Scot Wingo.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 86 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday May 24, 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
New beta feature - Amazon Automated Transcription of the show:
Episode 161 is an interview with Michele Dupre, GVP of Verizon Enterprise Solutions, live the National Retail Federation Big Show. We cover a variety of topics including:
Verizon's Holiday Retail Index Findings
5G and it's likely impact on commerce
Security
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 161 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, January 15th, 2019.
https://jasonandscot.com
31 Oct 2019
EP195 - Coca-Cola VP of Shopper Marketing April Carlisle
00:45:00
EP195 - Coca-Cola VP of Shopper Marketing April Carlisle
April Carlisle, VP of Shopper Marketing National Retail Sales, The Coca-Cola Company. In this broad-ranging interview, we discuss Coca-Cola's digital footprint and strategy, digital shopper marketing, the evolution of e-commerce for consumables and grocery, and the future of shopper marketing.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
29 Nov 2023
EP315 - 2023 Turkey5 Recap with Salesforces Rob Garf
00:40:57
EP315 - 2023 Turkey5 Recap with Salesforces Rob Garf
Episode 315 is a recap of Turkey5 (The five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) 2023 with Rob Garf, Vice President and General Manager, Retail at Salesforce. This is Robs' Six time on the show, having previously been on episodes 110, 248, 282, 299, and 313.
Jason and Scot discuss the "Turkey 5" with their guest Rob Garf, VP and GM for retail at Salesforce. They analyze data from various sources to provide insights into the holiday shopping season. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, e-commerce grew 7.75% in Q3, while total retail only grew 2%. Jason emphasizes the need for e-commerce to grow at least 7.7% in Q4 to stay on track. Adobe's data shows that Black Friday sales were up 7.5% and Cyber Monday sales were up 12.4% from the previous year. The speakers also discuss data from BigCommerce, MasterCard, and Salesforce, highlighting growth in online sales on Cyber Monday and Black Friday.
Rob Garf adds his observations on retail industry trends, noting an increase in demand and robust pricing. He mentions a rebound in demand in Europe, excluding the UK, and highlights retailers' focus on profitability and inventory levels. The discussion then turns to Amazon's innovative advertising approach during a Friday NFL game, where shoppable ads were displayed via QR codes. Jason believes this strategy will benefit Amazon, as it monetizes viewership and reinforces the brand.
Discounting played a significant role in driving demand during Cyber Week, with retailers offering an average of 30% off. Consumers were patient, waiting for attractive deals, while retailers managed their inventory and discounting strategies well. The luxury category, however, did not perform as strongly, with only a slight increase or even a decrease in sales. The hosts touch on the resale market and the growing popularity of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options and mobile wallets. They discuss the potential impact of mobile wallets on shopping behavior and note that BNPL resonates with new consumers and has replaced layaway.
Finally, the hosts mention the passing of Charlie Munger and the filing of an IPO by Xi'an, encouraging listeners to support the show and announcing more holiday shopping data and reports on Salesforce.com.
0:00:46 Introduction to the Jason and Scot Show 0:05:04 Black Friday: First Sales for Vendors 0:14:06 Softness in Consumer Electronics and Toys Market 0:14:55 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Impact on Holiday Season Shape 0:16:32 Retailers' Inventory Management and Positive Growth Forecast 0:17:47 Retailers analyzing profitability and customer profitability. 0:18:29 Increase in Demand and Robust Pricing 0:22:34 Amazon's Innovative Advertising and Potential Profitability for Holiday 0:26:27 Discount rates over Cyber Week in comparison to previous years 0:29:04 Retailers' management of inventory and transparency in discounting strategy 0:31:52 Consumer behavior and the rise of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) 0:33:32 Mobile wallets and the impact on checkout process and shopping experiences 0:35:26 Buy Now, Pay Later Growing and Replacing Layaway 0:37:22 Charlie Munger's Passing and Xi'an's IPO Announcement
Throughout this episode make liberal use of real-time data from Salesforce Shopping Insights HQ, which tracks how 1.5+ billion consumers are shaping shopping trends. You can see a real-time holiday dashboard, powered by Tableau so you can interact with the data yourself on the Salesforce Holiday Insights page.
Episode 313 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday November 28th, 2023.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Retail Media Networks go In-store. At least 1 top 20 retailer launches a digital in-store ad network YES
AI is even hotter at end of 2024 than now. Most text boxes in E-Com are GenAI powered. A least one retailer has an AI based auto-replenishment solution with significant adoption. YES
Bifurcation drives at least two more retail bankruptcies, including 1 national specialty retailer, and one general merchandise/dept store. (two top 50 retailers) YES
China companies focus more on West and get more traction. Shein successful IPO. Temu US gets to at least 75% of target US E-Com. No
Grocery E-Commerce goes from $95B to $125B in 2024 (after being down in 2023 per Bricks meets clicks). No
Jason Score: 3.0
Scot:
Amazon relaunches Alexa on a native LLM No
Temu falters as people realize it’s wish 2.0 No
RMN is currently $52b, growing 20% y/y, accelerates in 24 to 30% and $67b (coresight has the 52 datapoint) No
Instacart who’s stock IPO’d at $33 and now is $23, solves ads and pops to 40 YES
While everyone thinks Shein/Temu takes share from Amazon, they end up hurting Nordstrom, Macys and Target instead - materially (10%+) focus on apparel, maybe take target out? Yes
Scot Score: 2.0
In a rare upset victory, Jason takes the 2024 predictions crown! But can he keep it?
2025 Predictions
Jason:
Shein & Temu are NOT impacted by changes to De Minimus (which either don’t happen or are ineffective). They ay be impacted by Tik Top Shops and/or Trade War tarrifs but not by changes to De Minimus.
Tik Tok is not permanently banned in US (prediction made before scheduled ban was to take place). Tik Tok Shops is fastest growing $1B+ retailer in 2025.
A major auto manufacturer launches a DTC offering in the US in 2025 (other than Tesla).
Retail Media Networks undergo consolidation in 2025 as smaller retailers realize they can't go it alone.
Live-streaming/VR/Voice Commerce are all materially insignificant in 2025. No financial evidence that consumers care about green or purpose driven brand with their wallets.
Bonus: - AI Agents hottest trend in commerce (but I don’t know how to measure it)
Scot:
Facebook acquires eBay puts them out of their misery finally
Temu loses its newness/out of the honeymoon period and people realize it’s a gimmick - down 20% in 25 vs. 24, even more with tariffs
AI agents become a double edge sword for retailers (headless/composable) vs. no ux, I predict 10 large retailers block them, but the rest embrace
Marketplaces have a new leg of expansion into a variety of places even an LLM - let’s call it 5 new larger retailers
Personalization is out, memory is in, but still silo’d -
Bonus: AI automates and optimizes the supply chain in ways we humans can’t, or at least analyzes the data in such a way -OR could be quantum computing.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 323 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, January 23rd, 2025.
Transcropt
Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Json and Scott show this is episode 323 being recorded on Thursday January 23rd that's a lot of 2 threes I'm your host Jason retail gee Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo.
Scot: [0:37] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners for episode 323 being recorded on 123, Jason you are in the post honeymoon phase of the NRF Big Show 1 of my and I'll have to be honest with listeners kind of not favorite shows because it's in New York during January and I'm allergic to cold weather and I always have a hard time getting there and out because of the snow and then also it's a show that's over weekend so it kind of crushes the whole work life balance thing so hope you had a fun 1 I was not I did not attend this year.
Jason: [1:14] Very often it's over a holiday weekend it's like.
Scot: [1:17] And yeah so in the holiday weekend as well for for fun yeah.
Jason: [1:20] Yeah yeah I think for as long as I can remember we've been going to that show and complaining about it and the the the usual answer is of course due to its 114 year old show we're not changing it because you're whining um, which fair enough, I will point out good news for you Scott global warming it doesn't snow in New York anymore so it hasn't it was cold but like there there used to be an annual blizzard and they literally haven't had any snow in like the last 3 years which is a little spooky, um and I have great news for you if if you thought it was a lot to go to 1 in RF a year guess what we get this year.
Scot: [1:57] 2 nrf's.
Jason: [1:58] 3 NRF or depending on how you count 4 NS.
Scot: [2:02] Whoa are they going to call them Big Show small show Medium show.
Jason: [2:05] No so for a while they've had so they have a few other shows so they have the NRF Big Show which is what we're talking about in in New York in January 114 years old 40,000 people at 10 mostly Brazilians, they've had what I'll call the small show which is technically now called NRF Nexus it's had some other names in the past that's in Southern California in the summer and I really like that show I'll be I'll be at that show, I'll I'll be doing a number of gigs there and I encourage people to go there because it's a way better boondoggle we all hang out and eat good food on the beach and, in his way less stressful than than in our Big Show.
Scot: [2:41] I can sign up for that yeah that's uh no blizzards sign me up.
Jason: [2:45] Trono in Rancho Palo Verdes it's a good it's a good spot it's where Rico started.
Scot: [2:48] Oohnice.
Jason: [2:50] Um they have like a loss prevention show which is probably not relevant to mow most of our listeners but the big news is they are the Big Show has gone International so last year they had Big Show Asia for the first time in Singapore I was not there but it was by all accounts a big success and so, this year we'll have year 2 of Big Show Singapore, and then they're now expanding to Europe so this September will have NRF Big Show Paris. So Scott if you want to go well you know my my corporate headquarters is there my boss is there so we'll we'll host everyone in his office on the shampoo Jose.
Scot: [3:29] I would love that I have a lot to chat with your boss about I feel that you're being shorted on your title and it's been too long we need to expand your title so that's going to be my number 1 you know point on the agenda.
Jason: [3:41] Yes it is high on my list to get you in front of our tours to renegotiate my package.
Scot: [3:47] Yeah I'm there I will I will Ari Gold this thing and we will get.
Jason: [3:50] Yeah I know he our tour listens to every episode so be ready our tour he's coming Scott's coming for you.
Scot: [3:55] Yep I got your I got your number first of all I'm going to loosen him up with some wine and cheese French people like that right and some croissants boom.
Jason: [4:03] Yeah but I kind of don't think you can loosen a French person up with 1.
Scot: [4:07] True it may be a bad strategy.
Jason: [4:09] Yeahfun strategy but it just may not work out the way you hope.
Scot: [4:14] Well how is the show I saw that you were you know doing some really good instagramable pictures out in front of some signs and looking spelt and you had your cool eyewear rocking did you how did how are all the balls and Galas and the and you did a bunch of content give us a give us a rundown what we're give us the behind the scenes.
Jason: [4:35] Well so the number 1 takeaway from internet Big Show is that retail geek is Overexposed so I apparently they couldn't get any good speakers this year because you haven't been going so I was on stage 4 times which is more Jason than anyone should want.
Scot: [4:51] There can be an honorary Kardashian if you keep that.
Jason: [4:54] Yeah yeah I I'm not sure that's that'll be 1 more item off my bucket list honorary Kardashianthe, so I mean the show went well it continues to grow it felt super vibrantit was very it was cold but clear.
Jason: [5:13] The the kind you know you and I have been to so many of these shows that I feel like, somewhat predictable at this point for those that haven't been a big show it's a heavy networking show there's a lot of private events that maybe aren't even published and are invite only and, it's 1 of the the the few, events where I get all those invites so you're right like you know I I went to a lot of dinners and a lot of Galas and saw a lot of, mutual friends that are of course ask about you and are bitter that I'm there and you're not um but it's a lot of fun to catch up with people and certainly you know I got to a chance to talk Shop with a lot of people which is 1 of the big benefits to me, you know there are some interesting on-stage content I'm not going to do a super deep recap on the podcast because, in in NF Big Show recap would be an hour and the good news is I recorded an hour webinar yesterday so in the show notes I'll put that on and if you want if you want an hour of a big show recap, you you can get it there but like at a super high level kind of 3 3 big takeaways that that we highlighted in the recap from Big Show the, continuing to be 1 of the big topics that all these retail shows that they're all heavily leaning into I have some controversial mixed feelings about our.
Jason: [6:32] Exuberant over retail media Networks, so every every retail on the planet is launching 1 every V you know there's a thousand vendors that somehow raise money selling like some service for retail media networks all the the retailers now come to these shows and have booths so there's Giant, Amazon Walmart booths at these these shows trying to sell people ads they've they've kind of turned into media shows, and so NF has a whole extra day of the show if it wasn't fun enough to go over the weekend you can now attend retail media day which is all day Saturday the day before the show starts on Sunday, so a lot of talk about retail media networks a lot of vendors a lot of content on the stages. 1 of my biggest session I did a a session on the featured stage and it was a new format for them it was a debate.
Jason: [7:24] And so they had a much smarter sort of a retail thought leader Christina Russo and I on stage together and they they pulled all of, the the popular retail Talking Heads and ask them to surprise us with questions and then we debated the answers and so longtime friend of the show tsukareta had a question like hey Jason aren't all these retail media networks a scam, and, I I kind of felt like I think she thought she was that was a gotcha question for me because she I think she thought like working for a agency that you know is generally super excited about all media formats and has, you know hundreds of people at the moment working on retail media networks I think she thought that would be a controversial question, I basically answered like it's absolutely a scam and the vast majority of all these are going to fail, so I think that probably surprised Christine a little bit that she had to take the the pro retail media position after I after I jumped in on the con position. But, there is a lot of talk about retail media networks it's going to show up in our predictions I'm sure there are people making a lot of money on retail media networks but they also they're not going to be as ubiquitous they're not going to translate to the small retailers as well as everyone thinks and, as you and I know the dirty secret is like all the retail media money is in third-party marketplaces it's all those third-party.
Scot: [8:46] Yayanother win for third-party marketplaces.
Jason: [8:50] Yeah it's almost like you saw all this stuff coming like 20 years ago.
Scot: [8:54] Yeah yeah they uh.
Jason: [8:57] Until you get a good new idea I'm going to keep giving you props for the old 1.
Scot: [9:00] Okay I appreciate ityou can do my negotiating with my boss.
Jason: [9:02] Yeah uh soyeah I'm not doing that because I've met herum.
Scot: [9:09] Yeah she's tough.
Jason: [9:11] Yeah but fair tough but fair. So 1 big Trend retail media networks love them or hate them there's a lot of discussion about them a lot of a lot of activity in that space the most predictable big trend is of course AI so, half the Boost of the show you if you if you didn't read carefully you would actually think it was an Nvidia Booth they had like, bigger logos than half the exhibitors they they did a keynote with John furner John's the CEO of Walmart us and and the the head of retail at Nvidia was on stage with him talking about all these, these interesting retail use cases in 30 seconds or less the Takeaway on AI is, there's a ton of successful AI efficiency stories where retailers and brands are doing something in Commerce they've always been doing but AI allows them to do it way better faster and cheaper than before and so there's, there's increasingly you know tons of money being saved by using AI for efficiencies.
Jason: [10:13] And that that there's some pretty interesting ones and some pretty clever ones and a lot of smart vendors, at the show coming up with that stuff but the the big prediction the coming very soon part of AI That's more game-changing that's sort of a new shopping experience that didn't exist before, is agent-based Commerce it's what so-called agentic AI so if you went to Salesforce Microsoft Google, sap, Amazon's Booth like the the biggest words in the booth were agentic Ai and the the you know all all these big vendors are in a knife fight if I know you follow the, the kind of core AI space, you know openai launched their agent this week which is uh operator which is super interesting and exciting perplexity launched their agent of course you know Salesforce and Microsoft have, uh and Google all have big big plays and agents and so, I'm I'm relatively bullish on on agents disrupting Commerce and fundamentally changing some shopping experiences and breaking search for example I'm making search a lot less important and a lot less relevant.
Jason: [11:25] I think all that could happen I think it's really risky to think about the time Horizon for that and at the moment if you're familiar with the gardener hype cycle, agents are kind of still C climbing up the the hype Peak like they have not fallen into the trough of disillusionment yet.
Scot: [11:45] Yeah we're going to talk about agents in the predictions so.
Jason: [11:48] Hello I should have I should have known I should have held some of my.
Scot: [11:50] Uh passion a lot of them are kind of like glass-based which I think's interesting but you and I know you can't have a great shopping experience just you know kind of looking like you're a browserso if you say you know hey.
Jason: [12:02] Yeah I think that's a fast early wave to proof of concept A lot of this stuff but that's that can't be how it all works in the long run.
Scot: [12:09] Yeah I'm excited you know I've had a fair amount of exposure to the perplexity and it it's okay on a surface level but it falls apart on some basics in our world and then I think I think the glass-based nature of Operator by glass I mean it has to scrape it's it's not.
Jason: [12:22] It it acts like a human clicking buttons on a browser.
Scot: [12:25] Yeah yeah so we'll see ya.
Jason: [12:28] Microservices and apis.
Jason: [12:30] The so that that was a super interesting 1 and then the third big topic from NRF Big Show was just kind of the state of the industry NRF released, their final data for annual sales the US Department of Commerce came out with their data the day after the show, and you know everybody in the hallways talking about like hey how'd you do did you do well did you not do well what's your budget look like for this year or are you spending more than last year less than last year what's your forecast like and so there and what the heck do you think is going to happen in the new Administration and how is that going to affect all of your business plans right and so there's a lot of, those kind of conversations and and again go listen to the the the interf recap for the Deep dive but the the super high level is, it's it's kind of mixed mixed news in 2024 we sold 7.4 trillion dollars worth of stuff which is a ton of stuff, but the NRF doesn't like to talk about that retail number they like to talk about core retail which is, all of retail sales less automobiles gas and restaurants so 2024 we sold 5.3 trillion dollars worth of stuff core retail stuff, that is up 3.6% from the previous yearso the question you might ask is hey Jason is 3.6% good, and the answer is it's okay NRF predicted that this year we would grow between 2 and a half and 3 and a half percent so 3.6 is above the top end of, prediction yeah.
Scot: [13:58] A small butt I said we they crushed their number.
Jason: [14:01] Uh so they beat interest prediction the 10-year average growth which you know growth is slowing down a little bit but the 10 year average growth is 4.1% so 3.6 is less than 4.1, last year's number was 3.9 so 3.6 is less than than 3.9 but so all these numbers are kind of in the range it's a huge number so you know a tenth of a percent is is Meaningful.
Jason: [14:25] But the real butt is half of all that growth half of that 3.6% growth Amazon Walmart T-Mobile and Tik Tok shops, so you pull those those 5 retailers out and is a way below average year for the rest of retail, and add on top of that that, consumers were hugely value seeking in 2024 they were trading down a less expensive Goods so we sold more or less expensive stuff which is a lower margin the discount rate was uncharacteristically high so we sold stuff at deeper discounts and so you know all these retailers that are not 1 of those top 5 Growers.
Jason: [15:04] Had a mediocre sales year and an even worse profitability year and so you know in the hallways the talk was oh the overall industry maybe did okay we didn't do so well and our Focus next year is, economic fundamentals like austerity we're we're trying to save money wherever we can we're not doing big grandiose plans bunch of retailers are likely closing stores and we've already seen that play out in the week since nrfa Macy's has announced, another huge wave of of store closuresit's it's going to be a challenging year in retail and I'm not sure the, the vendors have fully felt it yet but like when I hear all these retailers talking about how they're cutting back on all their plans and then I go look at the 450 vendors that are all hoping to sell new it technology to all these retailers, I'm like it's going to be a lean year for all those vendors that are trying to sell new new search engines and new platforms and and new new products and services to all these retailers in 2025.
Scot: [16:07] Yep it's busy out there did the Department of Commerce their their this is where you get the other and then the really good 1 for e-commerce comes out much later has have theywhat what did they say about e-commerce does that come out.
Jason: [16:20] Yeah so so you are correct we get at the moment we havenon-store sales is what it's called um and it, it grew about 10% year-over-year, um so what that likely means is that e-commerce will end up growing at about 7 and a half to 8% is my prediction right nowso so retail grow brick and mortar total retail, grows at 3.6% e-commerce grows at twice that at 7 and a half to 8% so e-commerce is still the fastest growing part it's 1 out of 5 of core retail now right it's over 20% of core retail sales so the law of large numbers is starting to kick in when you and I started doing this retail was still growing at 4% but e-commerce was growing at 20% right over the last 10 years e-commerce has grown at 15% and now we're starting to see it tick down, 7 and a half percent and I I think that's a natural progression as as e-commerce has gotten more mature.
Scot: [17:21] Yeah it does still feel slow like if you'd asked me 20 years ago where it would be in 2005 I would have said oh it will be at 30 or 40%, 20 20% just feels low and it's historically low compared to not historically but it's low compared to like most other countries right so the UK is much higher and.
Jason: [17:41] It depends on what you mean by the most uh there are countries way higher so so there are countries in Europe.
Scot: [17:46] Yeah not in.
Jason: [17:47] Europe is a mixed bag but like UK is higher Asia is much higher it's very hard to count in Asia there's not good data so you you will hear a lot of people say that e-commerce is over 50% in Asia and it might be there are other people that are say that will say it's more like 40% you there's there's a bunch of countries in that kind of 30-ish percent so, you know certainly there's no endemic reason in the United States can't hit those same same kind ofPeakswhat I would say is, not every industry got affected by e-commerce at the same time like like you know I you like to joke about how I started my career at Blockbuster they were they were affected by e-commerce a long time ago right um borders was affected a long time ago Toys R Us pretty long ago Circuit City all those companies you know were affected at a different rate, but there were always new categories that were you know just had this massive adoption of e-commerce that you know kept Goose the number and there are fewer and fewer categories with really small e-commerce today right so it's mostly cars and Grocery and again we're like rightly or wrongly most of us are pulling cars out of the numbers we talked about so, so yeah you know they're just our fewer kind of untapped markets to to to grow.
Scot: [19:07] Gotcha should we any other uhwhat was like the back room conversations like give us no specifics of course but like what else was so retail media networks a lot of an AI anything else that that is like aon people's minds.
Jason: [19:22] Yeah I you know I think everyone is like really, concern like there's the a huge variety I know you and I love to talk about politics on this showthere's a huge, collection of potential policy changes in the current Administration again NRF happened the day before Trump took office right and so a lot of the talk is hey are we gonna have way lower income tax and is that going to cause everyone to spend like a drunken sailor are we going to have huge tariffs and start a massive trade war and not be able to sell anything, you know is deregulation going to help us is is Tik Tok gonna get shut down is the minimum is going to get shut down, you know there's a there's a lot of uncertainty 1 of the best attended Keynotes was David Solomon who's the the CEO of Goldman Sachs and him kind of pontificating on the potential impacts of the new Administration on the, on the economy and the the long and the short of it is no 1 really knows there's a bunch of, you know potential policies that would be favorable to the economy there's a bunch of potential policies that might be erosive to the economy you know some of those policies will be easy to enact some of them will be quite difficult to enact and so like on the aggregate, what all is going to happen over the next 2 years and what's that going to do to the economy I think, there's more unsure it's always uncertain and there's more uncertainty at the moment than it feels like they're typically is so you know.
Jason: [20:50] A lot of folks had a disappointing year last year and then they're staring at a lot of uncertainty this year and it it just creates a general disease.
Scot: [21:01] Bummer sounds like not a happy ending but this is a fun fact Dave Solomon is a DJ as well.
Jason: [21:07] I did not know that that did not come up in his in his keynote oddly enough I think he would have like at least.
Scot: [21:11] I thought maybe he would like uh spend some tunes before and after yeah.
Jason: [21:15] Picked his own walk-on music I'm sure A-Rod got to pick his own walk-on music so you'd think.
Jason: [21:23] Oh by the way the, the other big news the internet cave like the NF has always been like a show that was about this content and other shows figured out that you could get way more people to come to your show by having, celebrities and musicians and and so like the shop talk shows always famously have an interesting concert right and so the NRF cave this year and and had a big concert and so we all got to see flow ride up.
Scot: [21:49] Whoa.
Jason: [21:50] Yeah now you really regret that you didn't go I know it.
Scot: [21:53] I did but I've seen you at these things you you go to the event and you have like maybe 1 drink and then you check out and go do email or.
Jason: [21:59] I make sure I make sure that some people get some selfies with me so I'll show up on the socials and then I do what what has been described to me as an Irish exit.
Scot: [22:10] Yeah yeah because uis have some slides that were due 3 weeks ago that you're gonna.
Jason: [22:13] That that is.
Scot: [22:14] You can work till 1:00.
Jason: [22:16] Often often true you're actually giving me PTSD by just talking about it.
Scot: [22:20] Yeah when Jason Goes to these shows the the first thing he does is start with a Starbucks that's a manual that's a must and then, people people that are waiting for slides no to wait at the first Starbucks so he right at the counter after he's ordered there's a line of people waiting for for slides and her ringing him about Decks that are due weeks ago it's hilarious.
Jason: [22:38] And let me just say as we continue to go further and further author reservation here uh, 1 of 1 of the biggest improvements at the NRF is that the the 2 Starbucks have got at Javits Center which wasn't always true by the way that's exciting to me to just say there are 2 Starbucks at Javits Center the 2 Starbucks have gotten wildly efficient at mobile ordering even at a trade like it used to be this huge cluster of disaster and you you you just have to stand.
Scot: [23:05] Massive.
Jason: [23:06] Line for hours and when they turned on mobile order it was highly unreliable and you'd have to wait 30 minutes like it, they've kind of figured it all out now like and so I found it much much easier to I knew exactly how far away I needed to be from the Starbucks to place my order and I walked up and, it just feel you feel like George Jetson when you like.
Scot: [23:27] Skip the line yeah.
Jason: [23:29] That whole line and and grab your Starbucks and make it to your next meeting on time with Starbucksuh.
Scot: [23:34] And if the people are waiting on slides are in line now they have a hard choice to get out of line to bother you for slides or and then you can just dip in and out and they don't have time to catch him so that's.
Jason: [23:43] People waiting for their slides for me have a lot of hard choicesthe and they're usually disappointed but Scott I feel like you are procrastinating long enough if you haven't thought of any good predictions by now they're not coming to you.
Scot: [23:58] I think I'm ready I it was tough because, it's a hard time to predict things because there's so much change like oddly when it's kind of slower it's easy to predict stuff so we'll see this will be a fun 1 it's going to you know the rate of change and Chaos makes it hard to make predictions but.
Jason: [24:15] Yeah I did.
Scot: [24:15] It's uh that's why we make the big bucks so we have to buckle down and I did it.
Jason: [24:19] I was in 3 different sessions where the first slide was predictions are very hard especially about the future and and what's which is a great quote what's funny is all 3 of them attributed the quote to a different person.
Scot: [24:33] You should say also attributing quotes is hardit's harder than predictions.
Jason: [24:39] Yes so uh so offline I did a deep dive in who actually said it in so we could we could get into it but it came from CERN um but yeah the it was not Mark Twain it was not Yogi Barra.
Scot: [24:53] The particle accelerator people started.
Jason: [24:54] Yes yes exactly um.
Scot: [24:56] Would quote as a body.
Jason: [24:58] Yeah but the the the VC version of that that quote that I thought was pretty pretty apt for NRF wasthe the pace of innovation seems to be outrunning the pace of adoption.
Scot: [25:11] Yeah it is yeah it's kind of crazy. I get some of these AI newsletters and I I keep a little running list of things I want to go put you know try out and it's like literally 200 long right now and it's like okaywell I'm not gonna get to all but like maybe you know maybe I'll get to 4 of those.
Jason: [25:27] I know and I I'm like, the open AI like they dropped their agent it's a at the moment like to get it this month you have to step up to the hundred dollar a month account and there's part of me that like oh this is super interesting and valuable I should just do it but then I know I'm going to use it once and then move on to the other 200 things on my list and it like it just doesn't feel good so part of me is like wait till it drops down on my 20 account.
Scot: [25:51] Yeah that's just enough where it's kind of unless you're on your uh your work credit card then go crazy.
Jason: [25:56] Yeah but our as I mentioned our tour is listening to this and so until you negotiate I'm afraid to go there but so predictions about the future are hard what about predictions of the past how how did we do on the predictions from last year.
Scot: [26:08] Yeah let's go re so as a reminder for those of you that are new to the show every year we make a prediction usually in the January time frame and we then review it and add forward-looking predictions we have a long history of me being better than Jason at this so we'll see if that that holds on and then what we do is we read each others and then grade and then there is a formal, rebuttal period that lasts approximately 90 seconds no longer no less and now I'm just getting we're not a super rules of the road on this but, yeah so I'll go through Jason's for predictions for last year so this was in 2023 Jason predicted these things for 2024.
Jason: [26:51] Hear him because I don't remember him.
Scot: [26:53] Jason prediction number 1 1 of your favorite topics you've already talked about retail media networks go in store at least 1 top 20 retailer launches a digital in-store ad Network, I think this is definitely happening I don't know if it's going to I don't know if 1 of the top 20 maybe if I was going to guess I would say maybe Walmart has done that because they seem, Dev screens but they a lot of them are almost like you know Walmart today type things I don't really think I've seen them advertised other stuff, but um I'm going to ask you you can go ahead and rebut away I don't know how to grade you on this 1.
Jason: [27:30] Yeah so all of my my good friends at Walmart please take note Scott is a legitimate Walmart Shopper and and.
Scot: [27:36] I love Walmart.
Jason: [27:37] He does we both do and he has he he is rightly noticed that the ads in your store so yes it did happen e-marker said it was not huge they said about half a billion dollars in in revenue for in-store ads in in 2024 which you know compared to the total size of of retail media is not, huge but Walmart is selling ads on 170,000 screens now a lot of those screens are screens that had up other jobs in the store so things like the TVs and the TV department or the the screens in the deli department but 170,000 screens is still a lot of screens that are in front of 190 million Shoppers that walk in that store every week so Walmart certainly you know makes it on their own a bunch of the European guys have also done it so Tesco sainsbury at Big gers in the UK have done it Home Depot I believe is predominantly in store so they have What's called the Orange apron media Network and it mostly is selling in-store experiences Rose also has the lows media Network which which sells ads in store so I think we gota lot here so I'm giving myself a yes on number 1.
Scot: [28:47] All right I will agree to that. Jason's prediction for 2024 made in 2023 number 2 AI is even hotter at the end of 2024 than now and in this sentence now means back in 2023 this is so confusing, most I'm I'm making it so clear for our listeners though so most text boxes and e-commerce are G powered at least 1 retailer has an AI based Auto replenishment Solution with significant adoption. I don't see a lot of Johnny AI powered searches I've tried Rufus and that is that is a swing and a miss if you're counting Rufus I'm going to call foul on that.
Jason: [29:28] So I gotta be honest this is a tricky 1 for me I don't know how I feel about my prediction I will fully disclose I thought, a AI search in particular would be even more ubiquitous by now than it is right so in 1 cents I want to say oh yeah didn't make it objectively like all the things that I sit here sort of did happen so so we could debate about, roof is being an awful experience which I totally agree with Doug Herrington did a keynote in NRF and said that Rufus has answered 500 million queries last year right so.
Jason: [30:02] That's a lot of queries yeah so so that that Alone 1 would argue you know technically makes my prediction correct Walmart did Roll Out Auto replenishment so Walmart Plus members can get suggestions in their cart based on their past purchases that they did not ask for for for better or worse so so there are some some Auto Replacements in there, Amazon Walmart Tik Tok have all aifi their their search boxes instacart and then, like in particular the grossers are leaning into this Auto replenishment so a lot of the vendors that serve the grocery space there's a company called Alami that does a lot of uh predictive ordering and there is a standalone retailer a direct to Consumer grocery store called Hungry root which is exclusively predictive AI so you don't go shopping for Stuff, you fill out a profile and hungry root decides what to send you based on AI and surprises and Delight You by sending you stuffum.
Scot: [31:02] You don't go shopping for stuff stuff goes shopping for youshopping powered by AI.
Jason: [31:07] Shopping becomes implicit so I don't know how to score this like part of me wants to give me half credit like because I I do think, literally everything I said in the prediction happened but like it didn't happen at the scale that I thought it would and it and the experiences are, more meaning nothing Burgers like all those Auto replenishment things I mentioned are super interesting none of them are selling, meaningful volumes of stuff so I don't know part of me wants to go 0.5 on this 1.
Scot: [31:36] I'm feeling generous you you announced on the show you're taking me to Paris and we're going to meet meet your boss so I'm pretty excited by that trip and we're gonna have wine and cheese so I'm gonna I'm gonna round that 1 up and give it to you.
Jason: [31:46] Gotcha I I don't you may have already pre-impact conference room at our office and in Paris does not have Wi-Fi but it has a private kitchen and Chef so to give you an idea of our priorities.
Scot: [31:57] Oh and a view of the Eiffel Tower I I assure you.
Jason: [32:00] Arctic Triumph like.
Scot: [32:02] Oh even better.
Jason: [32:03] Yeah like literally NBC rents my bosses balcony to put their TV cameras for the tour to France. Yeah so we'll sit out there and have fancy glass of French champagne served by the pubis chef but don't hope to search for the internet while you're doing it.
Scot: [32:20] Yep and then you'll ask me how the cheeses and I'll say Jason this cheese is Gouda.
Jason: [32:25] And then someone will call and ask for their slides and I'll say I can't send them to you because there's no Wi-Fi at pubisum.
Scot: [32:29] Perfect.
Jason: [32:32] Yeah but I'm not bitter awesome so I'm taking the win to a 2 for 2 should we just stop thereoh.
Scot: [32:38] The the we go to 5 so your number 3 prediction for 2024 made in 2023 bifurcation drives at least 2 more retail bankruptcies including 1 National Specialty retailer in 1 general merchandise slash department storeparenthesis 2 top 50 retailers so I'm going to party city that was in, those in the year like that didn't happen in January that happened like.
Jason: [33:04] Good news it happened twice.
Scot: [33:07] Party City twice.
Jason: [33:08] Party City twice in 2024 yeah uh so the second.
Scot: [33:11] Count those as your 2.
Jason: [33:13] I'm I'm gonna count the 2 of those as my specialty retailer but but there were sadly more right so the Container Store Express Jo-Ann's the general Merchant which is not quite as general merchandise as I would like but the the the the general Merchant in my mind that that failed last year was Big Lots.
Scot: [33:31] Were you with me on this tour we did at Container Store.
Jason: [33:35] I don't I don't get invited to any of the cool stuff.
Scot: [33:38] And we were talking to 1 of the sea-level people and I was asking him about e-commerce. Maybe I don't remember and he basically went this long spiel about how they'd never wanted anything on their site that wasn't available in the store and I thought, I said to him that's kind of strange because other people most people view it the other way they have this like concept of this endless aisle and they view having an unconstrained space is he's like what is the customer going to do and they see it on the website and its not available in this toy.
Jason: [34:06] Yeah I will say that's more.
Scot: [34:07] Well.
Jason: [34:08] Uh I I I get that that would be an announcement that would be an atheist to you and to a lot of people and like I think when we think of the most successful e-commerce sites they now have hundreds of millions of skus there are examples out there Target basically only sells, online what they have in the store Costco and Sam's Club only sell online what they have in the clubso the there's ways, there's ways to make either either model work but uh.
Scot: [34:35] I blame the bankruptcy on it personally I haven't read anything so I'm just gonna I I found it like a strange so I'm going to blame the whole thing.
Jason: [34:38] But uhyeah I'm not sure Container Store was a a fast-moving early adopter of digital.
Scot: [34:46] No no no they they just launched their site too so this was like 2012 or something.
Jason: [34:51] Yeah yeah so sadly I I regret that I got number 3 right.
Scot: [34:56] Yeah that's kind of an easy 1 to get done you could have done most that's another reason uh number 4China companies so you have 3 right uh 2 TBD, China companies focus more on the west and get more traction shien successfully IPOs, and tiemoue us gets to at least 75% of all us e-commerce I made from that 1 of Target, Target do you mean.
Jason: [35:23] I meant the retailer Target that the team who was at least 3 quarters as big as Target in e-commerce.
Scot: [35:29] Okay well we know Sheen did not do.
Jason: [35:31] Yeah so I'm giving myself a Miss on this because of that right um so China companies focus more on the west, what's interesting is that happened and then it didn't last year so I think there was a eeo last year when, the Chinese economy was doing very poorly pendwa Duo was all in on the US market as the US got less and less friendly to Chinese companies and there's all this talk about banning and all these things they all kind of, de-emphasize the US and move to Europe and other markets so, so I think there was for part of the year a big focus on the west I guess if you count Europe as the west then that definitely happened, shein tried to do an IPO in the US it got kind of they got spooked they tried to move it to the UK there's some talk about them doing 1 in Asia this year and there is still some traction about them coming back to the US so, I don't know what's going to happen with Sheen I obviously didn't get that prediction, right so I'll take the the miss here but I will also say I I wildly underestimated how much better team it would do than Target so, Target sold about 20 billion dollars on the line last year she and sold 54 billion about half of it in the US 42% in the US so so Teemu outsold Target online in the US.
Scot: [36:48] Wow that's impressive on its own.
Jason: [36:50] Yeah so a lot of impressive stuff in there I blew it when I threw the IPO into the into the prediction so I'll take the loss.
Scot: [36:57] Yeah the um so it's interesting because T-Mobile they kind of came on the scene in 22 when they ran a Super Bowl ad right like that's I think the, you knew about them earlier yeah, and then LA and 23 they ran a lot more Super Bowl ads have they announced if they're going to be in so the 23 24 have they announced their 25 Super Bowl plans you probably.
Jason: [37:22] That they have not in some cases advertisers predisposed what they're doing but a lot of them like to keep it a secret and I believe, team who has never discussed their Super Bowl plans ahead of time they totally were surprised Advertiser in 23 they were the biggest Advertiser in 24 as you you rightly remembered they they bought us huge controversial amount of of add time for the Super Bowl, if memory serves they probably spent like thirty million dollars on media for that 1 day um and then you know everyone in my agency like think, that they're they're Super Bowl presence is just awful because they made the ad themselves and it's you know a Cheesy animated cartoon with a with a you know kind of candy jingle and I have to keep pointing out to them that that adds sold 50 billion dollars worth of stuff which 1 of our clients did that. Um and they don't they don't like that so so let me just say myself and all the creative directors at pubis have a slightly different definition of what makes us successful Super Bowl ad.
Scot: [38:30] Yeah I'm looking at the list of people that have announced it's a bunch of cpgs as you would imagine and then the only 2 I kind of see out of our world would be GoDaddy which is a stretch and then instacart so.
Jason: [38:39] Yeah yeah I think I think.
Scot: [38:40] It'll be uh I think that may be their first did they do 1 last year I don't remember.
Jason: [38:43] Instacart has done 1 before they're I can't get in all the details but there's going to be a few e-commerce companies that are first-time.
Scot: [38:50] Ooh breaking news.
Jason: [38:54] Yeah we will not be at the Super Bowl this year is any football team that I remotely support itmy my my La Chargers like briefly had hope we made it to the playoffs I was wearing a charger Jersey 2 NF this year and we got trounced and then you know my adopted family all my in-laws from Detroit have been super excited about the lines this year and they they took.
Scot: [39:14] Ooh that was a disappointing 1 yeah yeah okay all right so you are. Yep 344 and then we've got your last 1 the last 1 Number 5 grocery e-commerce goes from 95 billion to 125 billion in 2024after being down in 2024, per bricks meets clicks was that I guess that's the name of a report that you you grocery people love.
Jason: [39:40] Yeah we do I do not love it but it is the most consistent data I have on on grocery e-commerce and I miss this 1 so, grocery did grow we went from from 95 billion, to 105 billion but we did not get to 125 billionlast time I do really specific easily verifiable predictions.
Scot: [40:02] Well we we went to a phase where we couldn't verify them and we're just like looking at each other like what do we do so that's that's where the screw from I know you've forgotten so 3 out of 5 we'll give that a 60%, gentlemen see all right you had a bonus live streaming metaverse crypto still not a major thing in e-commerce oh you blew crypto crypto is where it's at, management stops blaming performance on retail crime nope and smaller retail media networks fail, let's see live streaming check metaverse check crypto not major things you got all those rightman I still think management blames.
Jason: [40:39] I I don't I actually think.
Scot: [40:40] I saw the Walgreens guy just said.
Jason: [40:42] He he said it was wrong he said they were wrong so.
Scot: [40:46] It turns out when you lock everything up in the store people don't buy as much.
Jason: [40:50] He he absolutely did say that but before he said that the CFO had to say maybe we cried too much about like a literal quote in an earnings call maybe we cried too much about shrink because it was pointed out that while they were locking up all the product allegedly to stop shrink, the amount of shrink they reported on their income statement was lower in 2024 than it was in 2023 um.
Scot: [41:14] Because they locked up all the productit worked.
Jason: [41:17] And so then they didn't sell any so there's a catch showing 2 there but like the CFO said said on the air we cried too much about shrink and the NFL the NRF had to retract all of their shrink data and stopped reporting on shrink um so I'm saying it doesn't matter there's no points for the bonus but I'm saying that absolutely happened.
Scot: [41:37] So that NRF shrink data shrink.
Jason: [41:40] The NRF has been reporting shrink for 20 years they have a dubious methodology they send a survey to people and say did people steal stuff from you. Yeah and whoever answered that survey, for the last 20 years has answered it exactly the same so the the rate of shrink as reported by the NRF like is what is perfectly consistent for 20 years, um so if you believe in that stated stated survey methodology which we know I do not, then then everybody's way over complaining about shrink because it didn't go up but what happened is a bunch of retailers publicly blame shrink and then the NRF data didn't support that and it was a black eye and so the NRF like literally, a they they reported something that said shrink was way up, and then they had to retract that and say that their data was incorrect and they stopped publishing the survey and said they're going to invent a new better data set and publish it in the future which we haven't seen yet so.
Scot: [42:39] This seems like Jason working behind the scenes this feels like a someone that Goldberg.
Jason: [42:43] Saying it's it's a it's a complicated Quagmire of a mess but the takeaway for everyone it's a bonus so we're not arguing for points the takeaway for everyone on on this podcast should be do not put your product and product jail, uh if you have to put your product in product jail just don't carry it.
Scot: [43:00] Well there's this thing called convenience and if you have to call someone if you're going to the Walgreens for 6 things and you have to call 6 times and have 6 unlocks and it takes 6 hours.
Jason: [43:09] On a webinar today and the host had all these data sets and 1 of them is convenience is not King and you know he talked about how people are willing to you know get a great links to get what they wanted um and and then you know he asked me like how do you feel about that I said I don't know if convenience is King but I know that inconvenience is Satan.
Jason: [43:38] Yes yes never never.
Scot: [43:40] He hates observed measured data that's that's usually wrong.
Jason: [43:42] Do just ask people what they what they think they're going to do.
Scot: [43:46] Yeah do you feel like you're being compensated fairly that's a good 1 there's a lot of good ones, all right well I think you did pretty good let's see how I did.
Jason: [43:55] I think 3 out of 5 is better than my historical average.
Scot: [43:58] Yeah it is yes usually it's 1 so you crushed it 3x it.
Jason: [44:03] Gotcha, all right now let's get to Scottsand I'm I'm I also didn't remember Scott so I'm looking at them and the first 1 makes me so happy already, so prediction number 1 Amazon launches Alexa on a native llm.
Scot: [44:23] Yeah did I say was tried or no no I didn't say try okay they tried like 3 times and failed and they've I think already in 25 they tried again and failed so yeahthis is kind of sad you know I I have a.
Jason: [44:34] Thisyeahit's super sad.
Scot: [44:38] Amazon is not a day 1 company anymore and they're a day.
Jason: [44:42] It is day it is Day 2 at Amazon I'm sorry to all my friends at Amazon but I think it's pretty clear um.
Scot: [44:47] Yeah.
Jason: [44:47] The what's funny I will disclose I was a little miffed at you when you made this prediction a year ago because I'm pretty sure I pointed out to you when I saw this prediction before the show that Amazon had already announced they were doing this and I'm like it's not fair to predict something that Amazon already said they're doing, and and you I think didn't have time to make any new predictions so you just stuck with it and like even though they announced that they were going to do it in 2023 they tried 4 times in 2024 and couldn't get it so so Amazon's lack of execution caused me to win 1.
Scot: [45:20] Yeah I read an article and it's from that that seattle-based publication that sometimes gets some juicy Amazon information do you remember the name of it I can't, it's on the tip of the mount.
Jason: [45:30] Is it the Seattle Times is that the.
Scot: [45:32] No it's got like a you know a techy kind of a name, but it's interesting this is like I remember reading it like in October November and an Insider was explaining why they're so delayed and what they found is the and they're using I think anthropic underneath the the hood.
Jason: [45:47] Will not originally several of those efforts they tried to build their own and then they they gave up and then they went to anthropic exactly.
Scot: [45:54] Well this guy you know this reporter fared it out and you know it's it's anonymously sourced so it's hard to it's like so specific to what seemed pretty Legit To Me that the the problem is you you and I are big fans of Ale XA and we have a lot of them and they're really good at like the little Atomic tasks like setting alarms and some little things like that I like to play music and stuff, so what they did is they they had this problem that once they they took their current programmatic stuff which is the simple little things and then they added the LM well once an LM was on it would refuse to do the atomic things and in fact it would be get sassy you would say you know hey you know what's the weather and it would say well you know, do you just want to know it would want to have a conversation it was very chatty so it would never just get to the point and they they haven't figured out how to fix that, so they have this world where like you're going to have to kind of pick you know their current state is the lm1 is really good if you ask it a nuanced question like you know how do you know how do these things work or something how do microwaves work and it would be happy to chat with you about that but if you ask it like you know what the weather is today it wants to kind of like you know, ask a bunch of follow-up questions and we'll just like remember you're in Chicago and tell you the weather.
Jason: [47:04] Yeah so I I'm going to say 2 things about this number 1 there it's so funny what how how big a factor expectations play in your satisfaction like I I have dozens of these devices in my home we I don't know how long we've you and I have had them now but like is it 8 years something like that it's a long time um when I first got them this was magic like this was like, 1 of the the best most reliable Technologies and I liked this so much better than a light switch right and there's all these use cases raising a kid timers or a huge part of my life and and they're great for all these timersso they work exactly as well now as they did 8 years ago but now I'm nothing but frustrated and annoyed by them, the rest of the world has gotten so much better while they've Stood Still and I I get that that that solving the big problems and the atomic problems is is hard but like here's a baby step just every time you come back to me and say I didn't understand what you say send that to an llmlike every time you said I don't have a light name that like maybe ask the llm what what it thinks I meant like but yeahI'm I'm a little bitter I'm waiting for a better version and they're you know they're competitors Apple and Google like, I mean arguably I would I would have a better quality of life right now if I flushed all these things and put Apple or Google Hardware in their place.
Scot: [48:30] Yeah while we were chatting 1 of the research assistants popped in and the article I read was from that Seattle 1 but it was actually inside there it sourced you know you know how these things go like it takes you 8 clicks to find the original Source it was actually PC World how's that for.
Jason: [48:45] Ah oh yeah niche.
Scot: [48:47] Ben Ben Patterson wrote it so if you're interested in that we'll put a link in the show notes it was a it was a good, I found it kind of interesting to kind of like understand what could they possibly be working on and it was like oh that does seem kind of important seems like you want to nail that 1 you can't go backwards on the basics right.
Jason: [49:03] No okay 0 for 1 so number 2Teemu falters as people realize it's wish 2.0how do you feel you did on that.
Scot: [49:11] That 1 I clearly lost because I I bet against you and you won so just mathematically I was I was doomed there so that was a bad 1.
Jason: [49:20] I will say their pace of growth slowed way down in Q4, so so I would argue less because people realized it was wish 2.0 and more because Tik Tok shops, stole a bunch of the the customers from it and Tik Tok Tik Tok shops is potentially a better version of T-Mobile but yeah still they sold 54 billion dollars last year they sold you know 20 25 billion in the US so not wish 2.0 yet.
Scot: [49:45] Yeah when you I'll talk about later. Uh so I'm a batting zero here retail media networks is currently 52 billion growing 20% and accelerates to 30% growthand and 67 billionrun rate so, you did say they're very hot so did I come close on this 1.
Jason: [50:06] You you are in the ballpark you know again you were smart enough not to quote a particular sourceand the the sources that that we use most often so e-marketer which you know does a lot of publishing in the space they said 56 billion in 2024so right order magnitude but you did you did miss it by like 10 billion.
Scot: [50:30] Dang it how about the growth rate it did accelerate I think right.
Jason: [50:33] Yeah so the data set I'm looking at right here does not have 2023 in it so I don't the22% 22% growth rate.
Scot: [50:42] Just like acceleration dang itcome on retail media networks get your act together you and Amazon get in there and figure stuff outall right it was a rough year for predictions for meall right number 4.
Jason: [50:55] Uhyeah I I'm I don't like doing public math but I feel like you're gonna have a hard time beating me at this point.
Scot: [51:03] Yep I'm hopelessly behind.
Jason: [51:05] Uh so number 4, whenever you're in trouble go with the stock prediction that's that's what I always say number 4 instacart whose stock IPO at $33 and is now at $23 $23 as of this prediction show in January of 2023 solves ads and Pops to 40 uh dollars a share.
Scot: [51:27] It was January of 24 yeah but yes you got the dollars right but the time was January 24th.
Jason: [51:32] Okay got it so.
Scot: [51:34] If they had done it on January 23rd that would impressive because I would have been predicting the IPO price and where we'd be.
Jason: [51:39] And it would have been even more predictive if you bought at that point yeah um so what happened in their their stock is this dollar sign cart is that who we're talking about.
Scot: [51:48] Yeah I questioned it at 45 right now so I beat that 1 and therefore I get 2 points by my mouth.
Jason: [51:54] Yeah and for any listeners that weren't already clear on this if you want to adopt either of our stock picking you should adopt stocks.
Scot: [52:03] Yeah this is like you know how the NBA they have the 2-point things and then the 3 this was like a 3-pointer for me so it's like a 2-pointer it's kind of.
Jason: [52:09] Got it all right all right um I did I feel like your foot might have been on the line so I'm only giving you 1, all right and then rounding out number 5 well everyone thinks T-Mobile uh well, wait while everyone thinks she and tiemoue take share from Amazon they end up hurting Nordstrom Macy's and Target instead materially 10% plus focus on apparel maybe take Target out okay maybe there's some notes in there on the prediction um.
Scot: [52:40] Um yeah.
Jason: [52:41] But so high level you're saying.
Scot: [52:43] I wasn't sure if we knew the I didn't I was trying to like I wasn't sure if we I I occurred to me that Target probably doesn't report on apparel and it doesn't matter about merged from the Macy's because they're mostly up here but yeah that's like what I was talking about.
Jason: [52:54] I see what you're saying yeah yeah yeah.
Scot: [52:55] But let's just say target has a rough year is my prediction. This is what's known as a prediction Recon.
Jason: [53:05] Yeah so how do how what do you how you're grading yourself on this 1 I'm curious.
Scot: [53:09] I didn't think so I don't think Nordstrom and Macy's are reported yet so we don't know but I don't think I do think Amazon fought back which was interesting like I would never, I thought that I thought they would fight back just in the current mechanism but they came out with their I always forget the name of this what's their to competitor.
Jason: [53:29] Uh Hall.
Scot: [53:30] Yeah, you know I think that's interesting in its own so maybe it was actually wrong because I don't know I don't know if Amazon would have come out with that or I guess they did you know I don't think they've slowed Amazon down by any take and I do think they've taken share, from the Omni Channel people.
Jason: [53:47] Yeah no I I think you are right here so so I I feel like objectively there's a pretty easy way to say this Amazon probably is going to end up growing at twice the the average rate of retail so nobody took share from Amazon.
Jason: [54:01] And so like I you know as as as well as she and and tiemoue did it it had to be coming out of other people I think it's a little unclear exactly who they came it came out of, you know you're right like they do skew a little apparently and you know that a lot of apparel returns that did poorly Nordstrom didn't have a good year their their stock went down and the family was able to buy the company back like, but so that's not going to be because they lit the world on fire in 2024 a spoiler alert, Macy's you know continues to struggle in their turnaround they just announced hundreds of More Store closures and Target did okay they have kind of fallen out of the, the kind of top tier you know running they're not growing as fast as the Walmarts and and Amazons of the worldbut they they probably, tread water which is probably disappointing for them so don't know if how much shared Sheen or team specifically took out of them but I think it's it's totally correct that Sheen and tiemoue did not grow at Amazon's expense I think it's also true that Amazon is, you know intrinsically nervous company that you know look tries to look at the future and hedge its bets and I think that's why they they launched hall for the the potential of these services to impact Amazon not because of the the material impact it was already having.
Jason: [55:19] So I'm giving it to youyeah so that puts you at 2 out of 5so a rare a rare win I feel like we should just, like we've already used an hour of the podcast got so I feel like we should just forgo next year's forecast and just you know carry the the champion forward a year.
Scot: [55:37] Gone out on top is smart yeah I I understand your prediction your your desire to do that but the listeners would be very.
Jason: [55:45] No the listeners do deserve better they do they do deserve a a shorter tighter better edited show which they're not getting so we should at least give them the predictions. But I do think we should try to be concise uhokay you want to go first or you want me I uh I I would love to hear yours.
Scot: [56:00] Yes I can go fast all rightdo you want to go first or you wantwhy don't we go with yours because we heard your that will keep us alternating you go.
Jason: [56:12] So prediction number 1 Sheen and tiemoue are not I I underscore not impacted by changes to Dominus so there's the Biden Administration announced that they were, they were going to suspend a minimum from China and a lot of people thought oh man that's that's a death null for Shen and tiemoue, and I'm predicting that either those those diminished changes won't happen or even if they do happen that they're not going to materially impact Sheen or team machine and team are already too big and they're they're now not using de minimis for a bunch of their deliveries, so I think they announced their goal this year is to deliver 80% of their their European orders from factories they already deliver 50% of their us orders from factories so I don't think I don't think to minimize slows down she and her team who, that's a question I get asked every week by reporters by the way, more likely if she and tiemoue don't have a great year it's going to be because Tik Tok shops does really well or trade Wars you know knock everything off but but it's not going to be because of Dominusso that's prediction number 1, prediction does that shock you or don't care or somewhere in between.
Scot: [57:17] Wellokay so you're putting tariffs in so it's an and the minimum so you don't think tariffs or diminish are going to slow them downbut tariffs could could slow yeah tariffs are going to like hurt.
Jason: [57:31] Disregard the tariffs I actually said I I I I hedge there which I shouldn't have I I said they may.
Scot: [57:37] I I heard tariffs 100% you're saying though not the any tariffs.
Jason: [57:41] No no no I said they could be impacted by tariffs but they won't be impacted by changes to de minimis.
Scot: [57:46] Ah okay.
Jason: [57:47] Um but even tariffs aside I I just yeah I think it's going to be an a good year for Shen and tiemoue and even better year for Tik Tok shopsum, so prediction number 2 I'm just sticking all all Chinese retailers all the time now and this 1 In fairness I have to point out I wrote a week ago, and then Scott realized that he wanted to have the 123 date and so we didn't we didn't do the show this week but but so a week ago I predicted Tik Tok will not be banned in the US but the more important part of my prediction was Tik Tok shops will be the fastest growing retailer that does over a billion dollars in Revenue in the US in 2025so you could debate with, banned or not they kind of got banned for 2 2 hours but more relevantly they're going to be the fastest growing retailer in 2025, the the billion dollar threshold is just to eliminate tiny little companies that you know grow at some huge rate because they're tiny.
Scot: [58:47] Are we gonna how are we gonna measure that because they don't disclose have you found a good third party that does.
Jason: [58:52] No but a bunch of analysts will a bunch of third parties will follow them and I'll I'll do a aggregate of the the Morgan Stanley and and City Bank estimates of of their their sales.
Scot: [59:02] Okayall alone.
Jason: [59:04] All right all right and sometimes they they are it it's debatable if you should believe them or not but sometimes they the bite dance does say something, about their size in any case prediction number 3 a major auto manufacturer launches D to C offering in the US in 2025.
Scot: [59:21] Hm a major Auto okay it doesn't have to be a us could be any auto manufacturer can you count Tesla in this 1.
Jason: [59:29] No because they already are D to C.
Scot: [59:32] All right okay.
Jason: [59:34] So it has to be someone other than than someone other than Tesla has to have some real Sales Direct to Consumer bypassing the the third-party D or Network.
Scot: [59:43] So Hyundai is sung on Amazon but it's through the dealer Network so that would not count if they added like another 1 to that. Okay all rightwe're gonna have a feeling we're gonna have to come back and check some of these nuances because you can get a little slippery in your predictions Mr retail geek.
Jason: [1:00:00] Suddenly you lose 1 year and suddenly you're all competitive interesting umprediction number 4, retail media networks go through a major consolidation in 2025 so a lot of the smaller networks realize they can't, succeed on their own they don't have the success that they they thought they would have and in 2025 we start to see a lot of federations of multiple retailers, that are throwing throwing their Edge units together to try to get bigger volumes.
Scot: [1:00:30] And then does that mean so they're not going to like the retailers aren't going to merge but maybe there'll be some kind of a way for their inventory and sales teams or something.
Jason: [1:00:37] Their ad networks will merge yeah so you buy an ad for all the regional grocers in the northeast of just from Wegman's.
Scot: [1:00:43] Yeahyeah that 1 sounds like a pretty pretty logical 1 just kind of a question of when like the trick timing on these is always tricky.
Jason: [1:00:50] Timing turns out to be way harder part of predictions than you and I have each had a really wise prediction that we would predict 3 years in a row be wrong and then get tired of predicting it and have it come true, uh which is heartbreaking but so my fifth predictionI I feel like I might be, repeating tradition this was my bonus last year but it's my actual prediction this year who I streaming VR and voice Comm Commerce are all materially insignificant in 2025 no evidence that consumers care about green or purpose-driven brand with their wallets. So uh again this is because I get calls every week from reporters that want to do a article about how what a big deal live streaming is or or VR Commerce or how everyone has to have a green Mission or they're going to fail, and it's all a bunch of March so I'm chromogen me is saying none of those things are going to be a big story in 2025um, and then I did write a bonus again and the reason this would have been my fifth prediction but I actually couldn't figure out a smart way to measure it and so I I opted to not, not put it in there although debatably the the 1 I replaced it with is also tough to measure but my bonus is AI agents are the hottest Trend in Commerce and so we we talked about that in the in the NRF recap but I I I think the our agent space is going to be really really interesting and eventually very meaningful to Commerce.
Scot: [1:02:14] We should do a deep dive on on that we we're behind deep Dives every time we say deep deep dive we we haven't had time to do it but.
Jason: [1:02:20] Yes we'll make it happenall right so what do you got Scott.
Scot: [1:02:26] All right Amazon relaunches Alexa on a native element just kidding I'm I have a I have officially given up on that 1 sorry Amazonyep.
Jason: [1:02:33] Yeah so I'm grateful that you gave up because that means I have a chance of actually getting a better 1 this year.
Scot: [1:02:44] Okay on this 1 I think Facebook, is going to acquire eBay and put them out of their misery so eBay has been on this kind of like, painful decline I'm a I'm a huge eBay fan and it's been kind of sad to watch them like not keep up with the times and I was initially excited they bought a guy back Jamie I think it's his name is Ion or something like that and uh he he's a really nice guy and he was.
Jason: [1:03:08] In a way I think yeah.
Scot: [1:03:08] Category guy in a way and you know I just think it's like too big of a beast and kind of too far gone and got an innovator's dilemma problem all kinds of problems so I think Facebook buys it and they kind of merge it in with Facebook groups in some way and and Marketplace and to kind of figure out a way to to to re reimagine it as kind of a peace inside of the social network and you know and they probably get the ad piece and all the data and it. It it probably makes sense just.
Jason: [1:03:40] I love that I love that I also love that you call it Facebook and not meta.
Scot: [1:03:44] Yeah refused to um I think they're going to regret that they prior to do they're probably going to like change to some kind of an AI.
Jason: [1:03:50] I think that wasn't wasn't that my fifth prediction I think was that it's on yeahthe metaverse is material eiroa.
Scot: [1:03:58] Okay I'm going to redo I'm not going to redo my Alexa and I'm going to revisit the T-Mobile and I still think if your premise is like silly gamification and cheap junk that that's going to catch up with you so I think it's going to catch up with them this year, um yep so I have a you know specifically they're going to be down at least 25% year-over-year from 24 to 25.
Jason: [1:04:18] I love this cuz we violently disagreed so that'll be fun to watch again in my perspective Teemu possibly could be down but if they are it's because someone will be selling the cheap junk better than them not because nobody's buying cheap jump.
Scot: [1:04:30] Yeah just I don't know, all right okay this 1 may explain may take some explain so AI agents become a double-edged sword for retailers because a these agents can be a couple of things and.
Scot: [1:04:43] I'm a retailer, I think I'm okay with an agent like embedded on my site like my agent you know my my thing on my site my experience so I can draw I'm not sure I want the external agents, you know making me a back a headless serviceand you know especially if you're you and I know a lot of these retailers make, bunch of their money off you know the add-ons the, that they they almost don't if they were just became a transactional part of a hey agent I need to get dog food book a trip to La this that and the other they they start to lose money because a lot most most of not all their margin comes from the little things and it's add-ons it's you know all the little things and I think I think they they will that's the double edge so the prediction is, I think1, okay 10 10 the larger retailers will block them and I think it's going to be like the Amazons the Walmart's the targets those types of folks but I think the rest of them if you're a if you're a big 1, you're going to want to you're going to have enough power that you're going to want to block it and you'll be okay and again this is not the use case of its on your site this is like a third-party entity is using you as a, you know an endpoint for an agent to buy something um and then I think everyone else will will kind of Welcome them and and maybe even make it easier so it's going to be like a really weird, bifurcation for how retailers handle that that new thing.
Jason: [1:06:12] Got it yeah yeah no I totally get it, I mean yeah every everyone wants to be the AI agent no 1's to be a sharecropper on someone else's AI agenttoy get it like I I think for the fulfilling product I also think that's true on the data side by the way like the best agents are are they going to be the ones that know the most about your life and so you that would argue for interoperability right like the agent ought to be able to see read your Gmail and read your travel schedule.
Scot: [1:06:37] Oh I have a prediction on this too.
Jason: [1:06:38] Yeah oh okay I'll shut up on that then um but they're all they're all going to want to be well Gardens and be agents that only have you know are the only 1 that sees their data is how they're all going to try to win in the in the short run at least unless consumers make them change.
Scot: [1:06:52] Well there's a throwaway line in the I also I came very close to spending the $200 to get to the operator but I also showed some constraint yeah yes.
Jason: [1:07:01] You make me feel better about my decision I was worried you were going to say that's that's ridiculous Jason you should just spend money.
Scot: [1:07:06] When they're it's like they have they have a throwaway line in there and they're like oh an operator you know once you pay uh it will remember your payment information for next time and I was kind of like, wow you know that that that raises a lot of questions Jason and I have a lot to talk about when we play with this thing I worried like a lot of these companies.
Jason: [1:07:24] Going to we're going to leave the hose in your armtake more blood on it whenever we want it.
Scot: [1:07:27] Yeah is that piece is there a PCA compliant PCI compliance this thing's scraping me entering my credit card and like where is it storing it.
Jason: [1:07:35] Oh I'm sure I'm sure they have a bunch of adults that are super focused on PCI at uh at openai.
Scot: [1:07:42] I can't tell if that's.
Jason: [1:07:43] The same people that made sure they didn't use Scarlett Johansson's voice right.
Scot: [1:07:47] Yeah so I'm a little you know when I try this I'm going to use my credit card that that uh I use for these types of experience.
Jason: [1:07:55] The 9-year-old video game player say it's a little sus.
Scot: [1:07:58] Yeah it's totally Seuss there's no risk just riskless um, okay number 4 marketplaces have a new leg of expansion yay marketplaces into a variety of placesmaybe even 1 of the LMS get some religion around marketplaces, and then this kind of ties in you made this interesting point that there's connective tissue between marketplaces and RNs and I think what happens is all these people have rolled out our MNS and they're going to say they're going to pull all the little ad levers and all that jazz that you guys are doing the ad world with you know, ad units and number of AD units per thing and then they're going to it's going to slow down they're going to say Hey what if we had more products how do we get more products on our site because that's going to be more page views well what's leaning into marketplaces so I think we're going to see this another I think rmns are going to retail media networks are going to pull marketplaces into more places that maybe previously haven't done them.
Jason: [1:08:49] So is this specific prediction here then 5 major new retailers will launch a Marketplace is that what you're sayingoh awesome okay.
Scot: [1:08:58] Major would be like let's call it the top 200 or whatever you know yeah not.
Scot: [1:09:05] If retail Geeks uh you know merch store rolls it out.
Jason: [1:09:07] I know I know a bunch of vendors that sell that sell Marketplace Stacks that that are just thrilled to see that prediction.
Scot: [1:09:13] Yeah the the miracle folks have done a good job.
Jason: [1:09:15] Exactly who I was thinking ofuh they have a lot of competition these days by the way.
Scot: [1:09:21] Yeah there's software is tough man.
Jason: [1:09:23] Yeah as you wisely predicted the SAS had its moment but it's pretty pretty will bear to entry these days.
Scot: [1:09:31] And then number 5 and this is just my phrasing but it should resonate with you personalization is out and you know, I call it memory so so some of these LMS you're using and if they see an interesting fact about you they'll say I've added that to my memory or they'll give you a prompt that says hey Jason I see you're talking a lot about your cat, I'm going to remember you have a cat okay, that type of a thing so so I do think that that's going to be where you know these things will start to ask hey if I had access to your Gmail just this 1 time and I knew a little bit more about you and that could be the types of products you've ordered your upcoming trips to your point your calendar I could make your life a little bit easier so we're going to start trading off this convenience for data and I think it, it's gonna be painful because it's gonna be stored probably at the LM level with 1 of the big LMS and it's not going to be cross LM so someone could figure that out, I don't know if that's to figure out but, it's going to kind of be stinky in a way because it will be a lock in because that lock in a convenience will make it relatively painful once you know lm1 knows all the stuff about you that your left-handed you have a dog and a cat and you prefer Pringles over let you know whatever your preferences are across travel all these different things that's going to be so convenient that it's going to be hard to break that and and it'll be hard to, extract them and make them portable and no 1's going to want to have them extractable and portable.
Jason: [1:10:59] Interesting yeah I think it's a super interesting point I think it's going to be fascinating to watch it all play out I'm not exactly sure how we'll be measuring this 1 a year from now but II like it, I feel like the answer though Scott is super simple if just every piece of personal data about all of us was just on the blockchain and anyone that we give permission to could just tap into all of it.
Scot: [1:11:20] Well said it had a coin if it had a utility coin.
Jason: [1:11:23] Yeah and the only problem is we need the power of about 12 sons to power all the the compute for all that but yeah.
Scot: [1:11:31] Well actually it's kind of funny that you know everyone was freaking out about crypto and power that's like that's a drop in the bucket compared to the AI power you asked chat gbt to help with your homework and you just like yeah.
Jason: [1:11:42] Take out a rainforest.
Scot: [1:11:43] 80 80 Bitcoin transactions I I don't know but like it's a it's kind of crazy.
Jason: [1:11:47] Yeah I have a lot of clients that ask how they can use generative AI to achieve their their ecology goalsreally.
Scot: [1:11:55] Uh yeahget a lot of solar panels.
Jason: [1:12:00] Yeaha lot of solar panels like planets worth um awesome yeah you have a bonus.
Scot: [1:12:06] Bonus and and you know you kind of I don't know if you count this in your replenishment kind of thing but but there's a lot of supply chain is hit kind of a, not a wall but there's some problems in there that are hard for humans there's a set of problems that start to get these you know multivariable Solutions kinds of things and some AI so a really good 1 a good analogy that may not seem like a good, connective 1 on the surfaces drug Discovery so there's these things like folding proteins and things to figure out a different drugs and how to develop them and if they're candidates for solving certain things, it ends up at its simplest in a computer science standpoint it's like, it's these uh 4 5 6 7 8 dimensional problems where you end up having these you know surface areas colliding and crazy ways and you're looking for they have lots of collisions in there that could be answers and you're trying to find the optimal.
Scot: [1:12:58] And that's a set of problems that that happens when you get a lot of complexity of of of the trade-offs become you know, hard to even enumerate like if I do this then this happens and this happens supply chain has a lot of that right like if I if Jason orders the product here and it goes it needs in Chicago and he waited a day he could have gotten this added to the box and that does this and it's that and the other, so so there's some really you know they're using both Ai and interesting ways that they're different types this is more like the Deep Mind type of a thing where there's a, there's a winner State at the end not a not a natural language kind of thing, another 1 that's really interesting and I've gone pretty deep on this and it's pretty crazy is we don't have time you know but I'll just kind of introduce the topic here within the world of quantum Computing you have 2 types of computers you have cubits which are going to be better and they're good for, you know doing crazy calculations in parallel and and stuff that we don't even 100% understand the other 1 is there's a this thing called Quantum annealing where you load, the problem into this uh quantum computer, and then you cool it down and then there's something about the quantum nature of it that it goes right to the low point it finds the answer relatively quickly or a set of answers that are you know are almost guaranteed to be 1 or 2 of the the, the optimal answers so uh I've actually talked to people that are like looking at this in supply chain and and trying to figure this kind of stuff out and that's going to be interesting like it could be.
Scot: [1:14:21] You know right now we're getting like 1 and 2% kind of things out of supply chain but maybe we get like a 5 or 10% off something like that so.
Jason: [1:14:28] Scot I love that you found a way to work Quantum cubits and a kneeling into what minute 1 hour and 18 of the puck.
Scot: [1:14:36] It's a little bonus for the people that stick around you got to give them got to give.
Jason: [1:14:40] No no no I will I will say, it's super interesting and I like the the the very early versions of this kind of stuff is already showing up at at in the NRF vendor so there there are now like people have moved on from these kind of like, like Old School Ms to we'll call it a supply chain or order orchestration so instead of like, new Legacy systems to do these things like interoperability of all these disparate data sources to, to be way more efficient and so the you know there there were vendors like next nextuple or pipe 17 at interf this year that are already using AI to optimize supply chain in ways that you know humans couldn't see or understand which is pretty cool.
Scot: [1:15:22] Awesome well if you stuck with us this long listeners we appreciate it and that's uh before you go to bed start learning about Quantum and kneeling and then we'll uh we'll do a deep dive if there's enough demand.
Jason: [1:15:32] Yeah yeah we'll have a question and answer show in the listeners can explain it to us um, it's got its we we say it's happened again that we've run out of time but that was 15 minutes agoso we've blown way past time everyone complains that we have been publishing enough shows so be careful what you wish for, as we we hit some almost epic choir length podcast this week. Always a lot of fun talking to you I think the predictions are super interesting I'm going to cherish my rare annual win for at least the next you know 2 or 3 hours, and sure appreciate everyone sticking with us as always if you find Value in this show jump on iTunes and give us that 5-star review the AI robots love the 5-star reviews our corporate our our AI overlords are going to want them.
Scot: [1:16:21] Yeah congratulations Jason on the big win it's 10 years in the making you finally finally got 1.
Jason: [1:16:27] I might I might have a future in this industry after all and until next time happy Commercing!
22 Aug 2019
EP184 - Tapestry CDO Noam Paransky
00:46:05
EP184 - Tapestry CDO Noam Paransky
Noam Paransky is the Chief Digital Officer at Tapestry, the parent company of Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. In this broad ranging interview we discuss Tapestry's vision for a Global Digital Experience, some of the challenges with global localization, organization structures for a house of brands, and the future of commerce.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 184 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, August 20th, 2019. live from the eTail East trade show in Boston, MA.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
21 Apr 2021
EP261 - Benedict Evans
01:00:40
EP261 - Benedict Evans
Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) has been a VC, an operator, consultant and an investment banker. His VC career includes a five year stint as partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He know lives in London, where he publishes an excellent weekly newsletter “What mattered in tech this week?“, a podcast “Another Podcast“, and some epic annual presentations, such as this years “The Great Unbundling.” You can find all things Benedict Evans at his website. He’s one of the most thoughtful people in the commerce industry, so we tried to cover a lot a ground in this broad ranging conversation.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Episode 261 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Wednesday April 21, 2021.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Episode 243 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, October 29th 2020.
28 Sep 2016
EP046 - NRFs Matt Shay, CEO & Shop.org 2016 Day Recap
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
11 Nov 2016
EP058 - Puma VP of E-commerce, Chris Hardisty
01:13:32
EP058 - Puma VP of E-commerce, Chris Hardisty
Chris Hardisty is the VP of E-Commerce for Puma. We spoke with Chris about the history of Puma, the challenges of being a sales Chanel and the Brand Ambassador, Amazon, Demandware, and their state of the art fulfillment center leveraging the Autostore picking system.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 58 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday November 3, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Episode 113 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, January 15th, 2018.
New beta feature - Google Automated Transcription of the show
28 Oct 2020
EP242 - Salsify Co-Founder and CMO Rob Gonzalez
01:07:48
EP242 - Salsify Co-Founder and CMO Rob Gonzalez
Rob Gonzales is the Co-Founder and CMO of Salsify an e-commerce enablement SaaS company that has raised over $250m and focuses on helping brands sell online. Rob is also co-founder of the Digital Shelf Institute.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 242 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Wednesday, October 21st 2020.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
06 Mar 2020
EP210 - Amazon Go Grocery and News
00:56:02
EP210 - Amazon Grocery and News
Episode 210 is a recap of the weeks news, including eTailWest recap, Amazon Go Grocery, Walmart new programs, impact of Coronavirus, and retailer earnings reports.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Our Digital Retail Newsmaker segment, features an interview with Ali Asaria (@aliasaria), CEO and Founder of Tulip Retail. Tulip Retail is a mobile application provider focused on empowering workers in retail stores. They recently raised $40M in venture capitol, lead by Kleiner Perkins.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 99 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, August 31th 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
A weekly podcast with the latest e-commerce news and events.
04 Aug 2016
EP039 - Staples, Faisal Masud Chief Digital Officer
00:57:19
EP039 - Interview Faisal Masud, CDO of Staples
Faisal Masud is the Chief Digital Officer at Staples. His career includes many of the marquee e-commerce companies in North America including eBay, Groupon and Amazon. In the interview, we cover:
His background, and e-commerce experience
His love of Cricket
Competing with Amazon
Role of stores
Marketplaces
Innovation
This episode is sponsored by the National Retail Federation. The Jason and Scot show will be live podcasting at the NRF/shop.org digital summit 2016 which is in Dallas September 26-28th this year. We have a custom discount code for our listeners. The code is JASON&SCOT, you will get a 10% discount on the full conference fee. Visit retailsdigitalsummit.nrf.com to enter the code when you register for the show and we’ll see you there!
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 39 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, July 25th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
09 Jan 2019
EP159 - 2019 Predictions and 2018 Recap
01:09:29
EP159 - 2019 Predictions and 2018 Recap
Our annual predictions episode for 2019 and a recap of our 2018 predictions.
Mallageddon 2.0 - We saw 7000 stores close in 2017, I think this accelerates in 2018 as the 30-40% of weak malls fail closures. YES
Amazon will NOT buy another offline retailer, triples down on private label. YES
Amazon will squarely get in the last mile business in 2018 and compete with FedEx and UPS. NO
Amazon’s ad group will get so large that they have to break out details about it and everyone will be shocked at how large it has gotten so quickly YES
Walmart will make a big M+A - top candidates would be Instacart, postmates and eBay. YES
Somebody acquires Magento, or they go public. YES
5/6
Bonus - Amazon comes out with Alexa powered wireless earbuds - because I want them. NO
Jason
Grocery gets disrupted by digital (led by curbside pickup). Digital grocery doubles in US, at least one delivery firm peters out.YES
Drug gets disrupted by digital. NO
AI Gap - biggest trend of 2018 NO
Voice - Huge but not for commerce. YES
Payments - Retail digital wallets die (except Starbucks/Walmart/Amazon). Bitcoin tanks. YES
3/5
Bonus - Amazon launches a wearable. NO .
Scot crushes Jason!
2019 Predictions
Scot
At least 5k more store closures in 2019
Amazon - Prof Galloway is big on Amazon having to create a AWS spinoff and has moderated that to tracking stock. I’m going to predict Amazon doesn’t do either of those things. But this WILL be the year they break ads out.
eBay/Alibaba - I think this is the year when the both need to do something big and the stars are aligning for a combination there.
Shopify gets acquired by one of the big ad-based companies (facebook/google most likely)
Walmart stumbles in e-commerce
Jason
Amazon store count exceeds 1000 stores
Walmart buys a last mile firm
Another big bankruptcy (going to be a tougher than expected year, JCP, category killers Office, BBBY, Neiman)
Mobile commerce revenue passes Desktop - Aided by PWA’s, and payment API’s we see mobile gap narrow
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 159 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, January 6th, 2019.
www.jasonandscot.com
14 Jul 2016
EP036 - Mondelez, Neil Ackerman, Global E-Commerce Director
01:06:17
EP036 - Interview with Neil Ackerman, Global E-Commerce Director at Mondelez
Neil Ackerman is the GM and Global eCommerce Director at Mondelez. He joined Mondelez from Amazon where he spent 3 years in the Fulfillment Buy Amazon (FBA) program. Our conversation covered a wide range of topics including:
Neil’s background
An overview of Mondelez and their e-commerce challenges and opportunities
How Mondelez works with Amazon
How Mondelez thinks about channel conflict
The evolution of grocery e-commerce and impulse purchases
Neil’s experience at Amazon, including the development of the “Small and Light” program.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 36 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, July 12th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Dollar General – US Comps down 4.6%; (up 17.1% from 2YA)
Best Buy – US Comps up 37.9%, e-commerce up 7.6% (online revenue was 33.2% versus 42.2% last year)
Burlington – Comps up 20% (shutdown e-commerce Q1 2020)
Gap – Comps up 28% (up 13% vs 2YA). Digital up 82% vs 2 YA. Digital now 40% of total sales.
Episode 265 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday May 27, 2021.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
24 Jan 2017
EP066 - Scott Silverman Interview
00:49:44
EP066 - Scott Silverman
Scott Silverman is a principal at Scott Silverman Associates and Scott is also co-founder of the Global Ecommerce Leaders Forum. On top of that, he also advises several startups in the e-commerce arena. Scott is one of the inventors of the term CyberMonday. Scott is also a former Executive Director and board member of shop.org.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 66 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday January 16th, 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
04 Oct 2020
EP238 - Holiday Shipageddon
00:58:13
EP238- Holiday Shipageddon
This holiday season will be a mixed bag for retailers. Health concerns are likely to drive many more consumers online, but can retailers and shippers, who are already experiencing Cyber-Monday levels of e-commerce handle the increased volume?
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
02 May 2016
EP024 - Amazon Deep Dive
01:12:44
Episode 24 is a single topic podcast offer a deep dive into
Amazon.
Details about Amazon most retailers don't know
Secrets to Amazon's success
Common Amazon misperceptions
Advice for competing (or at least surviving) in an Amazon
world.
Episode 24 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on
Thursday, April 28th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce &
Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive
Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and
trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper
marketing.
Q5: Nick Barrett Would be really interested to hear your guys thoughts on how an established e-commerce store should expand into new product categories. Is it a good idea to launch new niche websites through Shopify to do this, or is it better to keep focus within a single e-commerce site and expand within that?
Q6 Rebecca Saunders Have you seen any recent data on the costs of customer acquisition online via the various channels, and how these have changed over time? I hear a lot anecdotally but haven’t managed to access any reliable data. Thanks in advance! Love the show btw (all the way from rainy London).
Q7 Amit Agarwal Have you ever done some research on e-commerce subscriptions such as amazon subscribe and save or autoship? Also, what is the industry trends for bark box, hello fresh and other bundle subscriptions?
Hey Scot, What do you see as likely business implications of rising appetite for anti-trust action (see FTC/DOJ announcement , Lina Khan joining Congress staff, etc ) on platforms which monetize consumer data ?
How do you put consumers at ease with in-home delivery services? (i.e. Walmart grocery). Wouldn’t drop-off when the customer is home for certain items (or lockers) be easier to sell?
What’s your favorite app that you’ve downloaded in the last few months?
Q11 Twitter: Natalie Dillon mentioned us as one of her top podcasts – thanks Natalie!
Q12 Ted: Mixed use retail entertainment?
Q 13 Michelle Grant
Thoughts on pricing strategy in an omnichannel world where price transparency is high and filled with bots to find the lowest price
Q15 Melissa Burdick
The advertising race to the wallet – We’ve seen some big news lately: Target in talks to buy Triad, Walmart who is bringing advertising in house and just made a key hire Suresh as their CTO….where is this going for ads? Is it going to be a war for brands wallet? Is everyone going to take a page from the Amazon playbook, bring ads in house, and move to a self-service performance advertising, PPC world?
Where is the $ coming/going to come from? In the chart below, it looks like Amazon is taking from Google. (I asked a big CPG this question and I asked where is this coming from – or are you just getting more $$? Their answer – more $$).
How should brands prepare?
Q16 Melissa Burdick
Is Amazon going to do to walgreens/bartells/CVS what they did to the bookstore (kill the bookstore to build a bookstore) with the acquisition of pill pack + private label (aspirin, etc) and enable the ability to sell mass CPG profitably?
Q17 Melissa Burdick
Can Scot please update his Amazon Scape – how has it changed?
Q18 Melissa Burdick
When is Spiffy coming to Seattle?
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 178 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, June 18th, 2019.
Join your hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
GroceryShop is the first year of a new show focused on disruptive trends, technologies and business models in grocery & CPG that includes both established and startup CPG brands, supermarkets, c-stores, drug stores, discount stores, ecommerce players, warehouse clubs, grocerants and non-traditional grocery retailers. The show took place October 28-31 in Las Vegas, at the Aria Hotel and Convention Center.
Jason's Activities
Jason interviewed Sanjiv Mehra, co-founder and CEO EOS products for a keynote fireside chat
Jason moderated a panel "Evolving CPG Retailer relationships" with Constellation Brands, e.l.f. Beauty, and Fairway Market
Jason moderated a panel "Using product content to build brands" with Boston Beer Company, Chobani, and The Wonderful Company
Keynotes
Yael Cosset, Chief Digital Officer, The Kroger Co.
Andy Katz-Mayfield, Co-Founder & CEO, Harry's
Sanjiv Mehra, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, eos Products
Apoorva Mehta, Founder & CEO, Instacart
Chieh Huang, CEO, Boxed
Nina Barton, President, Global Growth, Kraft Heinz
Luke Jensen, CEO, Ocado Solutions
Narayan Iyengar, SVP, Digital & eCommerce, Albertsons Companies
Nick Green, Co-Founder & CEO, Thrive Market
Key Themes
Digital Disruption of Grocery
Store picking vs. Dedicated Fulfillment Center
Startup Brands vs. New products from established Companies
Private Label/Owned Brands
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 150 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, November 5th, 2018.
Join your hosts Jason "retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
27 Aug 2020
EP234 - Listener Questions Live
01:05:51
EP234 - Listener Questions Live
Episode 234 is a live show featuring live audience questions. Jason & Scot get to interact with listeners live.
California’s proposed AB 3262, related to product liabilities for marketplaces.
Amazon's stance on hybrid sellers (both selling wholesale to Amazon, and direct on the marketplace)
SEO in the Covid era
What's the next big thing?
How are retailers addressing digital impulse?
Why do retailers have separate systems for e-commerce and POS?
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 234 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, August 27th, 2020.
http://jasonandscot.com J
oin your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
14 Mar 2017
EP074 - Selling on Amazon with Melissa Burdick of The Mars Agency
01:06:10
EP074 - Selling on Amazon with Melissa Burdick of The Mars Agency
Melissa Burdick is the VP of E-Commerce for The Mars Agency, and a former Amazonian who was involved in Amazon's entry into the CPG space.
We talked with Melissa about all things Amazon, including:
Her background at Amazon, and the early days of Amazon's relationship with CPGs.
How CPGs have evolved on the Amazon platform
The different selling platforms available to CPGs on Amazon (Prime Now, Fresh, Core, Pantry, SNS, Dash)
CRaP - Can't Realize a Profit stats on Amazon
Brands on Amazon 1p vs 3p selling
Hybrid accounts (selling both 1p and 3p)
Amazon Private Label
Amazon Advertising Platforms
AMS - Amazon Marketing Services
AMG - Amazon Media Group
AAP - Amazon Advertising Platform
ARA - Amazon Retail Analytics
Future of E-Commerce
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 74 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday March 8th, 2017.
http://retailgeek.com/podcast
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Sur La Table is about to launch a new visual configurator for Table Top products, using Mix & Match from Fluid. You can can be one of the first to try the new experience here.
Episode 20 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, March 31st, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
In this broad-ranging interview, we discuss the unique management styles at Apple, Google, and Facebook, as well as doing a deep dive into what makes the Amazon culture unique.
Disclosure: links to Amazon are affiliate links.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 237 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, September 24th, 2020.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
A/I - Bots for Customer Service but probably not for transactions, lots of buzz on big data AI but no game changing new experiences
Personalization - to eliminate friction, not drive new demand. Data integration not some new product or touchpoint
Laggard categories will discover digital (Grocery, Luxury, QSR)
Microservices - 50% of new platform implementations will be cloud, and Micro-service based solutions will start to emerge
Bonus - Digital Wallets - Something other than Paypal/Amazon will achieve 10% of US e-commerce transitions (not occurring on Amazon). Potentially a mix of vendors wallets (Chase, Walmart, ApplePay in Safari, etc...), or the W3C Web Payments standard could gain traction.
Scot
The IPO market is going to be open, but the e-commerce companies will get crowded out by the big tech unicorns like Uber, Snap, pinterest, airbnb, spotify and the like
Amazon will start to chip away at the Fedex and UPS’s of the world with a service like this in the US. From there (potential 2018) Amazon could expand into p2p and reverse logistics, ie "we're already at your house, do you have any other stuff to ship?"
Machine learning is the new ‘network effect’ - everyone has caught onto the power and competitive moats available from ML and that’s going to be a big theme. Every vendor you work with from carts to images to upsells to recomendations to search engine results to whatever is going to HAVE to have a ML capability to stay current and keep YOU competitive
We’re going to see e-commerce growth accelerate pretty materially in 2017. We’ve been in this 15% band and I think we will see there was a move up in 2H16 to high teens and we could see 20’s in 2017
eBay - it’s a do or die year for ebay, they could potential partner with Alibaba.
Bonus - Amazon will release another phone.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 64 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday January 3rd, 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
16 Apr 2018
EP127 - Sabon NYC E-commerce Director Katya Ermak
00:28:42
Episode 127 is an interview with Katya Ermak, Director of E-Commerce and Digital Marketing at Sabon NYC. We caught up with Katya Ermak at the ShopTalk 2018. Katya is the director of E-commerce at Sabon NYC. We talked with her about how Vertically integrated brands think of Amazon. How they leverage their omni-channel tactics and the future of malls. How Sabon is approaching e-commerce including their Magento platform, and some of their current tools such as Dynamic Yield.
Episode 127 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, March 19, 2018.
New beta feature, Google Transcription:
Transcript
Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this episode is being recorded on Monday March 19th 2018 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your Wingo.
Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason welcome back Jason Scott show listeners we are podcasting live from the shock talk show here in sunny Las Vegas and we're excited to have on the show today Katja or Mac. Katya is director of e-commerce and digital marketing at sabon NYC she has also spent time with Brands such as rainbow Century 21 and isobar welcome to the show.
Jason: [1:02] Thanks for joining us it's a little known fact but Scott exclusive.
Scot: [1:06] Did we use it as your.
Jason: [1:07] FedEx in his own bath so.
Katya: [1:09] That's great to hear.
Scot: [1:11] Yeah I'm going to have the bath bombs.
Jason: [1:13] So he's very excited about having you here when the things we always like to do on the show is talk to her guest.
Scot: [1:20] About their backgrounds and how they came to the control so could you.
Jason: [1:20] And how they came to their current role so could you tell us a little bit about as you got into the industry and and what your current role is.
Katya: [1:28] Wright's Okerlund director of e-commerce and just the market at sabon started there about. Two and a half years ago before that I decided I was with isobars. Worked on their engagement seem he ran out of states and before that I did a Content management for Rainbow shops.
[1:51] E-commerce was definitely something that, I was interested in when I was in college I have a fashion business degree and I was just thinking of where can I go with that degrade dad would make the most value out of my account. And I got a couple and their shapes e-commerce internship especially one with Century 21 which really to cough. And I love my job love what I do eCommerce is fantastic and it's such a growing animal and there's so many different things that you can do with us.
Scot: [2:26] Did you go to the fitt isn't that the big fashion School in New York.
Katya: [2:30] Right now I went to Berkeley College which is Elsa in New York.
Scot: [2:33] Okay cool awesome yeah I mean a lot of young ladies that are studying fashion and there's a lot of different ways it go to nursing you chose e-commerce you feel like it's still scratches your fashion itch or.
Katya: [2:44] Absolutely that was like a business degree with a fashion flavor to it and as a side like. I was interested to see I came to the Barclay because I wanted to be a buyer but while I'm studying there was. Digital start taking off at that time and people start talking more and more about it and how did brick-and-mortar it will be going away and at some point it was very scary for fashion students because there was not a lot of job available and them. I was looking for something that's going to be very up and come in and which I think I did a very right turn.
Scot: [3:24] Do they have chai have classes on how to do some digital marketing in that kind of thing or did you have to come pick it up on your own.
Katya: [3:30] Pick it up on my own I think we had maybe social media class or something like that.
Jason: [3:38] And can you tell us a little bit about like what the scope of your role is now so are you you responsible for operating the website and digital marketing.
Scot: [3:44] Responsible for operating the website and digital marketing and.
Katya: [3:49] The right I usually have I go about this the question like that as Dad to company currently has three ways of doing business so we have brick-and-mortar stores and in New York and we have wholesale Channel and we help outside so. Each channel is has its own Department. So my department and I'm head of the eCommerce department is responsible of running the website all the maintenance all the development all the digital marketing aspects. Currently we doing things with be social with Google with your panel ads what do Google shopping ads email marketing. Merchandising of the website the only thing that I'm not touching bases inventory and their warehouse relationship.
Jason: [4:39] Can you tell us a little bit about subbing for our Wizards I might not know I think of you is a vertically integrated brands.
Scot: [4:43] Think of you vertically integrated Brandt to you you guys make your own.
Jason: [4:47] Products in you sell them direct as well as through wholesale channels is that right or.
Katya: [4:52] Sabon at the bath and body products to reproduce by describes different moisturizing moisturizing lotions where electro brand, originally we're from Israel. So our products and natural in the based on that sea salts and minerals and that seemed muds original or the company was billed as the, franchise which country was its own franchise had at the store it's only Commerce about a year-and-a-half ago we got bought out by grouper shop. And older franchises for kind of put together and now we're. Like its own company we. Getting our products from Israel from our Global office and then we end up here you missed it then floss with your wholesale as well.
Jason: [5:46] Got you and you have a number of stores as well.
Katya: [5:49] So in New York with have down stores. Which primarily in the Hat and one in Brooklyn One Long Island around the world we have about I want to stay 200 stores. I'm waiting when country is when France England New Orleans Japan Korea.
Jason: [6:12] Don't you very cool that's one of the questions I'm always interested in when there's a brand selling online that also own stores. Is some of the omni-channel aspects but you know so like.
[6:27] Any attribution and figure out how the website is potentially driving people to your store or any any sort of digital experiences in the store those sorts of things.
Katya: [6:39] It's always has been an ongoing chat challenge for us. Because the company was a franchise so originally it was just about driving Revenue we didn't talk about how, what the customer experiences are what are they experiencing the stores, with the expansion of Commerce and how it's all blending together how we can drive traffic for both and support each other so. This is currently changing and though we talked with talking about it was talking about different experiences that we can create one of the projects the wave. Working on right now is offer and we start War friends. So glad classes and understand our stores and just set it up like serve booking and the schedule and through the website, set of creating the tide out therapy, the experience with, tile store experiences but it's an ongoing challenge will always talk about it right now and will always thinking of how can we restore the very beautiful and we have this personal experiences when you get. Hand treatment there is a big whale when you can start a product if people owe people doesn't know customer doesn't know our brand and they're the coming to the website that getting. Very slightly different experience rather than to the store so it's always a conversation how do we get that will experience the very personal that spends on the website and. It's an ongoing conversation ongoing challenge for us which I'm hoping to grab more answers on the shop.
Scot: [8:15] It would be a Jason Scott show if we didn't talk a little bit about Amazon and you talked about wholesale is Amazon so when you guys wholesale with and how would you describe your your kind of Amazon strategy and I'm thinking around them is up, partner slash competitors which is always a very much a friend of me with for everybody.
Katya: [8:34] So that the company has a partnership at wholesale partnership with Amazon I think it was started about 3 year 3 years ago it took off and. Brought us Revenue brought us some sales and brought the brand recognition but we experience on the challenge of that it's very hard for us to manage and change the prices and change. Kind of given that experience that we have. On our Ecommerce outside or in the stores so with that being said but decided to launch Amazon is a Marketplace. With a felon buy on Amazon and we. Got a partner Channel advisor which is helping us kind of guiding us through and helping us set it up that channel is currently rolling out so I think we should be good to go I started selling there in about couple weeks.
Scot: [9:26] Thanks for being a great that and then are you guys going to do hybrid we still do some wholesale and some third-party.
Katya: [9:35] So we think when we going to go out there Amazon Marketplace looking to see what's out of traction and we getting it sad is going to be different products. That wholesale had done from with Amazon Marketplace we're going to be doing and we'll see how it's going to go if it's going to be, very successful we're going to slowly over allowed their wholesale piece off the table or, maybe it's going to be a bad idea to keep them in a conjunction working so it depends like really wanted to see and learn first to make it in time decisions.
Scot: [10:07] Brickell conditioner at the path to purchase showing you had to head out and I wouldn't get a chance to talk about it but I'm in the queue today it was interesting, as Brands brought up to the challenges with with Amazon more and more of them were being sought for this hybrid model so for example one brand was complaining Amazon wouldn't order their product fast enough and one of the panelists, because most actually recommended you know you can actually have your you could you can you do Marketplace for that same item and then if Amazon sales your item, you can at least have some guarantee that your product will be there there some other examples like that were in the early days of hybrid it was just selection you know Amazon has ex and I want them to have x + y and now there's like some more advanced strategies there for.
Katya: [10:48] Marriage Style.
Jason: [10:52] What are things that was interesting to me about any on the show is that I have this right you were one.
Scot: [10:58] Very early.
Jason: [10:59] Hours of dynamic yield. Is a software tool for doing personalization based on some some AI deep learning your chop talk those are the big buzzwords is personalization and Nai in so I was I was just curious.
Scot: [11:10] I was just curious what kind of experiences you were you were in able.
Jason: [11:19] You are enabling for your Shoppers with Dynamic yield and is it just email is it on your site and.
Katya: [11:27] Sabon was the very early adopter robbed and I make you up and it just started out. And Esteban will love Dynamic yield and we pretty much do everything with them. Potentially. Did done utilizing their platform we just roll out and I think in August. Product recommendation on our homepage on the mobile on our product pages on in the car.
[11:59] We also serve banners all over Bennett's in the website was served through the night make you all them would do it be testing reason Infinity. And we starting up looking about 30% of them would just roll them out in conversion rate and customer satisfaction.
[12:22] I think there's so many things that you can do is then I make your old and strategies that we can Implement and you see it like I constantly seeing their case study that they're releasing or how they communicate with their how they work. There are other clients on the smaller scale of what the what weekend do mechanics executor so many things. Execution part where smallest unit sabon so it's a little bit harder. I think they doing an event in April in New York and it's going to be talking about more proficiency how different strategies for product personalization. We started with the product personalization on a homepage was started with a B test and soda personalized ended by customer who did its website and then we'll switch they were committed the resistance in today. Animation that learning in the recommended products that way and we'll see. Tremendous increases and sales in conversion other things in there and Genesis. So interesting and it's. Why don't those things that blowing my mind do you put in a smoke JavaScript X all on your website and you can. Change in the real time you can you can test, different with the with Dustin different pages would destined for muscle ache if you have how many different fields you can have and which one converts bad or so before before releasing anything pretty much on the website experience-wise for.
[13:54] Customers were always faster always create 3/4 in Arizona with Dustin which one performs better same goes for all of our batteries all the copy that would do for the. Banners and difficult to actions and different images and different backgrounds and it's open it up so.
[14:14] It's open. So many opportunities to learn who your customers and what they like and kind of a learning curve you constantly it's not it's not a platform that you just kind of. Started doing the things for you to constantly need to learn. Your phone those tests but it's open it up in a big door in personalization and making you a customer experience very personal for them.
Scot: [14:39] I'm not a personalization experts maybe you guys can answer this so so does it kind of learn, okay this particular customer loves the flavian of the lavender or something then it'll show them more of that kind of thing I know it sounds like you got some maybe optimization kind of testing stuff, but then the personalization does it kind of like learn what people like and then it changes the website based on those earnings.
Katya: [15:01] Right so it's obviously a quickie that every single person who comes in they said they cook it and we can sell what. What Journey did they had enough said what kind of batter the cloak on, what kind of products they looked at since they looked at the exfoliating products are monosaccharides and products, did they make a purchase at the after the cards post was there about cars value in Basin that information. The next time to come back we're going to serve them a different experience which could be anything we can recover the products if they were added something to the car is that the dead purchase. And then they come back maybe it will show them that product with the potential deal that they can get for that or if they weren't. Product page and then the added something else of the cards will show them assume all products in the car this wall there's a lot of different scenarios they can think about is how to personalize.
Scot: [15:59] This is some married to Magento or is it a it's at Works within him.
Jason: [16:03] That's a space tool you can Implement in NY Bridal platforms I think you guys impact are running it on Magento though what's was cool to me.
Scot: [16:13] We had personalization for a long time.
Jason: [16:17] What are the better you get to know the.
Scot: [16:18] Where the better you get to know the customer over multiple sessions you you can stay.
Jason: [16:22] D'Amore.
Scot: [16:24] I've been to that customer in that that's still really important.
Jason: [16:27] I still really important for monocytes though the majority of visitors are first-time visitors and so.
Scot: [16:33] So where a lot of personalization is a Scorpion falling down.
Jason: [16:35] Falling Down is.
Scot: [16:39] Every customer is unknown so they get the same generic experience and.
Jason: [16:40] So they get the same generic experience and you know you.
Scot: [16:43] Come back over and over again get this great personalized.
Jason: [16:45] But they are small percentage of the.
Scot: [16:46] Small percentage of the total traffic better now is what I'll call. Incontact in session personalization where they like in Forever explicit and implicit signals.
Jason: [16:54] Concession personalization where they like in fur explicit and implicit signals from.
Scot: [17:02] The browsing you're doing in the single session.
Jason: [17:04] 10 + *.
Scot: [17:05] Dynamically personalizing for those unknown first-time visitor.
Katya: [17:09] Describe Viking Camper for I'm sort of some sort of actually writing this scenario would the customer perform some sort of action like this subscribe to newsletter click to the body scrub at it since the car we're going to start time at the front experience based on what they see in.
Scot: [17:23] Do you start to so sounds like it'll also work with display ads which is cool how about like your email marketing Ken can I personalize your email marketing so you know some lady likes a certain sent you can send her, Fort Worth jet something in her cart watch pie easy with cart abandonment emails but any personalization keep personalized like the emails you send out to.
Katya: [17:42] Within Emma Guild you can upload the back so that we can put their dinner, your vagina inside of your email and you can serve them to like you have your content of the email like a promotion your content and down on the bottom you can show. Products specific was looking for that customer.
Scot: [18:03] That's the first way that these.
Jason: [18:06] This way that these tools.
[18:10] Well then it is for the whole platforms of.
Scot: [18:12] In the cool new feature that these guys are all.
Jason: [18:16] Starting to roll out now is personalization.
Scot: [18:17] Right now is personalization at open.
Jason: [18:21] You can imagine like you send.
Scot: [18:23] Email and if you have some personalized content in there it may be.
Jason: [18:25] Personalize content in there that maybe is.
Scot: [18:30] Has been personalized to the weather or something you buy.
Jason: [18:31] Whether or something you browse for.
Katya: [18:33] Based on time, for example if if we're running a promotion or some sort of dro sale so while the promotion promotion is running you going to see a clock down so you open, you open up your email and see if you can see it back down that says like, this promotion going to add in one hour if you open it at 30 minutes is going to say the promotions going to end 30 minutes and when the promotion ends in from simple to say I miss that and I open it up email after a week is going to show me something.
Scot: [19:01] Buckeye Jail.
Jason: [19:05] And its tail when the person oppa.
Scot: [19:07] Awesome so it sounds like you have a relatively small e-commerce operation guys are dog doing a lot of pretty cutting-edge things what was kind of next on the road map where do you see e-commerce going. I with you guys then we'll talk Bradley about where your overall you so you can respond.
Katya: [19:23] So another says so I was talking about. Sorry about that was talking about experiences Brandon to gather their stores and online we're working for another big project for us is the CRM. And we have a little to program and how how do we. Like the date of the week coming from magenta from our e-commerce platform is very clean the date of that we getting for people who signed out in the stores for loyalty program is not that clean so right now we're working on how do we combine, dos2 Joseph data points and create that. Loyalty emails and loyalty programs campaign so we talked with our loyal to customers at the same. But you can start at them the same it doesn't matter where they shop and where they saying up because we don't know but we think there is a lot of Gap and there's a lot of them. Cross reference of the people shopping at the shop in the stores and the shop online I feel like it's Crossing each other this year, we talkin in the company lied about CRM and loyalty and how do we bring this together what kind of campaigns were created and what kind of software we using one of their things why we came to the shop talk and like they do is mine, what is to find a CRM solution that we can use all of the data sort of segments that other than Kinect.
Jason: [20:54] Very cool and there are several of them there so I suspect you'll you'll be successful in that mission you mentioned loyalty programs and that's been interesting to me cuz.
Scot: [21:00] You mentioned loyalty programs and that's been interesting to me cuz that.
Jason: [21:04] Feels a little bit like one of the themes of this year's show in.
Scot: [21:08] Ulta Keynotes.
Jason: [21:08] Ulta keynote they they mention that like the wealthy members represented something I want to say 90 or 95% of their total revenue which is.
Scot: [21:20] I mean astronomical the Nike Chief digital officer talked about.
Jason: [21:21] Michael the Nike Chief digital officer talked about how how successful their their Nike Plus loyalty program had been.
Scot: [21:28] Nike Plus royalty program it been it sounds like you've had a loyalty.
Jason: [21:33] You had a loyalty program for a while is it like a straight points for purchase program or how does it work.
Katya: [21:39] So Historical we had to separate program Swan was the e-commerce little to program when you collect points for every purchase to do you make and then you released and then you redeem it for purchase online and we had a loyalty program in the stores. I'd same idea it was a little bit different so e-commerce it was once a once-a-month going on dollar stores with tiered I think it was five tiers, so this summer when we just launched the new upside in August and will I see the new pair of system in July. 2027 able to pick you up for a lot of different changes and we'll launch our new loyalty program the idea was this to combine their loyalty program in the stores and and online, kind of make it more sing with experience so it's currently is the same program you Wednesday for every dollar you spend. And then you can redeem at there's no cap and Redemption you also is a part of the Lord's apart of me also get welcome coupons and will be found as Dad. There's two coupons when is set up but you can use the next month. And the next next month so that's something that we actually got from overcome our parent company in Israel this is how they do it and they saw a lot more traction with just given a 10% sign up coupon, people people people coming back to redeem it more often and it works pretty well for us but we have a birthday.
[23:17] Coupon that we said that the birthday gift that was on for the people to read them during their birthday month. And will do a lot of activities for our world passport will call them roll past board members would do events in the stores where are we. Do different treatments or different parties and we have I would do like new collection previews for them. It's another big thing that would Jordan like one of them stuck in before about CRM and how do we connect them it's still a little bit separated in terms of the promotions and like. I feel like in the store part would do much better much better job for the Loyalty rather than on the website so we talkin about how we can come by and make that experience more seamless.
Jason: [24:04] Since you mentioned that you were going to look for some CRM Solutions it shoptalk we're sort of one day another show a day and a half in the show. Have you seen anything or or setting on a sessions that would be interesting to you.
Katya: [24:20] Not yet.
Scot: [24:23] Did she the Ulta keynote the kind of edger talk about experiences in a store, she's saying they're going to add a lot more experience than I already have like a salon in the story but I think they're going to add you almost more like taking it to a spa level of so it's kind of reminds me of some of the things you talked about that you guys doing your store I don't know if you saw it or not.
Katya: [24:39] I saw something the Sephora was talking about it and they were showing all this experience as they did they create it's for their Shopper and this is it was very inspiring conversation the presentation that she had. She was talking about all of this this is exactly what we're looking for and I think that's exactly what the industry needs and like, the eve what the economist is moving Taurus is to like for example somebody get a notification that they forgot things in their cards and they're walking by the Sea for the, that they put a sample in there Carlin Dave it's there so this is why I would email them or send them a notification from there uh. Dad there's a store and the samples of all been there so you can come and pick it up. And you're passing by the store you come over talking to the sale associate to give any of that sample while they're doing that the same oh we also do all this experience is in the store treatments would you like to set up this and you know. Right there and then they perform the treatment on you and all the product of what he's doing the truth then you will receive the samples and then to send you an e-mail. Where is all this products and how do use them and the price point so then you can come back and either purchase them in the app. In the under your desktop in the Commerce website or you can come back back to the store to the store so I feel like they're doing great job in tiny tiny and those experiences in this something that. I really wanted some time and think about it if so I'll come back from the shop.
Scot: [26:14] You kicked off what kind of Go full circle you talk about when you started your career, you were at heard in the stores are closing you want to get me Commerce how do you feel about stores now, they've been in the industry for a while if you think you think the small again and Retail apocalypse thing is over done or do you think it is tough for store what's the future stores.
Katya: [26:32] It's interesting that's what the a lot of feel like a lot of things on top soccer talking about exactly like is the freaking word dad or. As odd involving the different way I personally think and a lot of people in the industry as wild that. Brick-and-mortar is not that bad but there was people who doing a ride and people who are not quite there yet and depending on how fast they can get there. What could it mean if they're going to keep their stores or not people definitely looking for some personalized experience as what we can do in a store to make it more relevant the more exciting. What are those experiences and I feel like this is where the industry going.
[27:14] And I feel like they're at the seam of everything that I said today is about those experiences like what can we make so exciting for the customer. For them to come back obviously they're interacting with their sales associate interacting with the product when you see can't touch them smell them it's so much different from you, so I feel like. There's the stores going to definitely stay there not going anywhere but it's going to be involved into something completely different then we'll just have to buckle up. The bump it right and see where it takes us.
Scot: [27:48] Buckle up buttercup a perfect.
Jason: [27:51] Place to end it because it has happened again we've used up all our a lot of.
Scot: [27:56] The time.
Jason: [27:57] But we certainly want to thank you for.
Scot: [27:58] I want to thank you for taking time off.
Jason: [28:01] Join us.
Scot: [28:02] Other folks have questions you're welcome to jump on a.
Jason: [28:03] Questions are welcome to jump on the Facebook and continue the conversation there is always if you enjoy Today Show we'd love it if you jump on the iTunes and give us that 5-star review and until you do that we will be buckled up here.
Scot: [28:17] Thanks Ryan Scott you're really appreciate you taking time.
Jason: [28:21] Until next time happy commercing.
30 Mar 2018
EP124 - eBay Bob Kupbens
00:32:21
Bob Kupbens is the VP of B2C and seller experience at eBay. He's has previously been responsible for E-Commerce at Target, Delta Airlines, and Apple. We covered a variety of topics including the latest innovations at eBay, as well as if and how brands should use Marketplaces and eBay.
Episode 124 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, March 12, 2018.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
31 Mar 2017
EP076 - MercadoLibre, Head of Marketplaces Leandro Soares
00:44:42
EP076 - MercadoLibre, Head of Marketplaces Leandro Soares
Leandro Soares is the head of Marketplaces at MercadoLibre.com. MercardoLibre (or MercardoLivre in Portuguese) is the largest online marketplace in Latin America. Our conversation covers the basic of the Latin American e-commerce market, the significant differences from country to country, and the evolution of e-commerce and marketplaces.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 76 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live from Shoptalk in Las Vegas on Monday March 20th.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
20 Apr 2016
EP023 - Abercrombie and Fitch, Billy May SVP Digital & E-Commerce
00:57:01
EP023 - Billy May SVP Digital & E-Commerce at Abercrombie and Fitch
A weekly podcast with the latest e-commerce news and events. Episode 23 is an interview with Billy May, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Digital, eCommerce, and Corporate Development at Abercrombie and Fitch.
Billy is a 4th generation retailer and a pioneer in retail digital transformation. Today he is responsible for digital and e-commerce for one of the worlds most recognized brands.
Our conversation covers a wide range of topics including:
Billy's career matriculation, and current responsibilities
Some of the key strategic initiatives that A&F is focused on
What some of the key challenges and opportunities that brands face today
How A&F balances the healthy tension of brand goals and commerce goals
A&F Mobile strategy and philosophy
How A&F things about omni-channel
International Expansion
Social strategy and perspective on ROI
Episode 23 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, April 19th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
16 Jul 2021
EP270 - MicroService based commerce with Kelly Goetsch
01:00:17
EP270 - Micro Service based commerce with Kelly Goetsch
Kelly Goetsch (@kellygoetsch) is Chief Product Officer at CommerceTools a leading MicroService based e-commerce platform, he is also the Chairman and co-founder of the MACH Alliance, a non-profit organization formed help enterprise organizations to take advantage of open tech ecosystems that are Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless. Kelly is also the author of four books.
Topics covered
CommerceTools
Mach Alliance
State of Microservice based e-commerce platforms
Amazon’s role in e-commerce platform ecosystem
Shopify’s role in e-commerce platform ecosystem
Future of e-commerce platforms
Episode 270 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday July 15, 2021. We’re taking a summer break next week, so no show the week of July 19th.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO and moving into an executive chairman role. Read his letter to employees here.
We deep dive into the Q4 and full year 2020 results.
Sales, profit, and free cash flow were all above expectations. US product sales had a robust 44% YoY increase. 3P continues to grow as a share of sales (now 55% of sales mix). AWS continued to grow.
Other income (which is largely ad sales) was up 66% representing $21.477B of revenue in 2020, well above expectations.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
07 May 2018
EP130 - Comcast Ventures Daniel Gulati
00:53:42
EP130 - Comcast Ventures Daniel Gulati
We caught up with Daniel Gulati (@DanielGulati) at ShopTalk 2018. Daniel is a partner at Comcast Ventures a venture capital firm that focus on early stage consumer internet investing. Comcast Ventures was an early investor in Away, MealPal, and recently invested in Zola (hear Zola founder Shan Lyn in episode 98).
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
01 Nov 2022
EP298 - Amazon Q3 Earnings
00:41:07
EP298 - Amazon Q3 Earnings
Episode 298 is a recap of Amazon's Q3 2022 Earnings Report.
Episode 298 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday October 28th, 2022.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
04 Oct 2021
EP277- Holiday 2021 Preview
01:01:43
EP277- Holiday 2021 Preview
21 Nov 2018
EP153 - Pre-Thanksgiving Industry News and Listener Questions
01:02:26
EP153 - Pre-Thanksgiving Industry News and Listener Questions
Thanksgiving road trips with Jason & Scot have become a tradition in the digital shopper marketing industry. Here is an hour of new and listener questions, to get you ready for the Turkey-5 holiday!
Spiffy announces connected car initiative. The first connected car feature grants limited access to vehicles through OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) connected car capabilities. Eliminating the step of handing off keys prior to a service makes Spiffy's on-demand services even easier for customers.
Amazon News
HQ2/3 discussion
Amazon offers free shipping w/o Prime (how will Target/Walmart respond)
New store concepts dominated by mobile experiences
7Fresh (JD Grocery)
New Nike NY Store "House of Innovation 000"
7-11 scan and go
Sams Club Now
Amazon Go / 4-Star / Books
ListenerQuestions
Sri Rajagopalan
Is the Amazon business in consumables really growing?
Why are we not embracing Alibaba in the USA?
Anonymous
Anker rose to be a powerhouse of an Amazon business. Can you analyze their changes to highlight the overall marketplace transition to differentiated product development?
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 153 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, November 18, 2018.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
11 Nov 2017
EP107 - Listener Questions and Amazon News
01:13:55
EP107- Listener Questions
Listener Questions
Q1: Brands selling direct on their own site
Shawn Cheng What do u think about a brand to run their own brand store, not through market place such as eBay, Amazon or Alibaba?
Jamie Dooley Hi Scot & Jason: Have you heard of any brands seeing true success building a D2C E-Comm business through their own websites? (On a path to do 10-20% of sales and/or 8-9 figures in annual sales?). D2C seems like D2C was a big trend a year ago but I am not hearing about success stories where sales justified significant spend.
Scott Silverman Do you think a new brand without an e-commerce site or digital presence could be built by selling on Amazon? Secondarily, should manufacturers selling on their own e-comm sites, shut them down and just sell via retailers?
Q2Mobile Conversion Gap
Ari Nahmani Mobile conversion rate... retailers are getting more and more of their web traffic from mobile, but those users are half or a third as likely to convert. They don’t seem to be coming back on desktop. So what’s happening? We see across the board where YoY traffic is flat, revenue is down due to the device mix over-indexing on mobile YoY. How do we explain this behavior? Where are those users purchasing if ecommerce growth is up? I’m seeing his trend on several client sites and I recall one of your shows that this trend was discussed.
Q3:Omni-Channel Fulfillment
Alexandro Volakis order sourcing in an omnichannel network. how do you decide where its best to ship from?
Q4: Singles Day in the US
Julia Ptock How do you think about Singles Day (11.11.)? Are there some retailers who take part at this event in the USA? Amazon is focusing on Cyber Week (Cyber Monday & Black Friday) but doesn't show interest in Single Day. Do you have an idea why?
Rivet - “stylish and versatile mid-century modern furniture and décor". Mid-century modern aesthetic, focus on small space solutions, 1 year warranty, prime exclusive
Stone & Beam - Higher end price points. modern farmhouse aesthetic, 3 year warranty.
Athlesure
Rebel Canyon - Low price point, Men's and Woman's lounge clothing.
Peak Velocity - Higher price point active wear (Under Armor competitor), prime exclusive
GoodSport - Men's and Woman's moisture wicking apparel
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 107 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday November 9, 2017.
01 Feb 2020
EP206 - Amazon Q4 2019 Earnings Deep Dive
01:04:13
EP206 - Amazon Q4 2019 Earnings Deep Dive
Amazon released their Q4 2020 earnings on Thursday Jan 30th. In a holiday quarter that has proved to be challenging for many retailers, Amazon soundly beat analyst expectations, and raised their governance for Q1 2020, driving their stock up. Amazon's market cap is currently larger than the next six largest retailers combined, and their competitive advantage may be even greater.
In this weeks episode we do a deep dive into all the details of the earning report. We look at top line results, AWS, ads, physical retail, and Logistics. We break down what it all means, and leave you with our conclusions.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 206 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday, January 31st, 2020.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
04 Nov 2016
EP055 - Uncommon Goods, CEO David Bolotsky
00:44:25
EP055 - Uncommon Goods, CEO David Bolotsky
David Bolotsky is the founder and CEO of Uncommon Goods. We spoke with David about being a pure-play e-commerce site, and balancing business objectives with social values from the Shop.org digital summit 2016.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 55 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday September 26, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
08 Feb 2024
EP316 - Annual Predictions 2024
00:59:02
EP316 - Annual Predictions 2024
Jason visited the Walmart Neighborhood Market in Pea Ridge, Arkansas featuring drone delivery. Here is a video for those interested.
2023 PredictionsRecap
Jason:
At least 2 retail bankruptcies (besides Party City) Yes
BNPL Consolidation (Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay. Sezzle) – at least one merges/exits US or BNPL. No
Shopify launches an ad product such as a retail media network Yes
Meta/Google/TikTok lose ad share to new social media platforms and retail media networks. No
Live Streaming Commerce Still not meaningful in US in 2023 (less than 5% of social commerce in US) Yes
Jason Total Score: 3 of 5
Scot:
Amazon uses this 2022 setback/slowdown/reversion to the mean for a public resetting of expectations, but behind the scenes they take share and raise the bar on shipping. Yes
Shopify is acquired No
An innovation in e-commerce powered by ai (gpt4) surprises us by how fast it’s adopted and how cool it is. Yes
E-commerce accelerates back to the mean in 2H after a mean regression in 1H. E-com returns 10-15% growth rates. Yes
Sephora and/or Ulta move to a subscription model for new product discovery. Yes
Scot Total Score: 4 of 5
Trends revert to the mean, and Scot is back on Top!
2024 Predictions
Jason:
Retail Media Networks go In-store. At least 1 top 20 retailer launches a digital in-store ad network
AI is even hotter at end of 2024 than now. Most text boxes in E-Com are GenAI powered. A least one retailer has an AI based auto-replenishment solution with significant adoption.
Bifurcation drives at least two more retail bankruptcies, including 1 national specialty retailer, and one general merchandise/dept store. (two top 50 retailers)
China companies focus more on West and get more traction. Shein successful IPO. Temu US gets to at least 75% of target US E-Com.
Grocery E-Commerce goes from $95B to $125B in 2024 (after being down in 2023 per Bricks meets clicks).
Bonus: Live-steaming, MetaVerse, Crypto still not a major thing in e-commerce; Management stops blaming performance on retail crime; and Smaller RMN’s fail.
Scot:
Amazon relaunches Alexa on a native LLM
Temu falters as people realize it’s wish 2.0
RMN is currently $52b, growing 20% y/y, accelerates in 24 to 30% and $67b (coresight has the 52 datapoint)
Instacart who’s stock IPO’d at $33 and now is $23, solves ads and pops to 40
While everyone thinks Shein/Temu takes share from Amazon, they end up hurting Nordstrom, Macys and Target instead – materially (10%+) focus on apparel, maybe take target out?
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 316 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, January 11th, 2024.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Google Automated Transcription of the show
Transcript
Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is Episode 205 being recorded on Wednesday January 22nd 2020 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo.
Scot: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners well those of you that are regular listeners have probably realized we has been a little while since we put out a show and the reason why is my colleague Jason here has been traveling like a crazy man.
Jason: [0:55] This is true I have my annual fun start to the year with the whole CES in RF Marathon which I just got back from.
Scot: [1:06] I thought this year you weren't doing CS what what what happened we had a client call and Russia.
Jason: [1:11] Did end up yes having to go for a shorter than usual stay at CES but I did end up having to make an appearance.
Scot: [1:18] What happens when you're the chief digital retail e-commerce strategist goes goes that way.
Jason: [1:25] Yes when you yes it's true when you have that many words in your title like unplanned trips are part of the bargain.
Scot: [1:33] Coco we thought would use most the show to kind of catch up on that and then try to work some news in there too let's start at CES in the first of all big question did you get any new gadgets.
Jason: [1:45] You know a disappointing year for me personally and part of that may be because it was a shorter trip the, the stuff like the stuff I tend to discover that like I personally want is maybe deeper in the CES catalog and I maybe didn't get to all of those booths this year I kind of had to hit the main. Main Milestone booths so yeah nothing super excited I got I maybe have a little. Personal problem hoarding Chargers and cables and so there are some nice new, um third-party chargers for the Macbook so I did get a new anchor and the new hyper juice hundred watt charging systems. Yeah no no super important purpose but yes I have some new Chargers that I have to hide from my wife I don't think she even cares about the spending I think she just cares about all the space that the unused. Chargers take up in our life.
Scot: [2:50] Yeah there's a drawer there where they all could live.
Jason: [2:52] Yeah in my workshop it's more of a a system of drawers for.
Scot: [3:01] They buy hcf like the 1985.
Jason: [3:05] I mean people people laugh at me but then we need to find a 30 pin Mac charger for iPhone 3 I have one.
Scot: [3:14] Boom I got it yeah.
Jason: [3:18] Yeah so yeah got some new Chargers and I did this is kind of CES adjacent but I did get all new networking hardware for my home office so I think you and I both did internet connection upgrades. For the holidays and I added a fancy new firewall router access point and switch.
Scot: [3:44] Furcal are you gigabit.
Jason: [3:46] I am so so Comcast just add a gigabit in my neighborhood so we upgraded to gigabit and then I'm using, this cool new device called the unify dream machine, which is from I want to say it's a Ubiquiti networks and they do a lot of. Commercial Wi-Fi equipment for like schools and institutions and things and so this is a a. A Wi-Fi access point a firewall and and said a managed switches that are all controlled from their commercial software. Way overkill for a home network but fun for tinkering.
Scot: [4:35] Yeah I think I've seen one of those is it a it looks like a little cylinder.
Jason: [4:39] It exactly so historically like they met they mostly make rack-mounted equipment and this is the first time they've, they've made an all-in-one that that is supported by their sort of, business level software and it looks like a cylinder and in fact it reminds people a lot of, discontinued Apple Wi-Fi access point and so there's some people from that we're big fans of that, that I forget what that was called like they are.
Scot: [5:11] I had one I can't remember it's called him.
Jason: [5:16] So yeah so people people think it's the spiritual successor to the Apple.
Scot: [5:23] Cool what else any interesting Commerce news is he yes.
Jason: [5:27] Yeah I actually thought it was a reasonably important year for Commerce, like the Super Readers Digest version on this show it's the consumer electronic show I personally have been attending for 32 years it's the largest trade show in the u.s. like 200,000 people, attend, many years ago it was a buying show where people from retailers would go to figure out what they're going to carry for the year now it's mainly a PR show where they try to generate Buzz for new products to, sell more new technologies but it's where a lot of consumer Technologies where watch for the first time so like the DVD player and the if you go back far enough the VHS.
[6:10] Tape system in the whole VHS beta War played out at CES, and stuff like that in the Apple the Apple iPhone was famously launched during CES but not at CES as a Steve Jobs sort of did some clever counter-programming, so people go, both to like sort of do trend-spotting and see if there's any major new consumer electronics platforms that are coming down the path and from that standpoint I would like there's one big one that had the buzz I'll save for the end, but there was a lot of smaller more tactical stuff that I think is going to have a meaningful impact on, retail in particular digital merchandising it retailgeek. So most of the listeners of this show are probably familiar with e-ink if you ever had a currently have a Kindle book reader it uses e-ink, and it's a it's an important digital display technology because it's Dynamic you can change the image that's on it, it's reflective so it works in super bright sunlight and it basically takes no power to display an image so you need electricity to change the image but once the image has changed. It literally is moving ink around on the display and then you could turn off the power in the ink stays where.
[7:26] Where it was and so it's great for for not using a lot of power in an electronic book reader it, great for having high visibility even in bright sunlight but a very common retail use case is it's the main display technology that used for all the digital fact tags that I talk about all the time.
[7:45] And one of the big drawbacks of e ink has historically been that it's only black and white or only black red and white or only black yellow and white so very limited, color palette and so you couldn't do really pretty, just blaze you couldn't use it for really pretty signs and this was the first year that they were showing full color E Ink that look very vibrant and High Fidelity and so. You know we'll see you that. You know maybe we'll have some color book readers in the near future and I suspect we'll see it trickled down to a new generation of electronic. Price labels and fact tags for retail stores. So that was an interesting technology and a way cooler display technology was released by Delta Airlines of all people. And and so this is a new technology to sort of replace a. Video monitor in a public area and it's called parallel reality and so Delta Airlines found this technology and invested in the company and they've announced that the first commercial deployment will be. In the Delta lounges at the Detroit airport later this year. And what this technology does is it lets a hundred people stand in front of a TV screen and have each of them get a different Custom Image that they see.
[9:13] So so very precisely depending on where you stand you see a completely different image so the use case for Delta in this Lounge is all the customers stare at the flight status display and they all, see a display that only has their flight information or prominently highlights their flight information.
Scot: [9:32] Okay how does it know who's looking and we're there.
Jason: [9:36] So first of all as soon as you describe this to someone they're like this sounds like it's going to be some kludgy gimmick and I was super skeptical so two halves of this problem the first half is, can you really display an image that that is high fidelity and looks like discrete for each person, and I went in with very low expectations and I was kind of Blown Away like it it totally works, the the demo they had their like there's like the pixels weren't tiny so you could kind of see the pixels and, the display is made up of a bunch of. Of multiple smaller displays so you could kind of see the frame the internal frames so I'd say it wasn't, but they were super open to saying yeah we know those are the visual flaws like we already have more advanced prototypes that solve those problems and what we deploy in Detroit later this year is going to. Not have any of those those visual artifacts but basically what it's using is, beamforming where they're essentially like each pixel is a projector and they can fire different color lights at different angles so by knowing exactly where your eyeballs are relative to the screen, they can send you an image that's different from everyone else so that's the display technology as it's kind of like a projector inside of a television or.
[10:57] Thousands of projectors inside of a television and it works remarkably well and then you're very, pertinent question how do they know who and where those eyeballs are to decide what to show each person and the answer to that is, a combination of Wi-Fi RFID and your mobile phone so this is not, this won't work for an anonymous use case in the Delta model the reason they're doing it in the lounge is everyone has to check into the lounge and show that they're a member so when you walk into the front desk, you scan your mobile app they're using cameras similar to an Amazon go set up to track where you are in the lounge, and they know who you are because you were holding a mobile phone with your unique ID on it to check in and then they're able to deliver your your unique flight information to you so it. It's a kind of a combination of Amazon go for the identifying the person and their location and this new parallel reality display technology for, for beaming the different messages and so it.
[12:07] It works better than I expected it seems pretty darn close to real we'll see if they're really able to get this in a while, lateral out in an airport this year but like if it all works it's pretty easy to imagine a number of use cases for public displays and checkout systems and things like that and retailgeek, what it would be really handy to be able to show different images to different customers on the same monitor.
Scot: [12:30] Very cool was this the big one we're waiting for or know there's more to come.
Jason: [12:36] No no more to come so the another interesting technology that like was kind of spooky as Samsung was showing this. These avatars did they call neon life into these artificial humans, and so you walk up to all these five or six foot tall monitors and if there's like a person in each Monitor and they can talk to you interact you with you and they look like.
[13:04] Completely real people like in so you would assume this was a video but these are computer generated people that are extremely lifelike, and so the idea is that you could potentially walk into a retail store and you know there might be a artificial intelligence help agent. That looks like a real sales associate that you're basically looking at through a glass window that can talk to you in, and be more human that was the kind of use case that Samsung was pitching the the more interesting use case to me is like an you, render different shapes and sizes of people and put apparel on them so you know could you could this be kind of like, a digital mannequin scenario for retail stores and. It was scary life like in the one thing I would say is they would call this an advanced science project so these avatars apparently took a super long time to build and they say that this technology is still three or four years away from being completely.
Scot: [14:09] They have natural language parsing like kids or talk to them and.
Jason: [14:12] They did but that wasn't part of the the magic so they were using that were using other Samsung artificial intelligence like in fact Bigsby is their artificial intelligent agent too like decide what the Avatar was saying and to interpret what you were saying and so they weren't claiming any like. You know new new Evolution there what was new about this neon life, technology was how lifelike they could make the visual representation of a person and essentially you know it's, it's like the next step to like not paying actors to be in the movie and instead having these these digital avatars that. That will be acting in all the movies and stuff. But I you know if it gets commercialized I can imagine a retail use case for that the next product that really caught my eye in this got a lot of Buzz at the show and I think this was a, a darn impressive product came from L'Oreal and it's called perso, Scot you may have followed this because I know you try to stay close to the beauty and cosmetics base.
Scot: [15:24] I do.
Jason: [15:25] But so the idea here is, personalized beauty and cosmetic products that are formulated at home, so so they initial concept has three different products there's a liquid lipstick product there's a, liquid foundation product and there's a moisturizer so each of these is kind of a. A metal cylinder like like one of those Yeti mug type things a metal cylinder and using an app you say I want this color lipstick, and you know out of a set of holes in the top of this mug, that exact shade of lipstick or several lipsticks come out that when you then blend them together with a in applicator or your finger like mixed to the particular color that you ordered. And so the foundation comes out in a color custom color that you ordered the lipstick comes out in a custom color that you ordered and the moisturizer comes out in custom formulation that you ordered so it may be has.
[16:34] You know more moisturizing or sunscreen depending on the environment you're in or the the weather and a particular day and so the to me the one that made the most sense in the kind of you know coolest use case is the lipstick they do things like you can point your camera at your outfit, and it will recommend shades of lipstick that go well with your particular outfit and then it can produce, that lipstick for you and so the reason I thought this was pretty impressive as it seemed to work really well people that tried it were seem to think it was, not a gimmick that it was you know that they were quality products and they were totally legitimate and you know I've spoken to lots of women that think that the, the custom shade of lipstick on demand would be, total useful and I've smoked I've spoke to some women that think the custom foundations would be useful and I just think we're at this inflection point when more and more products are going to be customized for each individual user so whether that means they're fabricated custom at a factory and quickly shipped to you or they have the ability to be customized in your own home this is essentially a 3D printer for Cosmetics or an inkjet printer for cosmetics and so I it to me it seemed like one of the first viable, custom products in this category and one little Nuance that I thought was really clever about the whole thing.
[18:01] That the cylinder like could totally sit on your makeup counter at home and it seems like it would fit just fine but what happens when you want to take your lipstick with you and put it in your purse like that wouldn't work very well so it turns out the top of all of these cylinders, is removable and it's magnetically attached to the cylinder so after you specify a color and it mixes some of that color up you can just take the top of the cylinder off which is kind of the size of a makeup compact throw it in your purse and take your custom color with you so, pretty clever and then you buy refill cartridges just like you'd buy refill ink for an inkjet printer.
Scot: [18:39] That's where all the money is.
Jason: [18:40] Yeah oh for sure but so I thought that was super interesting when you get into the Health Pavilion, there were a number of players like one that caught my eyes was called DNA nudge and these guys are essentially doing a DNA test and then they're helping you select, Foods diet nutrition that match your unique DNA so again going back to this notion of customization that like, you know the diet you select the foods you buy should all be predicated based on your your underlying DNA that they help you help you find.
Scot: [19:20] Did you just come back and say error you are 99% an espresso beverage.
Jason: [19:26] That is funny so I have. Carefully avoided doing any of these DNA because I actually think there's some like significant privacy concerns and I like I don't know maybe I'm I'm. Overly cautious but like I haven't wanted to just give my DNA to one of these for-profit companies with like dubious privacy policies.
Scot: [19:53] Cool.
Jason: [19:55] I don't know what about you Scott are you totally in on 23andMe do you do it like every month to see if your DNA is changing.
Scot: [20:01] I've done both yeah it's pretty interesting.
Jason: [20:03] Okay yeah I will be honest I would be totally.
Scot: [20:06] Hi I don't have any murders out there I'm worried about.
Jason: [20:09] Yeah well I read too much of a boring life to be very worried but I but here's the thing you could have an interesting relative that you're throwing under the bus by doing this.
Scot: [20:18] Yeah they shouldn't do their crimes.
Jason: [20:20] My fair enough, yeah so again I can see it I might be being a little silly on that but I haven't wanted to do that so then you know it's the car thing is a big thing here they are, like the car car tech now tends to get launched at CES not at the auto show. So you know there's there's you know some interesting electronic prototype cars that may or may not ever see the light of day. The huge thing I noticed this year in the car Pavilion is that every car seemed to have an Alexa integration like that seemed like that was. Taking over as the like. New cabin Tech that everybody was marketing and so I think Amazon announced that they're now over a hundred thousand consumer electronic devices that have Alexa embedded. From more than 9,500 unique Brands and of course the new device with Alexa in it that I imagine you're going to need is the Lamborghini.
Scot: [21:28] Yes absolutely.
Jason: [21:29] I think that will round.
Scot: [21:31] Finally took me over the edge.
Jason: [21:33] Yeah that around out your stable just fine they're like speaking of am Amazon Integrations I Amazon has a couple booths at the show they have a booth that's primarily focused on the Alexa and a lot of third party you know, demos with that they have a booth in the home automation section dedicated to key and all the last mile Solutions and things but in the Amazon Booth one of the interesting ones was. This this cpg company Reckitt beckon sir. Commonly called RB they make a bunch of products like baby formula and finish is their big brand of dishwashing detergent. And so they have upgraded all of their packaging to have Dash replenishment built in. So when you get low on baby formula the box that you bought your baby formula in just recognizes that and automatically reorders more baby formula and when you get low on those. Those PODS of finished dishwashing liquid the package automatically orders more for you.
Scot: [22:47] The saw the Lamborghini thing in the it was funny there was like a poster which had like some amazingly handsome Brad Pitt of time looking dude and he said Alexa I'm hot, and then she said she she knew to turn on the air conditioner.
Jason: [23:05] Yeah yeah context.
Scot: [23:07] So maybe wonder how often is Jason uttering Alexa I'm hot to his devices.
Jason: [23:13] Yeah I feel like that's not even the most concerning thing you need to worry about me saying to Alexa. I mentioned Samsung Bigsby earlier computer vision was a big thing I felt like half the booths were doing facial recognition for some nefarious purpose but Samsung built it in a refrigerators so, in the past they've had these smart fridges that for example had a webcam in them so you could kind of like when you're in the grocery store and couldn't remember if you had eggs you could turn on a webcam and see the inside of your refrigerator. Which I was like to point out probably wouldn't help you because your eggs are probably in a in an opaque car turn it Carton and you can't see how many are in there, but that pesky detail aside they're now using Bigsby to do image recognition and take an inventory of your refrigerator so the smart refrigerator knows like, that you have a quart of milk and how many times you've taken it out and likely how much milk is left in that core.
[24:16] So that was interesting there were a thousand Last Mile solutions that at CES so lots of people like with, clever approaches and not clever approaches to porch piracy to delivering to your refrigerator to delivering to your garage to your car trunk drones and robots, um Kind of improved efficiency for for bow pass orders for store pick up orders and a lot of technology for like building mail rooms, notify residents when they have packages all sorts of stuff like that so this is not really a retail show and so it's just interesting to me how, booths were there like specifically solving a Commerce problem around the last mile. Um so all those were interesting tactical things that I saw at CES that I think May, may I make an appearance in the future of retail but by far the biggest platform that that you know was the most strategically important that really had his coming out party at CES this year is the new wireless technology 5G. So they've been talking about it CES for a number of years they've had prototype product but this is the first year that they have.
[25:38] Mass-produced products that meet all the certifications and work on networks that are deployed in the real world so this is kind of the the first time that 5G was truly commercialized at CES and you know I I suspect in in the show's heart of hearts, like if there's you know one news cycle that they want to win it's the you know the wave of coming 5G products and that everyone needs to throw out all their wireless devices and by shiny new, new 5G devices and then it's going to magically change the world and there are crazy stats that they you know site about how much faster 5G is than 4G so, you know hundreds to thousands of times faster bandwidth way lower latency way more devices that can hang on the same networks and you listen all this and you go man 5 G's going to change the world it's the most important technology of all times and that's mostly. The articles that are getting written about it but as I talked to more engineers and kind of you know. Really started to understand what was going on I actually am now somewhat bearish on on 5G I think it's overhyped.
Scot: [26:56] Yeah yeah they always the one I see that for his hearse like some remote surgery over 5G and you're like I don't think five G's going to solve the dead spots in fact up I have more dead spots because I won't be honest meat hours.
Jason: [27:08] I'm not sure I'm going to be an early adopter of remote Robo surgery but if I am I'm gonna insist that they have a wired connection to the robot and if for some reason they can't have a wired connection I would way rather have a Wi-Fi connection to the robot then a 5G connection to the robot.
Scot: [27:25] Yeah we're going to belt and suspenders that puppy yeah if we're not yeah.
Jason: [27:28] Yeah so it's going to be a long time before you ever going to do surgery on me with 5G but like here's here's the, the huge Wrinkle In 5G that makes it kind of a mess technology for me is. You know all these Wireless signals are over particular parts of the spectrum right and so like cellular signals and most of what we call LTE or 4G is, in the 600 megahertz to 6 gigahertz range depending on which company and what what bandwidth they own and so 5G uses that same bandwidth, and it uses some new band with that the government just sold the carriers that's at a much higher frequency and so it's what they're calling this millimeter wave frequencies and so this is, 20 gigahertz 295 gigahertz a way higher frequencies than the traditional Four G's and all of the, dramatic improvements in bandwidth that they're talking about only happen on those new millimeter-wave frequencies.
[28:34] So the the 5G technology works on the 4G frequencies and it is faster but it's kind of incrementally faster in the same way that 4G was faster than 3G, it's so call it twenty to a hundred percent faster and then you get this you know hundreds to thousands of times faster when you get on millimeter wave and so couple problems with millimeter wave number one it's mostly not built out and unavailable like there it's, there are rumors that the the iPhone that comes out this year that will be the first 5G iPhone, may or may not even support millimeter-wave but there's very limited coverage of millimeter wave in the United States like like when you don't company says they have coverage in a city that's probably one block that they cover when this millimeter wave technology and then much bigger deal is that high frequency wave. Is blocked by virtually any kind of structure so not only will it not go through walls it won't go through windows, um so you won't ever get millimeter wave signal inside of a building for example.
Scot: [29:45] Think you're gonna have to do your surgery in a tent.
Jason: [29:48] Yeah exactly so a legitimate use case is hey T-Mobile can compete with Comcast for internet bandwidth for Scott's home and if you buy it from T-Mobile what they're going to do is put a millimeter wave antenna on the roof of your building and run a cable inside of your house and convert it to a Wi-Fi signal inside of your house and because the millimeter wave can be really fast to that antenna on your roof like they can legitimately compete with your, your cable modem but you are not going to have a phone that you walk around in your office that's you know downloading movies in a second.
Scot: [30:32] Nursing so a lot of infrastructure to be built to solve this millimeter wave from.
Jason: [30:37] Yeah yeah and those those like they need many more antennas and the antennas need much quote to be much closer together to really build out coverage for millimeter wave so it's a huge National infrastructure problem and it doesn't seem like any of the carriers have really committed to like saturate their Market with millimeter wave yet so again you know most of what the carriers are talking about when they say 5G is 5G over the existing 4G bands and, it's a little better like I'm sure we'll all enjoy it but it it's by no means game-changing so that's that was kind of my, my CES recap I think most people would say oh the big thing that's going to change the face of retails 5G I'm pretty convinced it's actually not but I do think a bunch of these display Technologies are, potentially interesting and I really think that that this trend of more personalized products is super interesting for Commerce.
Scot: [31:36] Cool so then you shot straight from Vegas Rider to New York and would a would you see it enough.
Jason: [31:42] I did so yeah I got to do a prolonged my New York trip this year so I got there a little earlier, as you know you and I were nominated for an award for best retail media and we were one of the finalists so I actually went to the awards ceremony on Friday night. And I'm sorry to report that we did not win yeah so not a very credible award obviously I'm teasing. Is actually the first year of this particular. In our Enterprise and what they're trying to do is recognize suppliers for the retail Commerce industry because most of the awards are targeted at the retailer so that's kind of appreciate that and that's interesting and it was. Very well-attended event for the first year but that sucked me into New York early so then I did the whole show I got to walk all the show floors, and my limited time recap on all the show floors was, that it was a very incremental year so rather than, dramatically new stuff and new technology that you know didn't exist at the show asked year most of the booths in the main exhibit Halls were. Here's our 10% better version of what we showed you last year.
[33:04] And a surprising amount of it was really oriented towards cost reduction and, operations optimization so I would say like, the it was rare to see customer-facing stories and improving customer experiences at retail it was mostly about taking costs out of supply chain and taking costs out of operations and Staffing and. And increase Automation and that you know it things that are important to retail but frankly things I would argue like that's been a play in retail for the last five years and most of the good retailers today have. Taking most of the COS out and you know so now I feel like to really move the needle you need to be thinking about your customer experience and improving, that and I did not see a lot of great solutions for that on the inner F floor this year, the one kind of new use case that showed up in a bunch of booths is what I'll call a smart shelf so this is like Amazon go like technology it's like a shelf that.
[34:12] Either using cameras or sensors or cameras and sensors, knows what's on the shelf and it knows what you take off the shelf and it can probably recognize you and so sometimes this is used for self-checkout but way more often it was just used for inventory management, for knowing when something was out of stock or helping navigate customers to the right product or or knowing when a products on the wrong shelf for all these kinds of use cases, so I like frankly didn't think the juice was worth the squeeze walking the two main trade show floors at in RF, the the floor I had the most fun on is this Innovation Pavilion that they've had for the last couple of years but it was much bigger this year and to me like all the exciting interesting stuff was was definitely in this Innovation Pavilion and so this is smaller companies tend to be, startup companies a bunch of companies, from other countries like Israel was particularly well represented and you know here you are seeing a lot of Last Mile Solutions you are seeing a lot of. Like using cameras to solve fitment and returns and things like that so I just I felt like there was a lot more interesting. New approaches to customer experience in The Innovation Pavilion than on the main main interest rate show floors.
Scot: [35:39] What was the strangest thing you saw.
Jason: [35:42] Strangest thing I saw I probably should have come to rehearsal and gotten that question ahead of time so I could have thought about it.
[35:50] Yeah well I'll tell you an odd experience I had so you know I have this weird Affinity / fetish for these digital fact eggs. And I keep predicting that they're going to be a big thing and they never are. So of course I had to visit all of the exhibitors at this boot at the show and there's like six or seven. Big manufacturers and then probably 20 little manufacturers of these things and then RF and so one of the companies I'm not even going to name them, they're noted in my mind because they were the first tags that Amazon used in the four-star store in Amazon has changed vendors and they now use a different vendor but this first vendor um had a lot of interesting tags and some new new technology in their booth in the way I remember what I what I see at the booth in order to kind of type up my show notes is I take a picture of the booth and then I type my notes below the picture in Evernote so I tried to take a picture of this booth and they tackled me and told me that no photos were allowed and I'm like, okay do you have like a brochure something I could take no no we don't have a brochure. So I'm like so wait you have a giant 30 by 30 booth at the show and you paid a bunch of money to come here and like. You don't in any way want anyone to remember who the heck you are or be able to contact you after the show.
Scot: [37:13] We were never here.
Jason: [37:15] Yes I.
Scot: [37:16] They make you delete the picture.
Jason: [37:19] No and I mean I could have but I mean I just didn't even want to take a picture at that point I was I just thought that was so funny like ten years ago that was about get super common thing and people are worried you're going to steal their intellectual property but I feel like if you have intellectual property that you don't want anyone to know about don't buy a trade show booth.
Scot: [37:38] Weird that is weird see I knew you had one in.
Jason: [37:43] So that stuff was all interesting I went to most of the Keynotes and I feel like this is going to be a Captain Obvious comment to you but I mostly went all the key notes which are all these big retail CEOs and I've mostly decided that it's a complete waste of time going to any of these shows and sitting in on the on the CEO Keynotes. Nobody ever said like they're all perfectly media prepped and they mostly Play commercials about their businesses and no you know nobody says anything very like informative or, you know that isn't already on the public record at these things so I don't know why I always get excited to hear you know some retail CEO speak when. Like in reality like it's not bad it's just it's just not valuable or super interesting.
Scot: [38:32] Yeah yeah it's tough there at some point their public companies to so they're in their quiet period by the time this show comes out so they can't even really talked about you know anything that's.
Jason: [38:43] Oh yeah no I don't even.
Scot: [38:44] Air and yeah.
Jason: [38:45] I don't even fault them but I just tough right and so you had like Kevin plank who's you know the founder of Under Armour and you know he recently stepped down as CEO but he's like. Like Chief brand evangelists or something. One that got like a little heat Michelle gas is the CEO of coals we'll talk about this later but like you know Cole's kind of underperformed a little bit for holiday and, and so that's that's interesting but she also won the, the internet Gala award as the person of the year and there are people that are pointing out like what's the state of our industry of like the. Person of the year is like a CEO that's like let a company for five years that mostly has been in sales and market cap decline over that entire five-year period.
Scot: [39:32] Emma close a bunch of stores they've closed Less stores than a lot of other retailers.
Jason: [39:36] No I would say they have performed better than most of their peers and their Peril I think that's true and that's why it's kind of news that their their performances starting to, to soften the the one thing that maybe was newsworthy about her Kina like obviously they get a bunch of Buzz for being the first ones that were all in on like allowing Amazon returns and their store. Um and I don't know why this gets so much coverage I mean it's an interesting tactic but to me it's not a game-changing thing. But you know a big question has been like how valuable is that to Cole's like is it working and and she gave a full-throated defense of the tactic and said that it's working. Quite well and that we're happy we're doing it and that we've expanded it to all stores but then she said like two sentences that didn't like, and I'm like.
Scot: [40:38] It was very vague yeah.
Jason: [40:39] Yeah so so I don't know so that was a little interesting.
Scot: [40:43] It was interesting there's a lot of pictures on social media accompanying that article and they showed Kohl's store and had a tiny little coal sign and it was just surrounded by Amazon promotional materials all throughout the front of the store and then inside the store.
Jason: [40:56] Yeah and I think one of the things that's happening is you know Cole's is always been heavily promotional. Like I think when you return something to Amazon you get like a fifty percent off of a Cole's item certificate that you know they're trying to juice you too. To buy something presumably it's super little margins when you're on that visit, so that stuff got a lot of Buzz as you know but listeners may not know a lot of my time as in RF gets booked up with, these these various committee and Council meetings that are going on and so you know we're members of the digital Council which is a big group of. Of people that are primarily focused on digital Shopper marketing. And so you know they have a long meeting at the show and you know I'm still on the board of what used to be called shop dot-org now called the digital Advisory Board. And we have a long meeting during the show and there's usually some interesting content at those meetings so I would say both of those meetings were good and I'm probably biased because I was the speaker the digital council meeting. And I gave a presentation about like what western Brands can learn from China so sharing a bunch of, interesting tactics that are going on in China that my hypothesis is you know that people ought to be trying in in the west and.
Scot: [42:22] Is this the salty wait for you tried to get your your prediction of QR codes out there.
Jason: [42:28] Potentially I'll do anything I can.
Scot: [42:29] Talk about it the Ulta.
Jason: [42:30] I'll do anything I can to win the forecasting battle against you just got so yeah. No I did not I did not hit that hard but I got good feedback and I enjoyed doing it it's a scary audience because you know I talk to people all the time but this is like. 50 of my closest work friends that are all like smarter and more digitally savvy than me so like if you say something wrong. They're pretty likely to call you out on it so which is not necessarily as true in my day job.
[43:04] So I was pleased that that went well and then in a rare treat for me I stayed for a couple days after an RF this year, and there are a lot of events that other people program to take advantage of everyone being in town for an RF, so PS FK is a research company that does a lot of great retail content they do a bunch of retail tours in New York the week of in our. And they had kind of a direct-to-consumer day where they had a bunch of leaders from direct-to-consumer companies come in and talk and so, I got to send it on that and that was kind of interesting content I think I inadvertently got some Buzz cuz, unlike some of these really polish CEOs for the big retail companies like the CEOs for some of these startups probably share more information than they should and so one of the founders of neighborhood Goods was there there there.
[44:00] Kind of new retail concept there are like a retail Marketplace so vendors paid rent space in their store they open one store and, Texas in Dallas there now they just opened a second store in Manhattan and they're about to open a third store in Austin and in our industry via all the Talking Heads I would say they get a ton of Buzz, and, you know the one thing they don't do is disclosed like any sales data so you know you never know how meaningful their sales are but the CEO at one point mentioned that their best-selling skew by volume, by number of units and dollar volume is a t-shirt with their logo on it.
[44:42] And so I you know in my mind thinking like that probably says all you need to know about you know how much of the vendors products they're selling that are paying for space in those stores if they're evil logo t-shirts their best.
Scot: [44:55] Ouch then he went Savage on social media.
Jason: [44:58] I did not mean it to be super- but I just thought that was an interesting data point and then I went into the belly of the Beast, our friend Scott Galloway who loves his predictions as you'll know. He had an event he's a professor at NYU and he gave a lecture at NYU, kind of a couple hours sharing his recap of his 2019 predictions and doing his 2020 predictions so I sat in on that and. I don't think any of the predictions were very new to those of us that follow him regularly like you know he tends to be pretty repetitive and and so these were mostly repetitive, predictions but there was a question and answer session afterwards and I thought the question-and-answer session was really interesting and people people asked him good questions and he had you know insightful answer so that would that part was fun.
Scot: [45:56] Yeah he's a very anti Sheryl Sandberg Casper and then he's he's been antitussive for a long time and he's gotten his like face ripped off by Tesla this.
Jason: [46:06] Yeah so it's funny.
Scot: [46:08] Predicting it will go bankrupt and you know there's crazy and it's fraud and.
Jason: [46:13] Yeah yeah he thinks it's way overvalued and he it's kind of funny because he talks about he like he openly talks about this he's like people that agree with me tend to agree with me on most things I got like he's you know philosophically aligned on most things but he's like most of the people that follow me, like Tesla way more than me and they have way more digital privacy concerns than I have so he's like whenever I share my position on those two things I tend to get creamed and so like it almost became a joke like people standing up there were like challenging him on his, Tesla predictions and like you know people came up and like made an argument for the Tesla evaluation and why it was reasonable and stuff and so there were some, pretty funny back and forth on that stuff and he was making fun of the fact that like that's most likely what he'll get murdered for, and then he did a podcast after this event where him and Kara Swisher who generally agree on most things on their podcast like got in a pretty heated argument, on the whole should Apple unlock the terrorists phones and and Scott comes down heavily on absolutely Apple like should, should immediately unlock the terrorists phones in the privacy concerns are kind of, BS in Scott's mind and so and he recognizes that like, that's the other thing he gets a lot of heat for is that most people that follow him don't agree with that position.
Scot: [47:43] Wasn't swisher and RF like interviewing the politician or something.
Jason: [47:46] She was I don't remember who she interviewed because that was during one of my meeting so I missed it.
Scot: [47:53] I think it was Paul Ryan I didn't understand what the heck that had to do with retailgeek.
Jason: [47:57] Yeah so there's kind of a tradition that interrupts like a big part of interests job is Lobby is federal lobbying and it that's particularly relevant right now because why. These privacy laws that all the states pass are passing have. Potential major intended and unintended ramifications on retailers like a lot of them like arguably make it illegal to run a loyalty program for example, um so so the lobbying is a big deal in RF it's a lot of their energy as in lobbying and so if you look at the keynote speakers over the last several years in RF they had Bill Clinton shortly after he went out of office they had George Bush Senior shortly after he went out of office and so they tend to have a a big name politician and this year it was Paul Ryan but I didn't get to see it I didn't hear any particularly newsworthy things come out of it but I can't speak to it firsthand.
Scot: [48:53] Furcal anything else we need to know about NRF.
Jason: [48:56] So that was my in a referee cap that kind of match up with what you followed on social media in the news or did I give you.
Scot: [49:03] Was it seemed like kind of the the timing was interesting because you know at the same time you had the Casper S1 filing drop in this kind of, pivoting to General news but kind of overlapped with an RF a fair amount then you had a fair amount of bad news from Q4 some of this it's hard to tell if it was just kind of there's a bunch of retailers that are kind of in that Molly gedan bucket that held on through Q4 is it's kind of crazy to once you make it to August you might as well not close any stores until until January so it's hard to know how much is kind of an overhang kind of a holiday overhang and how much is kind of. The holiday actually wasn't as good as we thought were those some of the topics that NRF.
Jason: [49:47] Yeah so not in the formal presentations but in the sort of hallway conversations this this was a big point right and, you know you and I have talked about on the show we were talking about it in December that I sort of felt like it was going to be a soft holiday that you know they were going to be profitability challenges in talking to people at this show one of the interesting things that kind of reaffirms that it was a soft holiday is there is apparently like a ton of excess product in the market which has not been the case the last several holidays and so retailers are getting asked to take a bunch of. You know deeply discounted inventory from manufacturers and what we would call distressed inventory, that there's a glut of that on the market this year and so that's a bad sign it means retailers didn't sell through all their inventory the manufacturer didn't move as many units as they expected and now they're going to liquidate all that inventory at low cost which. You know means consumers closets are going to fill up with with cheap clothes and you know it's going to be longer before they can they can sell new stuff and you know a bunch of more of this like. You know desirable Brands will show up in TJ Maxx and, places like that so there's a bunch of negative ramifications and you know it's.
[51:06] The my theory is like it's for two reasons like, that we just did have a soft holiday and people didn't sell as much as they wanted but the last several holidays I feel like retailers have been super careful about constraining their inventory and being really smart and using a lot of, new modern tools to predict demand better and so they actually, we're in really good inventory positions the last couple of years and what's different this year is potential fear of tariffs, and so my my theory which I have no way to validate but my theory is that a lot of manufacturer is particular know they're getting their goods from China. Made more stuff before tariffs kicked in as a hedge against potential tariffs and so they just ended up with higher inventory positions and they've been you know trying to sell that through to retailers, and so as you know we have a glut of product and that that actually bodes, poorly you know for the end of Q4 but also for q1 sales across much of a bunch of retail categories.
Scot: [52:12] Yeah.
Jason: [52:14] So I during the show or around the show you know there are bunt you know holiday earnings announcement started to come in. Before this show MasterCard released there. Sort of holiday recap and MasterCard has this product called spending pulse where they Aggregate and anonymize all the, the spending behaviors of everyone that carries a MasterCard branded card. And they said holiday retail sales were up 3.4 percent from November 1st to December 24th and the online sales were up almost nineteen percent and so those are decent numbers, that would calm pretty you know favorably with last year I think those are very similar to last year's numbers. And that would imply that everyone had a decent holiday but then the individual retailer started announcing their earnings and nobody has earnings. That seems like they jive with that Master card number right so so not shocking the JCPenney was down but they were down you know lower than expectations so they were down seven and a half percent which is huge, we alluded to this earlier but Cole's was down point two percent and they've been one of the, the you know better performers in the apparel category for a while so the fact that they're down was was alarming and surprising.
[53:32] L Brands was down 3% Macy's was down, point seven percent which they had been up the previous quarter so that was a big holiday Miss and then I think to me the one that was most surprising and alarming and kind of triggered some, some stock alarm Bells was Target and their same-store sales were only up 1.4 percent versus, 5.7 percent last year so that was a big mix against their guidance and you know you, you listen to that bloodbath of retailers like almost nobody you know performing above their comps and you try to reconcile that with the whole industry being up 3.4 percent and it just doesn't make sense to me I think, I think that Master Gardener is just wrong or or like there there's something unique about MasterCard carrying people that you know is different than other spending.
Scot: [54:27] Yeah yeah the. Jury's out I think until we see how Amazon and they report on the 30th and will be here on the Jason Scott show recapping that for everybody that's going to be really really important and then the second most important going to be Walmart and I'm not sure, you there in Feb 18 kids are in that off-cycle yeah. So it's going to be awesome to see how that goes because if they both didn't do well then it really is a head-scratcher but even if they you know let's say Amazon grew like 25% or something. It's kind of makes the, you can get the e-commerce number to 19 percent but like what the heck happened to the rest of retail who actually grew everyone that we know that reporting didn't it would have to be Walmart or you know. Someone else I don't know, Costco yeah maybe it's the dollar stores there's there has been a bunch of strength and kind of like what we call the value plays the dollar stores the Wholesale Club's the T.J.Maxx has maybe those are the guys that kind of saved the day and there's haven't reported yet.
Jason: [55:47] Yeah but I think no matter how you slice it like this is another version of bifurcation that like you know if holiday sales are robust like they were not, robust for everyone that there were you know huge winners and losers and you know if that was the case which it certainly seems like it was you know you're going to see that play out in you know future store closures and bankruptcies and all the other things that you know retailers have to do when they start to get into distressed. Situations and you know along those lines I think we have already seen a bunch of announcements now that they've gone through holiday, the upcoming store closures.
Scot: [56:30] Any other news you want to cover.
Jason: [56:33] I mean those are the big things like just to recap the store closures real quick like that was like expresses closing a hundred stores JCPenney's closing 6 more stores Pier 1 is closing half their stores Bed Bath & Beyond closing 40 stores, a slightly surprising one of me is bows which had a chain of company-owned stores. Is closing all of their bricks and mortar they're going to be you know a pure brand and Direct online sales only so you know a significant amount of store closures to start the year, so it's kind of falling into your whole you know Mama gettin story that you like to always talk about. And then I guess just a couple of small little news items that are like you know pretty interesting in the Commerce base Google made an acquisition of this company called pointy.
[57:25] And I wouldn't expect people to necessarily recognize pointy but pointy is a, a data company that makes it super easy for particularly small retailers to upload their store inventory to Google. So that lets you do local inventory ads where we're like you know you do a search for a coat and Google says oh that coats in stock in this store that's a block from you. And it also you know facilitates the sort of instant purchasing Google and a lot of other things and so it's it was interesting that Google's acquiring this capability to help retailers on board. Their inventory to Google much easier that you know could be the first of a bunch of steps we see in Google trying to get more serious about Commerce, and then you know the Gap had previously announced that they were going to split Old Navy off from the rest of the company, and they kind of had assigned CEOs and then this month announced that they're actually not going to do that they fired that CEO in the, the son of the founder I came back to run the company so so a lot of drama going on at the Gap right now.
[58:44] Yeah well I think they were another example like I, I don't know I think it's a high level the story was a bunch of the Gap brands are underperforming the one Gap brand had been performing strongly was Old Navy and you know so there's an argument that like. Old Navy wasn't getting full credit in the public markets because they're being dragged down by these other brands so you split up. The strong brand Old Navy from the weaker brands, and you know maybe you can carve out more value that of course ignores the fact that, like all of these Brands share a shared infrastructure the same it stuff the same e-commerce stuff the same supply chain stuff when you split them up you got to spend a minimum shh money to rebuild that you know. For both companies and and I think the thing that made this untenable was. Old Navy didn't have a great holiday either and so you know they were left with the prospect of potentially splitting up and having two distressed Brands neither one performing very well and. You know they just spent a bunch of money and and you know their employees Focus was all put on this this. Split instead of focusing on on customers and in the right product in the right right brand positioning for that stuff so so I think it became scary and they pulled back.
Scot: [1:00:08] Must be frustrating imagine if you were on that team and you probably had to separate all the point-of-sale systems and the customer databases and.
Jason: [1:00:18] Yo and I'm.
Scot: [1:00:18] Pretty far down the path.
Jason: [1:00:19] Like I'll be honest I'm sure there were people that were far down that path and the whole time they were doing it we're saying this is stupid we shouldn't be doing this and now they're pissed that they wasted all that. Because it's yeah it's not going to see the light of day but you know sometimes those are unavoidable things like you know there, there are storied brand I hope they find their way through it. But Scott that's probably going to play be a good place to wrap it up because we have hit our usual 1 hour mark so we've used up more than our allotted listener time, as always if people have a comment or question feel free to drop us a note on Twitter or Facebook and for sure we need to get those iTunes reviews going for the 2020 year fresh reviews are super important so if you haven't written a review for a podcast yet we'd love it if you jump over to iTunes and write us that review.
Scot: [1:01:15] And make them five stars thanks everybody.
Jason: [1:01:17] Yeah until next time happy commercing.
Amazon reported a beat on revenue but a miss on earnings
Revenue came in at $37.96 billion, beating street estimates of $37.18 billion.
EPS was only 40 cents per share, missing street estimates of $1.42 per share.
Listener Questions
Kiri Masters:
I'd love to hear Jason and Scot talk about their global e-commerce outlook. Amazon in particular seems keen to expand aggressively in international markets. Does the growth opportunities match the regulatory / operational complexity for brands? Interested to get your take.
Josh Tarasoff:
Hi Jason and Scot--What is your take on Amazon's strategy behind buying products at full retail price from marketplace sellers? Here is an article: http://www.cnbc.com/.../amazon-new-fba-program-buys....
Thank you. I love the show.
Anup Gosavi
Hey guys... love your show. Would love to see your take on when/ if brands will be active on messaging platforms like Messenger, Kik. etc.
Is it actually a better channel than email? Is there a signal in all that noise? Opportunities/ risks etc. Thanks!
Lauren Quaile Tonkin:
I'd love your thoughts on autoreplenishment. Why have other retailers not adopted this tactic broadly (beyond Amazon and Target)? Do autoreplenishment models differ globally? What non-intuitive products/categories do you think can benefit from an autoreplenishment strategy? Thank you! Keep up the great work.
Ben Kates: off-price retail offline and online
Gareth Hanes (in uk): Hi Jason & Scott, enjoying your podcasts from "the other side of the pond" in the UK.
I would be interested in your take on the recent (in the UK anyway) growth of products sold on Amazon by Chinese 3P merchants (presumably manufacturers) using FBA. I have noticed transformational changes in some product groups where new SKUs and brands have gained strong traction very quickly (propelled forward by a combination of agressive pricing, AMS & FBA).
There's been a lot of talk on your podcasts about Amazon "own label", but this "manufacturer to consumer" model would appear to be a much more of a imminent threat to incumbent domestic brand owners.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 95 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday July 27, 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
17 Oct 2019
EP192 - Macy's VP of Innovation Parinda Muley
00:35:04
EP192 - Macy's VP of Innovation Parinda Muley
Parinda Muley (@parinda), the VP of Innovation and Business Development at Macy’s. In this broad-ranging interview, we discuss a number of Macy’s innovation initiatives including ThredUp, Macy’s Market @ Macy’s, B8ta, Story, and Style Crew. We also talk about the strategies for fostering innovation, and how retail innovation is likely to evolve in the future.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 192 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, August 21st, 2019. live from the eTail East trade show in Boston, MA.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
NRF NXT Tuesday, July 21 11:45am–12:30pm EDT “Future of Platforms”
CommerceNext July 29th 4:10 pm EE “Lesson Learned and Thoughts for the Future”
The Great Debate
Are we in a long-lasting, deep recession, or is at an artificial recession will quickly bounce back from? What should retailers and brands be planning for. Jason and Scot has it out. Who will be right?
Amazon News
Amazon Dash Cart
Echo Frames are frames are shipping
Q4 restrictions on 3pl warehouses
Prime day in October
Employee Health Clinics
Amazon becomes worlds largest advertiser spending $11B a year
Earning results next week
Other News
US Census Bureau Data for June is out. US Real Retail sales were up 5.8% in June, (down from 17.7% in May) but representing a 2nd month of retail recovery. Total retail sales back above Feb levels. (Numbers adj for inflation and including auto). E-commerce up 23% YoY.
Nike leaves Google Shopping
Google shopping fast shipping tags
Nike RISE new store concept in Guangzhou, China
Walmart and Amazon healthcare battle
Walmart+ coming soon?
Is digital grocery profitable?
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 227 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Friday, July 17th, 2020.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
10 Jul 2016
EP034 - Euromonitor, Michelle Grant, Head of Retailing
00:57:41
EP34 - Interview with Michelle Grant, Head of Retailing at Euromonitor International
Michelle Grant is the Head of Retailing at Euromonitor International, a leading strategy research firm with a highly regarded retail practice. Her twitter feed, @EMI_MichelleG is a must follow for anyone interesting in retail.
We cover three broad topics in the interview:
Amazon internation expansion strategies and tactics
Cross-border Commerce
Mobile
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Episode 34 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, May 16th, 2016, and published on June 10th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
23 Nov 2021
EP281 - Mark Mahaney, author and top internet analyst
00:55:38
EP281 - Mark Mahaney, author and top internet analyst
Mark Mahaney is Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI, Research Division, he’s one of the original and longest lasting internet analysts on Wall Street. He recently published “Nothing but Net: 10 Timeless Stock-Picking Lessons from One of Wall Street’s Top Tech Analysts.”
We cover a variety of fun topics including the beginning of his career with with Mary Meeker. His initial evaluation of EBay. His long positions on Amazon, Netflix, and Priceline, and butting heads with Jim Cramer over Google. We also discuss what’s next for Amazon, and where the best investments of the future might be.
Episode 281 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, November 18th, 2021
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
23 Oct 2019
EP193 - Hershey's CDO Doug Straton
00:49:54
EP193 - Hershey's CDO Doug Straton
Doug Straton, Chief Digital Officer at The Hershey Company. In this broad-ranging interview, we discuss Hershey's digital footprint, the challenges of temperature-sensitive products, incumbents versus challenger brands, Amazon, Hershey's data strategy, and the future of digital grocery.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 193 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday September 17th, 2019, live from the Grocery Shop trade show in Las Vegas, NV.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
20 Aug 2022
EP295 - Walmart, Target Q2 Earnings, and US Commerce July Data
00:45:27
Episode 295 is a breakdown of Walmart and Target Q2 earnings, as well as the US Department of Commerce retail sales data for July.
Episode 295 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday August 18, 2022.
13 Aug 2020
EP232 - rue21 CEO John Fleming
00:56:20
EP232 - rue21 CEO John Fleming
John Fleming is the the interim CEO of rue21. John was formerly the global e-commerce CEO for Uniqlo, Chief Merchant at Walmart, and CEO of Walmart.com. He has also served as a board member at Bed Bath & Beyond and Untuckit.
rue21 is an American specialty retailer of women’s casual apparel and accessories with 670 stores that primarily designs and fabricates its’ own products.
In this broad ranging interview, we discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by Covid, Amazon, the direct to consumer model, and the future of retail.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 232 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, August 13th, 2020.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
30 Jul 2021
EP271 - Amazon Q2 2021 Earnings Recap
00:53:38
EP271 - Amazon Q2 2021 Earnings Recap
Jason is back on the road and has some retail store visit reports:
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Scot: [53:16] Thanks everyone for joining us and…
Jason: [53:19] Until next time happy Commercing.
07 Apr 2023
EP304 - ShopTalk Recap
01:06:11
EP304 - ShopTalk Recap
ShopTalk 2023 took place at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas March 26 – March 29th, and seems fully back to pre-pandemic levels. Over 10,000 attendees, 600 exhibitors, and 50,000 one on one meetings, make ShopTalk the premiere digital commerce event in the US.
In this episode we recap everything you may have missed if you couldn’t make it to Las Vegas. We also briefly discuss e-commerce in Brazil, around Jason’s recent trip to São Paulo.
Key Themes At ShopTalk this year:
Retail Media Networks
Social Commerce and Shoppable Video
Artificial Intelligence
Retailers Becoming Plaforms
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 304 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, April 6th 2023.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
06 Sep 2018
EP144 - Tommy John founders Tom Patterson and Erin Fujimoto
00:52:36
EP144 - Tommy John founders Tom Patterson and Erin Fujimoto
Erin Fujimoto and Tom Patterson are the founders of Tommy John, a vertically integrated consumer brand in the underwear category. They have recently expanded to include direct to consumer, woman's apparel and are now opening their own stores.
In this interview, we cover a wide range of topics including the origin story, direct to consumer versus wholesale, the challenges and opportunities of being a digitally native brand, omni-channel expansion, and the future of commerce.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 144 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, August 8th from the eTail East tradeshow in Boston.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
07 Oct 2016
EP048 - REI, Brad Brown, SVP Digital Retail
00:45:11
EP048 - Guest Brad Brown, SVP Digital Retail at REI
Brad Brown is the SVP of Digital Retail at REI. We spoke with Brad from the trade show floor at the Shop.org digital summit 2016.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 48 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday September 27, 2016.
http://retailgeek.com/podcast Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
11 May 2017
EP083 - Andrea Leigh, selling on and negotiating with Amazon
01:03:30
EP083 - Andrea Leigh, selling on and negotiating with Amazon
Andrea Leigh is the owner at Andrea K. Leigh Consulting, which helps clients sell on and negotiate with Amazon. Andrea enjoyed a 10 year career at Amazon where she served in a number of Buying and Category Leadership roles. Andrea is a recognized expert on Amazon, who has written a number of helpful articles about Amazon on linkedin:
We spoke with Andrea about her background and experiences at Amazon, the digital grocery market and Amazon's efforts in the segment, and the best practices and common pitfalls in working with Amazon.
Andrea will be one of the speakers at "Amazon & Me" an all day workshop on Tuesday June 6th at IRCE, hosted by Scot Wingo.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 83 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday May 11, 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
18 Aug 2016
EP041 - Digital Payments Deep Dive
01:05:27
EP041 - Digital Payments Deep Dive
Key considerations when looking at Digital Payment Options:
Ability to support all the payment types your customers want to use (brands of cards, store cards, debit, ACH)
Size of vendors current user base and overlap with your customer base (will you be accessing an installed base of users from your vendor, or will you be onboarding your customers to the vendors platform).
Ability to integrate digital receipts and post purchase experience
Ability to integrate coupons, offers, promotions, and loyalty programs
Note: Jason incorrectly referred to Merchant Customer Exchange ("MCX"), the joint retail consortium creating it's own payment method, as "WMX". They have canceled their plans to launch their own mobile payment system and have reduced their staff, but they are still operating and pursuing other partnerships.
Google Handsfree - Payment pilot in San Francisco Bay Area, currently a separate effort from Android Pay
Checkout the @retailgeek instagram feed for a library of images showing the (confused) state of chip & signature in the US.
PYMNTS.com website - Great source for payment industry news
Disclosure: Samsung provided the Galaxy S7 Edge smartphone that was used to test Samsung Pay and Android Pay.
This episode is sponsored by the National Retail Federation. The Jason and Scot show will be live podcasting at the NRF/shop.org digital summit 2016 which is in Dallas September 26-28th this year. We have a custom discount code for our listeners. The code is JASON&SCOT, you will get a 10% discount on the full conference fee. Visit retailsdigitalsummit.nrf.com to enter the code when you register for the show and we’ll see you there!
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 41 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, August 17th, 2016.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
09 Jun 2017
EP087 - UBS Equity Research Analyst Michael Binetti
01:06:59
EP087 - UBS Equity Research Analyst Michael Binetti
An interview with Michael Binetti, Equity Research Analyst at UBS, covering apparel and footwear brands, department stores and speciality retailers. His coverage universe includes: Abercrombie & Fitch Co,, American Eagle Outfitters Inc, Chico's, Coach, Express Finish Line, Foot Locker Inc, Gap, Hanesbrands, J. Jill Inc, JC Penney Co ,Kohl's Corp, L Brands , Lululemon, Macy's, NIKE, Nordstrom, PVH Corp, Ralph Lauren Corp, Ross Stores Inc, TJX ,Under Armour Inc, Urban Outfitters and VF Corp.
In this interview, we discuss Omnichannel, Mallageddon, Brands vs Retailers, and of course Amazon.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 87 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, May 30, 2017.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
New beta feature - Amazon Automated Transcription of the show:
07 Jan 2022
EP284 - 2022 Annual Predictions
00:52:49
EP284 - 2022 Annual Predictions h
2021 Predictions Recap
Jason:
Made to Order apparel business > 9 figures Yes
Retailer offers viable health alt insurance option to consumers No
NFTs, Web 3, Metaverse, and Ultrafast delivery services are all overhyped and don’t deliver meaningful commerce revenue in 2022.
Shein exceeds $30B in annual sales, disrupting apparel industry
Adoption of BNPL services slows down to less than 15% CAGR in 2022.
Amazon opens more than 100 Amazon Fresh grocery stores
Last Mile evolves Veho, X-Delivery, shipium, or Instacart gets aquired
Scot:
Amazon launches a competitor to Shopify webstore, possibly via a headless solution on AWS
Amazon wins ultra-fast delivery. Gopuff, Gorilla, or Jokr goes out of business in 2022
Metaverse gets lots of buzz but no revenue
Livestream commerce goes mainstream in the US
Fabric gets acquired
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 284 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, January 6th, 2022.
ttp://jasonandscot.com
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
12 Jun 2023
EP306 - Apple WWDC announcement, Generative AI, and Holiday First Look
00:58:20
EP306 - Apple WWDC announcement, Generative AI, and Holiday First Look
Apple previewed a new mixed reality headset called the Apple Vision Pro at it's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this month. Apple calls the new category spatial computing and we speculate about how it may or may not be a big deal.
We also discuss the latest Echo hardware from Amazon, which is mostly disappointing.
We discuss the rapidly evolving generative AI space and some of the commerce use-cases.
And we take a first look at Holiday 2023.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 306 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, June 8th 2023.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
Transcript
Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 306 being recorded on Thursday June 8 2023 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo.
Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners well it's been about a month our weekly pot has become a monthly cut pod because our lives have gotten pretty busy here in this postcode world I know you've been traveling a lot what else is new with you.
Jason: [0:57] Yeah yeah it's finally feels like summer which I'm very grateful for, a lot of interesting stuff going on in the world of Commerce that keeps me engaged but I feel like the main reason our podcast is slow down is because you are an entrepreneurial mogul.
Scot: [1:15] I don't know about mobile but I'll take the entrepreneur piece yeah the day job is a occupying 100 or 99 point, eight percent of my time and I used to be able to use speed like 97 and I could squeeze in more time so I podcast start button but got a there's a lot of cars out there to take care of and we're doing our best to get to all of them.
Jason: [1:35] And we are grateful for it I feel like I'm I'm going back in time about six months because we've been on such a leg but I feel remiss. There was a huge accomplishment like six months ago you were named one of the founding members of the. Marketplace Hall of Fame.
Scot: [1:57] I saw that yeah yeah.
Jason: [2:01] Here's the thing I'm going to say about that I didn't know that much about it and I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear you're a founding member but like. Don't like five names and it was like Jeff Bezos Mar Quarry. And you and Jack Ma I'm like I'm like man you are going to be the best looking dude on that Mount Rushmore.
Scot: [2:24] Yeah usually I'm I'm kind of Groucho Marx not sure I want to be in the club but this is one I was very happy to be being is like me and like three or four other billionaires all I'll take I'll take being included in that group.
Jason: [2:39] Yeah yeah you don't want to be the fanciest house on the Block so.
Scot: [2:42] Yeah I got a yeah I'm I'm excited I'm punching way above my weight on that list for sure.
Jason: [2:48] Yeah well so anyway congratulations on that for sure I know and westerners would appreciate it and then while I'm thrilled for summer I've been a little down about one bit of news.
Scot: [3:00] What is it Jason.
Jason: [3:01] Disney click closed the Star Wars Hotel before you and I got to go there.
Scot: [3:08] Yeah I know we could have done a live stream when this thing was announced I was excited and then I saw the price and then I saw the promo video and then I saw the reviews and you could just tell they had totally the totally whiffed on the whole thing it was. It was it wasn't just kind of a hotel you stayed at you had to just do that thing alone you didn't have to but it was so expensive. You're paying like two or three thousand dollars a night which I don't know this gonna be some. Someone in California makes these decisions I guess I don't understand the the tolls of the everyday American or even the higher in Star Wars hand that's a that's a big ask and you know I'm not in the cosplay so I think they had this if we kind of put on our marketing hats they had death by a Thousand Cuts so you had to be a Star Wars fan number one number two you had to be willing to spend 5K on this fancy hotel experience number three had to be in the cause playing and then number for the experiences that people that try to gave it you know at best a.
Jason: [4:11] Yeah mediocre.
Scot: [4:12] Yeah it felt very Star Trek e which is definitely a problem for Star Wars fans and you know it had a lot of kind of fun Spacey kind of vibe but like not enough Star Wars so yeah but you know. I'll say kudos to them for trying but it was an expensive mistake and I'm sure they can repurpose the real estate it's not like they're gonna I'm not shedding a tear.
Jason: [4:36] Real estate has been depreciated I'm sure.
Scot: [4:38] I think they'll be okay but yeah you know it is bummer because I was kind of hoping it would work, I've done some other Star Wars experience you'll stuff that was really fun there was there's this group in the UK and they go create movie scenes and industrial areas it's really weird the way it's described is called like underground movies or something like that they did a Star Wars experience that was like amazing where they had a Cantina I guess galaxies Edge is kind of like yeah. As when I mean I haven't been yet but I'm actually going to go this summer so I'm excited about that all.
Jason: [5:11] Yeah it's really good you should.
Scot: [5:12] Yeah everyone says it's good so that's on my list.
Jason: [5:15] Yeah I'm in the same boat like it I don't feel like I'm disappointed that I missed it because I feel like. It sounds poorly executed in poorly conceived but the high-level concept of a. Experiential Star Wars Hotel experience I was super excited about and I hope the fact that this does didn't work isn't going. Like slow down future future ideas on that space because it could have been cool if they did it really well.
Scot: [5:44] Yeah yeah I don't put salt down.
Jason: [5:47] Onto something more reliable Apple announcements.
Scot: [5:51] Yeah this was exciting so I'd love to get your take on the Apple Vision Pro so first of all the the earlier announcements I was kind of like I was getting a little concerned because they're like you know coming up the biggest new feature in Mac OS is a really cool screen saver and then the phone had a new sleep display mode I'm like, we've kind of jumped the shark if this is the big new OS features there were some other ones and I'm being a little bit facetious but there were there were to say there were minor tweaks which is kind of a Fair assessment I think.
[6:24] And then they finally gave us that one more thing that we've been waiting for and I went and our crack staff of interns went into the Jason and Scot show vault and you and I and 2016 gave a talk at an in our F / shop dot-org event where we were asked to talk about the future of retail and in there I remember I pulled up the presentation we talked about drones and 3D printing and then we talk about a rvr and at that point in time Facebook they're used to this company called Facebook now you may know them as meta they they had just acquired Oculus and we were speculating would Apple enter the game and turns out we were right but like many of our predictions we were maybe a little early if I've done the math on this right we were about seven years ahead, but I think the wait has been worth it because they definitely swung for the fences on this one and you know the the feature sets and the user interface no one none of us have experience to have read the reviews of folks that have sounds like it I can't wait to get my hands on one and I'm definitely ordering one so excited to hear what you think.
Jason: [7:37] Yeah yeah so maybe half a step back Apple tends to do two big events a year they and they do as software announcement and they do a hardware announcement this is normally the software announcement where they detail all the. New releases of the various operating systems for all the devices and they do sometimes, launch devices at this which they did again they launched a number of new configurations of Max and then in like September they announced. The hardware which is up you know generally includes a new phone for October. So you don't necessarily expect a huge new hardware product at this announcement and I was I was kind of with you most of the OS and announcements were very incremental the new. Computers were all like like very very incremental there is like.
[8:35] The new 15-inch the the MacBook Air is now a 15 inch. So that's maybe going to be an appealing laptop for people that want to pretty powerful laptop that's super light. But I will say there's a number of small enhancements in the OS has that I'm looking forward to like they their incremental but they did you know call out a number of sort of pain points where like. The autocorrect on the keyboard can often be very annoying and they're going to use a large language model too. Um what you keep your curse words and proprietary language a lot easier and, a few little bits like that and then yeah to your point like at the end they go and one more thing and as I assume most of our listeners know that's magic language at Apple, that's that's the language Steve Jobs used before he pulled the first iPhone out of his jeans pocket or the first MacBook Air out of the manila envelope and you know that language has been used to introduce a lot of apples game-changing products and it frankly hasn't been used very much. In the in the modern era so the mere fact that they started the innocent reduction with an one more thing tells you that Apple thinks this is a. In extra big deal and. I'm with you like I will I'm embarrassed to say somewhere in some ways I will probably buy one I think there's a bunch of.
[10:03] Cool things about it like the the hardware achievement is is pretty impressive so this is a. They would be pissed at me describing it this way they invented a new term they call this spatial Computing but it's a it's an AR VR headset and it kind of looks like ski goggles. And you know a lot of people had predicted this and their renderings that weren't too far off but the hardware is beautiful as you would expect from Apple it has a bunch of Premium finishes it is not an accessory that talks to a computer a phone it's a. Computer that you wear in your face and in fact I think it has to M2 chips in it. And in the specs are really high each eye has more than a 4K screen so very high resolution VR headset and the latency, it has this Mode called pass-through mode which means there's cameras in front of it and it can feel like a transparent visor because. The the cameras see outside and then you know project that onto these two 4K screen so it makes it feel like you're seeing through the visor and it's in full color at 4K with less than 12 millisecond latency which is.
[11:20] Other VR headsets have a pass-through mode like the Oculus has a black-and-white pass-through mode but the latency is. As much there's a lot more lag and so that creates like all these like motion artifacts and stuff. That this is all very premium high-end Hardware which seems, pretty cool and so the experiences seem cool everyone I've read you know just got to actually try it thanks though I. On your face experience was vastly better than any other a rvr. They had experienced and then they also you know brought in Bob Iger from Disney and who announced that they were doing a bunch of proprietary content for the platform which is a. Another exciting thing right because the these headsets are only as good as the. The content you have for them so all that to me was super favorable the things that they're rightly getting knocked on is you just talked about the price of the Disney hotel being unrealistic they didn't really even mention the price in this announcement but they released it afterwards and it's the base price is going to be over 3500 bucks and if you're blind like I am you're going to have to then buy some prescriptions Iceland's is that screw into it. And so it's an expensive device.
[12:43] It also has kind of mirror battery life like the there's a small battery on the device but in order to get a two-hour battery they make you put a battery pack the size of an iPhone in your pocket and connect it via a cable, to the headset and that gets you two hours which frankly isn't even enough time to watch a lot of movies that are out these days. People have talked a lot about it being really heavy. On your face because of all this like you know metal hardware and premium materials that it feels pretty pretty meaningful on your face and then the biggest weird thing to me. In the announcement they made multiple they took multiple occasions to talk about.
[13:28] How important what they called presences right so they talked like there's a lot of new features and all the OSS around FaceTime. And making it a more useful meeting thing and and all of those features were around making you feel like you were. More together with the people you are FaceTiming with and when they first show this, this apple Vision Pro experience the first thing they show is video conferencing with other real people and how their faces are floating right in front of you and it you know it's this great presence experience. Except for anyone wearing. This bloody device because guess what you don't get is a picture of the person wearing the device wait what what you get is a. Uncanny valley like semi-realistic Avatar of the person.
[14:18] And it just feels like very incongruity us that they're both saying presents a super important and then they're partitioning, anyone wearing this device sort of away from real people and so I that to me is worrisome I got to be honest when I add up all the pros and the cons it feels like people like you and I will buy it, but I kind of suspect that this is going to be more like an apple Lisa than the first Macintosh.
Scot: [14:44] It you know but you gotta start somewhere and this is by setting the goalposts hi it's easier to go down than up so you know I can imagine several iterations and maybe it'll take another seven years but at some point I think they'll solve all those things and they'll get the cost way down but.
Jason: [15:00] 100% if you look at this as like the entree into a new form of computing I'm totally with you right and and I get I wish I owned one of the a police's but and it did pave the way for the Macintosh so so I'm all down for it I don't think, if you're a retailer at home and you're going like hey do I have to invent some new Commerce experience for the. For the Apple Vision Pro like the answer is no right like and what like unless maybe your Louis Vuitton and you want to get a good press release about being a first mover you know it's unlikely that there's going to be 100 million people sitting in their house wearing this thing on their face all day and wanting to shop on it.
Scot: [15:42] Yeah I saw so to last comments on this one I saw One reviewer who's really into a rvr and it was interesting framing he basically said Facebook is going down this path of VR is a social experience and you're using it for meetings and for meeting people which aligns since their social network right and that's part of their DNA where's apples kind of more saying we're heading into a world where we're more alone and you'll you know your increasingly you'll be working for home alone and remote and your you'll you know you'll be interacting with your family with this mask on it's kind of a I don't buy this framing but it's kind of an interesting you know the way it's set up today is very different view of things and then you know then the conclusion was you know for society I hope it's the Facebook silly should be good or else we're all going to be ready player one like sitting in little tiny you know compartments never interacting with each other at a human level and.
Jason: [16:38] Yeah no I agree and then ironically like apples Imaging everyone sitting at home except for Apple employees who will get fired and they said.
Scot: [16:46] Yeah.
Jason: [16:48] Yeah another framing I heard which makes some sense is like they talked about meta really thinking of their device as a gaming platform and it's kind of priced at parity with gaming platforms and the, Partnerships that are leaning into a really gaming Partnerships and it comes with very sort of gaming friendly controllers and things like that and apple is really thinking of this as a compute platform and I think on an implied in their announcement is they Envision a future when. You know we don't we don't own clamshell devices with keyboards that we used hitter. Get our work done and that we're more likely to sit in a comfortable chair with one of these things on our face and be much more productive.
Scot: [17:28] Yeah another thing that was interesting this got obscured by the announcement was I've heard a fair amount of Buzz about this roller coaster experience in Japan and I think it's a Nintendo theme park and what you yes.
Jason: [17:39] Super Mario Kart and I think they did they just did it in.
Scot: [17:43] Yeah.
Jason: [17:44] Universal Studios in Los Angeles I believe may not have it.
Scot: [17:48] Okay well Apple acquired the company that built this experience for Nintendo and. Yeah so you know kind of putting that together you see all right you got Bob Iger on stage and that was like content on the device but think about this killer you know imagine you go to your next Generation Galaxy Edge experience in your writing some kind of a ride and now they throw some AR part on top of that experience that that would be pretty cool.
Jason: [18:14] Yeah I guess so to other random things I thought were mildly interesting normally apple is pretty good about dropping these announcements and then having like. Pretty quick of the ability thereafter and so one weird thing they're announcing this and June and it's not going to be available in told 2024. Um which I you know that feels a little unusual for me and then not surprising at all but like very noticeable. Three words that were not mentioned ever in this announcement were artificial intelligence VR or the metaverse. So they kind of invented their own terms and I think they very intentionally avoided. A variety of stigmas that are attached to some of those those other terms and then I guess the last thing in my head you know there's this company and I think they still exist and they have raised billions of dollars. On a lot of hype around a really high-end AR headset it's this company called magically. And I think like if there's any loser in this whole Space.
[19:26] Like if there was any hope of magically surviving think I think this you know this seems like a better product in every way than what magically was promising and wasn't able to deliver.
[19:46] Yeah I'm sure there's some IP that's that's interesting to someone I hope so they spent a fortune.
Scot: [19:48] Yeah I think they're done they yeah they missed their window and they had these really cool early demos but.
Jason: [19:55] Yeah I actually got one we're like literally the it was kind of like old-school Oculus like there's a you know a refrigerator size computer that was Tethered to the. To the screen but it definitely it was not 4K with 12 second latency.
Scot: [20:10] Nothing yep and so this is where Apple wins because they can they built their own silk and they built a chip for that latency it's called the R1 or something and so they basically said alright we need to create Hardware that can have this under eight millisecond latency and they just did it and you know that's not everyone can do that.
Jason: [20:28] Not many yeah so I thought that was interesting again like you and I will be able to have our little Avatar meetings after this maybe we'll be able to record the podcast in it.
Scot: [20:38] Yeah people can watch us look at each other with goggles.
Jason: [20:42] I feel like if there's two people that would whose attractiveness would be improved by the goggles and might be us we have faces for podcasting.
Scot: [20:47] Yeah yeah I can yeah I'm kind of wondering can you change your eyes you know so those are all simulated so.
Jason: [20:54] You have to be able to write like if I can buy blue contacts why can't I have yeah because that that is true for those that didn't see the announcement it can look like the glasses are clear because you can see the where's eyes through the glasses but it's because, there's cameras inside the glasses and there's always screens on the outside of the glasses and so they're they're renderings of your eyes.
Scot: [21:16] Yeah I want to I'm going to do a Terminator ice that's what I'm going for.
Jason: [21:20] Yeah I'm extra weary about Terminator references in our current AI climb.
Scot: [21:25] That's a good Segway.
Jason: [21:28] Nice I like it. Yeah so there's lots of AI news like we could do a month of AI shows it feels like the only thing I talk about it work but there's one particular subset of all this AI That's often called generative Ai and I'm going to even say focusing very specifically on the image generation Ai and there's tons of cool stuff that I think you and I have both been playing with.
Scot: [21:58] Yeah I'm big into mid-journey and then everyone's done chat G PT but then the big the big thing that's helped me is once it became where you could do the links I've been able to I do a lot of writing and I've been able to accumulate all my writing in a file and then feed it in and say Here's my style analyze this so that it goes to, then I taught to start writing in my style and then that has been a huge game-changer for me that's the first one gives you like a decent draft and then you're kind of find yourself editing a lot but like having it where you can now upload new information either from the web or in a file or a PDF is a been a big game changer for me it's it gets it more like you know 95% weather.
Jason: [22:47] Oh yeah I think I've mentioned this before but like there's a small subset of the writing I do that I get to partner with a copywriter so I'll like, give outlines or dictate things to a copywriter in the draft I get back is almost always will written but not remotely in my voice and so it takes me a long time to edit it and give I give the same raw inputs to chechi BT that that I've trained. To know my writing style what I get back is is way closer to use them.
Scot: [23:19] Does your copywriter listen to this podcast.
Jason: [23:23] Hopefully she does not.
Scot: [23:25] Okay good.
Jason: [23:27] Yeah yeah no I you know again there's a whole we again we could do another podcast about whether AI is gonna create or destroy jobs or both but I think like a lot of things there are things that we used to pay people to do that are it's going to be harder to make a living doing, but there's going to be lots of new jobs to write and those copywriters like ought to be the first ones learning how to write good prompts for these for these things, the image ones I've been playing with image generators to I use mid Journey, you know there's an open source one that you can kind of run on your local hardware stable diffusion, that has a lot less constraints it's not quite as high quality of rendering is mid-journey but I'll tell you the new thing that's been fun for me is Adobe announced a generative AI model called Firefly and they already built it in one of their products so the the if you own Photoshop CC you can download a Photoshop beta and it has this feature that they call.
[24:28] Excuse me generative Phil and, generative Phil is a legitimate Game Changer there's a bunch of use cases that used to be super time-consuming for designers that that this beta version already like. Makes Child's Play and one of the sort of unfortunate thing mid-journey generates really beautiful images the one thing it doesn't do is, trademark images or copyright images or text right so very often you might generate an image in mid Journey but then you had you'd have to hand it to a good Photoshop artist to put the spiffy logo in it or to put you know and actual image of Scot Wingo in it or something like that. And Adobe Firefly is really good at that use case so like I've actually done a bunch of kind of Blended image where I made an image in mid journey and then, I refined it in the Photoshop beta and it's, it's super fun but man like you know if I'm any kind of designer or graphic artist like I want to get good at this stuff right away because it, I'm not saying is going to eliminate jobs but it's going to change the kind of jobs people need to be good at.
Scot: [25:43] Yeah there's been a lot of really cool use cases of the generative AI feature in Photoshop where people would start like with them Nirvana cover you know the little baby swimming naked and then expand it ever bigger than you can like see the rest of the scene what the computer imagines and they're starting to it with memes to it's pretty wild to watch some output of that it's it's like it's a little scary wow it could be, how real it is it feels like it is it's not real obviously because no one knows what's in that rest of that frame.
Jason: [26:15] Yeah there's a real world use case where Nike and Tiffany announced a collab product and everyone saw it and thought it was awful. Right like that it just like is just a very like not inspiring combination of Nike shoes with Tiffany branding and a bunch of people then you know went and use these generative AI models to create. Way better looking shit Tiffany Nike shoes and that really happened and then last night I actually watched the Nike are movie which is the movie about the.
[26:50] Both of the Air Jordans with them. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in it awesome movie by the way especially if you grew up in the 80s like there was a lot of fun nostalgia. But in this movie The they get a meeting with young Michael Jordan and his family who are going to come to Beaverton to talk about. In doing a Nike endorsement and and Nikes though Dark Horse like Jordans not interested in Nike and so the the the team after they booked this meeting on Friday afternoon they go to the the one Nike designer in the basement and they say Hey by Monday I need a prototype and a rendering of the world's greatest basketball shoe and this, this guy had a weekend to invent the Air Jordan which he did right and and history is made like you know it made 40 billion dollars for Phil Knight and a couple billion dollars for Michael Jordan so great success but you imagine that if that kind of thing were to happen today, um there'd be a team rendering, a hundred different concepts in these generative AI models and that it have like a way wider variation of interesting ideas to consider.
Scot: [28:10] Yeah very cool.
Jason: [28:12] So I will say we're starting to see some interesting Commerce use cases the I have seen a bunch of clients that are using generative AI to create or refine product images and in some cases they are literally saving millions of man hours now. You know so maybe you've got you know a huge catalog of products and they're all shot as lifestyle imagery or they're all sot on a particular background and then you now need to sell them in the new Marketplace at Sheehan that didn't exist a year ago. And there's a requirement for white backgrounds. Well you know you used to pay like an army of graphic designers to mask out all these images and change the backgrounds and now that these like generative things can do it.
[29:02] Trivially and you imagine pretty quickly that all these images are going to be personalized right so instead of, you know seeing that that product around some you know model family like at some you know random persons Thanksgiving table, you're going to see that that that new food product. At your Thanksgiving table with your family sitting around it and all of these sorts of you know personalized cases as as the imagery the ability to generate imagery on the Fly gets really good, and I've actually never seen a couple of demos from Google of a product they first announced. Last year and then they announced that it's going to be released eminently last month, it's called Google seen exploration in this is a cool AR use case specifically for retail so this is walk into a store hold your phone with the camera on in front of an aisle and it recognizes all of the products on the Shelf using computer vision, and then it overlays all the products with Google ratings and reviews.
[30:08] So like giving you a lot of this like valuable digital information that didn't used to exist on the shelf right and you you know they talk about all the use cases like you know you need to buy a highly rated nut free vegan chocolate bar and you're standing in the chocolate aisle and there's a you know a thousand chocolate bars there's no way to search by that right and and with this scene exploration you know you can now do that on the fly in a store and to me that seems like a, pretty cool use case and it's it's going to be built in the phones and then area of your in the OS in the very near future.
Scot: [30:50] Yeah I saw a Salesforce they've been going at this very hard in within the Commerce Cloud they announced like 10 features they have one where it will auto-generate your pdp's for you they have one where it will it'll generate tags so like it'll search the description and come up with sizes and colors and and you know kind of like a variance and things out of a description to have another one, there was no actually go create product catalog for you so if you've you've this was a huge thing we had a challenge with it Channel visor is if you're selling if you're selling on Amazon and you're just matching to their Easter eysan you don't really have the rights to that product information so then you can't just copy that and then put on eBay or something like that or your own website so they've got this whole way that you can take that data your your properties which aren't, sentences create the description and then move it to other sections to a lot of really interesting things going on in the intersection of AI and e-commerce.
Jason: [31:56] Yeah absolutely so exciting about that and there's going to be I have a feeling we're going to be talking about significant new capabilities on an ongoing basis for the foreseeable future.
Scot: [32:06] I remember you'd walked internet retailer and there be ten vendors there that would take your product pictures and add a white background yeah.
Jason: [32:15] And that win from like you know people in America doing that to people in India doing that and now it's it's an Nvidia chip doing it. Which side note like you know people keep asking who's winning the who's going to be the one to monetize a eyes are going to be open AI or meta all these small companies we also got the answer to that this quarter it's Invidia.
Scot: [32:36] Yeah they're gonna win yes.
Jason: [32:39] So for those that don't know nvidia's market cap Nvidia has a chip manufacturer famous for, these high-performance graphic chips that were originally used for gaming and still are and their chips have been extremely useful for training and doing refining training for all these these large language models in AI, and their market cap briefly passed a trillion dollars, um this month I think it dipped like just below a trillion dollars at the moment but to put that in perspective Intel's market cap is like 130 billion dollars. Like so Nvidia the game chip company is eight times more valuable than Intel at the.
Scot: [33:25] It's crazy yeah who knows no one had that on their bingo card five years.
Jason: [33:29] No I wish that was one of my year beginning predictions.
Scot: [33:34] Yeah anything else on a iron.
Jason: [33:38] No no did you Amazon 10 announcement last month you follow.
Scot: [33:44] Yeah yeah well it wouldn't be a Jason Scott show without some.
[34:00] That's right time for some Amazon news Amazon has been unexpectedly quiet so we've got a new CEO basis is out romping around wearing crazy shirts at festivals and living the high life with his girlfriend so, some of that out there other engage did not know that congratulations Jeff I know he listens to.
Jason: [34:26] If you're playing bingo it was a 2.5 million dollar diamond.
Scot: [34:29] Nice the one thing I saw just to highlight is a lot there's kind of a, this bit of an economic downturn has made many of the video providers get more serious about profitability so we saw both Netflix and Disney add an ad-supported tier and increase their prices and just as we're recording this Amazon announced they're going to do the same thing with prime so they're going to have an add to your 44 Prime but I know you follow the devices I totally slept on this because I was so eager for the Vision Pro tell me about the new devices.
Jason: [35:07] Yeah yeah. I would characterize it as disappointing they want some new Echo devices at. The in the middle of May for release on May 31st and you know I have it. An embarrassing amount of these devices controlling smart home features throughout my house and they when I first got them like.
[35:37] I seem very I felt very satisfied with them like the the accuracy of the speech recognition and stuff seemed adequate like based on my expectations at the time but I've grown to be very annoyed by them like they really struggle to know which room you're talking to and they're inconsistent about how semantically accurate you have to be like in in this world where Chad gbt is writing all my articles for me you know you just go I, man the speech recognition in this Hardware has to be better and so I was kind of eagerly looking for some new Echoes that have like an llm in them it seemed like Amazon was a first mover here, and so they did announce some new devices but they're pretty boring so they announced a new form factor called the echo pop which is.
[36:27] I want by my count their fourth or fifth attempt to build a more premium speaker into an echo and this is like. A more affordable premium speaker which seems like a weird Niche so that wasn't that interesting I don't actually use the echoes. As speakers so much and then they launched a new Echo Show 5 which is. The the echo with the screen it's the smallest screen has 5 inch screen and then they announced some new Echo buds the echo built into the the earbuds which you and I both tried and I don't think we're very enamored by. The. The features are like oh the speaker sounds better than the old speaker the microphone is more accurate than the old microphone and it's 20% faster.
[37:15] And so like I bought a couple of these new new Echoes to see if I you noticed a difference and it's. Like it's to me it's mostly imperceptible from the old Hardware so pretty disappointing. Um but app that announcement I will say Andy jassy said that hey the large language model for Echo is coming and you know there. It does feel like Amazon's a little behind and I don't know if this announcement was meant to apologize for that that. Status or whether there really is something that's going to be imminently announced but you know like he he doubled down on their effort to make this the, the most useful personal assistant on Earth and you know part of that is we're going to have a robust large language model that's you know on has a, a similar number of parameters to to open a I or bear door or Lama from from meta, that the Amazons going to release to make these these sneakers smarter so I hope he delivers on that promise.
Scot: [38:23] Yeah the there if definitely feels like chat gbt started this new gear for Innovation and feels like apple even with their big announcement there was they worked some AI in there but it just feels like. There's a lot of people speculating do you really need a phone if we're going to head to a device where you can talk to it and these plugins at chat gbt now give it action so you can say hey book me a restaurant reservation the things you would do on your phone you're going to be almost able to do totally by voice soon therefore will you need a phone so there's a lot of you know that's a new would expect Amazon who was ahead on voice now feels like they're behind on a lot of this so it's be really interesting this next year to see who can kind of hang with this and you can't the R&D budgets are gonna go through the roof that's for sure.
Jason: [39:14] Yeah and the irony is you know you go back in time and you know all the retailers in America where happily you know shipping two weeks after you place an order in Amazon you know disrupted Everybody by saying like hey you should get your stuff in two days and then one day and then same day right and they they raised the expectations for everyone else it feels like open AI is doing that to Apple and Amazon right now on the on the natural language models.
Scot: [39:43] The to the pop did not pop.
Jason: [39:46] It did it did not I did that in full disclosure I did not buy a pop because again like I don't I don't so much by them for their speaker Fidelity I mostly buy them to control my lights and stuff. But yeah I like I still have to repeat myself multiple times and some rooms to just turn stuff on and it's frustrating.
Scot: [40:06] Yeah so this one was one I wanted to bounce off of you I'm a CNBC junkie and I was watching the other day and Target stock had a big Miss and the folks on, Talking Heads were saying that in their earnings release they really called out this shoplifting as a.
[40:24] A problem and they took a one right off of something like 500 million dollars so I'm sure everyone has seen the videos where you know this is just new organized crime kind of wave going on especially in big cities where you'll see. 20 people go in a store and just run out with arm full of stuff it's happening to starting to kind of luxury then then you saw a little lemon and it happens in Apple Stores and now you're starting to see it in every day department stores and drug stores, so I thought that was you know as e-commerce person I was thinking huh that's interesting you know I wonder if and kind of hi Pro some high-profile store closures have followed from the so Nordstrom closed a store and like San Francisco and that's kind of thing so I was thinking is e-commerce person I was kinda thinking well this is interesting this is gonna this is going to benefit Amazon pretty immensely because as the stores have to close due to this crime wave it's going to benefit e-commerce and then Amazon like 60% of e-commerce so they'll just get they'll just absorb a lot of that that that so that the crime is going to have this unintended consequence of getting rid of stores which is bad for for the local environment and then it'll yeah I don't, yeah I don't think they really want to benefit Amazon but they will so I wanted to get your hot take on them.
Jason: [41:40] Well first of all just to complete your thought the the brick-and-mortar retailers and the national retail Federation would actually say Amazon's double-dipping on that benefit because they're both. Selling stuff when the the stores closed in the big cities but also most of the Retailer's blame the organized crime on Amazon.
[41:59] So the The Narrative is basically that like you know people here's who used to steal from stores, people that needed something and couldn't afford it for whatever reason right so they. Stalled food for their family or you know items they could afford to buy that was individual shoplifting and, employees told stuff employee shrink and there now is this much higher occurrence of organized crime for profit where where people are stealing you know every bottle of shampoo in the Walgreens and one of the reasons these big retailers say that this kind of crime is much larger now is it's way easier to monetize that stuff after you steal it, and the reason they say it's easier to monetize it is you can go sell all of this this still the merchandise pretty easily on Amazon and eBay. Um so that's controversial like the marketplace is due a lot to sort of avoid selling, um song Goods but that one of the premises why there's more organized crime is because. It is easier to fence and monetize this stuff. But here's the thing that's super interesting about that like there for sure is this new kind of crime and it's.
[43:22] It's much more newsworthy so when someone drives a truck through the front of an Apple store and then steals all the phones that's going to be on the local news when someone shoplifts pound of cheese, that's not going to be on the local news right or when an employed as a fake return to embezzle 60 dollars from a shirt like that's not as often on the local news so all of these organized crimes get put on the news and on YouTube and things like that more and and a huge problem is. Like it's much more violent people are getting hurt employees and in a few cases the perpetrators are are getting hurt or even killed and so like there is a way higher human cost to this kind of crime and so we have heard a bunch of. Retail CEOs, you know raising the alarm bells and they say two things like oh man our losses are going up this is having a material economic effect on our business we're closing stores partly because of this and you know we're having to change how we do do store operations and and you know all these things they're also saying that police forces are underfunded and you know don't have enough resources to retailers with this problem so they're there in many cases you know asking for more more Municipal support here's the thing though.
[44:51] People have always stolen stuff from retailers there's always been a line item on every retards p&l for shrink and for most public companies that's that's a publicly disclosed number and usually, for most retailers and it varies by the type of retailer and the the geography but usually it's one to two percent of Revenue is lost in shrink and so.
[45:19] Target's announcement was hey we lost we potentially could lose 500 million dollars in profit this year. And their stock partly went down from because of it like I would argue their their stock also went down for some, PR missteps they made and then also because their revenue is just soft compared to some of their competitors, they probably went down for that shrink because 500 million dollars in profit sounds like a big deal but if you gross up 500 million dollars in profit to product costs, that's one point six billion dollars in shrink at Target in 2022 and they're saying it could be as high as two billion dollars in shrink in 2023 that means that shrink is 1.5 to 1.9 percent of targets Revenue which is below industry averages Walgreens, has made all of these same complaints and last year the Walgreen CFO like in the earnings call said hey this is a huge deal like our shrink could potentially be up 52 percent from before the pandemic. Um and then he did his swing 22 year in earnings and Shrink was lower then then the last two years and he literally had to say like maybe we cried too much.
[46:40] So I do think there is this new crime it's very serious like it is a problem and you know I have great empathy for retailers in addressing that and they shrink should be zero like a butt. It's a little bit of a fallacy to say hey there's this new material economic impact from this shrink that didn't exist before because the employee shrink is way down because the the surveillance and the the big data and in the business process has evolved eliminated a lot of that and so the net shrink for a lot of retailers, really isn't as significant now it might be more significant in particular stores and so some of the the closing of these stores, seems at least partially legitimate I will say there's even controversy about that like when, Walgreens has hey we're closing a store in San Francisco because there's too much crime, the San Francisco Police Department rides in and goes that's weird because we got way less complaints from from Walgreens last year than we did three years ago or whatever so there's there's. Room for disputes about all this stuff but organized crime, is definitely an increasingly serious thing that retailers have to deal with but don't immediately by all the hype that it's. That it's some you know New Economic strain that retailers have never seen before.
Scot: [48:04] I wonder if there's a bit of a narrative around this shrink number like I you know I'm sure they're reporting it correctly but so I wonder if it has the same store sales effect like let's say Walgreens has to closed in ten stores because the shrink is so bad. That comes out of the numbers right because it's probably a seems to work kind of metric so they probably you know now gold number would improve dramatically but. They've shrunk their footprint like it's probably not capturing that you.
Jason: [48:33] Yeah no agreed, all as a Wayne huizenga taught me 30 years ago like it any good healthy retailers should be closing and opening stores every year why there's like you can't if you had the perfect realist real estate in one year it would not be perfect the next year right and so in many cases like they're closing stores in economically you know unfriendly climates for them and that improves their same-store sales numbers and improves their cops right and you know whether they did that for purely economic reasons or they did it because there was more organized crime or to put protect employees or whatever like, um it's not wrong for these retailers to curate their, they're fully in an economic downturn that might mean having fewer stores than last year historically the challenge with that is investors always expect you to grow. And so infect investors don't like the story of what of closing underperforming stores and having better comps if you if your overall Revenue goes down so, you know this is yet another kind of excuse for them to reset expectations with investors I think I think that's totally fair.
[49:44] In some cases I will tell you retailers are closing iconic stores that just feels kind of sad like the the, Nordstrom flagship store in San Francisco is has always been a big deal that's closing I lived in Portland Oregon and they had a beautiful REI in the Pearl District which was, like a great super friendly place to live and they're closing that store and they said partly because they didn't feel they could protect employees like. That there is something happening that feels like a bummer and there's a lot of big cities that it feels a lot less fun to go shopping. Than it did a few years ago which which is I do think a legitimate concern.
Scot: [50:26] Yeah so I know you're the king of all e-commerce and commerce data what are you seeing in the the reports that have come out since our last pot.
Jason: [50:36] Yeah well we've slowed down a little bit on the frequency the podcast so kind of just super brief recap US Department of Commerce data comes out every month so we we have the May report which has data through April next week we'll get the, the May data so January through April sales for all of retail are up 2.4% from last year that, that is down a little bit from historical averages pre-pandemic you'd expect retail to be up about 4% a year so 2.4%.
[51:11] Is concerning if you look at it from before the pandemic retail sales are up year-to-date, three thirty six percent from 2019 for example so still by historic standards that's very high but this year feels like a meaningful slowdown in sales from last year and of course as soon as you start talking about this people go well what about inflation so if I normalize this data for inflation year-to-date sales this year are down three percent from last year, which historically doesn't happen even with inflation so that, that is a real concern like it it feels very legitimate that we're seeing a Slowdown in in consumer spending and particularly in inflation-adjusted dollars so I mentioned retail sales since the pandemic are up 36% if you adjust that for inflation there up about 14% so less than half of all our sales growth since the pend or more than half of our sales growth since the pandemic, has been a direct result of unusual inflation more than typical inflation and then you know people always ask us in particular about the e-commerce numbers again before the pandemic the.
[52:25] Over the last 20 years e-commerce would average around 12 to 15 percent growth a year retail would average three to four percent growth a year there was a weird transposition in the middle of the pandemic when people you know finally went back to stores for the first time and slow down their e-commerce bending so like for the only time in my lifetime, 20:22 size. Retail sales growing faster than e-commerce briefly that trend has reversed e-commerce is back on top of retail but it's not back to Historic standards so e-commerce year-to-date is up about 7.4% verses 2022 still, you know, you remember in the pandemic people are talking about e-commerce spiking and then regressing to the mean just want to remind our listeners that's not true the US Department of Commerce revised some numbers and e-commerce growth. Has ended up being much more robust than like the Wall Street Journal reported in in in a famous article in 2022 so e-commerce is up about 89 percent since, since 2019 and that means.
[53:29] Above and beyond the traditional growth that I would have forecasted for e-commerce we've sold an extra six hundred and seventy five billion dollars since the pandemic started so e-commerce still is the biggest winner in this kind of. Pandemic accelerated spending and it's you know we'll get the cue to e-commerce data and about two months it's going to be interesting to see, how it plays out and whether you know the consumer slowdown persist through the end of the year and holiday or whether we start to get a bounce.
Scot: [54:01] Yeah and I know it's June and but you get paid to think about this more than I do so what when clients are saying Jason what are you thinking about holiday 23 Woody tongue.
Jason: [54:14] I think on the aggregate I'm not expecting it to be an awesome holiday I think there's even if, the the economy listens up there's it's going to take awhile for consumer spending to come back and I think the overall consumer spending is going to be you know modest there will be growth but it'll be low growth and because inflation will still be unusually high like profitability is going to really be, be strain for this holiday that being said we are likely to see some clear winners and losers so like not everyone's going to kind of match the industry average and we've already had a couple bankruptcies Bed Bath & Beyond used to sell a lot of holiday Goods so retailers are going to fight over you know who wins that customer this holiday and so I do think. You can expect to see some retailers have a really good holiday and you know, I hate to say this for all the small retailers out there but like at the moment the the likely narrative is the biggest best retailers in the ecosystem are likely that too. Disproportionately win holiday so like if I had to guess I would guess Amazon and Walmart are going to have a pretty good holiday at the expense of the rest of retailgeek.
Scot: [55:32] Got it well you're a Grinch.
Jason: [55:37] Yeah I want to be wrong I want to be wrong on that I want to be right on all my year beginning forecast which I can't even remember what they were.
Scot: [55:44] Yeah I'm just kidding you get paid to tell the real.
Jason: [55:49] I'd rather I would rather be prepared for soft holiday and then be pleasantly surprised. I almost hesitate to even bring this up because it kind of feels like it always happens but there there are now some potential new supply chain challenges. Perking up so there's there's some labor disputes our friends the teamsters the unload all the boats on the west coast of America like are threatening work stoppages and, you know any disruption in there like has a meaningful impact on how much Goods we have available for holiday and then one I've never heard before in my lifetime, the worldwide drought is having a material impact on the supply chain what there is not is enough water in the Panama Canal.
[56:39] And so it turns out the way the locks work they have to pour a bunch of water into the canal to lift the boats and there's less water available so the water costs more so it is more expensive to take a heavy boat through the Panama Canal today than it was a month ago. Because of the price of water which. It makes sense when you hear it but it's not something you would I would have thought of and so at the moment the supply-chain wonks are are talking about like you know we might have some unanticipated, supply chain cost as you know people have to pay for the constrain amount of tonnage that they can lift through the Panama Canal.
Scot: [57:23] Wow learn something everyday and I can check that off my box in it.
Jason: [57:26] Nice well that's probably a perfect place to end it because we have used up our allotted time but even though we've been a little less frequent than usual, I always look forward to catching up with you and it's been great to chat but I look forward to hearing how our listeners are doing.
Scot: [57:44] Yeah and you know what listeners could do to help us out leave a review we would always love your feedback let us know how we're doing and if there's any topics you want to cover and we appreciate you giving us a listen.
Jason: [57:57] Scot that's a great idea and until next time happy Commercing.
08 Jan 2021
EP250- Holiday 2020 Recap
01:13:20
EP250- Holiday 2020 Recap
This week we recap the commerce results for Holiday 2020 (including the data sources you can use to get a read for yourself), give an update on #shipageddon, and cover some industry news.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
SpaceX successfully launched it’s first Falcon heavy rocket, and recovered two of the boosters. The photos and video of the Tesla in space were amazing. And there appears to be a thawing of relations between Jeff Bezos and Elan Musk.
Join your hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
08 Feb 2024
EP317 - Amazon Q4 Results
00:38:01
EP317 - Amazon Q4 Results
Episode Summary:
In this episode, Jason Goldberg and Scot Wingo dive deep into Amazon's fourth-quarter results for 2023, analyzing the company's performance in various segments such as retail, offline and online sales, marketplace, AWS, and advertising. They also explore the impact of AI on Amazon's business and provide insights into the company's future guidance for Q1 2024.
Amazon had a strong Q4 earnings report, beating analyst expectations for revenue and income. In fact, it was Amazon's most profitable quarter ever.
Retail sales were up 6%, which imputes a 2023 GMV of $515B - $660B in the US for all of 2023. The bottom end of that estimate would be a 9% growth over 2023, versus all of Core Retail in the US (x Gas and Auto) which grew 3.6% in 2023. This impressive growth was achieved while Amazon improved delivery times (6B packages delivered next day, and 1B delivered same day, same day offered in 110 metros) and reduced cost to serve by $0.45/package in the US (the first reduction in cost to serve since 2018).
AWS accelerated growth but slowly declined margins.
Ad revenue was again the brightest spot, growing 27% to $14.7B, resulting in $47B in revenue the last 12 months, and a $58B run rate. The income generated from that ad revenue was likely more than $27B, far in excess of the $21B Amazon earned from AWS. Once again demonstrating that Ads are Amazons biggest income generator.
Amazons total GMV in the US likely falls in-between Walmart's expected 2023 GMV of $442B and Walmart plus Sam's Club total US GMV of $519B. Walmart reports it's Q4 on Feb 20.
Amazon probably represented 24% of ALL retail growth in the US in 2023. Amazon, Walmart, Temu, and Shein alone likely represented 49% of all 2023 Us retail growth (leaving mostly crumbs for the rest of retail).
Amazon also announced Rufus, a new Gen AI based search amenity for the e-commerce site.
Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 317 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, February 7th, 2024.
Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.
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In this interview with Larry, we discuss many of the brands covered in the book including Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, eSalon, Mohawk, Anker and Tuft & Needle, as well as many of the ecosystem companies that developed to enable the DTC movement including Facebook, Quiet Logistics and Locus Robotics.
