Future Commerce is the culture magazine for Commerce. Hosts Phillip Jackson and Brian Lange help brand and digital marketing leaders see around the next corner by exploring the intersection of Culture and Commerce.
Trusted by the world's most recognizable brands to deliver the most insightful, entertaining, and informative weekly podcasts, Future Commerce is the leading new media brand for eCommerce merchants and retail operators.
Each week, we explore the cultural implications of what it means to sell or buy products and how commerce and media impact the culture and the world around us, through unique insights and engaging interviews with a dash of futurism.
Weekly essays, full transcripts, and quarterly market research reports are available at https://www.futurecommerce.com/plus
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In our biggest episode of the year, we explore seismic shifts coming in 2025: from the return of Gen X leadership to a new wave of American counterculture. We revisit our eerily accurate 2024 predictions while laying out bold forecasts for retail consolidation, AI evolution, and the changing media landscape. Plus, we dive deep into why Google might be poised for a massive comeback and how Walmart is transforming into a media empire.
On Taste & Truth (13:12) - "I believe that taste is the unique ability to recognize objective truth in situations where subjectivity reigns supreme." - Brian
The Future of Retail (34:50) - "In the retail sector, we will see larger holdcos start to downsize by breaking off individual pieces into smaller entities so they can reorganize and pass regulatory muster when selling divisions later." - Phillip
Hardware Renaissance (54:41) - "The excitement around content actually represents a deeper desire within people for well-designed, bespoke hardware technology." - Brian
Urban Transport Evolution (1:39:14) - "eVTOL will be a huge tech winner in 2025, creating a paradigm shift in urban transport - starting as the luxury option Uber envisioned in 2017." - Phillip
Political Realignment (1:59:00) - "There's something latent here around realignment in how people think about the political spectrum post-second Trump presidency. Many political orphans, both right and left, don't know where they fit." - Brian
The Innovation Paradox (2:18:43) - "When solving problems, we inevitably miss the new problems our solutions will create. It's easy to walk into dystopia thinking you're walking into utopia." - Brian
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Heading to NRF? Come celebrate the launch of our 2025 print journal, LORE with us on Tuesday, January 14! Register here.
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Year-End Roundup: Best of 2024
Episode 378
Friday, December 27, 2024 • Duration 01:23:46
This year was a great one for the Future Commerce podcast. We vision-casted with fellow futurists at exclusive events across the nation, launched podcast specials like Spooky Commerce and FC Radio Theater, and were joined on the podcast by many of our industry muses, including Kickstarter’s Yancey Strickler and Walmart’s Justin Breton.
We’ve rounded up our 2024 highlight reel in one year-end finale episode. All featured episodes linked below.
The Good, the Spooky, and the VisionaryFeatured Episodes:
[STEP BY STEP] Going Global With Data-Backed Confidence
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 • Duration 33:16
We sit down with Brandon Kuipers, Co-founder and CMO of Zox, to discuss how a family arts-and-crafts project evolved into a globally recognized e-commerce brand. Hear how Zox grew from a family project to an international success by leveraging data-driven marketing, and how emerging tools like Triple Whale's Sonar have unlocked global markets.
From Kitchen Table to Global BrandKey takeaways:
Leveraging the right data tools, like Sonar, significantly improved Zox's data visibility, enabling them to optimize ad performance in international markets.
Localized strategies, like creating region-specific products such as language-adapted designs, can help deepen market engagement.
[00:06:32] “Building a business is about innovating, even when you feel like you have it figured out.” — Brandon
[00:17:54] Once Sonar was set up, our data accuracy went from tracking almost none of our conversions to tracking just about every conversion." — Brandon
[00:20:30] “Sonar has been the missing link, reopening markets we thought had closed down.” — Brandon
[00:25:18] “Even if an ad flops in the U.S., it can still perform well in other regions. Nothing is wasted.” — Brandon
[00:28:30] “This level of visibility is enabling full-on product pivots to better address new markets.” — Brian
Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, , , or . We love hearing from our listeners!
Constraints and Limitations
Episode 326
Friday, October 20, 2023 • Duration 42:53
Phillip and Brian discuss current events and news in the eCommerce space, Phillip reveals how he likes long walks with ChatGPT, and what if Brian was right all along about AI Butlers?
What limitations will be needed as products like Rewind become more adopted? What constraints to context will these types of technologies overcome? And how much should brands strive to meet the moment? Listen now for all of this and more!
FaceTiming with ScarJo
{00:11:42} - “We talked a lot about body data early on and even for many years and those biometric markers and things like that. I see our collection of data about ourselves, our specific bodies being the next frontier for how we're going to interact with technology. But along with that, we're also going to be collecting data on our minds.” - Brian
{00:23:03} - “Algorithmic segmentation is only constrained to that known person who picked up a cookie and is browsing around the internet, but it doesn't have context of everything else happening in their life. Maybe Rewind and other products in the future, like Meta's live streaming technology, will give eCommerce context and be able to adapt the experience to what your present moment is, not what it presumes it to be, or someone else's behavior.” - Phillip
{00:26:56} - “An additional layer of context may be that these ambient devices, this ambient computing is happening, and that's where I think there is an opportunity for commerce because the thing that was promised to us with Alexa that never really happened was it's all there, we already have ambient devices, we're just not using them because they're not literally on our person.” - Phillip
{00:33:37} - “Really what's happening right now is the wave of nostalgia is meeting at the same time that millennials really, really are hitting peak Costco membership years. And Costco has done an incredible job of continuing to make that membership worth its money with the types of products that they're putting in their store.” - Brian
{00:45:33} - “Brands and people who constantly try to change just to meet the moment often lose something along the way. And brands that don't change at all can miss out on opportunities. But sometimes that authenticity comes back around.” - Brian
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Maximizing Competitive Intelligence
Episode 325
Friday, October 13, 2023 • Duration 46:00
This week we dive into competitive intelligence: what are your rivals up to, and how does it affect you as a brand leader? Josh Wilson, CEO of Particl, reveals how observing competitors and smartly leveraging that data can distinguish you from the rest. PLUS: A brand review of Popsmith, and we rehash the concept of DISloyalty. Listen now!
Biggest Month Ever
{00:14:38} - “{Competitive intelligence} is harder and easier in multiple ways now. Your next competitor can come from anywhere. Where I feel like historically there were capital requirements and technology kind of barriers of entry that prevented that. But then on the flip side, the shift to online gives you kind of a great pulse on signals and what everyone else is doing. It's great for brands just to be thinking about and to have a strategy around.” - Josh
{00:17:26} - “It's essentially impossible to block bots without blocking customers unless you put everything through a lock behind kind of a login portal. I would focus more on how can you use it to your benefit.” - Josh
{00:25:20} - “What we'll do is we ingest our customer's data and we will look at the products they're selling and the product types. And with that, we've been able to guide customers towards product types that we feel better overlap with their business, make more sense for their customers to buy, and kind of a natural progression of the business.” - Josh
{00:28:40} - “We saw pink start selling like crazy. And then we had brands that were kind of the major capturers of that, like a SKIMS, for example. They basically took all the pink products, put them in a collection for Barbie, and those products sold off the shelves. Now, the thing is, those products actually hadn't been selling very well before. It was a very clever way to use existing inventory, package it slightly differently, and sell it.” - Josh
{00:32:11} - “Like my Co-Founder says, "The opportunity of a lifetime comes once a month." So it's important to stay current and up to date. It's important to not read yesterday's newspaper. That's why we think you need data for what's going on right now, not a week ago or whatever. By that point, it's too old.” - Josh
{00:34:45} - “Brands can move the needle with very small changes, as well as they can ensure that they're not just discounting and lighting good money on fire, good margin. It's actually less about vertically looking at the brand down and from a data and correlation perspective, it's actually more about looking sideways at the product type because the customers are comparing your leggings to someone else's leggings to someone else's leggings. They're not comparing your product to your t-shirt or your leggings to your t-shirt to etcetera.” - Josh
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Commerce is Counterculture? The Rise of the Critic Class
Sunday, October 8, 2023 • Duration 42:17
This season on VISIONS will explore the content of VISIONS: Volume IV by Future Commerce. VISIONS is an audio-visual Annual Trends report that examines the changes in culture and commerce and their impacts on the technology industry that serves them. VISIONS: Volume IV took place over three months, from April to June 2023, bookended by two events.
Today we go live to the first of those events at the Celeste Bartos Theater at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where we'll speak with a panel of modern culture reporters, foresight analysts, and media creators and ask them the question, “Where is the counterculture?”
Trends are Change
{00:04:11} “What we have right now is a lot of interesting niche subcommunities with their own cultures and then countercultures to those. And I think the result of that is it's very hard to know what's trending because trends really exist within these sort of niche subcultures and microspheres. And then by the time they exit, they're no longer a trend, they're more like a trend discourse.” - Daisy Alioto
{00:06:47} “You can't really talk about counterculture without talking about the capitalization of it all. You can capitalize on these weird trends, whether it's something like Dimes Square, and then you see a year later, the entire Marc Jacobs campaign for a massive fashion brand is these characters. So is that really counterculture if that's cool now?” - Emily Sundberg
{00:09:00} “Sometimes I do get bummed about the lack of existence of new things, and that's why we're going so hard on fashion history because everything feels really referential. But also there's something fun about new combinations and seeing a couch where there's a guy from the White Lotus on it, but there's also a girl that you saw at a party last week.” - Alexi Alario
{00:11:26} “Is there counterculture or subculture or monoculture? It's completely dependent upon the sample size in which we're looking at. And for the most part, I think it behooves us to really broaden our aperture of really understanding what's most important to the most amount of people, because if we have to select too small of a sample size, we're just speaking to ourselves and really ignoring the masses.” - Matt Klein
{00:16:14} “When we're talking about nostalgia and memory as some of the strongest mechanisms for marketing and the relationship that nostalgia and memory have to certain mediums, like the type of film or camera you were using when you first encountered something or the type of car you were driving when you first encountered something, it's very hard to package that in an authentic way, but if you can, that becomes the brand moat. And that's the thing that allows you to excel past all of your competitors.” - Daisy Alioto
Guests
"I Do Not Consent to Your Livestream" - Rapid AI Adoption and Its Effects on Commerce
Episode 324
Friday, October 6, 2023 • Duration 42:04
With AI-generated content becoming so prevalent, it’s sometimes harder to tell what is real and what is fake. How does this change the way people invest in search, and what kind of ramifications does it have on Google, for example? Also gadgets are cool, but the commerce implication is not just that you have to buy it, it's that they provide a new platform for customer shopping modality. Listen now for this and more future forecasting with Phillip and Brian.
Fooled in the Present
{00:06:22} - “Maybe there is this idea that we need to continue to constantly index the Internet and have increasingly less relevant results because it continues to index AI-generated content, not human-generated content. Maybe there is a future where that becomes less of a problem because we don't need to do as much indexing anymore for most of the types of search activity you'd be looking for.” - Phillip
{00:11:41} - “At this moment, we are primed to be skeptical and to notice and to look for disinformation in areas of politics, in areas of religion, maybe even celebrity news, things that are sensationalized or weaponized to make you think a certain way or feel a certain thing. Where we are not prepared for it is in the area of commerce where you are not prepared for disinformation. You are more likely to be persuaded.” - Phillip
{00:20:34} - “People are hoarding content that was the originally created content because it is getting removed and pulled out and things are being edited and changed. We've talked about this a lot, but it's just another example. I guarantee you there are a whole host of content hoarders right now that are making sure that they have the original Star Wars.” - Brian
{00:34:48} - “That's a far-future idea. But the {retailers} that start to think about how to collaborate with technology companies to release bespoke gadgets to assist with their ecosystems might find a competitive edge. That's probably a 5 to 10 year out thing. But I really believe if you're really a far-thinking leader in commerce right now, you should be thinking about how these gadgets are going to roll out and what that means for your ecosystem.” - Brian
{00:37:03} - “Apple Vision Pro, I think will change everything. I really believe that. I'm starting to really believe that. I think it will change a lot of things. It will change the nature of some types of work. I think it'll change the nature of remote work because having physical hardware devices will be very different as an experience in ten years than it is today.” - Phillip
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The Lover’s Drive
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 • Duration 20:05
The Lover is brave enough to go against convention, driven by the need to connect with another. They are positive and courageous, bringing out the best in others and seeing love as a universal force. The Lover creates meaning, passion, and connection.
Frownies has been building this way for over 130 years, and the Fifth-Generation Female Owner and Face of Frownies, Helen Morrison, gifted us with some incredible insight into what it looks like to be a Lover in the world of commerce.
Real Connection
{00:03:43} “Jumping on board and getting involved with Frownies, what I wanted to do most of all was just connect with people. I love this version of business so much because it is so connected. It's all about just creating those relationships and reaching out to people and caring for people and supporting people on this skincare journey.” - Helen
{00:10:23} “When you build that human connection and you create a culture of we connect with each other, we take care of each other, we support each other, then yes, the customers are doing that in the comments together for each other.” - Helen
{00:13:16} “I think you see that or you see people, you see before and after photos or ads for people with skincare. And it's like, oh, come on, you did not achieve that with moisturizer, and I get that. And because I feel that way, I have leaned so far in the opposite direction when it comes to our content and what comes to the honesty surrounding Frownies. Now, I'll tell you, you can't take this approach if you don't have a good product. Frownies is a great product. It's been around for over 130 years.” - Helen
{00:15:23} “We just want to say, "Here is this product and this is what it can do. And before you buy it, I'm going to set the expectation of all the weird things about it, of all the reasons you might not like it, so that when you start using it, your expectation is realistic and then you see the results and you're blown out of the water and it's like, "Wow, this is worth it.'" - Helen
{00:18:28} “The way you handle that delicately is part of why people feel so connected to you. This through line of connection, connection, connection is really what is such an imperative part of The Lover archetype and why we need The Lover archetype in the landscape of commerce and in our lives.” - Kristen
[DECODED] Great Products Begin with Customer Service: Redefining CX Across Industries
Tuesday, October 3, 2023 • Duration 51:31
This season on "Decoded," presented by BigCommerce, we'll delve into the intricate processes behind successful brands. Discover how they conceptualize and debut new products, set their objectives, make pivotal decisions, and foster seamless collaboration across their teams to breathe life into a new product.
Ever wondered how customer service evolved from merely addressing post-purchase issues to shaping the broader, more influential customer experience? How has this shift transformed our interactions and relationships with customers? And how is customer experience becoming more proactive rather than just reactive? Dive in to uncover these insights and more. Tune in now!
“You can’t spell retail without AI.”
{00:08:42} - “Ultimately we want those shops who we heavily rely on to sell our bikes to have that same passion, that same understanding about our bikes. And also to know, this is why the price point is where it's at too. They need to understand that.” - Matt
{00:16:03} - “All these different manufacturers were rushing to get this e-bike out on the market because they wanted to capture that right off the bat. We took five years to develop that e-bike. Five years, 25 custom molds. And then we also created six different prototypes or mules, what we call them, in order to ride them, test them, try to blow them up, and see what we can do with them. And then ultimately we started racing them to see how they work and perform on the racetrack.” - Matt
{00:22:06} - “How do we get people to buy something in the midst of replacing a product? That's what the AI-driven solution is for SaaS in your customer experience team. But it's not going to make your support team fanatical about the product.” - Phillip
{00:26:01} - “The website is the gateway, whether it be chats, whether it be calls, whether it be emails. As recently as when I started 8 to 10 years ago at Industry West, we were still taking faxes, and so it is multichannel, but it all starts and ends with the website.” - Ian
{00:32:28} - “Marketing is not any longer where you're just figuring out who your target demographic is and how you're going to communicate to them and then which media you're going to use. Marketing now is every single touchpoint that the consumer has. All of that needs to live under the marketing function.” - Ingrid
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"An Editor-in-Chief" for Commerce"
Episode 323
Friday, September 29, 2023 • Duration 45:13
What happens when your personal fulfillment is overshadowed by tech advancements and rapid business growth? Thomas McCutchen shares his journey of finding purpose in the realm of commerce as an elder millennial while pushing strategy and vision forward for clients in DTC and eCom. From the early days of bootstrapping his passion project to the organic yet intentional growth that led to an Inc 5000 designation, Thomas's story is a testament to the power of authenticity, resilience, and the human touch in a digital age. Listen now!
“It Left Me Wanting More”
{00:06:08} - “Software on these thick apps where the people using the app are employees that are paid, the user experience leaves a lot to be desired. That bothered me. I wanted to make intuitive systems. I wanted to make systems that were easy to use, that were delightful, that actually the user experience itself was the very thing everyone was talking about.” - Thomas
{00:13:57} - “What's baked into subscribers is they are your most loyal customers. They already are by leaps and bounds, so there should be rewards for those. So the ecosystem grew dramatically. And with that, so did agencies, and the tech space got pretty crowded, too. It's still an absolutely great business model and there are still better ways to implement it than others.” - Thomas
{00:17:05} - “I didn't found an agency focused on Inc 5000. Really, I became passionate about commerce and eComm. I had an experience building the in-store apps and it left me wanting more. This didn't feel like the promise of technology that I signed up for. I wanted something better.” - Thomas
{00:21:09} - “You have to be resilient and that means you have to be dedicated to the problem space. I think that's where a lot of agency owners struggle is they let the happenstance of the customers that walk through the door dictate the directionality of the business as opposed to them being obsessed with a particular problem and trying to solve it.” - Phillip
{00:34:16} - “Will AI replace us all? I don't know. But for the time being, it can very much help us do our jobs. So it's important that we embrace these things and figure out ways to leverage them for value and then look at the overall market trends as well.” - Thomas
{00:42:23} - “We're continuing to see value in tying content and commerce. Not only do we want to be subject matter experts, but we want our clients to be subject matter experts. So no longer just offering a product, but kind of owning the domain of knowledge around that product.” - Thomas
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{00:24:02} “The thing about de-influencing is, yes, there's a little bit of stoicism of screw it, don't buy this thing, but it's still a form of influencing.” - Matt Klein
{00:28:42} “Daisy Alioto: it's also important to remember that, for every counterculture movement, the response to it will be part of the cycle of the next culture, even if it's happening in this very fragmented way now.” - Daisy Alioto
{00:35:34} “Nothing gets better without criticism. So I feel like it's okay that everyone is a critic as long as I think it creates a heightened awareness. And especially with algorithms. If you're not a critic, you're just going to let them like run over you.” - Alexi Alario
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{00:42:00} - “Customer experience directly is probably not involved until we are in the prototyping stage. But I say that because everything we prototype is built with the customer service team in mind.” - Kabeer
{00:49:42} - “Maybe the age of AI does help you create this media with the team you already have and the insights you already have into your relationship with your customer.” - Phillip
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