Join hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden in Episode 15 of the Retail Razor Show, as they dive deep into the world of data and AI within the retail sector. This episode features our latest Retail Transformer, Mir Ali, head of digital engineering at The Kraft Heinz Company. They discuss Kraft Heinz's journey developing a robust data foundation, the influence of AI tools, and strategies for integrating these within the business. Also highlighted is the importance of interconnecting insights from various channels of data. Together they critically discuss examples of practical issues faced by Kraft Heinz in their digital transformation journey that they aim to resolve with AI tools. Watch and learn about Kraft Heinz's unique challenges, and future directions in the area of data and AI with our latest Retail Transformer! You’ll learn why Mir Ali is unquestionably more than meets the eye!

Plus, Georgina Nelson, CEO of TruRating, returns for our latest episode in the Retail Razor: Data Blades min-series where we discuss real-world numbers and consumer insights based on research at the point of sale! It's episode 6 and Georgina emphasizes data that explains the strategic advantage of well-informed store teams and shares a successful global sporting goods retailer's experience where they saw a 27 percent increase in average shopper spend when customers were given several product options by store associates. Georgina also emphasizes how these consumer insights can help in personalizing the shopping experience, suggesting complimentary products through cross-selling or premium options through upselling, and eventually leads to higher overall purchase values. 

WOW! As we zoom past our 2-year anniversary on the show, we’re honored and humbled to have hit the top of the charts on the Goodpods podcast platform!

We can’t thank our Goodpods listeners enough! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Tech Lore from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno.

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/TRRSinsta

Follow us on Threads: https://bit.ly/TRRSthreads

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Wondering how retail businesses are strategizing to enhance the role of physical stores for a more festive shopping journey this holiday season? What sales impact will Gen Z and millennials have this season? To find out, we asked two of our favorite commerce experts to share their insights and help us unwrap this holiday season’s mysteries! Roshan Jhunja, head of retail at Square, and Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst for retail & ecommerce at Insider Intelligence join hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden for an enlightening analysis of the 2023 holiday shopping season!

We explore the unpredictable behaviors of consumers since the pandemic and examine consumer and seller sentiment going into Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We also consider the evolving dynamics of mobile and social commerce, AI, the continued importance of omnichannel, and Buy Now Pay Later, touching on established e-commerce giants and up and coming platforms. The conversation also reviews how businesses strategies have shifted regarding staffing and technology augmentations, and the implications of such changes on customer experience.

There’s much to unwrap in this episode and it’s all covered in less than 50 minutes!

Reports mentioned in the podcast:

Square and Afterpay Festive Forecast 2023: https://squareup.com/us/en/press/festive-forecast-2023

Insider Intelligence Holiday Shopping 2023 Forecast: https://content-na1.emarketer.com/holiday-shopping-2023

NEWS! We are pleased to announce that the Retail Razor Show is a Vendors In Partnership Awards nominee for The Retail Voice Award at the upcoming NRF Big Show 2024! We're asking all our listeners and YouTube viewers to help us win by showing your love for our show in the voting polls:

Here's how you can help by voting:

1. Visit https://bit.ly/3QlKr4X

2. Register to vote.

3. Vote for The Retail Razor Show in The Retail Voice Award category.

WOW! As we zoom past our 2-year anniversary on the show, we’re honored and humbled to have hit the top of the charts on the Goodpods podcast platform!

We can’t thank our Goodpods listeners enough! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Made It On Stream (Xmas), from the album Lo-Fi Christmas, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. Incldues sound effects provided by Free Sounds Library.

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/TRRSinsta

Follow us on Threads: https://bit.ly/TRRSthreads

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden explore the diverse applications and benefits of RFID technology in the retail landscape, unlocking the potential for innovation from supply chain to in-store operations. Special guest John Pierre Kamel, managing director of RFID Sherpas, demonstrates how RFID excels in offering inventory visibility and accuracy to drive significant performance increases in retail business operations and sales.

We also bring you the latest episode in our "Blade to Greatness" mini-series. In this segment, we invite a retail industry leader to offer one skill or trait that all retail executives need to become great leaders. Whether in stores or at corporate, we'll uncover valuable tips and advice that you can apply to your own retail career path. April Sabral, founder of retailu.ca, an online leadership development portal for field leaders and the author of two books, The Positive Effect, and her latest, Incurable Positivity, joins us to share her insights on an incredibly important topic that every retail leader needs to master: how to cultivate a positive culture for your retail employees!

NEWS! We are pleased to announce that the Retail Razor Show is a Vendors In Partnership Awards nominee for The Retail Voice Award at the upcoming NRF Big Show 2024! We're asking all our listeners and YouTube viewers to help us win by showing your love for our show in the voting polls:

Here's how you can help by voting:

1. Visit https://bit.ly/3QlKr4X

2. Register to vote.

3. Vote for The Retail Razor Show in The Retail Voice Award category.

WOW! As we zoom past our 2-year anniversary on the show, we’re honored and humbled to have hit the top of the charts on the Goodpods podcast platform!

We can’t thank our Goodpods listeners enough! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

About our Guest:

With over two decades of experience, JP Kamel is a seasoned retail technology veteran, with a keen focus on RFID, Mobility and Omni solutions. As the Managing Director of RFID Sherpas since 2010, JP has been a driving force behind transformative change for global retailers, branded suppliers, and technology companies implementing RFID. He specializes in helping to effect transformational change for his clients by harnessing the power of data, inventory accuracy & visibility, process re-engineering, and Artificial Intelligence. JP is a regular contributor to leading retail publications on the value of Inventory Accuracy and Visibility and has been a guest speaker and keynote at multiple conferences around the world.  

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Swag, Tag, And Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/TRRSinsta

Follow us on Threads: https://bit.ly/TRRSthreads

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Our final recording, live and in-person, raw and uncut, from Groceryshop 2023 has our hosts, Ricardo Belmar and guest host Jeff Roster learning how to harness the power of spatial computing with returning guest, Neil Redding, Founder and CEO of Redding Futures! Part of our special cross-over event with This Week in Innovation podcast, Jeff and Ricardo sat down with Neil to understand how Auki Labs new product release is redefining retail operations via the benefits of spatial computing and augmented reality, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency for store teams. The trio discuss what the future looks like for spatial computing use cases in retail, attempt to forecast the market for spatial computing, consider applications with autonomous vehicles and robotics, and close the discussion with a fun look at how Apple’s mainstreaming of spatial computing might impact the technology’s future!

We also bring you the latest episode in our "Blade to Greatness" mini-series. In this segment, we invite a retail industry leader to offer one skill or trait that all retail executives need to become great leaders. Whether in stores or at corporate, we'll uncover valuable tips and advice that you can apply to your own retail career path. Ron Thurston, co-founder of Ossy, author of Retail Pride, the Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career, host of the Retail in America nationwide tour and podcast, speaker, advisor, board member, and former retail operations leader at Intermix, Saint Laurent, Bonobos, Tory Burch, Apple, and Williams-Sonoma joins us to share his insights on the issues facing frontline retail workers and retail leaders today.

In this episode, Ron talks to us about why it’s so important for retail leaders to implement a career development culture as the first step to change their mindset and make change in the recruiting and retention of retail employees!

NEWS! We are pleased to announce that the Retail Razor Show is a Vendors In Partnership Awards nominee for The Retail Voice Award at the upcoming NRF Big Show 2024! We're asking all our listeners and YouTube viewers to help us win by showing your love for our show in the voting polls:

Here's how you can help by voting:

1. Visit https://bit.ly/3QlKr4X

2. Register to vote.

3. Vote for The Retail Razor Show in The Retail Voice Award category.

WOW! As we zoom past our 2-year anniversary on the show, we’re honored and humbled to have hit the top of the charts on the Goodpods podcast platform!

No. 1 in the Top 100 Indie Management Podcasts of the week chart

No. 2 in the Top 100 Indie Management Podcasts of the month chart

No. 5 in the Top 100 Indie Marketing Podcasts of the week chart

We can’t thank our Goodpods listeners enough! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

About our Guest:

Neil Redding is a keynote speaker, author, Innovation Architect and Near Futurist. Neil has worked at the convergence of digital and physical for decades, and is an expert in spatial computing, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), AI and convergent brand ecosystems. Neil currently leads Redding Futures, a boutique consultancy that enables brands and businesses to powerfully the Near Future. Prior to founding Redding Futures, Neil held leadership roles at Mediacom, Proximity/BBDO, Gensler, ThoughtWorks, Auki Labs, and Lab49. Neil is also editor of Near Future of Retail, author of the forthcoming book The Ecosystem Paradigm, and advises multiple startups at the leading edge of the digital-physical convergence.

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Swag, Tag, And Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/TRRSinsta

Follow us on Threads: https://bit.ly/TRRSthreads

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Our latest recording, live and in-person, raw and uncut, from Groceryshop 2023 shines a light on one of the top trends from the show – Retail Media Networks! Part of our special cross-over event with guest host, Jeff Roster, host of This Week in Innovation podcast, Jeff and regular host Ricardo Belmar invited leading retail media analyst, Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst for retail & e-commerce at Insider Intelligence, to the mic. Together they analyze everything from Instacart’s IPO, which landed on Day 1 of Groceryshop, to defining what it takes to create a successful retail media network, to identifying how RMNs will expand beyond search, and beyond in-store media. Hint – start thinking about connected TV and streaming TV! What will the future hold for retail media? Our trio spells it out in about 30 minutes!

We also bring you the latest episode in our "Retail Razor Data Blades" mini-series, where we discuss real-world numbers and consumer insights based on research at the point of sale with the help of Georgina Nelson, CEO of TruRating. In this episode, Georgina continues our exploration of self-checkout to help retailers understand why the perception of choice is essential during the checkout experience for consumers!

NEWS! We are pleased to announce that the Retail Razor Show is a Vendors In Partnership Awards nominee for The Retail Voice Award at the upcoming NRF Big Show 2024! We're asking all our listeners and YouTube viewers to help us win by showing your love for our show in the voting polls:

Here's how you can help by voting:

1. Visit https://bit.ly/3QlKr4X

2. Register to vote.

3. Vote for The Retail Razor Show in The Retail Voice Award category.

WOW! As we reach our 2-year anniversary with the show, we’re honored and humbled to hit the top of the charts on the Goodpods podcast platform!

No. 1 in the Top 100 Indie Management Podcasts of the week chart

No. 2 in the Top 100 Indie Management Podcasts of the month chart

No. 5 in the Top 100 Indie Marketing Podcasts of the week chart

We can’t thank our Goodpods listeners enough! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Tech Lore from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/TRRSinsta

Follow us on Threads: https://bit.ly/TRRSthreads

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

We continue our series of recordings live and in-person at Groceryshop 2023 this episode with a fascinating exploration of trends in the world of startups with Microsoft for Startups global retail lead, Shish Shridhar. Part of our special cross-over event with guest host, Jeff Roster, host of This Week in Innovation podcast, Jeff and regular host Ricardo Belmar sat down with Shish to discuss 3 trends at Groceryshop in the context of the startup community – Generative AI, meal planning, and automation. Plus, the trio take a look at what we should expect in the broader retail tech community over the next 6 months going into 2024. It’s a Retail Avengers reunion from back in our original Clubhouse days – get ready for a fun, raw and uncut, discussion with the potential to go in any direction with this trio!

We also bring you the latest episode in our ‘Blade to Greatness’ mini-series! In this segment, we invite a retail industry leader to offer one skill or trait that all retail executives need to become great leaders. Whether in stores or at corporate, we'll uncover valuable tips and advice that you can apply to your own retail career path. Jeffrey McNulty, Founder and CEO of New Retail Ethos Consultancy, author of The Ultimate Retail Manual, and creator of The Ultimate Retail Course: Become a Retail RockStarreturns to the show for this powerful new segment to discuss an incredibly important skill retail leaders need – fostering intrapreneurship!

NEWS! We are pleased to announce that the Retail Razor Show is a Vendors In Partnership Awards nominee for The Retail Voice Award at the upcoming NRF Big Show 2024! We're asking all our listeners and YouTube viewers to help us win by showing your love for our show in the voting polls:

Here's how you can help by voting:

1. Visit https://bit.ly/3QlKr4X

2. Register to vote.

3. Vote for The Retail Razor Show in The Retail Voice Award category.

WOW! As we hit our 2-year anniversary with the show, we’re honored and humbled to reach the top of the charts on the Goodpods podcast platform!

No. 1 in the Top Indie Management Podcasts of the week chart

No. 3 in the Top Indie Management Podcasts of the month chart

No. 7 in the Top Marketing Podcasts of the week chart

We can’t thank our Goodpods listeners enough! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

UPDATE - We're currently at number 20 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts & help us move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Swag, Tag & Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/TRRSinsta

Follow us on Threads: https://bit.ly/TRRSthreads

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Did you miss Groceryshop 2023? Or were you so busy there that you missed out on the best sessions and are left wondering what were the big, raw themes from the show? No worries – we teamed up once again with special guest host, Jeff Roster, host of This Week in Innovation podcast, to bring you the best live, in-person interviews from the Groceryshop podcast room! So, to bring you the final word on what really happened at this year’s conference, including all the hot topics and themes, we went straight to the source – the Groceryshop content team!

Jeff Roster and Ricardo Belmar sat down with Krystina Gustafson, SVP of Content, and Ben Miller, Director of Original Content to cover all the details you need to know. What was the mood at the show? What were the hottest topics? What technologies had all the buzz? You can probably guess at least two of them – all things AI and retail media, but there’s more to the story and Krystina and Ben break it down for you in this insightful, candid, raw, unedited conversation with Jeff and Ricardo.

UPDATE - We're currently at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts & help us move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

WOW! Join us in celebrating our latest top of the charts achievements on the Goodpods podcast platform!

No. 4 in the Weekly Top 100 Indie Management charts

No. 5 in the Monthly Top 100 Indie Management charts

No. 8 in the Weekly Top 100 Indie Marketing charts

No. 9 in the Monthly Top 100 Indie Marketing charts

Thank you Goodpods listeners! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclockedand E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

This episode has our hosts, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden, reflect on this season’s three themes and past episodes, focusing on the technology that will unlock business potential for retailers and enhance the shopping experience for consumers. Ricardo and Casey share their vision for a personalized virtual shopping experience, where we can preview products and interact with sales associates before visiting the store. 

Underpinning the many experiences they highlight – customer data platforms! Ricardo and Casey discuss how CDPs are critical to the future of retail and how this critical technology will help retailers and brands diversify their channels to reach consumers effectively, as traditional channels are becoming less effective. Of course, that means a quick debate on where retail media is headed!

We also bring back last season’s fan favorite segment, "Retail Razor Data Blades" to discuss real-world numbers and consumer insights based on research at the point of sale with the help of Georgina Nelson, CEO of TruRating. 

In this episode, Georgina highlights the power of self-checkout – exactly why do consumers like self-checkout, or do they? Georgina has the data that shows us the answer!

We're currently at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts & help us move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Wow! Join us in celebrating our latest top of the charts achievements on the Goodpods podcast platform!

No. 3 in the Weekly Top 100 Indie Management charts

No. 6 in the Monthly Top 100 Indie Management charts

No. 9 in the Monthly Top 100 Indie Marketing charts

Thank you Goodpods listeners! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Tech Lore from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Our spotlight shines again on immersive commerce this episode! We are answering a critically important question for retailers - what is the future of video commerce? To answer this question and truly dive deep into the treasure trove of conversion that is video commerce we've invited Vincent Yang, co-founder and CEO of Firework to the show! Vincent guides us through understanding the true nature and capabilities of video commerce. It's a fascinating discussion where you'll come away with an incredible list of insights and best practices you can apply to your retail business! We start with livestreaming, move to shoppable video and areas far beyond. Join us as we venture into mid-funnel and bottom funnel marketing strategies, to brand awareness tactics, to understanding marketing vs advertising and learn how video drives human engagement online. If you thought livestreaming was all there is to video in retail – think again! You’ll learn why a video commerce strategy is the digital equivalent to having an engaging store associate guide your customer journey.

Plus, we bring you the fourth topic in our new leadership segment on the show – ‘Blade to Greatness’! Ron Thurston, co-founder of Ossy, author of Retail Pride, the Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career, host of the Retail in America nationwide tour and podcast, speaker, advisor, board member, and former retail operations leader at Intermix, Saint Laurent, Bonobos, Tory Burch, Apple, and Williams-Sonoma joins us to share his insights on the issues facing frontline retail workers and retail leaders today.

In this episode, Ron talks to us about one of the most important skills a retail leader needs to master:

How to reframe your current job search processes to hire the right person!

We're currently at number 18 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts & help keep moving our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Wow! Join us in celebrating our top of the charts achievements on the Goodpods podcast player!

No. 2 Podcast of the Week on the Management charts

Top 5 Podcast of the Month in the Management charts

Top 5 Podcast of the Week on the Marketing Charts

Thank you Goodpods listeners! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Swag, Tag & Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

We return to our anywhere commerce theme for this season and shine a light on the future of in-car commerce! We’re answering a very important question - Will shopping on the go become the most important commerce channel for product discovery? We'll dig into what's new and what’s next for in-car product recommendation, BOPIS, and its impact on local search by meeting our latest Retail Transformer – Cynthia Hollen, CEO & co-founder of mavi.io! If you thought your mobile phone was all the mobile commerce you needed, you’ll think again after listening to this episode. Join us as we uncover the connection between car manufacturers, consumers, retailers, and brands that will deliver a new way of shopping from the convenience of your car. Did we mention how this will automate your routine shopping habits? And did you know that retail media networks have an important role to play in your car? All this and more in a fully loaded podcast episode!

Plus, we have the third topic in our new leadership segment– ‘Blade to Greatness’! In this segment, we invite a retail industry leader to offer one skill or trait that all retail executives need to become great leaders. Whether in stores or at corporate, we'll uncover valuable tips and advice that you can apply to your own retail career path. April Sabral, founder of retailu.ca, an online leadership development portal for field leaders and author of two books, The Positive Effect, and her latest, Incurable Positivity, joins us to share her valuable insights into an incredibly important skill every retail leader needs to master: why having a positive mindset is an advantage in growing your business!

We’re currently at No. 18 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts and help us continue our climb up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Join us in celebrating our latest top of the charts achievements on the Goodpods podcast player!

#2 in the Top Indie Management Podcasts chart

#9 in the Top Management Podcasts chart

#7 in the Top Indie Marketing Podcasts charts

Thank you Goodpods listeners! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and send us your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Swag, Tag & Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Today as part of our Back to Basics of Retailing theme this season, we are once again focusing on people – the frontline workers in retail stores, and the process of hiring and retaining the best candidates. In this episode we answer two incredibly important questions– How do we change how we hire, connect, and match retail brands to retail workers, respectfully, transparently, and humanly? And can technology help? To answer these questions and more, we meet our latest Retail Transformer & fan favorite - Ron Thurston, author of Retail Pride, the Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career, Host of the Retail in America nationwide tour and podcast, former retail operations leader at Intermix, Saint Laurent, Bonobos, Tory Burch, Apple, and Williams-Sonoma, and now co-founder of Ossy, a business we’ll hear more about in the episode and how it’s disrupting the hiring process!

Plus, we bring you the second topic in our new leadership segment on the show – ‘Blade to Greatness’! In this segment, we invite a retail industry leader to offer one skill or trait that all retail executives need to become great leaders. Whether in stores or at corporate, we'll uncover valuable tips and advice that you can apply to your own retail career path. Jeffrey McNulty, Founder and CEO of New Retail Ethos Consultancy, author of The Ultimate Retail Manual, and creator of The Ultimate Retail Course: Become a Retail RockStar returns to the show for this powerful new segment to discuss an incredibly important skill retail leaders need – supporting employee autonomy!

Jeffrey is offering a special discount on his retail course for Retail Razor Show listeners with discount code RETAILROCKSTAR100OFF at this website: http://www.theultimateretailcourse.com/

We’ve moved up to No. 16 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts and help us continue our climb up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Wow! Join us in celebrating our recent top of the charts achievements on the Goodpods podcast player!

#1 in the Top Indie Management Podcasts chart

#2 in the Top Management Podcasts chart

#4 in the Top Marketing Podcasts charts

Thank you Goodpods listeners! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star ratings and provide your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Swag, Tag & Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

In this episode we answer an incredibly important question in retail – what is the future of local delivery services? Delivery has become a core convenience service for most consumers in recent years. How will retailers continue to offer these services in a cost-effective manner for both them and their customers? The market for these 3^rd party providers has also changed. Can business models adapt or will we continue to see consolidation and market exits from providers such as quick commerce delivery services? We’ve invited Raj Kapoor, COO of Shipt to help us answer these questions, and more, about the future of delivery!

Plus, we introduce a new leadership segment on the show – ‘Blade to Greatness’! In this segment, we invite a retail industry leader to offer one skill or trait that all retail executives need to become great leaders. Whether in stores or at corporate, we'll uncover valuable tips and advice that you can apply to your own retail career path. Jeffrey McNulty, Founder and CEO of New Retail Ethos Consultancy, author of The Ultimate Retail Manual, and creator of The Ultimate Retail Course: Become a Retail RockStar returns to the show for this powerful new segment!

Jeffrey is offering a special discount on his retail course for Retail Razor Show listeners with discount code RETAILROCKSTAR100OFF at this website: http://www.theultimateretailcourse.com/

We’ve moved up to No. 17 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts and help us continue our climb up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Wow! Join us in celebrating our top of the charts achievements on the Goodpods podcast player!

#1 in the Top Indie Management Podcasts chart

#2 in the Top Management Podcasts chart

#4 in the Top Marketing Podcasts charts

Thank you Goodpods listeners! We love your support! Please continue giving us those 5-star rating and provide your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, E-Motive, and Swag, Tag & Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

What makes a great retail leader, especially during constrained times like retailers are experiencing this year? How do you develop executive retail leadership? How do these leaders shape the success of their entire organization? What qualities do they need to create that success? We’re speaking with Jeffrey P. McNulty, Founder and CEO of New Retail Ethos Consultancy, author of The Ultimate Retail Manual, and creator of The Ultimate Retail Course: Become a Retail RockStar to answer these questions and more! 

You’ll learn why Jeffrey, our latest Retail Transformer, is more than meets the eye! Our conversation with Jeffrey will look at what he’s learned from successful retail leaders throughout his 30-year retail career, and how this has helped him develop an extensive training program and framework for developing great retail leaders that lead successful retail organizations. We’ll learn just how a strong retail business begins with the right leadership skills and qualities.

We’re at number 18 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts and help us move our way up the Top 20! 

We're really feeling the love on the Goodpods platform! So far this season, we’ve hit these major milestones on the Top Charts:

#2 in the Top 100 Indie Management Podcasts chart

#8 in the Top 100 Management Podcasts chart

#9 in the Top 100 Indie Marketing Podcasts chart

Thank you Goodpods listeners! Please share your feedback with us!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked and E-Motive, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

How will retailers embrace immersive commerce? Will it be via AR or VR or both? To answer this question, we meet our latest Retail Transformer – Neil Redding, head of product at Auki Labs. Plus, we welcome special guest host back to the show, Jeff Roster, host of This Week in Innovation podcast. Together we explore why AR and spatial computing may be the answer retailers are looking for to give digital assets a physical presence in the shopper journey. We also examine the impact of Apple’s new Vision Pro mixed reality headset and how this both legitimizes and forever changes the AR/VR landscape. Join us for a unique discussion where we unpack why and how this matters for retail – our conclusions may surprise you!

We’re at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts and help us move our way up the Top 20! 

Even more accolades! We’re feeling the love on the Goodpods podcast player! After our Season 3 launch with Generative AI, this past week we hit these major milestones on the Top Charts:

Top 100 Business Podcasts - at #26 and Top 45 Indie Business Podcasts – at #15

Top 25 Management Podcasts – at #5 and Top 8 Indie Management Podcasts – at #3

Top 47 Marketing Podcasts – at #7 and Top 17 Indie Marketing Podcasts – at #6

Thank you Goodpod listeners! Keep it coming and post your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked and E-Motive, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

What’s the buzz on everyone’s mind in retail right now? Yes, it’s Generative AI! Taking the industry by storm, but exactly what can you do with generative AI that’s so transformative for retailers and brands? We break it down in what’s likely the most grounded discussion you could hear today on this topic with two special guests: our Retail Avenger, Shish Shridhar, Global Retail Lead at Microsoft for Startups, and Michelle Bacharach, CEO of FindMine. We cover the use cases for today and tomorrow, plus we go deep on the caveats and risks you should know before you dive in headfirst to this amazing technology.

We’re now standing at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Even more accolades! We’re feeling the love on the Goodpods podcast player! This past week we hit these major milestones on the Top Charts:

Top 100 Business Podcasts - at #89 and Top 34 Indie Business Podcasts – at #28

Top 18 Management Podcasts – at #10 and Top 6 Indie Management Podcasts – at #5

Top 31 Marketing Podcasts – at #21 and Top 12 Indie Marketing Podcasts – at #11

Thank you Goodpod listeners! Keep it coming and post your comments!

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked and E-Motive, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Goodpods: https://bit.ly/TRRSgoodpods

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

Ready or not, it’s Season 3 of the Retail Razor Show! Hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden are back to cut through the clutter to guide you through the most important trends in retail and retail technology. This season we’re bringing you more expert guests to explore 3 themes: Automation and AI, Immersive and Anywhere Commerce, and both of those against a backdrop of ‘back to basics’ retailing. Join us on the journey from store operations, to supply chain, to customer experience and back again – whether you’re a retailer, or a retail tech supplier, you’ll find something just for you this season. Coming soon to your favorite podcast player, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a minute!

We’re currently at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

About Your Hosts:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno.

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

TRANSCRIPT

S3 Trailer

[00:00:00] Ricardo Belmar: Ready or not. It's season three of the Retail Razor Show. The podcast where we cut through the clutter to give you sharp insights on the retail industry and retail technology. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar, retail tech strategist and top retail influencer. Currently the lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft.

[00:00:38] Casey Golden: And I'm Casey Golden, top retail influencer and retail tech founder of Luxlock, a unified experience platform. We're back for a new season of commerce conversations featuring a lineup of leading industry guests and unforgettable discussions you can execute against immediately.

[00:00:56] Ricardo Belmar: That's right Casey. Listeners subscribe now to get new [00:01:00] drop notifications. In season three, we are exploring three major themes that are shaping the future of retail.

[00:01:07] Automation and AI, immersive and anywhere commerce, and perhaps most important of all, how both of those themes are coming to us full steam against a backdrop of back to basics retailing.

[00:01:20] First up, let's talk automation and AI. If there's one set of tech that's transforming how retailers operate, supply chain, store operations to customer service, and everything in between, it's AI.

[00:01:32] Casey Golden: We're digging in to how retailers can leverage leading and emerging technologies to reduce costs, improve efficiency, automate and optimize operations while still enhancing the customer experience. We'll address the underlying challenges and undeniable opportunities that come with deploying artificial intelligence.

[00:01:52] And implementing automation workflows in the real retail world, not a dreamy white paper or dreams [00:02:00] made of vaporware. If it's not real, there's no room for it in retail.

[00:02:05] Ricardo Belmar: And jumping to the customer's perspective, immersive commerce and anywhere commerce are redefining how consumers shop. Online, offline, and everywhere in between, we'll uncover the technologies retailers are leveraging to monetizing engaging moments and personalized shopping experiences across sales channels and touchpoints.

[00:02:23] Our hot take on hot topics will include live streaming, augmented reality, social commerce, computer vision, and open retail-tainment as a strategic initiative rather than just a buzzword.

[00:02:34] Casey Golden: We'll also be exploring how retailers can adapt to keep up with rapid changing customer behaviors and expectations in a post pandemic world. Let's face it, we've all experienced some business whiplash and loved the view with our rose gold ray bans, but if we don't bring it back to center, the vision of our business will never become an experienced reality.

[00:02:56] Back to basics retailing focuses on the core [00:03:00] elements of retail success, product, price, place, promotion, and most importantly, people. Oh, and profitability. That's another important p.

[00:03:13] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. What's that? Like six Ps?

[00:03:15] Casey Golden: I'd make it seven with process, but you might say that's a bit more than meets the eye.

[00:03:21] Ricardo Belmar: Wait, that's supposed to be my line.

[00:03:23] Casey Golden: Kind of known for stealing some good one-liners.

[00:03:25] Ricardo Belmar: That's so true. It always happens. So we'll examine how retailers can optimize their performance marketing, conversion optimization, merchandising, pricing, and assortment strategies. We'll also look at how retailers can invest in their frontline store teams who, yes, it's true, they really are the face of the brand and the key to customer loyalty.

[00:03:45] Casey Golden: Okay, Ricardo. Not only do we have these three incredible themes, we've also stacked new show segments we're introducing after teasing our fans with the retail razor data blades in season two.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Ricardo Belmar: That's right Casey. In addition to the three themes, we'll have conversations with retail leaders about their most valuable leadership traits and best practices. We'll share insights based on data from consumer surveys and research, and we'll take a fresh academic viewpoint of retail technology issues with professors and experts from leading universities.

[00:04:19] Casey Golden: We have killer content lined up for you this season. Not to give too much away, but here's some of the highlights that it's gonna include.

[00:04:27] Ricardo Belmar: How live streaming is revolutionizing online shopping and creating new opportunities for retailers and a new generation of engineered influencers.

[00:04:36] Casey Golden: How augmented reality and virtual or reality create immersive and interactive shopping experiences that drive more engagement for product discovery and drive conversion.

[00:04:47] Ricardo Belmar: And how retailers can invest short term to reduce cost long term by adopting the right technologies like R F I D, cloud computing and new AI-driven prescriptive analytics,

[00:04:56] Casey Golden: How performance marketing helps retailers acquire, [00:05:00] retain, and grow their customer base with data-driven strategies.

[00:05:03] Ricardo Belmar: how retailers can manage and invest in their frontline store teams by providing the right training, tools, incentives and empowerment.

[00:05:11] Casey Golden: And digital humans can create new possibilities for customer service, personalization and storytelling in retail and so much more.

[00:05:20] Ricardo Belmar: So stay tuned for the third season of the Retail Razor Show. Coming soon to your favorite podcast platform.

[00:05:25] Casey Golden: We can't wait to share our insights. Tune in with us and our special guests for the important conversations we should all be having to support the business of retail. Thank you for listening and supporting us.

[00:05:38] Ricardo Belmar: I'm your host Ricardo Belmar.

[00:05:40] Casey Golden: And I'm your host, Casey Golden. Ricardo, this trailer is a wrap.

[00:05:45] Ricardo Belmar: Signing off for now. And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail if you cut through the clutter. Until next time, this is the Retail Razor Show. [00:06:00]

We’ve been on quite a wild ride this season with topics ranging from the metaverse, to retail media networks, to the future of ecommerce and DTC, plus our Retail Transformers, and including special interviews and recaps of three major industry events – Grocery Shop, NRF, and Shop Talk! But now we’ve reached The Razor’s Edge, our Season 2 finale, with special guest host Paul do Forno, Managing Director of the Commerce Practice at Deloitte Digital, turning the tables on our dynamic duo to walk through the season calling out all the highlights!

In this episode, Paul turns our regular hosts, Ricardo and Casey, into the show’s guests and starts with a check-in on how their Top 10 Predictions for 2023 are holding up so far this year. Then he looks back through the season and asks our hosts what some of their favorites were in each of our min-series and special episodes. What were your favorites? Who was your favorite Retail Transformer? Find out how you match up to our hosts’ choices! And of course, Paul can’t resist but ask for hints on what’s to come in Season 3!

We’re now standing at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your regular hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

TRANSCRIPT

S2E13 The Razor's Edge - S2 Finale

[00:00:00] Season 2 Finale

[00:00:20] Paul do Forno: Hello, Retail Razor listeners, and welcome to Season Two Grand Finale. As you might have noticed, I am not your usual host. I'm Paul do Forno. I'm part of the leadership team at Commerce Practice at Deloitte Digital. We're one of the largest commerce consulting companies in the world, and we help everything from strategy to design to implementing platforms.

[00:00:42] But today I am your guest hosts and I'm turning the tables on the Dynamic Duo interviewing them. So let's bring in these weeks guests, Ricardo and Casey. Casey, Ricardo, thank you so much for having me as your guest host for season two finale.

[00:00:59] Ricardo Belmar: Hey [00:01:00] Paul, it is awesome having you here with us.

[00:01:01] Casey Golden: I mean, how lucky are we to have you on the actual podcast? it's so nice to have you over here. Thanks for doing this.

[00:01:10] Paul do Forno: Well, how does it feel being on the other side? Do you feel a little pressure now? I you don't know what I'm gonna ask.

[00:01:16] Casey Golden: It's always a bit awkward to be your own guest, but I'm excited to answer some questions since I am usually on the side of asking questions.

[00:01:25] Paul do Forno: Okay. 

[00:01:26] Ricardo Belmar: feeling the same way it is a little odd being, not being the one asking the questions on your own podcast. but this is gonna be fun. So I'm glad you're joining us. I'm thrilled we're turning things around and I can't wait to see how you're gonna try to trip us up here in the finale.

[00:01:39] Paul do Forno: All right. All right. Well, I can't wait to dive in. So here we go. First I wanna check in with both of you. You had top 10 list of predictions this year, and I know we're not all the way through the year, but we wanna check in to see where you're at and which ones you feel that are totally on track, or which ones are totally off track.[00:02:00] So Ricardo.

[00:02:01] Ricardo Belmar: this could get interesting. Good thing there's no audience to throw things at us.

[00:02:05] Paul do Forno: You ready for the questions, Casey?

[00:02:08] Casey Golden: Yeah, and Ricardo, I'm a good catch, but I love q and a, so I do miss having a live audience. I'm feeling pretty good, but Ricardo and I come from two different perspectives. That's why I think we're a little bit more fun to listen to. We do not agree on everything.

[00:02:24] Paul do Forno: All right. All right. That's good. That's why we're here. All right. For the second part, I'm also gonna ask you about your favorite parts of the season and a few surprise questions along the way and follow up. I'm gonna test some of the things that you come back with. 

[00:02:39] Checking in on those 2023 predictions

[00:02:39] Paul do Forno: okay, let's jump in. First question, Ricardo. Let's start with you. You each gave five prediction this year and so , which you think maybe are the long shot and out, out of those long shots, which one do you think will really come true by the end of the year and why?

[00:02:59] Ricardo Belmar: [00:03:00] Oh, you really went for that one, didn't you? I like 'em all though.

[00:03:03] Paul do Forno: Wow. Just pick one. Let's focus on one for today.

[00:03:06] Ricardo Belmar: All right. I guess I'll pick one. , if I have to pick one, I guess I would have to pick the one I gave on the anywhere commerce versus immersive commerce.

[00:03:15] Paul do Forno: Okay. Let's hear some more about it.

[00:03:17] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I, feel like that's the one that's maybe the most far out there of the predictions I did in that it's not just about retailers being the one to seriously adopt immersive tech, like AR and VR. And embracing other new technologies to get commerce in the right context in new locations. Like we talked about integrating it in your car, being in a stadium at a game or something like that.

[00:03:41] But it's not just about the retailers integrating the tech. It also requires consumers to be willing to adopt these at the same time. So there's a little bit of an element of the stars aligning on this one to make it come true and work out. So I think maybe that's my long shot. I'm still sticking with it though.

[00:03:58] Paul do Forno: Okay, it's gonna take a [00:04:00] little bit longer. Ca. Casey, what do you think?

[00:04:02] Casey Golden: I'm completely opposite, I believe a hundred percent and anywhere commerce and contextual commerce that every single consumer touchpoint is gonna turn into a point of sale, but it is gonna be a little bit more of a long shot as far as it's gonna take longer, but I believe that it is a hundred percent there.

[00:04:22] This punch in immersive has massive demand and I think it's moved a lot of builders into creating better foundational structures so that we can get interesting experiences and more virtual experiences that I think is gonna fuel that. But we really need better checkout and I think everybody in that space that's very forward and immersive shopping and this, these metaverse plays and virtual experiences, they're learning supply chain right now. And so once I think this kind of bridges, [00:05:00] there's gonna be some beautiful magic.

[00:05:01] Paul do Forno: So I noticed you guys didn't say the word as part of all that. You didn't say the word omnichannel. Is 

[00:05:07] Casey Golden: It doesn't exist. It never has.

[00:05:10] Paul do Forno: What's that?

[00:05:11] Casey Golden: It doesn't exist. It never has.

[00:05:13] Paul do Forno: Ah, okay.

[00:05:14] Ricardo Belmar: all just commerce. I'm gonna keep saying it's just commerce. We don't need to label it omnichannel or anything because I think all that ever, I dunno. It feels like all we ended up accomplishing was confusion with that.

[00:05:25] Paul do Forno: All right. No good perspectives. It I think this is the one it'll be interesting, it may take longer to get the full view, but then I think once we get closer to that, the goalposts will change again. So it will be interesting. Alright. Casey, same question to you. What's your biggest long shot and why?

[00:05:46] Casey Golden: So my biggest long shot is, B N P L. I just don't feel that it's good for consumers and there will be more consumer protection initiatives around the entire entity. It's [00:06:00] bulking customers up with debt does not help your customer experience and brand relationship when that payment that might be coming at you every single month is coming because it's a branded product, it, I think it does negatively infect the brand.

[00:06:15] But I understand the value of it opening up cash flow for like younger demographics and just for people in general. It does open up cash flow to buy things that you want or need but I'm very conflicted on the two sides of it. However, Apple Pay Later has now launched so that kind of throws a wrench in my biggest long shot. So, Now that Apple users can split their purchases into four interest free payments over six months without a fee, I think it might be a long shot that Affirm, After Pay, Klarna, and PayPal make it.

[00:06:50] Paul do Forno: So what? What do you think Ricardo?

[00:06:54] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah I don't know. I think, When we recorded that one and Casey went through that prediction I think the thought was, is [00:07:00] it gonna be a little bit of a blow up or explosion in terms of consumer protections, but now maybe it's gonna blow up in a different direction with Apple launching Apple Pay Later.

[00:07:10] May, maybe it's more now a matter of, are the other company, like you just said in Casey are these all these other companies gonna survive doing that now that they're gonna have to compete directly with Apple on their platform

[00:07:20] Casey Golden: I mean, Apple's done. Now we just need a Google one and

[00:07:23] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, if Google comes out with a pay later now, then it's really gonna be done.

[00:07:27] Paul do Forno: I guess, I guess I might be here in being a little bit of the counter to this. So actually the stats came out and the numbers on B N P L last year, I don't have it right in front of me, but it was multiple billions of dollars. It was the fastest growing payment channel. And so it's not a long, it's here.

[00:07:47] But I think your point, Casey's a nuanced one where the effect on the brand and how it's used, that's something that I think, needs to be figured out that's [00:08:00] the concern long term, right? Like I think that buy now pay later is here for a long time. In fact, I actually first saw this and it was weird.

[00:08:10] I went to Brazil for the first time in 2011, and everywhere you went, buy now, pay later was, that was just the standard way that they paid because that's the demographics that were there and that's the way they paid. And so I, especially given, some of the economic trends and how people are buying, I think this is a long-term stay.

[00:08:33] The question is gonna be who and then how best to use it within the brand. That ju just my two, my 2 cents there. All right. Next question. Now that we got these long shots outta the way, Ricardo, which one for you are you most sure of and why?

[00:08:53] Ricardo Belmar: Ah, okay. This, I think this one's a little easier for me to pick, cuz honestly, all you have to do is look at any of the news outlets [00:09:00] that are out there today covering tech and covering retail and just everywhere. I mean it, it's an obvious one for me. It's a prediction on generative ai. So things like, whether it's chat, g p t, dall-e two g p t four, there's the Microsoft co-pilot announcement.

[00:09:13] All these things coming out. I think it was the last prediction we had in, in our list. We saved the best for last maybe, but I think this is this is one is all as close to an automatic win. I think as we're gonna get in one of these predictions, just given where it's trending is pretty much every retailer I talk to just about every account manager and field rep I talk to at Microsoft is saying the same thing, every customer is looking at this and asking, how do I use this?

[00:09:36] Everybody's got a long list of use cases they wanna apply it to. They wanna understand. How to build with it, how to apply it. When we had our top retail influencers calls with Rethink Retail, it was two months in a row it was a topic that everybody wanted to talk about.

[00:09:51] Everyone had something to say about it. Everyone's got an opinion about it. And they're just, I don't know, so many use cases. I mean, one of my favorite ones seeing [00:10:00] CarMax doing , where they're using the AI tools to help a customer doing research on their site to automatically summarize all the reviews on cars.

[00:10:08] So instead of having to read thousands and thousands of reviews, you just ask a few questions and it gives you a summary with everything you need to know. So just coolest. And that's such a simple, if I can explain it in two sentences, you can ask the two sentences and get a summary.

[00:10:21] Can't get much better than that.

[00:10:23] Paul do Forno: That, that seems the most obvious one, but I, just to put you on the spot, I know you, you talked about an interesting one and, but let's talk specifically about commerce. What component of commerce do you think this would apply most? Like what area?

[00:10:40] Ricardo Belmar: I think we're gonna see it apply in, in, in stages. I think initially anything related to discovery and product discovery, new ways of searching. So search will move I think from trying to think of what keyword do I use? We don't wanna search for a product ,now I can really be super descriptive.

[00:10:56] I can talk about what my intent is when I wanna search for something. [00:11:00] Like just, I'm just thinking examples. Like if I'm searching for new, for apparel products instead of having to use keywords like it's, I'm searching for, jeans right, or shirts or whatever it's gonna be. I can describe how I'm gonna wear it and where I'm gonna wear it, and now as part of that search process and these tools are gonna give me different responses based on that.

[00:11:18] So I think being able to apply intent and more, almost a point more emotional feeling of how I'm gonna use this product in that search. I think that's gonna be the, probably the first area where it's gonna have a big impact on commerce.

[00:11:31] Casey Golden: And that's exactly what I don't agree on anything. AI is not gonna help you get dressed in the morning. I promise.

[00:11:42] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:11:44] Casey Golden: But no, I think that, Listen, I think when we're buying clothing it's emotional and I don't think we can have a non-emotional entity help us make these emotional decisions. But when it comes to function, a hundred percent, I [00:12:00] think affecting mass commerce and I don't get excited about buying another cell phone charger.

[00:12:07] I need to buy some recording information like pieces. So I look like Ricardo and I have a mic and all these things. Yes, that I definitely see, like there's these ways that AI is gonna definitely impact search. I think it could for a period of time dis disrupt. Why? The only way we see things is if there's ad money behind it.

[00:12:29] And I think we can get a lot better information and products teed up to us based off of function. But. Leave it to me to make sure you have the right clothes, Ricardo. Um, I think the immediate

[00:12:43] Ricardo Belmar: do better than the AI

[00:12:45] Casey Golden: well, yeah, we'll do much better, but I think the number one thing I'm seeing right now is managing products and uploading products into e-comm is painful and often a very manual process.

[00:12:58] And so product [00:13:00] descriptions right outta the box, being able to create clear product descriptions that are interesting, compelling, and again, going back to your point, Ricardo, that will impact search. But coming up with the tags different categorizes categories for everything on there in e-comm I think will be good.

[00:13:19] Uploading products, changing image sizes, being able to do some of these things more automated and painful processes I think is an immediate lift. 

[00:13:31] Paul do Forno: Yeah, make makes sense. That makes sense and I think there will be more stuff that we haven't even thought of and adjacent to it. It's something that's gonna fit the whole stack of everything. So just to take another example of helping the coders, right? There's all these tools to help on the coding side.

[00:13:49] So the turnaround time on some of the coding and looking at coding is, it is gonna be helped. So if you start looking at your whole, and [00:14:00] you mentioned supply chain earlier, right? If you start looking at everything, if everything gets improved, 5 10% that's where that whole effect comes in.

[00:14:08] So beyond just the experience part, I think it's gonna affect the whole stack.

[00:14:15] Casey Golden: yeah, Canva had an update last this week. That was probably the best product update release I've ever seen. And there is generative art, there is redesigning your slides with ai. You have chat sheet bts in there. All of these solutions and all of these pieces just kind of came in, wrapped up like a present.

[00:14:39] And I have to say, they've like 10 Xed my speed to create. And it did a phenomenal job. And, there's designers that are using it to create, they'll design one product and then they'll use the generative AI to create 10 more styles. And that's where I'm like, okay, now I'm getting a little bit [00:15:00] conflicted again between, I believe designers should be talented human beings that get to achieve their dreams versus being replaced.

[00:15:10] So I think we'll see what kind of happens here. As of today, Italy's ban, g p t Chat, G P t. They'll come around. Everybody always does, but I think that that's kind of interesting. They feel that there are unlawfully processing people's data and privacy issues. So

[00:15:27] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm.

[00:15:28] Paul do Forno: Interesting. Yeah. So how long before we all become prompt engineers? Right. I've already seen those. I've already seen people start to publish like, Hey, I'm a prompt engineer. I'm an expert, so there you go. New roles popping up all the time

[00:15:46] Ricardo Belmar: Yep, new roles.

[00:15:47] Paul do Forno: All right. Casey, what about you? What's your sure thing prediction.

[00:15:52] Casey Golden: sure thing is the explosion of CDPs. So customer data platforms, there is really [00:16:00] no excuse anymore for a customer to have of a bad experience with your brand. Not being able to produce like basic functional care to shoppers. Is unacceptable. And the main reason that we still have this is because a lot of the customer experience and customer support is fragmented and none of that data is really available to anybody that needs it.

[00:16:26] It's available to everybody who doesn't need it in a lot of the time. Like when the customer is with you and you need it, they don't have access. And so I think that having CDPs essentially come in and start pulling all of this data together so that everybody has one point system, whether or not it's checking on an order, which hopefully , AI's gonna take care of.

[00:16:48] You don't need to do that anymore. But we're gonna have different database systems to be able to pull all this customer information together and really be able to craft more around the consumer. [00:17:00] And I think that this is just gonna cause more of an extinction of traditional CRMs over maybe the next five years.

[00:17:07] The way we think of a CRM, the way we, the box we put it in, I think it's, not gonna be there anymore. And so, the CDP is becoming mission critical for a company I believe this year needs to enter and see essentially how it's gonna be deployed over the next, like 18 to 24 months. But I don't see a company being able to operate in 2024 without a C D P.

[00:17:37] Paul do Forno: Well, that's a great commercial for my C D P group, but, uh, but let, let me challenge you on that, of the one that you want this to happen earlier, knowing, especially some of the big enterprise brands that we work with, some of the challenges that they have of just tying all the [00:18:00] different systems. It's one thing if it, if you're dealing with a direct to consumer, one brand, smaller when you get into acquisitions and a holding company that owns all these different retailers, bringing 'em together, CDP is not easy and trying to get it.

[00:18:15] Or they might have a version, kind of a C D P here, kind of c d p there. How do you coordinate it all together and so, I a hundred percent agree on this might, you might have jumped a question like, this is what you want to have as to, cuz this is harder. This ends up being a lot harder in my experience to get adoption earlier just because of all of the change management, all the different things that are out there.

[00:18:44] But I a hundred percent agree they people need to go to this.

[00:18:47] Casey Golden: Well, I think you're right. I mean, it can be, it can be a lot more complicated. It's not in a lot of other companies best interest to want to integrate with your C D P, [00:19:00] and so I think that, there's gonna be a lot of change management there, but the way I see it is consumers are going to gain more and more and more.

[00:19:11] Protection over their rights to their data. And if your GDPR compliant, like they already have more rights than we can service today. And so this is going to, it's going to be mandatory whether or not it's executed well or at a hundred percent. I just don't think that we can really go into next year without making sure that you're operating in compliance because compliance is gonna be, is already moving faster than the software companies.

[00:19:45] Paul do Forno: What do you think Ricardo?

[00:19:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I mean I definitely agree in principle and the need, right? And the want. I'm thinking about your point and Paul about how it's not easy necessarily, right? Especially the larger the organization, the more potential [00:20:00] disconnected systems there are that need to be connected to create that c d P.

[00:20:04] I think it's doable. I work with some partners that are in this space as well. And I think they're doing a good job at something where, again it's where you wanna plug in the AI models into it to help with some of that.

[00:20:13] So I think it's a doable thing, it may be one of those where when we're looking at it at the end of the year maybe it's not complete for some of the largest organizations and it's still in progress. But I think the, I think maybe Casey's point is, it as everyone moves to this that want and need is going to cause some action, right.

[00:20:30] And people are gonna start doing things about it and moving in that direction. So even if they don't have it fully deployed and ready I, I think it, it's a valid point. And I, think from a prediction point of view, yeah. It means people are gonna be trying to leverage a C D P as much as they can by the end of the year.

[00:20:47] Casey Golden: Yeah, I mean, I think really they're gonna make the purchase. I think last year, 640 billion was spent on customer experience software. They all need a c D P to power. Everything is [00:21:00] gonna need the c d P to power customer experiences. But we kind of have to start with where our core is. And so I think if I had to deploy monies or say, what's a sure thing, you're gonna need one and you, the sooner the better.

[00:21:18] Paul do Forno: Awesome, Casey. Thank you for that. You just, I just, you just recorded my commercial for me that it's gonna be my pre roll intro to our CDP presentations, but let's move on. All right. I got one for you, for your other four predictions. Which ones do you think you most want to actually come to life?

[00:21:39] Right? And you wanna see go big. So Casey, let's start with you.

[00:21:44] Casey Golden: I want loyalty programs to mean something again. I think that there's a lot of emphasis on loyalty programs right now, and I've seen a lot of companies scaling back rewards at the same time and taking away common [00:22:00] perks. And so I'd really like to just see this loyalty program just facilitate into something that's actually going to build loyalty, not a marketing campaign. 

[00:22:14] I think that this is the moment where it could really be a differentiator in the brand, the customer experience, but if we keep diluting it or disrupting them, like it's just not, it seems more marketing than it is actually provide any services. And so, I think that this is a place where there's gonna be a lot of movement. And I see, anybody who's scaling back rewards I think that they're gonna have a negative impact onto their business.

[00:22:46] And I think loyalty programs are just gonna really start meaning something interesting from access to product first. Access to buy at a discount, or even shop sale first. I think the loyalty programs [00:23:00] could turn into something really meaningful and have some really interesting perks that haven't really been the point.

[00:23:07] Maybe not points, you know?

[00:23:09] Paul do Forno: So, so Casey, is this part of your, your favorite hotel chain? Making sure you get that nice omelet and premium breakfast 

[00:23:17] Casey Golden: All right 

[00:23:18] Paul do Forno: of the old bagel.

[00:23:19] Casey Golden: yeah. So like I get, you know, they, they put a little goldfish in my room and they make sure that Mr. Darcy's there. I don't expect the rest of the retail industry to be able to compare to the way that I might be treated at a hotel, or you might be treated at a hotel. But I do feel that there's an opportunity, if that's the top, why is the bottom like 10% off your next coffee after you buy a hundred? , what does it take to get a reward, like 50,000 points [00:24:00] for a dollar off your next order? , come on, let's do something. And I think that this is the moment where everybody's been talking about loyalty, whether or not they're adding more, taking it away. And there's a lot of loyalty programs out there, and I think that we're gonna get a, it's gonna turn into an actual program, not just about, pricing.

[00:24:25] It's not just about discounts. I think it can be a lot more, and I think even mass merchants are gonna find something more than a discount.

[00:24:32] Paul do Forno: Okay, Ricardo.

[00:24:34] Ricardo Belmar: Ooh. So for me I would have to say it's that prediction had about automation in, in stores for frontline workers. Over the years, what I think there's always a lot of predictions around what's gonna change for store teams , years back or sort of really only talked about that in the context of better training for employees.

[00:24:52] But I think now in, in recent years since the pandemic we're, we have a different perspective on what those store teams are doing and, and how they [00:25:00] work. And now that with, with labor shortages and things for retailers, I think there's more of a view of you have to actually make this environment better.

[00:25:07] You've gotta provide the right tools that aren't intended to necessarily replace people in the store, but it's intended to make them. Make their jobs more efficient, more effective, more productive, hopefully getting rid of a lot of the annoying tasks that we force onto store teams to, that they have to take care of, but they keep them away from customers.

[00:25:27] So I, I think we'll finally start to see some meaningful things done here with real deployments of technologies that , are having an impact. And I think with an end goal of trying to really make that environment so it's not just a job, but it's more about creating a career path where you might even, finally start looking at those em employee roles as not all being equal in that, some folks on your store team may have different skills and you need to actually take advantage of that in the sense that, , give them things they can do that are built on, [00:26:00] on those skills so that some of those store associates might have a different role than others.

[00:26:04] And that's okay. That's a good thing because that helps create those career paths. So I think that's gonna be the one that I really wanna see go big.

[00:26:13] Casey Golden: Thank you for amplifying the real retail heroes, Ricardo. I mean, Paul, if I bring this up, it's a sales pitch, so I don't talk about frontline workers very much on here, but I just, if you're moving forward, I think we just need to, to bring our people with us.

[00:26:34] Paul do Forno: Yeah. And, it's a fascinating area in fact, I noticed at NRF, if you walk the floor, some of the biggest booths were actually targeted towards the frontline industry. I was actually surprised right at the front door. So some friends of mine, actually, startups that are now massive, and I, I know we're working with some fascinating, very large grocery retailers that to [00:27:00]automate, when they get into work, how can they prioritize their tasks, and also really interestingly, things change so much. Some, you know, there's a storm coming in h how do you rally the troops very quickly and things like that. So I, I think we're just at, at a tipping point of finding ways to really drive and empower the, frontline worker. So ,exciting.

[00:27:23] I agree with that one. That will be really good.

[00:27:26] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:27] Looking back across the whole season

[00:27:27] Paul do Forno: Okay, now let's step back and look at the season as a whole. You had two mini series, I'll call them. Both were based on live recordings, one at Grocery Shop and one at N R F. Now, usually we're doing, you're recording kind of like this virtually, so, talk about how it was to be live and, , talking live with, the people right in front of you.

[00:27:50] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll, I'll jump in on this one. Cause unfortunately Casey wasn't able to to join me on, on, on those. But you know, it was, um, [00:28:00] I know we, we

[00:28:01] Casey Golden: I'm gonna be at grocery shop. I'm like literally at the store grocery shopping. I've never been to that show.

[00:28:08] Ricardo Belmar: I know, I know. But you're right, it is di it is different though because you, you get a little it feels a little more authentic. Maybe you get a little bit more dynamic reactions when you're seeing someone face-to-face and in person versus just seeing them in a little video square on the screen.

[00:28:22] So, so there is that. I think that creates a different excitement level from, from guests on the show when you're live versus remote. And I think that really comes out right in both, in both series, the grocery shop one and the NRF ones.

[00:28:33] Paul do Forno: Cool. All right. All right. I'd have to ask you about your special guest host and crossover companion at nrf. That that, that was kind of interesting.

[00:28:41] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. So, special shout out to Jeff Roster, host of This Week In Innovation podcast. We did a, crossover there. He's been with us as one of our esteemed Retail Avengers from them the first season where we like to refer to him as the analyst. So Jeff and I decided to team up a little bit at N R F and see what can we do[00:29:00] to do this in person.

[00:29:01] And it was interesting experience because, it's a little different than when I did a grocery shop, you know, grocery shop, shop talk. They're, they're good at providing you an entire facility with recording equipment in a dedicated room that you can use. N R F is a little more complicated and that, that we didn't technically qualify to, to use their facilities for that.

[00:29:20] So we kind of had to figure it out for ourselves and, and, and understand, okay, what, what do we need to, what equipment do we need? And, and then of course the biggest challenge is figuring out, well, where are we gonna do this? And we were lucky. We had our friends and fans of the show at Avanade allowed us to use their lounge space as our mobile recording studio.

[00:29:36] For both Jeff and I think that was a new experience. We learned a lot from that and, and hopefully upped our podcast game to do more of these live in-person recordings that way.

[00:29:45] Paul do Forno: Gotcha. So question. am I an honorary Avenger since I was there in the clubhouse? In the Clubhouse case?

[00:29:52] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. That's right. Yep.

[00:29:53] Paul do Forno: the clubhouse,

[00:29:55] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. Right. That, that, that's why you get invited to guest, host, come on.

[00:29:58] Paul do Forno: Woo. [00:30:00] Alright, so question for you, Casey. What interview stood out to you? The most, both at Grocery Shop and nrf.

[00:30:08] Casey Golden: So, both of which I missed. So the, the episode with Ron and Vicki, it really stood out at N R F that it is, it is absolutely something magical when we're together in, in real life. And I think that those, there's nothing that can compare to everybody being, having that energy and bringing it all to the same table and having these great conversations.

[00:30:35] So I mean, it was something where I didn't tune out. I was listening to it and I think that it just brings like a very different dynamic to podcasts. But I mean, it goes to show we have really talented people in this space that are so passionate about retail. And so the Ron and Vicki episode just, you know, moved right up to my top as the most memorable.[00:31:00]

[00:31:01] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I, I, I have to say on, on that one too, I mean, o one of the things that worked so great with that, I mean, we, we didn't plan anything in advance for, for that one. We were all, all four of us were at the Retail ROI Super Saturday event that we were, we were hosting at the Microsoft office.

[00:31:16] And right at the end of the day when everything was wrapping up, we said, why don't we sit down and just record a quick 15 minute conversation, just on some thoughts about what we, what we experienced in the day, kinda what we were hoping to see at nrf. And then of course, we got so into it, it turned into 50 minutes, not 15 ... so we went a little bit longer.

[00:31:32] Paul do Forno: Wow. That's great. So what, what did you think Casey, about that.

[00:31:38] Casey Golden: So like, I mean, Ron Thurston, I'm like a super fan. We'll just say that I am a super fan and Vicki Cantrell is, is phenomenal. So, I mean, I wish I, I wish I could have been there. It was just really special and Gabriella, what was it? Gabriella Bach from Rethink Retail. She was filming the video [00:32:00] for 

[00:32:00] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. She recorded the video for us. 

[00:32:02] Casey Golden: walking around in that tiny room with her video way longer than she was supposed to.

[00:32:08] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, she, she was really re a real good I I don't even know what to say you, cause we talked, she heard us talking about wanting to do it and said, Hey, do you guys want me to record the video for that, that you can use? I don't, I don't mind doing it. So, yeah. We're only gonna be 15 minutes or so.

[00:32:20] Oh, sure. No problem. And she's sitting there holding all the video equipment and this, and you can see in the video, this was such a tiny conference room that we ended up picking and she's trying to kind of move around all of us to get the right angles in this. She had to change batteries midway through it and then ran outta battery power cause we went so long.

[00:32:38] So that was, that was definitely something.

[00:32:39] Paul do Forno: Cool. Alright. So you definitely have to keep doing more of those in the future.

[00:32:45] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, oh, for sure. So, so stay tuned. We, we, we have one of very much like that coming from Shop Talk that we just did.

[00:32:51] All those Retail Transformers were more than meets the eye!

[00:32:51] Paul do Forno: Awesome. All right, now let's talk about one of your fun series within a series, so to speak, [00:33:00] the retail transformer series. You started the series in series one, but it really took off with this season with four special retail transformation episodes. But honestly, you could have called it both grocery shop and NRF series the same, couldn't you?

[00:33:15] Casey Golden: Yes, true. I mean, we're all essentially Transformers. That's why we brought them on the show.

[00:33:23] Paul do Forno: I, I think Casey was just about to go. Transformers.

[00:33:30] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. Yep. Stealing my line there.

[00:33:32] Casey Golden: I'm like

[00:33:33] Paul do Forno: That's what we were 

[00:33:34] Casey Golden: playing my composure.

[00:33:37] Paul do Forno: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That we're, we're supposed to have yeah, we're professional here. All right. Okay. Back, back to the story here. So which one stood out the most for you, Casey?

[00:33:50] Casey Golden: So, my favorite Retail Transformer during that this series was Brian Dove with Commerce Hub. We could have, [00:34:00] that podcast could have gone on for hours. Literally I would've been fine if Ricardo stopped record, and I just continued talking to Brian for the rest of the day. His approach is really compelling.

[00:34:15] He's solving. Solving supply chain is probably one of the ugliest and most complex sites of the business. And making changes in supply chain are like, they're, they're like complete, they're not even a heart transplant. It's a complete nervous system transplant. And, just think that our supplies, chains need the most transformation and it's just hard, ugly work.

[00:34:41] You don't get a lot of rainbows and sunshines and like glitter doing things in supply chain. It's waking up in the morning, day in, day out, doing the stuff that nobody else wants to do. And I think he came out with a very his approach is incredible and I think that we're [00:35:00] just gonna see more drop shipping directly from manufacturers than managing their own distribution and, and selling inventory in and third party logistics warehouses.

[00:35:11] This. Piece of supply chain that is part of Commerce Hub. They're only like a fraction of what could be. But I think for, for what he's done and what they're doing now and where they're going, he is my top re Retail Transformer that stood out during that series.

[00:35:34] Paul do Forno: Wow. I, I can't have my guys listening to this podcast because now before you're talking up the c d p guys, now my supply chain guys is, see, we're we're more important than everybody else.

[00:35:46] Casey Golden: Wants to work with me. Paul,

[00:35:47] Paul do Forno: I know. Geez. I, I dunno how, what, what about us? Come on. No. Yeah. Hundred percent.

[00:35:56] Casey Golden: there's so many angels in this space that I [00:36:00] just feel like a lot of, a lot of it, the attention goes to the marketers. In general, and I just feel like marketing is just not retail. It takes so much to make that product

[00:36:17] Paul do Forno: And honestly in the last couple years, right? I think people got, oh, all we have to do is just drop ship stuff and things just show up and

[00:36:25] it, you know,

[00:36:26] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Yeah. It's magic,

[00:36:28] Paul do Forno: and nobody has to make profit off of it. Now, the real world, oh damn, we've got a sources. And to scale it, you actually have to do it profitably, right?

[00:36:38] And so now this, we had a little bubble of this magic, every, all this funding and these tools that made, it, enabled all of this to look like it didn't, it was super easy and anybody could do it, but now the real vendors are coming out. And, and so you really have to focus on back to the basics, right? [00:37:00] And, and how to tie all these together.

[00:37:02] Casey Golden: I agree.

[00:37:03] Paul do Forno: So, Ricardo, how about you?

[00:37:05] Ricardo Belmar: So continuing on on that theme you just brought up there, Paul. So, so my, one of my favorites is the, the retail transformer we did with Polly Wong. Cuz she reinforced something that both Casey and I, I think absolutely loved when she said it. I, I think we almost had to stop recording to regain some composure from, from the comment that she just so casually dropped about how you can't have a profitable, business when you're only focused on acquisition as a fact.

[00:37:30] And she just rolled that phrase out so matter of factly, like it was just the most fundamental thing that everybody had been lost on. That one to me to kind of set the tone for the whole rest of the recording on that one. Cause that was pretty early on. I think that was just gold. When she brought that up and, you know, we, we had been wanting to do some direct to consumer focus episodes, so Polly gave us a chance to talk about how is D T C really moving forward and bringing it back to this idea of profitability.

[00:37:58] How do you shift from customer acquisition [00:38:00] focus to actually building customer loyalty, maintaining that community of customers. And, she, I just love how she gave us , this picture of, all these different ways and methods that those brands are now marketing to consumers that, that kind of brought things back.

[00:38:14] Like when she mentioned, print catalogs where a as if they're the brand new thing that DTC brands were doing and being successful at it. I think that was, that was just something I don't think anybody who was listening expected to hear that. And that, that, I just love that one.

[00:38:28] Casey Golden: I agree. I think everything that was old is new again. It is that, it is this moment of back to the basics. I think Facebook essentially broke our foundation for digital. It created this false foundation for digital, let's say that. And so now that companies are really pulling back into, I don't want to rely on Facebook ads, and now I'm not even getting that eight x or 12 x or 30 x, I'm like, [00:39:00] lucky if I can get a two x return right now. Because of all of the different changes, I think we're going back to just building better with the newer technologies. And a lot of this is foundational, it's just a new foundation for digital.

[00:39:16] That's just, I think we too many people over overbuilt on relying on a, the Facebook platform and ads.

[00:39:26] Paul do Forno: Hey, I think omnichannel is back.

[00:39:30] Casey Golden: Say that word, unified commerce. If you need to use a word unified,

[00:39:34] Ricardo Belmar: you go. There you go. Unified commerce.

[00:39:37] Paul do Forno: That's probably, that should be another, that should be another podcast. The, the Battle. Battle of Semantics.

[00:39:44] Casey Golden: Yeah,

[00:39:44] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, there we, there we go. 

[00:39:46] Casey Golden: no consum. What is it? I just saw it. Composable commerce.

[00:39:51] Ricardo Belmar: right. Yeah.

[00:39:53] Paul do Forno: The, the battle of the, the terms. All right.

[00:39:56] Ricardo Belmar: there.

[00:39:56] Paul do Forno: All right. So

[00:39:57] Casey Golden: it's a dictionary.

[00:39:58] Love those "Special" episodes...

[00:39:58] Paul do Forno: now that wasn't the [00:40:00] only topical series you had. You also had a special episode. We already talked about one, your predictions episode, but you also had an interesting one with Andy Laudato from NRF beginners and of course the holiday special guests from Square and others.

[00:40:15] How did you come about with those.

[00:40:18] Casey Golden: Well, I mean, speaking of the holiday season, we knew we wanted to make a holiday themed episode, but you know, every retail podcast seems to do this and focuses on predicting retail sales, right? And so we wanted to do something different. We brought together Bridget John's founder of to and from, to share her perspective on what customers were actually shopping for gifts.

[00:40:44] And what inspired them. And then we added Roshaun from Square to share their recent survey report on what retailers were doing to gear up for the holiday. So we really felt like our holiday episode delivered perspectives on both [00:41:00] sides of the equation from the retailer and the consumer.

[00:41:03] Instead of focusing on the number, we really wanted to focus on actually what's happening in this shopping experience and this thought process coming into holiday and how retailers could use that information to make their season more successful and hit those numbers that everybody's projecting. And I found it very much more insightful, really learning from the sides of Roshan, from Square and Bridget from To and From.

[00:41:32] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's what we really call cutting through the clutter.

[00:41:36] Paul do Forno: Interesting. Okay. All right. What about the NRF for Beginner's episode?

[00:41:42] Ricardo Belmar: So, so that one, we wanted to do something special leading up to N R F. Obviously, we gotta call it our industry's biggest moment of the year, right? It's the biggest show. So we knew we had to do something as a retail podcast, but lucky enough for us, Andy reached out to me and said, Hey, I got a great idea for a podcast episode.

[00:41:57] Let's talk about what. Beginners to NRF [00:42:00] need to know by and, and le leveraging the experience of those of us who've been there for so many years and years. So we thought, oh, this is a brilliant idea. Yeah, no, nobody's ever talking about that. Everyone always talks about N R F on the assumption that everyone knows what it is and knows what they're doing when they get there.

[00:42:14] But the fact is every year, right, they're always beginners that have, have never been to N R F before. So let, let's focus on that. So, off we went. Andy came on. We, we highlighted, you know, how does a newbie to the show tackle it? What are the, the, the, the secret things you, you need to know that nobody really ever shares or tells you that you wished you knew by the time you got to the end of the show.

[00:42:34] And everybody got to really benefit from all of Andy's multitude of, of years of NRF wisdom.

[00:42:39] Paul do Forno: Yeah. So what, what'd you think Casey?

[00:42:41] Casey Golden: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I am still an NRF newbie, I feel, even though I've been there most of my career. Cause there's, based off of how you go there and what contexts are you a vendor? Are you on the buying side? That changes throughout our career. [00:43:00] So you may have been a buyer for 10 years, but then you're going to n r F as a vendor for the first time.

[00:43:07] And the tables turn, the experience is different. And yet, I think we're kind of all newbies because I'm going as a vendor. But then each year you are changing what that means, you know, like, Not everybody has the Microsoft booth or like the Salesforce booth. And so, for everybody else, I think that it is pretty interesting on aligning expectations and like strategy for some of these companies that are coming in on the vendor side for the first time to maximize and, and even just new people coming in to go shopping.

[00:43:46] You know, it's a big floor.

[00:43:48] Paul do Forno: Yeah, that, that probably would be pretty different if you were a buyer. I'm sure everybody wanted you to come to their event and take you out for dinner and everything. And then you're on the other side and you're like, oh crap, [00:44:00] I've got, 

[00:44:00] Casey Golden: Anybody. 

[00:44:01] Paul do Forno: get some attention. The hunted from the hunted, right? Like

[00:44:06] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:44:07] Paul do Forno: it's a little bit different.

[00:44:09] Okay. Alright. Gonna bring this home. Now with this one, one of the things I like about what you did this season was the introduction of the idea of new segments within each episode and your first one is what you guys call Retail Razor Data Blades, which you brought in a specialist for, right?

[00:44:31] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. So, and again, we, we didn't wanna make yet another retail podcast. I mean, there's like, what, over a hundred out there right now, have lost track. So we wanna do something unique that provides a value, not just to the retail tech community that, at the end of the day, right. Both Casey and I are part of right now, but also to retailers who are getting bombarded with information and that you realistically need some guidance on how to sift through all of that, all that data that gets published out there.

[00:44:55] And like we're always saying, we want to cut through the clutter of that noise.

[00:44:59] Casey Golden: [00:45:00] Yeah. And we worked with our friends over at True Rating and Georgina Nelson, their phenomenal c e o to leverage all the rich data that they've gone through. Their retailer customers from survey questions that they ask at the point of sale to offer our listeners and viewers some insights into what consumers are actually doing.

[00:45:21] And not doing with their purchasing habits.

[00:45:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, so we introduced this segment. We had it on I think three times this season, and we're, we're definitely gonna bring this one back next season. Big shout out to Georgina was so good at recording this with us when, when she was just days away from her baby's due date. So it was just a amazing that we were able to get that in.

[00:45:40] We, we kept joking that we might not get these recordings done in time, but we managed to pull it off. So that was amazing.

[00:45:47] Paul do Forno: All 

[00:45:47] Casey Golden: was prepared to have laptop with her. You know, like when we say she's a phenomenal Georgina, like props to this woman. She's, she's a great leader.

[00:45:58] Coming up next season?

[00:45:58] Paul do Forno: Wow. That's commitment. [00:46:00] Okay. Now for next year, next season, do you guys have a theme yet?

[00:46:07] Casey Golden: Yeah. After season one focused on digital transformation and the impact of transformation on the people in the retail business, this season, our focus was, the evolution of channel operations in the retail business. That's why we started the season with a big one, two punch with the Metaverse and retail media networks.

[00:46:32] Ricardo Belmar: and if you think about all the retail transformers we brought in this season, we really kept that focus. We started out with, with Alan Smithson to dive deeper into Metaverse what he was doing, building The Mall in the metaverse to, the episode I mentioned where we had Polly on. Talking about that.

[00:46:45] And then, again, the one Casey mentioned with Bryan Dove from Commerce Hub we really drove into the future of e-commerce on that one and marketplaces. So for next season, where are we taking it? We're gonna try to focus a little bit more on some of these themes, a little, little bit sharper, things like anywhere [00:47:00] commerce and immersive commerce.

[00:47:01] I think look at how that's happening with this in the middle of this backdrop that I, I think of as a, a back to basics kind of mood in retail.

[00:47:10] Paul do Forno: Ah, back to my supply chain guys. All right. Yes, we need them, but, I got all the cool shows and I guess we gotta give them some work. All right, so let's tie in. You know, your predictions there, but what exactly do you mean? Back to basics.

[00:47:29] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I, I think we, we really need to sort of acknowledge that retailers are focusing this year on, on how to get better at the business of retailers, retailing. So, past few years through the pandemic, right? What, what, what did retailers end up seeing? There's a lot of rapid growth in some specific areas for many retailers, but because a lot of it happened so fast, and I, I think we have to admit right, faster than most retailers were used to change and, and adopting new things.

[00:47:55] So that meant that, they, the focus was just get it out there to deliver those [00:48:00]experiences for, for the consumers, for what consumers wanted at whatever the cost was because it just, it had to be done and it had to be done fast. So now most retailers, I think are figuring out, we did these things, maybe not in the best way we could have done it, so let's optimize it a little bit.

[00:48:15] Let's make sure that we take out as much of the cost as we can, but c but, but still be able to do these things. How do we inject some profitability into it? We've got all these crazy new tools like the Generative AI that, mentioned in the predictions. We talked about the automation for, for the store teams.

[00:48:31] How do we still inject those things? But let's not do it in the, in the crazy, do it at all costs way that we were forced into the last few years. Let's do it in a more methodical way that we know is gonna maintain some profitability. We're wa we're watching, we don't know what the outcome is gonna be, right?

[00:48:48] In terms of shopping trends or consumers gonna keep buying at the pace they've been buying, are they going to slow down because of inflation? Are they gonna go back to saving more versus spending with all this [00:49:00] backdrop, how do we keep these things going? We can't take back any of the new things and capabilities we introduced cause consumers will, will find another brand, right, if we take these things away.

[00:49:08] So we have to find ways to keep optimizing and keep doing them, but at least, the way I like to look at it is you can't just cost cut your way to success. You still have to invest in the future. And even though that near term investment is hopefully something that's gonna return you a, a cost reduction in the future, but you have to do it in a smart way.

[00:49:26] So I think those are the kinds of things that, we're looking at these trendy things like immersive commerce and everywhere commerce and retailers, still need to do that, but it matters now how you do it more so than it did before.

[00:49:39] Casey Golden: Yeah, I'm a hundred percent on this is going to be the time for reality. And we're gonna be spending a lot more time on. The, the reality of, of where our retail is today to build, to be able to adopt some of the new technology at scale. It's just we spend so much [00:50:00] time on marketing and acquisition and we saw that it just cost us too much money and a lot of turn.

[00:50:07] And so focusing on retention and stable systems and being able to go ahead and say like, listen, why are there 400 messages a day of a customer looking for their package? Okay, that's not a customer service opportunity. That's an opportunity to fix it. Like this is like adding these things to plug problems and band-aids.

[00:50:34] We've got to solve the actual problems. And I think that that's, everything that I've seen right now has been. I have, we have customers. We're gonna focus on keeping them, and we need to go ahead and make sure that we're ready for the next five years of retail. Otherwise, we, I don't know if we'll be here or we're going to lose our market share.

[00:50:57] Paul do Forno: And I'll, and I'll just put a exclamation mark [00:51:00] on that. Like all I'm hearing is optimize. How do we optimize, how do we use what we have? We spend a ton of investments over the past couple years. How do we use 'em well, right? Like that's what I keep hearing. That's what, that's what my colleagues are hearing.

[00:51:16] So I, I think the more that they can do better, and guess what the P word. You gotta be profitable, right? How do we optimize and be for profit and, and more so than ever, especially with the uncertainty on the economics and that, I think it's just gonna be more important. 

[00:51:36] Okay. One last thing I want to know.

[00:51:39] Any new segments you're introducing? Like the Retail razor Data Blades.

[00:51:44] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, since that's that's been pretty popular. So we are looking at adding more of those. So for example one, we're gonna bring a, a unique perspective to answer the, the hot questions of the day from an academic's viewpoint. I think that's gonna be maybe eye-opening for some folks based on, on what kind of [00:52:00] responses we, we hear there and what kind of discussion we have.

[00:52:02] But I think it'll be a unique independent viewpoint people aren't used to hearing necessarily. Then another one we're thinking about doing is a segment that'll focus on retail leadership qualities. There's been some interesting news media reports lately talking about how there seems to be a shortage of, of CEOs in retail and a shortage of, of quality executives.

[00:52:22] So we're gonna dig in a little bit, I think in, in a new segment there and bring in some folks to. Give some tips on, you know, what are those leadership roles? What are those skills that those leaderships, what traits do they need to have to really be successful in, in retail that maybe not everyone has developed or, or needs to develop better.

[00:52:39] Paul do Forno: I, I think back to what I just said, the P word, we need the CEOs driving the profitability, right?

[00:52:46] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:47] Casey Golden: Yeah, I think they're gonna come from unexpected places. You know, we've had a lot of executives that have been running the top for 25 years. I think retail in general it's been, [00:53:00] leadership has been plugged. I know a lot of VPs and SVPs that had their jobs for 28 years, they're not going anywhere and they didn't let anybody rise through.

[00:53:09] And so there's a lot of talent out there that could probably hop some steps and really make some big changes and some positive profitable changes at these companies. And I'm excited to have those, those sessions cuz there's a lot of untapped talent out in this industry. Nobody's in this industry to get rich, right?

[00:53:31] Like we are all here on pure fricking passion. Cause it would be a lot easier working some other industries than it is in this space. We're here with like committed love.

[00:53:42] Paul do Forno: Yes. Yes. So all of that's pretty interesting. So any hints for the expert speakers to come?

[00:53:50] Casey Golden: We can't give everything away on this episode I'm gonna leave that on on Ricardo if he wants to add any spoilers.

[00:53:57] Ricardo Belmar: I think we can afford to make people wait and [00:54:00] see and, and make it a surprise.

[00:54:01] Paul do Forno: Well, maybe you guys can give us a preview trailer soon and, you know, a teaser.

[00:54:06] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Be in the lookout for that.

[00:54:08] Paul do Forno: All right. Well guys, thank you so much for inviting me on the show to guest host and be an honorary Avenger. It's been a year, Casey and Ricardo since we saw y y you know, the comeback at The Shop Talk last year. And we just got done another Shop Talk. But Ricardo, I didn't see you. I, I, I tried to

[00:54:27] Ricardo Belmar: don't know how we missed each other, so, so

[00:54:29] Paul do Forno: I know

[00:54:29] it was crazy. But thank you. I had a lot of fun and looking forward to next year.

[00:54:36] Casey Golden: Thank you so much, Paul. I loved having you on the show and we'll work on that honorary Avenger title.

[00:54:42] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. That's right. I mean, this is a great, fantastic experience. We can't wait to have you back on the show again soon.

[00:54:47] Paul do Forno: All right, thanks guys.

[00:54:49] ​

[00:54:49] Show Close

[00:54:49] Ricardo Belmar: We'll give a big thanks out to all of our Retail Razor Show fans this season. Casey, I think that means this show[00:55:00] for that matter, this whole season is a wrap now.

[00:55:02] Casey Golden: Yeah. If you enjoyed our show this season, please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute. And if you'd rather watch us instead of listening, subscribe to our YouTube channel and like, and comment there's a new season out there too.

[00:55:23] And of course, if you wanna know more about what we talked about today, including a full transcript of each episode look at the show notes for handy links to more deets. I'm your cohost, Casey Golden.

[00:55:34] Ricardo Belmar: And if you'd like to connect with us and share your thoughts on this season, follow us on Twitter at Casey c Golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter, at Retail Razor, on LinkedIn for the latest updates. And stay tuned for a season three trailer like Paul was asking us for.

[00:55:50] Coming soon. We promise, it'll be worth the wait. I'm your host Ricardo Belmar.

[00:55:55] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[00:55:56] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail [00:56:00]if you cut through the clutter. Until next time, this is the Retail Razor Show.

Have you heard plenty of Shoptalk event and trend recaps by now? Did any of those dig into why those trends matter and what they really mean for the retail industry? Sometimes you just need to put four Top Retail Influencers into one recording session and let them talk about what those trends make them feel about the industry to get to the heart of the matter. And maybe ‘heart’ is what it’s truly all about – because retail is a people business.

It’s Part 4 of our #ShoptalkLive podcast cross-over series with This Week in Innovation and special guest host Jeff Roster, but not quite recorded live and in-person at Shoptalk this time! Yes, there’s a story to that and you’ll find out in this episode where Jeff and regular host Ricardo Belmar are joined by retail legends, Vicki Cantrell, CEO of Vendors in Partnership, LLC, and Ron Thurston, author of Retail Pride, host of the Retail in America podcast and tour, and Co-Founder of OSSY.

In this episode, Jeff, Ricardo, Vicki, and Ron discover the true meaning of Shoptalk this year – people and relationships – because in the end they realize that the experience is the relationship in retail and how this is NOT the year of shiny objects! 

Plus, we’re now standing at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your regular hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazor

Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShow

Retail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod

Host → Ricardo Belmar,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmar

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmar

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmar

Co-host → Casey Golden,

Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCasey

Connect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICasey

Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

TRANSCRIPT

S2E12d ShoptalkLive - TRI Friends Chat

[00:00:00] Show Intro 

[00:00:20] Casey Golden: Hello Retail Razor Show listeners and viewers. Welcome to retail's favorite podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike. I'm your co-host, Casey Golden.

[00:00:33] Ricardo Belmar: And I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar. Welcome to part four and the final installment in our Shop Talk Live crossover event with Jeff Roster and This Week In Innovation podcast.

[00:00:44] Casey Golden: Wow. Are we really at the last one? This has been so much fun, so many incredible conversations and takeaways. Does it really have to end?

[00:00:53] Ricardo Belmar: Well, yeah, it does. It does. But we have saved what I think is one of our best, if not the [00:01:00] best episode of the season for the last one.

[00:01:02] Casey Golden: Okay. Wait a minute, you've, you've called every episode, the best episode of the season as being the one from N R F where you and Jeff sat down with Vicki Cantrell and Ron Thurston at the end of the Super Saturday retail ROI event. You know that 10 minute chat that turned into 50 minutes?

[00:01:21] Ricardo Belmar: Well, okay. Yeah, I, I did say that I, I suppose I, I guess maybe I have said that may, maybe more than once, but funny you should mention that episode because this episode, our final Shop Talk crossover podcast is also a conversation Jeff and I have with Ron and Vicki. , it's, think of it as a repeat or a follow up, if you will, of that NRF discussion.

[00:01:42] And I have to say, it's this sort of conversation that, you know, makes me so excited to be part of this industry. I'm so thankful for relationships like these with Jeff, Ron, Vicki, and so many others including you, Casey. It's just unlike any other industry I know.

[00:01:55] Casey Golden: Aw, you're like a teddy bear. It's so true though. [00:02:00] Nothing lights a fire like passion. And I know now why you've been testing this recording for the last three episodes but at the risk of being a downer here, if I'm not mistaken, you guys had some challenges making this happen.

[00:02:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, we did, we did. It turns out we only had one option to record this live and in person at Shop Talk, and that was at the end of the day on, I think it was the second to last day of the show. And it was right when Shop Talk had scheduled a happy hour on the show floor. Rethink Retail was kind enough to agree to let us use their booth space to record.

[00:02:35] So Jeff and I get there to set up our equipment, right, and guess what happens?

[00:02:39] Casey Golden: The equipment broke.

[00:02:41] Ricardo Belmar: Okay, good guess, but no, not quite. just as we were about to plug everything in, suddenly loud music starts blaring over the speakers all over the expo hall. You figure it's happy hour right. So of course Shop Talk decided we all needed some high energy music to go with our free drinks.

[00:02:56] Casey Golden: Oh my God, you're kidding me. What, what'd you [00:03:00] guys end up doing?

[00:03:00] Ricardo Belmar: Well, we, we looked at each other and thought about what any experienced podcaster would do to, to compensate for that. And then instead we immediately decided that it was hopeless and we just needed to cancel the whole thing and reschedule.

[00:03:11] Casey Golden: Grab a beer.

[00:03:13] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly. 

[00:03:16] Now, of course, I, I did say this was the only time we could work it out during the show, so we ended up scheduling a recording session remotely for about a week after Shop Talk.

[00:03:24] So technically this episode is not, live and in-person recorded bet it is still recorded, so we're gonna go with that. But it does have the added benefit that, you know, we've got full video for this episode on our YouTube channel. So you actually get to watch us have the discussion, not just listen to it.

[00:03:41] Casey Golden: All right. All right. Well, that's a pretty good trade off. I must say and you know, we just kind of upped the ante here. So sad you guys couldn't make it work in person. Hope there was some good drinks. But I mean, come on, of course you'd expect good music to go with happy hour, [00:04:00] right? I mean,

[00:04:01] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:04:02] Casey Golden: you kind of expect like show closes, party's on, right.

[00:04:07] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I guess we should have thought of that. We should have thought of that, I suppose. But you know, like, like I said, we're, we're, had we been experienced podcasters or not the you know, budding experts, we all aspire to be here. We might have planned for that, but I, I think this worked out in the end.

[00:04:22] Either way.

[00:04:23] Casey Golden: Well, let's not waste any more time. Let's get straight to the recording. Not live and in person at Shop Talk, but still a Shop Talk recap with you, Jeff Roster, Vicki Cantrell and Ron Thurston.

[00:04:38] The TRI Friends Chat

[00:04:38] Ricardo Belmar: ​Welcome everybody. I'm Ricardo Belmar, host of the Retail Razor Show, and I'm here with a good friend, Jeff Roster, host of This Week In Innovation. And you guessed it. This is the last episode in our Shop Talk related series. And I, if you're [00:05:00] watching us on video, yes. You may have noticed we are not live at Shop Talk right now.

[00:05:05] We, we much like, one of the episodes, if you caught our crossover at NRF where we had some issues and couldn't quite make it work out. We sort of had a little bit of some coordination challenges this time. So we're catching up with each other after the event, but we're here to talk about our, our thoughts on the shop talk event.

[00:05:24] Jeff, how you doing today?

[00:05:25] Jeff Roster: You know, Ricardo, I'm doing fantastic. I had a good week's sleep and a lot of time to, to think about what we're gonna talk about today. So I, I'm actually kind of thinking this is really a cool vibe. Maybe we should do this on every show, like do the final wrap up, show off-premise, two, three days down, down the road couple, you know, a couple good night's sleep.

[00:05:43] So I, I'm excited to get into this conversation.

[00:05:45] Ricardo Belmar: Sounds good. Well, let me go ahead and introduce our, familiar guests. we have with us today, we've got Vicki Cantrell and Ron Thurston. Vicki, Ron, how are you two doing?

[00:05:55] Vicki Cantrell: Great. Very nice to be uh, on a Friday entering in and, and it [00:06:00] did take a l uh, like it took a while to get over this trip, like physically, and so I'm all back. So happy to be here with you guys.

[00:06:11] Ron Thurston: Yeah. Yeah, me too. Thank you Ricardo and Jeff. It's a, it's a pleasure. I, I felt trapped inside Mandalay Bay with no sun and nothing, and I was happy to come back to the west coast on the tour and be in San Diego because 

[00:06:25] Ricardo Belmar: yeah.

[00:06:25] Ron Thurston: I needed some fresh air

[00:06:27] Ricardo Belmar: It, it kind of, it's kind of funny. I, I noticed on the last day I was there thinking, wait a minute, I, have I seen the outside for the last few days since I've been here? Or have I not even seen daylight?

[00:06:38] Jeff Roster: I actually one, one trip over, cause I stayed at the Luxor I, one trip over, I specifically went outside and went all the way around because I thought, you know, I probably at some point should literally have fresh air. So I 

[00:06:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:06:49] Jeff Roster: force my way outside.

[00:06:51] Ricardo Belmar: Right, right,

[00:06:52] Vicki Cantrell: ahh, Vegas.

[00:06:53] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. 

[00:06:54] Ron Thurston: Vegas. 

[00:06:55] 4 Shoptalk Themes

[00:06:55] Ricardo Belmar: love it. Gotta love it. Well, so, so let, let me start by, before we [00:07:00] jump into our, our conversation here, let, let's kind of start with summarizing four key themes that shop talk themselves, the shop talk content team put out there at the end of the show is what they felt were the four main themes of the show.

[00:07:12] and the first is what they termed as seamless stores, which I like to think of this as both a recognition that stores are a focal point of energy right now in, in retail, and that it is, it's maybe a way to think of this as the, the successor to omnichannel and maybe we put that term to rest. so that's theme one.

[00:07:30] Theme two is about enabling workers and store teams which is a theme I like to see. And. I'm sure we'll get into this, but we, we talked about that at our, at our conversation, N R F and what we had hoped to hear then about how we're better enabling store teams. So that was theme two. 

[00:07:46] Theme three is shopper engagement. And this is sort of a, a, a catchall, I think that covers all the interesting technologies that we're all hearing about and talking about now that's impacting the customer experience in, in any channel, whether it's in stores, digital, [00:08:00] wherever it may be. 

[00:08:01] And then the fourth one which might actually be the most interesting of the four, Shop Talk calls this changing relationships and it, it's a reference to how on, on the one hand, you have retailers becoming more and more like a technology provider in that they're now offering services. To other retailers and other brands, and that could be you know, one of my favorite topics that I like to remind Jeff about every chance I get, and that's retail media networks.

[00:08:28] it may be, yep. It may be things like GAP offering their logistics network as a service to other retailers. and it, but it really, I, I think. I, I find this an interesting one because maybe Shop Talk is onto something there thinking that the business is changing because of how the relationships are changing from the way they have been in, you know, for, for decades now.

[00:08:49] so let's, let's start from there.

[00:08:53] Vicki Cantrell: I um, you know, I love those four themes because they aren't kind of broken out into [00:09:00] technology. And if you remember we talked in January, Ron had such a good point in that freewheeling conversation that we had was about how do we respect the stores given what they're going through and how do we get them to do less and understand what their challenges are and because the customer is back in the stores.

[00:09:22] It's a Relationship Show About People

[00:09:22] Vicki Cantrell: And, and when we think about that uh, it felt there was a lot of content to address those things in while we were at Shop Talk, but I'd like to kind of flip that a little bit and talk about those four themes. And what I felt while I was there, I felt like it was, I have no other way to describe it other than it felt like it was a relationship show.

[00:09:47] Uh, for me, the connections, everybody talked, no matter who you met on the floor, in a booth, at a party, wherever you were, it started with the human connection [00:10:00] and it no matter what and it way more time was spent on the human aspects and the human connection before it actually turned into a potential business connection.

[00:10:14] So it felt very right. It felt very relationship focused. And when you think about that, how it relates to those themes is so true. The relationship with the customer, the relationship and partnerships, it just felt very connected and human. And I love the way they're kind of mapping this out.

[00:10:37] Ron Thurston: I'll, I'll jump in. I, I agree with you, Vicki. I think it's also the space being like smaller than an N R F. I mean, I think Vicky, you and I saw each other like three times a day 

[00:10:47] Vicki Cantrell: Yeah. 

[00:10:48] Ron Thurston: And you know, like walking by, it's a, it's a high five, it's a hug. Oh, have you met this person? Oh my God. Like, let's get a picture.

[00:10:55] Like, so I think that there's, there's power in the scale of, [00:11:00] of the conference at the same time, but as my first experience at Shop Talk, I would say retail is a relationship business and, and because coming from the stores, that's how you build a business. It isn't just about product and, and a beautiful space.

[00:11:18] It is very much about relationships with each other. First, leading a team, it's relationships with the customers. It's with your corporate business partners, it's with your vendors. It's with your mall or your landlords, like, everything we do is about relationships and those relationships have, you know, are so important to me.

[00:11:39] But when you, there was a sense of pride almost in our industry as much as we all have questions and maybe some, um, pressure to deliver. I, I felt a sense of pride about the general retail industry at, at a whole, and that, that felt really good to me. I left [00:12:00] on such a high because of that.

[00:12:02] Vicki Cantrell: I love that. I love that. And, and I didn't realize that was your first

[00:12:09] Ron Thurston: It was my first, 

[00:12:10] Vicki Cantrell: I had no idea. Oh my gosh.

[00:12:14] Ricardo Belmar: How many shop talks have you been to Vicki?

[00:12:15] Vicki Cantrell: uh, I've actually, I would say I missed one. I haven't gone to the ones outside of Las Vegas, but I missed, I was at the first one and last year and this year, so I would say at least three, potentially four.

[00:12:31] Ricardo Belmar: Okay, It was my second shop talk I got last year was my first one. Jeff, this, was this your first 

[00:12:35] Jeff Roster: No, this is my first one too. And what I think was interesting about the relationship angle, and I've, I've always, you know, preached that from the get-go. Listen, from a tech perspective, it's a relationship business. It's as big as Mayberry. And there's, you know, sheriff Andy, and, and you know, I mean, do not screw around in the industry, it's 5 trillion, but it is, is as big as Mayberry and it's, it's really cool to hear that. I also wonder, and [00:13:00] this is 180 degrees shift for me I've never, ever, never, ever been a fan of having anything in Vegas. I just think it gets, the shows tend to get lost. I think you have the, the bleed off and the old days.

[00:13:10] It quite frankly used to be, I thought, fairly inappropriate. B because some of the, you know, the costumes and all that sort of stuff, but I tell you it was genius to have it at Mandalay Bay One. I felt like I was back on a college dorm. Sort of that whole, that whole connection. Yeah, we joked about not being outside.

[00:13:26] Well, there was a reason I wasn't outside because everything was, was convenient and like, For instance, Kathy's party Sunday night. You know, I looked at the space before I got in there and thought, oh, man, that it just feels like we're just part of the whole big thing that couldn't have worked out better.

[00:13:39] One, it was quiet inside inappropriate for the conversation, but I watched probably 20 people walked by on the way to other things, you know, and so like pop out, pop back in, pop out. And I was at a party the, the Coresight party, and actually they had they had their space, but then there was another party that it was in another space, but the outside was, was, was common.

[00:13:59] [00:14:00] And I ended up at somebody else's party and had a great conversation with people that I'd met at another party. And man, you, you're not gonna see that any, at any, you, you, that's the only place probably in the plant. You could have all those different venues, world-class food, world-class space, but then have all that interaction.

[00:14:18] So, yeah, I, I just, I man, I, I have shifted 180 degrees about having something in Vegas. 

[00:14:23] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And then we, we were talking earlier, so there was also, and I think this, I, I love this relationship theme because there was Sunday afternoon, right? There was the, the Retail ROI get together for, for the March Gladness event, watching some of the March Madness games. And I think Jeff, maybe you were the one who said it, right?

[00:14:37] Just sitting there, you could just see people you recognize walking by, because it was on the way to registration for, for shop talk. People would walk by and say, Hey, how you doing?

[00:14:47] Jeff Roster: Somebody's gotta own that 2:00 PM space on Sunday, because literally at that location. So for people that weren't there, I think where we were, the bar we were at was probably what, a hundred yards at max from, from [00:15:00] registration, 

[00:15:00] Ricardo Belmar: from the registration. Right, 

[00:15:01] Jeff Roster: everyone was walking there. I mean, every startup on the planet, it should just be right there at that bar or the, or the Starbucks on the other side because you're seeing the whole show. 

[00:15:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:15:11] Yeah.

[00:15:12] The Experience Is the Relationship

[00:15:12] Vicki Cantrell: you know, I'm gonna just wanna one more thing on this aspect of relationship. Ricardo, Ricardo, when we were talking earlier and we talked about that, you know, pre pandemic was experiential you know, that's what retailers were trying to, to deal with, and then pandemic became about convenience and figuring out that, and that it's just based on some of these themes and some of the stuff we did see is how important we're back to the experience and the experience is gonna be different.

[00:15:43] You know, when you're talking about, ways of shopping and video and all, all of the different ways. But ,the fact that we think about that, for me, convenience and experience is the same because it's based on that your connection to, between the customer and the [00:16:00] retailer, that it's about the relationship.

[00:16:02] Because the experience is the relationship. It's not whether you walk into the store and say, oh, isn't this beautiful? That's not what the experience is. I mean, it better be okay or better be pleasant, but that's not the experience. The experience is the connection of the person that you're, you're being with when you get there.

[00:16:23] So retail is really about that. And if you have that relationship, then you're going to think this was convenient cuz you connected.

[00:16:34] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:35] Ron Thurston: agreed.

[00:16:36] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I, I, I agree. And, and, and you know, the other interesting thing I, I noticed too, just thinking again about these four themes now I, I wasn't at the earlier shop talks before last year, but what I do remember in, in talking with people who had been there and looking at the content coming out of the, the conference, you know, I, I think this really started out as a e-commerce focused kind of really heavily digital channels focused to, to [00:17:00] retail much less emphasis, if any, on what's happening in in stores. And, you know, and Jeff and I talked to the content team while we were there and, and they mentioned that, you know, they had gotten feedback from attendees that said, you know, in this post pandemic world, we, we really need to talk more about stores.

[00:17:18] Stores are a real focal point for our business and for our, how we build those relationships with consumers you know, that the content at the event needs to reflect that. And I, I, I think this is one of the things I find most interesting with Shop Talk is how quickly they pivot from topic to topic based on that feedback.

[00:17:37] You know, when we, when we sat, when we were chatting at N R F, one of the things we said is, well, we hope, we hear some themes around, , not just how you're enabling store teams, but when you add things to the store, are you just adding or are you taking something away? You know, are you recognizing that every time you add there's potentially a burden on, on the team there?

[00:17:56] And a difficulty in, in them executing it because it's yet one more [00:18:00] thing, it's one more thing to ask for. And I don't know that we heard that at NRF in sessions there very much. But I feel like at Shop Talk there was definitely, and, and they said it right in one of the four themes about enabling workers.

[00:18:13] That was definitely a sense. I mean, I, I even felt that in sessions that were not about, the store teams, it came up in the conversation with the speakers on stage. It's almo. It was almost like a reflex that everyone just recognizing every retailer that was up there, they could have been talking about optimizing their supply chain.

[00:18:31] And somehow then the conversation led to an impact on the store team and how they had to be aware of that and do something about it, not just let things happen. Which was something I hadn't really experienced and seen in this kind of content at other events.

[00:18:47] NOT the Year of Shiny Objects

[00:18:47] Ron Thurston: Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll jump in because I started it, but I think the you know, the, my my sense from speaking to so many retailers is there's, there's a sense of clarity [00:19:00]right now about the, which. Where revenue is being generated and, and where their business needs to grow and where they need to make investment.

[00:19:10] And I think maybe years past a little bit of like shiny object and what's fun and what's exciting, what keeps us in the press. And this is not a year of the shiny object. This is a year that we need to deliver on the investments that we've made. And that investment for all of them is in people, and stores, and if their e-commerce business is, is not growing at the rates they expected, then the revenue and the profitability comes from the store.

[00:19:40] And so I do think maybe it's even, you know, 90 days later, from N R F the retailers I'm speaking to is I'm here to find solutions for workforce management. I'm, I'm here to find things of a better way to, to communicate with my teams, to improve productivity, to think about [00:20:00] how to make returns easier at the store level.

[00:20:02] Just all of the things that are actually about delivering results. And you can't deliver the results that any company needs. Without strong teams in place who are well trained and led and motivated. And I, I just hope that, that this is not, or I should say, my sense is not, this was not a, a temporary idea that they have now said 80% of our revenue is coming from the store.

[00:20:30] And that's not changing. And we need to fix this. And I hope my sense is right given the, you know, the small set of people I spoke to. But that's my, that's my feeling right now.

[00:20:41] Jeff Roster: You know, that's a, that's quite a phrase, Ron. The, not the year of the shiny object. I mean, if you don't put that on Twitter today, I'm, I'm a hundred percent stealing that. Um, 

[00:20:50] Ron Thurston: Go for it. go for

[00:20:51] it Jeff

[00:20:52] Jeff Roster: And I think that's such a profound observation because I mean, I go back to the old wars, you know, the [00:21:00] retail Apocalypse Wars and all that sort of stuff for, for whatever reason folks trying to bury the store and, and, and, you know, Buzek and I, and I think, well, I didn't know you at the time yet, Ron, but we were like, how.

[00:21:11] Help me understand 90%, at the time it was 90% of the revenues coming from the store. Why would you try to do that? And I, I, I still don't know the answer to that, but I think, you know, maybe it's a covid thing, just a realization how important we are. We are a tribal people. We want to. The best part of human nature is wanting to be in, you know, in fellowship, in connection with people.

[00:21:34] And so if retail is a people business, it has to reflect that and, and our technology needs to reflect that. And maybe we're a little more mature than we were in 2020 and, and realize the value of people. 

[00:21:46] Yay. You know, I'm pro-human. And so that's a, that's a great observation. I think that's a, that's, that's a.

[00:21:52] Real, real thing. And I think what's interesting, Ron, when I walked the f the, the, the exhibit hall, which is where I spent all my time, the number of [00:22:00] live streamers, the number of, of folks wanting to do something more in the store, which kind of goes against your idea of like, let's not add to the store, but it's happening.

[00:22:08] I mean, TikTok was there in a big way. Fire, uh, I, I, I forget the names, but a bunch of those fight.

[00:22:14] Ron Thurston: Fire firework.

[00:22:15] Jeff Roster: firework. They're all. There's this, this idea that the store is the platform that we can do more with. And, and I think if we can unleash that creativity that all these, you know, all these folks have, and give them the tools, which they're already there.

[00:22:32] Wow. Holy smokes. We're gonna have a whole new engagement model.

[00:22:36] Ricardo Belmar: One interesting thing I heard, and I heard this more than once from different speakers and sessions on, on this point, you know take, take the livestream maybe was one example, but I I, I heard people say in a positive way this recognition that if we have more functions and roles needed in the store, there's this recognition that, you know, not every store team employee has to know how to do every single role.[00:23:00]

[00:23:00] That there is this idea of specialization. So, so maybe to your point, Jeff, if live streaming is something that a particular retailer's stores need to support, that doesn't mean every employee needs to be able to jump on a live stream. It means that maybe the, you know, three out of 10 or something that are good at it and want to do it. That's now their role, right? They, they, they're given that role and they put some focus on that. Maybe there are three other employees who's, who would rather be fulfilling BOPIS orders right in, in, in the back room. And because they can do that faster than the other employees. And it's okay to have this specialization and this recognition that, whether it's a store manager level or a district manager, somebody's has this awareness and that we're gearing the operation of the store around this idea that we can specialize in different areas and start building career paths for, for, for employees that that's something new that I hadn't heard before.

[00:23:51] Ron Thurston: Yeah,

[00:23:52] I think what, what happens in that Or, go ahead, Vicky.

[00:23:55] Vicki Cantrell: No, no, go. Go ahead.

[00:23:57] Ron Thurston: You know, I think that that, I think [00:24:00] what to add on to that, the realization that some of that evolution also doesn't have to happen in the store. So you think about livestream. Several brands have said, oh, great, we're gonna build a showroom in the office and we're gonna livestream from the office with, by someone who's highly skilled at selling live on camera, which is a very unique and important skill.

[00:24:23] But at the same time, if I'm gonna livestream from the office, then I need to have live inventory so that when I click into what I'm selling, oh I see it's available at my store. I can also buy online pickup in store, I can reserve. So there the rest. The rest of the chain has to, has to work in order for it.

[00:24:42] You can't just throw up livestream and think someone's gonna join your website on Tuesday at 12 o'clock and buy something. You actually have to build the infrastructure behind that, which requires a lot more than signing up for firework. And so I think that there, there's a, there's a thought process that's [00:25:00] deeper now, which is exciting.

[00:25:02] That doesn't have to just be like, let's add one more thing to the store. And that I, I'm excited about that.

[00:25:08] The True Melding of Digital and Physical Now Begins

[00:25:08] Vicki Cantrell: It feels like we're at an inflection point of the, and, you know, we all sense it, we've all sensed it for years. it, and it took a real shot in the arm when, when we were in the pandemic and online, like really spiked. know, because as we all know, people have been ignoring that stat of 80% of the sales come from the stores for years.

[00:25:33] As online has grown a little bit. They just, they still don't look at it. Okay. And now we, we have this feeling we can feel the sea change of, not, now it's not stores over, over online. It's not that it feels like a meld, finally feels like the, the coming together, not the either or. And so with that in mind, [00:26:00] I'd like to know from you guys how you see I know it's a arbitrary thing, but what time moves so fast?

[00:26:08] What does the, with this in mind, what do the next three years look like in retail? What's going to be important? What will happen as we continue to meld better, smarter in, in better ways? Like the meld really is happening. What's it gonna look like?

[00:26:27] Ricardo Belmar: I'll, I'll jump in. I, I, I think you're, you're right that we are, this meld is finally happening in the way that maybe we all started talking about. I'll pick a number, five years ago, right? That, that, that, that now there's sort of a recognition that not only is it happening, but actually needs to happen for, for supporting the business. It needs to happen because I, I go back to one of the things we said in that same timeframe was, you know what, now the consumer is in charge, right? The consumer now has all the power. Remember when that was the new phrase, a few years back. 

[00:26:56] So, so what, what is that led to now, right?

[00:26:58] Yeah. People like, like to [00:27:00] repeat it, but maybe didn't believe it. But I think now there's recognition that. Not only does the consumer still have the power, guess what? They've had it all these past years and you just didn't realize it. So now that you're recognizing it, it's time to do something for that.

[00:27:12] And, and the the something that you need to do is this melding because, I think all four of us have said it right, consumers don't care about channels. you know, there was a lot of, of jokes made, I think during shop talk about when they said on stage it was time to kill omnichannel and, and use a different phrase.

[00:27:26] But I, I think the jokes aside, maybe the reason why we don't need to use that as a term is because if we're truly gonna look at things from the consumer's perspective, there's no such thing as a channel,

[00:27:36] Vicki Cantrell: Right.

[00:27:37] Ricardo Belmar: right? The whole I idea of looking at it, measuring, developing, operating in terms of these channels is absolutely meaningless to the consumer.

[00:27:46] And what is meaningful to the consumer is, do you have a product I'm looking for, where can I go get it? How can I get it? How can I learn about it? To make sure I'm, I'm making the right choice and can you help me do all of the above? [00:28:00] And sometimes that's on, could be on a live stream you know, could be in a store, might just be the website.

[00:28:06] you know, now, now we're, because of the new developments in ai right? We actually have meaningful demos about chatbots being helpful, unlike previous generations that maybe weren't so helpful. but yeah, there's all these different ways to, to do that now. It doesn't matter. I, I think maybe I, I might rephrase it to say it's not that we need to stop thinking about channels.

[00:28:23] It's that let's recognize the channels don't matter. What matters is, how are you making those things I just listed available to that customer? you know, I, I like using Jeff, your example. We mentioned about B N H photo and we talked last time at N R F, right? 

[00:28:37] Jeff Roster: Just thinking 

[00:28:38] Ricardo Belmar: Because it's like the per, it's the perfect example, right?

[00:28:41] You needed to know. About a product and, and, and maybe it wasn't even a product, I guess I shouldn't say a product. You needed to know about a category, right? To help you decide on a product and you leveraged that livestream. It was a one-to-one, but I'd still call it a livestream for that learning experience.

[00:28:57] Did it matter to you as a consumer that it was [00:29:00] a livestream versus you having been in New York City and walked into the b and h store? No. Right. And. It didn't matter. You got the answer you wanted. You knew what you wanted to buy in the end. And that's, that was the win. So I think that's what what I see is finally happening and we'll see more of it is the blending is real. and I think the technologies have caught up too. I think maybe one of the reasons, if, if we're honest, right? It's that there were a lot of technology promises in those past years that were 80% there, maybe not a hundred percent there. And retailers, you know, in fairness right, couldn't figure out how do I get that extra 20% to make it right.

[00:29:34] I think the technology is catching up to that in many ways to make it more, more doable and easier to do. And, and. The consumer adoption is there. You know, one of the things I, I joked about with some folks at, at Shop Talk is last year's big hype was all metaverse, right? And when you look back and say, well, why didn't that necessarily pick up?

[00:29:54] And I'm not gonna say that it's gone, but I am gonna say that it it, the promises that were talked about and hyped up at Shop Talk [00:30:00] last year didn't materialize because what's the thing that was missing? It was the consumer adoption of it. the retailers could do any, everything they wanted on that, but consumers didn't really have a reason to adopt it.

[00:30:11] Whereas I, I think now the technologies retailers are looking at don't have that consumer adoption element because it's transparent to the consumer. And I think that's where the focus will go. So if a retailer thinks a, I'm not gonna worry about channels, I just need to present things in front of a customer in some way.

[00:30:27] What are all the different ways I can do that? What technologies help me accomplish that? And which ones don't really require the consumer to learn how to use it because they're already using it. It's either, you know, consumers know how to watch a video. You don't have to teach them how to join a live stream, that that's easy.

[00:30:41] You're gonna have to teach them how to go to a website. You have to teach them how to go into a store and do things. That's why Metaverse hadn't picked up yet, because consumers have to learn how to do it. And you know, back to Ron, your comment. It's not the year for shiny objects. 

[00:30:55] So the, the technology, I think now, and I, I'll say for now, and let's make it the next [00:31:00] three years, the technology's gonna help with that seamless nature, which I guess I'm back to one of the four shop talk themes, right?

[00:31:05] Seamless stores. but maybe expanding it to just seamless experience that that's where it's finally gonna go. And we won't have to, we're not gonna need to distinguish. Oh, is that an experiential retail scenario for the consumer, or is it about convenience? It's just there, it's just commerce.

[00:31:21] Ron Thurston: Yeah,

[00:31:22] Jeff Roster: Yeah, 

[00:31:22] Ron Thurston: mean, I'd love I, 

[00:31:24] Jeff Roster: Go ahead, Ron.

[00:31:25] Ron Thurston: go ahead, Jeff. No, go ahead.

[00:31:26] The New Way to Encourage Innovation With Consumer Adoption

[00:31:26] Jeff Roster: So Ricardo, I know you're gonna be shocked to hear this, but sometimes vendors make a lot of buzz or noise or, or to go back to my old days hype. The whole metaverse thing is so illustrative because one, I I'm a fan because I've trained in simulators as a aviator for, for 25 years, but that is a massively heavy lift.

[00:31:45] And to go and scream about something that is a massively heavy lift we're, we're absolutely gonna see that evolve and it's gonna take kinda like R F I D probably five to ten years. And so, you know what we need to understand, and this is where we as communicators really need to. [00:32:00]Probably should have been in front of that a lot more.

[00:32:01] It's like, let's encourage innovation, but understand what it takes to innovate. You can't, I mean, you can't spend 10 trillion overnight. You have to do that in increments and you have to encourage the innovation and not make fun of it when it, you know, something like, like Metaverse doesn't blow up overnight.

[00:32:18] There's a lot of processes and the process for innovation has become cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And that's, that's what's also helping. I mean, low-code. I mean it's you know, my podcast partner, Brian can't say the word low-code enough in, in every sentence, it's low-code cuz he's a low-code guy.

[00:32:32] But, but he's, he's sold me on that. I mean, when I started at Gardner, I, I mean terabyte of storage was a million dollars. I've got 15 terabytes on my desk. I've got three terabytes in my laptop. That's a picture in 20 years of the massively almost deflationary cycle or cost of, of innovation.

[00:32:52] And that's what we have now. Now we have these tools, now we have all this stuff. You think about. You think about what, what a customer service channel is [00:33:00] gonna look like in a year. We're gonna be live streaming we're gonna have ChatGPT I mean, it is orders of magnitude different than what we, what we, what we were, you know, just a simple phone call even five or six years ago.

[00:33:11] That's how fast we're innovating. And the key though, that's how cheaply we're able to innovate and to do things. And now the key point, and Ricardo, you're so spot on. You have a customer that now has more power in their hands and we, that's an old story, but they know how to use it. They know how to embrace it.

[00:33:29] And I think the other thing that people need to understand, that's one thing Ron, I'm a little concerned about when I hear brands wanna maybe over, over. I don't know, try to manage that live stream a little too much. Look at TikTok. Those are not professional videos. Those are getting millions of views.

[00:33:45] Those are kids with a phone in front of them. And so the, that expectation for something overmanaged, I think is gonna, is gonna be a negative more, more so than a positive. And so that's that part of that innovation where the customers way ahead of where we are as brands, as [00:34:00]retailers, and we're just sort of racing and trying to figure out, okay, how, how much professionalism do we put in?

[00:34:05] How much do we let people run loose? So exciting. The next three years are just gonna be insane. Um,

[00:34:10] Vicki Cantrell: what you just said has one specific word that is the same and has been the same for the last 10 years, will be the same for the next 10 years. The key is that the consumer knows how to adopt adoption. We all know that things that can't be or it's difficult to adopt, never work, whether it's metaverse or whatever, or tools.

[00:34:31] Things that are easy to adopt will always work. And the consumer now has a very different set of a very different playing field for their adoption. That is not in our control and but it benefits us tremendously.

[00:34:49] The Loyalty Factor

[00:34:49] Ron Thurston: Yeah, agreed. I agree with you, Jeff. It's it's that balance of like, what can I do? Like test, learn, try, get out of it quickly, or, you know, [00:35:00] actually, if this is an important part of, of the customer journey, I think that what I would add to your question, Vicky, about the next three to five years is about loyalty, but I look at it in like really two, two very different ways.

[00:35:14] I look at it from a, a store, I look at it from a store team if we're gonna talk about stores, we have to talk about team loyalty and people loyalty. And so the biggest pushback from investment in people that I hear from senior executives is, the turnover's too high for me to spend money on these people.

[00:35:36] And my pushback is the reason that they're turning is because you're not investing. And if, if we don't, if we don't put more effort into loyalty at the front lines, it's going, we're gonna keep repeating the same mistakes and we're, we're never gonna deliver the results that we need if you can't retain the team.

[00:35:56] So I think there's a huge loyalty frontline. And then [00:36:00] there's loyalty customer so much about first. Data, you know, how do we get new customers? How do we retain that customer? How much does it cost to get that customer? And while I think the conversation about having like the full picture of the customer when they walk into a store is a good conversation, I don't see it live in action.

[00:36:22] If I'm a, you know, a, a very like loyal e-com for one brand, I walk into a location that they have no idea who I am. 

[00:36:32] And so I think we, we have to figure out ways to retain loyal customers. That's cha, a channel less loyal customer. Uh, because they're putting a lot of effort in there. Now finding ways. I mean, that's, I was between NRF and, and Shoptalk.

[00:36:48] I was at eTail, which, you know, that is very much about marketing and customer and first cus first party data and that we, we have to think about that as a major priority for [00:37:00] the next three years too. And from, from both sides. yeah. 

[00:37:04] Vicki Cantrell: great point.

[00:37:05] Ron Thurston: Yeah. 

[00:37:06] Vicki Cantrell: And, and loyalty is not about points anymore. That's, that's, that's, that's gonna be like the word innovation really needs to mean something different. So does the word loyalty. It's not about earn points. It's a very different proposition. I think, Ron, you explained it. You explained it well.

[00:37:23] Ron Thurston: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, and it's, it's, you know, luxury, luxury brands are going through this. Contemporary brands are going through this, you know, people are then, yeah, Walmart's writing about a luxury customer shop buying groceries at Walmart. Now how do, how do I retain that customer and a Walmart, but I'm also then buying a handbag at Gucci like this.

[00:37:45] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:45] Ron Thurston: There, there's no one right way to say how a customer's behaving today, yet loyalty to the, to the brands where people have gravitated is how we will sustain great results.

[00:37:58] Vicki Cantrell: Yeah.[00:38:00]

[00:38:00] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I, I, I think, you know, hearing you say that I, I, I thought of two other examples like the Sephora at a Kohls. How does Kohls convert that Sephora customer to shop in the Kohls much like, you know, the Amazon returns in the Kohls, giving them, a coupon to buy something in the store over the next few days.

[00:38:18] I think that's the same as your example Vicki, it's not of just about points uh, points and discounts don't buy loyalty for a brand, but then compare that to the kind of loyalty a brand like Apple has with their customers. Which I, if there's gonna be, if you were to pick two or three top brands, that probably reflect the highest loyalty, I think that has to be one of the top three right there. And sure you can point to, you know, the decision to open stores as having been a great piece of that, but it's not really just about Apple stores, it's just everything about them that drives the loyalty. And there's an example of a brand that doesn't give points and doesn't give discounts, that has a lot of super loyal customers.

[00:38:54] As you know, when we got on here and we all showed off our, our AirPods Max headphones here. [00:39:00] So there's, there's a brand loyalty example that's real.

[00:39:03] Ron Thurston: But

[00:39:03] they have But they 

[00:39:04] Vicki Cantrell: of the relationship experience. 

[00:39:07] Yeah. 

[00:39:08] Ron Thurston: but they also have frontline team loyalty. This is a, that's a brand that invests heavily in stores and training and development and, and strategy and upskilling them and investing and stretch assignments and going to Cupertino for a year, going to Hong Kong for a year.

[00:39:26] Like they will do anything to make sure that their teams are happy. Having worked there, myself and I can speak to it like it, they're the loyalty, generally from Apple employees in stores is really high and you feel that they're proud to work there and they're could not be more excited to sell you 600 dollar headphones.

[00:39:47] And you know, we, we all, we all do. We all do it. And it's a really good example, Ricardo. Yeah.

[00:39:53] Back to Changing Relationships As The ShopTalk Theme

[00:39:53] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Vicky, you started us on the, that changing relationships theme as maybe the [00:40:00] core theme of the four that Shop Talk mentioned. I think Ron, with the raising the point about loyalty, you brought us right back full circle again to the changing relationships and how that, if we were to pick one theme of, of the four that Shop Talk's that I think we're, we're sort of, maybe indirectly agreeing here that the number one theme was these changing relationships and which includes both how you build that brand customer relationship, but also the brand employee relationship, and I think we can add in, you know, brand to brand relationship. It really is all about how those relationships are changing and how they remain together for the success of the business.

[00:40:38] Ron Thurston: Yeah. agreed.

[00:40:40] Vicki Cantrell: agreed. 

[00:40:41] Ron Thurston: Yeah. 

[00:40:41] Ricardo Belmar: So I think maybe that's a good note for us to close on,

[00:40:46] Vicki Cantrell: Sounds great. 

[00:40:47] Ron Thurston: Yes, 

[00:40:47] Vicki Cantrell: is always so much fun. 

[00:40:50] It's a great, always a great conversation 

[00:40:53] Ricardo Belmar: think Jeff, your idea is onto something here that we do these after an event a few days or so after the event, so we've all had time to kind [00:41:00] of think about and, and digest it.

[00:41:01] Jeff Roster: yeah, I, I do think, I do think vendors are gonna have a tough decision now. I mean, they're gonna have to consider shop talk a, a, a, a really legitimate show. And especially if they push into the store aspect of it. It's gonna be interesting to see how, how, how you allocate your marketing dollars. But I was impressed.

[00:41:17] I was very impressed with the show.

[00:41:20] Ron Thurston: me too. Very impressed. Is anyone going to Barcelona?

[00:41:23] Vicki Cantrell: No.

[00:41:24] Ron Thurston: No. 

[00:41:24] Ricardo Belmar: unfortunately, 

[00:41:25] Jeff Roster: great city, but two darn

[00:41:27] Ricardo Belmar: if only so, yeah,

[00:41:28] Ron Thurston: no recap of Shop Talk Barcelona.

[00:41:39] Ricardo Belmar: Yep, Well,

[00:41:39] Jeff Roster: Maybe 

[00:41:40] Ron Thurston: I think 

[00:41:40] Jeff Roster: cover it. Maybe we'll cover it from afar. we'll just, we'll just jump the, We'll, jump the Twitter hashtag and then give our 

[00:41:45] Ricardo Belmar: right. right. We'll, we'll look for great photos from people who are fortunate enough to be there.

[00:41:52] Jeff Roster: Exactly.

[00:41:54] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I, I guess maybe on that sort of disappointing note for the conversation

[00:41:57] Ron Thurston: Sorry. 

[00:41:58] Ricardo Belmar: we'll, we'll wrap it up [00:42:00] there. What do you say Jeff? 

[00:42:01] Jeff Roster: Sounds good.

[00:42:02] Ricardo Belmar: Sound good? All right. Well, Ron, Vicki, a as always a pleasure. Thanks again. We're gonna have to keep, keep doing these cuz this is just too much fun not to.

[00:42:10] Vicki Cantrell: Yeah, it's great. I love seeing you guys. Happy Friday. Happy weekend. Happy Easter. Happy Passover.

[00:42:16] Ron Thurston: Same. Same to you. 

[00:42:17] Same to you. Thank you. 

[00:42:18] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks everybody. Thank you.

[00:42:19] Vicki Cantrell: Okay, bye.

[00:42:21] Ron Thurston: Bye.

[00:42:22] Show Recap

[00:42:22] Casey Golden: Welcome back everyone and wow, I loved that conversation. I'm so with you guys on focusing on people. Retail is, totally a people business. I might not have been at Shop Talk, but I have to agree with the whole point about changing relationships and focusing on people loyalty both with store teams and customers is really where every retailer and brand needs to go.

[00:42:52] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, it, it's interesting how different this discussion went compared to the conversation Jeff and I had with Krystina [00:43:00] Gustafson and Ben Miller in part one of the series. In that discussion, we really dug into, All the main trends at the show, and, and both Krystina and Ben really gave us some amazing details and viewpoints on how those four trends were manifesting in the industry and how people talked about it at the show.

[00:43:15] And they were totally right about those trends. And of course, I, I have to put a plug in here for retail media networks and that that's for you, Jeff, if you're out there listening, you know, I couldn't resist to bring that up, just, just so you're aware. But when Ron and Vicki both brought us to that intersection of technology and people, it nicely outlined how it really does come down to people no matter what you do with the technology in retailing.

[00:43:36] I have to say, that's what made this one of my favorite conversations on the podcast yet.

[00:43:41] Casey Golden: Well, I mean, I really appreciate you guys for, you know, always bringing it back to center, amplifying the importance of relationships. It's really been with a heavy heart over this pandemic, just kind of seeing clientele turn into email marketing and diluting the magic of these relationships and that sales process, [00:44:00] or beyond the sales process, like the brand experience, you know, coming from the luxury side.

[00:44:06] It's so much more than a sales associate, and shopping alone just hasn't hit the same note. So I'm just really excited to see so much focus go into the people, the relationships, the technology that needs to be made for people to like scale their work. Workspaces, digitization, not just replacement and, and AI like,

[00:44:34] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah,

[00:44:35] Casey Golden: AI Bard and I are not getting into conversations about shoes, pants, jackets, dress, nada! not invited 

[00:44:42] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's not happening. Yeah. I, I, I really think Vicki nailed it in her comment when she said, you know, the relationship is the experience. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about. And you know, as often, I mean, let, let's face it, we talk about technology on this show all the time, but we, we can't lose sight of [00:45:00] why are we talking about technology?

[00:45:01] It's to help augment that people relationship, not replace it. And, and that I think is really what we're, this conversation really got to. And, and I'm really excited that that's where it ended up.

[00:45:11] Casey Golden: Me too. I'm slightly biased, but thanks. I, I, I really like how you guys brought this together. With that Vicki called the melding of online in stores. Of course, I'm a store girl, right. But I like built some of the first e-commerce stores. And I just love talking about like store teams, how interacting with a stylist or a personal shopper makes a completely different and unique experience from discovering products to just the buying process.

[00:45:42] Vicki just nailed it by saying that the experience is the relationship and what that melding, digital and physical is all about. When retails retailers do it right, services

[00:45:56] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:57] Casey Golden: are significant.

[00:45:58] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. I, I [00:46:00] agree. And I think Jeff added a great point there too, about how the technology has to enable this, not compete with it, not make it more complicated. You know, it's that, it, it's that whole adoption point that we all talked about and why I think we all agree in that, you know, the, the current tech trends like, All, everything about generative AI right now and anything else that took over the conversation at this year's Shop Talk really have an advantage over the metaverse trend from last year's show because it comes down to consumer adoption.

[00:46:26] If consumers can benefit from a technology without adopting anything new or any, whether it's a new habit or the ac, technology on, on the consumer side of it, then that's a winner. For retailers, if consumers have to adopt something, it's gonna take a lot longer for, for them to complete that adoption and to make an impact on, on the retailer's business.

[00:46:43] It doesn't mean it won't happen. I think to Jeff's point about metaverse, I think we'd all agree it's gonna happen. It will happen. It's just not happening right away. It might not happen in less than a year's time. It's more of a long-term play. But some of these other technologies that we're trending this year, they have an immediate impact.

[00:46:58] Casey Golden: Hundred [00:47:00] percent. I mean so much, so many of times technology ends up taking the work out of the business or the process and puts all of the work on the consumer. They have to do the heavy lifting and I think metaverse is definitely suffered from that, you know, the perspective that you just spoke of.

[00:47:22] But then again, like. Web three has a better chance of making a difference because it's easier to lift on the consumer side than the Metaverse. The adoption will come from loyalty programs, as an example. Exclusive and unlockable content. Just look at Starbucks New Odyssey program and what you and Jeff talked about with Max from Z Blocks back at N R F.

[00:47:46] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's true. That that's true. I mean, although I have to admit, I, I, I've totally failed in my efforts to unlock the first NFTs in the Starbucks program. I didn't get enough points to get the early drop.

[00:47:55] Casey Golden: All right. Well, I, we, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll do a little one-on-one[00:48:00]

[00:48:00] Ricardo Belmar: I may need your help on that.

[00:48:01] Casey Golden: Be offline and on the blockchain.

[00:48:04] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Oh, okay. I guess you know that maybe with your help, I can do better next time. But you know, I, I guess on that totally disappointing note I think this is, it only means one thing for this episode, right Casey?

[00:48:17] Casey Golden: Indeed it's that time to, to wrap up. And I have to say, I agree. It's the best one ever. So we're gonna wrap up this Shop Talk crossover series with Jeff Roster and This Week In Innovation, it's been good.

[00:48:32] Ricardo Belmar: It has.

[00:48:33] Show Close

[00:48:33] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed this season shows, especially our just completed podcast crossover mini-series, please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcast. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute. Plus remember, you can watch us, not just listen on our YouTube [00:49:00] channel and like, and comment there too. Share your thoughts. 

[00:49:03] If you wanna know more about what we talked about today, including a full transcript of this episode, take a look at the show notes for handy links and more deets. I'm your co-host, Casey Golden.

[00:49:14] Ricardo Belmar: If you'd like to connect with us and share your thoughts on this season and crossover series, follow us on Twitter at Casey c Golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter and LinkedIn, too, at Retail Razor for the latest updates. And watch for our season finale episode coming soon with a truly special guest host that's gonna turn things around and ask us questions for a change.

[00:49:37] But for now, I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.

[00:49:39] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[00:49:42] ​

[00:49:45] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail if you cut through the clutter. 

[00:49:49] Until next time. 

[00:49:50] This is the Retail Razor Show. [00:50:00]

How can retailers perform A/B testing of merchandise layouts in their stores without cost and without burdening store teams? By using Digital Twins, that’s how! So how does a retailer build a digital twin of their stores? Meet startup Site Bionics and founder and CEO, Adam Blair. It’s Part 3 of our #ShoptalkLive podcast cross-over series with This Week in Innovation and special guest host Jeff Roster, recorded live and in-person at Shoptalk!

In this episode, Jeff and regular host Ricardo Belmar sit down with Site Bionics CEO, Adam Blair, to learn how they are helping retailers solve merchandising and operational challenges via digital twins, dramatically reducing the cost of testing new store layouts. Plus, we learn how Site Bionics can even help validate coverage maps of loss prevention camera systems! Yes, Jeff and Ricardo have uncovered another trend at Shoptalk – using loss prevention camera infrastructure in multiple ways that will positively impact your revenue streams and lower your costs. It’s all in this episode!

We’re now standing at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your regular hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

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Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

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Host → Ricardo Belmar,

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TRANSCRIPT

S2E12c Digital Twins with Site Bionics

[00:00:00] Show Intro 

[00:00:20] Casey Golden: Hello Retail Razor Show listeners and viewers, and welcome to retail's favorite podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike. I'm your host, Casey Golden.

[00:00:33] Ricardo Belmar: And I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar. Welcome to part three in our Shop Top Live crossover event with Jeff Roster, and This Week In Innovation podcast.

[00:00:42] Casey Golden: You guys really make me feel like I missed out on some great conversations. I think I'm getting more FOMO than our listeners here.

[00:00:51] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:00:52] Casey Golden: You are killing it with these amazing interviews. I have to come and join you guys next time, even though like I have no business [00:01:00] purpose to be there.

[00:01:02] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it would be amazing if you could make it, Casey, we definitely missed you on this. It was lots of fun to, to capture these sessions. So on today's show, we are talking about none other than digital twins. One of my favorite probably my, the favorite metaverse topic that isn't necessarily a metaverse topic.

[00:01:22] Casey Golden: Right. Well, I'm already hooked, so just tell me more. Spill it. Who did you guys chat with?

[00:01:30] Ricardo Belmar: So this time Jeff and I spoke with Adam Blair, c e o, and founder of Startup Site Bionics. And in this discussion we learned just how popular it is to use those loss prevention cameras in your store for so much more than loss prevention. I mean, this was the second startup we talked to that were tapping into those cameras as a resource for analytics.

[00:01:50] This time using them to help build a multi-layered digital twin of your store.

[00:01:54] Casey Golden: Interesting. And you guys uncovered a trend trend there. Wow. Like [00:02:00] not many people would've said those loss prevention cameras are so popular not too long ago.

[00:02:06] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. Right. Exactly. So you, you'll also want to keep track throughout this discussion with Adam of just how many different use cases and questions you can answer about your store environment using this digital twin that you build with, with their solution and, and all the loss prevention cameras plus a few extra little add-ons that that I think are pretty clever that they do.

[00:02:25] Casey Golden: Well, let's not spend any more precious time talking about it. Let's get right into the discussion with you, Jeff and Adam Blair, c e o of Site Bionics, recorded live and in person at Shoptalk 2023.

[00:02:40] Site Bionics Interview

[00:02:40] Ricardo Belmar: ​hey everyone we are back at Shop Talk 2023, continuing our crossover event with This Week In Innovation. I'm Ricardo Belmar. I'm host of the Retail Razor Show and I am here with none other than the myth, the legend, Mr. Jeff Roster,

[00:02:59] Jeff Roster: [00:03:00] how you, how you doing today? I don't know about you, but I am dragging. I'm possibly, I went a little hard on the, on the evening research opportunities last night.

[00:03:08] Ricardo Belmar: Just a little, just a Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:10] Jeff Roster: little bit hard, but it was

[00:03:11] Ricardo Belmar: It's, it was, yeah. It's, it's what are we day three? Are we day three, day

[00:03:14] Jeff Roster: five. I tried to, I really was planning on being done by eight, but there was an event at the What Skyfall lounge, which was started at nine 30.

[00:03:24] Phenomenal. But boy, that got a little bit late Little 

[00:03:30] Ricardo Belmar: I hear you. I hear you. One, one more day to go. One more day. One more day to go. All right. All right. So the good news is we've got another great guest with us today. Jeff. We are here with Adam Blair and the CEO of Site Bionics, who's gonna tell us all about the cool things that he's working on over there.

[00:03:47] So Adam, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself here and dive in and give us your background and what Site Bionics is all about and what you know, what challenges are you solving for retailers and, and give us the scoop.

[00:03:58] Adam Blair: Sounds good. [00:04:00] Thanks for the intro. Yeah. At Site Bionics we're helping retailers make sense of their physical world.

[00:04:04] And what that means particularly is we're building digital twins for retail stores. And we, we view that as, just to be clear, cuz we, we you know, one of the things that you get into with digital twins is there's a lot of different uses of it.

[00:04:16] The different, it's an kind of an overloaded term. Right, right, right. We view the digital twin as a data, fundamentally a data model of the store. And it's a means of getting, taking the messy, unstructured, unstructured data that you get in a store when you have humans moving around doing what humans do.

[00:04:32] And and, and you try to make sense of it all. So yeah, for us, it, it actually getting into a little bit of how we do that, we start a little, we start by getting a, a sense of the site. So we have the means of going around and getting a physical rendering. So, to be clear, it's not sort of a metaverse play in that direct sense, right?

[00:04:50] Where we're just, you're not necessarily going into it. But we do have, for what it's worth, we do have a rendering that's like video game quality rendering of the space. But that's a tool it's a [00:05:00] tool that allows us to we, we can start there. We can help retailer to understand how the store is laid out whether or not their merchandising and their layout is matching what they expect from corporate and, and be able to feed that data back.

[00:05:11] And that's sort of our layer. Right. Then we have the ability to layer on to use existing cameras in the store as available and be able to add sort of our video analytics piece on top of that where you can track movement through the space. Right. And then we have an iot portion that can go beyond that too, where we can leverage on my, my pack background in, in R F I D particularly and, and other iot technologies and, and be able to.

[00:05:36] That and, and, and build really. So it's sort of these layers and we want to bring value to retailer to each of these layers, right? And but it's the full data source. That's really the thing. And, and, and then once you add that, you get that full system you get the learning that goes on top of it.

[00:05:51] And then you have the ability to move into higher levels of analytics where you're able to get a model and understand how things are behaving, why they're, why things are happening and, [00:06:00] and then help retailers better understand how to use their space and make the most of it.

[00:06:04] Building a Digital Twin

[00:06:04] Jeff Roster: So a couple questions right off the bat. How do you get the, the first rendering in, in layer one?

[00:06:10] Adam Blair: Yeah, we do that with it's, it's, it is using just a cell phone standard imagery. We have the ability and we, we've actually this is the piece we've built so far. We're, we're obviously very, we're very new startup.

[00:06:19] We've only been around for a couple months but this is a piece that we have, we developed the capability to go into a store and develop that rendering in about 15 minutes for like a mall size store. So yes. Yes,

[00:06:31] Jeff Roster: So who would actually do that? Would store associate level? I mean, just literally somebody just taking their phone and just videoing the the aisles and 

[00:06:37] Adam Blair: that's right. 

[00:06:38] Jeff Roster: Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:06:39] Adam Blair: Yeah. It's, it's, we don't want it to be specialized. We don't want to have to send our people in. We want to make that available to, you know, the, the people that are there for, for ease,

[00:06:46] Jeff Roster: Then I think in layer two, you said something about tying into existing cameras, is that the LP cameras or

[00:06:52] Adam Blair: we have the ability to do that. Yes. Or that, that's what we're working to build, I should say the, the, the DVR that's existing on the camera, right? I mean, we're, we're, we're very [00:07:00] sensitive about privacy. Right? That's a big, big deal for us. We mean that genuinely. So we don't, you know, we don't want to be storing any date, any, any image data.

[00:07:09] We wanna leverage the existing systems that, that are there.

[00:07:11] And so we would, yeah, we would be able to essentially connect in with the existing security system and, and be able to derive analytics from that.

[00:07:20] How Retailers Use Digital Twins

[00:07:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm, interesting. So tell us then a little bit about what kind of analytics you would expect a retailer to, to benefit from here, how would they use, so once you have the digital twin of the store, right. How are you expecting a, a retailer to use this?

[00:07:33] Adam Blair: Yeah, we're expecting I mean, it's, it's, look, we, we think that this if we can get to the full digital twin or when we get there, I should say that it, it can be used in, in all sorts of aspects of how they run the store. So and how they engage with their customers as well. Right? So it starts with making the most, the, the best use of the space that they have, right?

[00:07:50] Understanding how they wanna lay out a store, right? We would expect them to, in, in the long run, to be able to sort of model how they think it should work. Test it out, you might be able to [00:08:00] run AB testing in multiple stores, right. And, and, and really get to the next level of EF efficiency in sort of, in terms of the layout and, and merchandising.

[00:08:10] We expect to be able to understand that the full con, the, the full shopper path to purchase. We do believe we have the ability to tie that back to individuals as if they were to opt-in.

[00:08:19] They can opt in at any point in their journey, and the entire journey could be connected in. So you could start to actually conceive of a digital twin of the individual as they opt in and, and, and make better use of that.

[00:08:30] And then and then, and then operationally in, in terms of operational efficiency, right? Understanding how their staff are moving around, how they're, who they're interacting, when and why. And, and try to improve operations as well.

[00:08:41] So it's kind of, it can be kind of all things for all people. Right? I'm, I'm obviously sharing a vision here.

[00:08:46] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:08:47] Okay. Okay.

[00:08:48] What a Deployment Looks Like

[00:08:48] Jeff Roster: So what would a deployment look like?

[00:08:51] Adam Blair: That's a great question. Yeah. So the, the, the, the early deployment is you go in and you scan the store using our app which we, we are in the, we [00:09:00] we plan to productize, right? So you would go in and you would do that, that sort of first deployment, you'd connect into the back the, the security system just a computer in the back office kind of thing.

[00:09:09] And and that's, that's actually all you need, right? Because you have the, the imagery and the, the, the data. We have the ability to understand what's a fixture, what's what different product. And infer your merchandising plan and how it, how it's the store is laid out. And, and so that's, that's kind of all that's necessary to g to get going.

[00:09:27] We would be, you know, we would expect to be delivering dashboards and things like that. So your, your people in corporate, your merchandisers could actually interact with the store, right? You could actually lay it out in our tool set and drag and drop fixtures around and move them around in that way.

[00:09:40] And then, and then push that down to your in-store.

[00:09:44] You can get the, the feedback confirmation that the store has been laid out appropriately, and see how the behaviors adapt and how performance the store adapts.

[00:09:52] Jeff Roster: So you're getting live feed constantly out of the the LP cameras. right. Any issue with LP?

[00:09:59] Adam Blair: With, with [00:10:00] LP directly? It depends. I mean, it's gonna depend, it's gonna depend a lot on, on, on who, right?

[00:10:04] Jeff Roster: so easy to work with. I'm sure.

[00:10:06] Adam Blair: Very flexible. There is. Look, there's, there's absolutely a, a, a path in there with any, anytime. Look, anytime you put any computer system inside anybody's network, you have to be there's a process you have to go through. With lp it'll be more rigorous for sure.

[00:10:20] Like I said, we we're, we're totally open from a privacy perspective having, having the code, getting vetted right is, is totally, you know, among our expectations, right?

[00:10:31] Jeff Roster: Well, you know, Ricardo, that's interesting cuz that's the second, second startup we've talked

[00:10:34] Ricardo Belmar: That's right.

[00:10:35] Jeff Roster: tying in. So there's,

[00:10:36] there seems

[00:10:36] to be a trend

[00:10:37] Ricardo Belmar: trend here in leveraging that LP video

[00:10:39] Jeff Roster: 36 hours ago, if you would've said, You're gonna run stuff through the LP camera. I've said you're crazy, but, but I mean, obviously two, you know the last two folks we talked to, so Yeah.

[00:10:49] And it does make sense to sweat those assets. So

[00:10:51] Ricardo Belmar: right. No, I mean, it, it does because you, you've already got a lot of useful information there. You're already covering exactly what you want to see in the store, so [00:11:00] this is a great way of, of using that information to derive new data insights from it. 

[00:11:05] Adam Blair: In fact, one of, one of the, one of the potential early, early benefits you can have from this approach is you can actually get an, an immediate assessment of how good are your, is your security camera layout, right? Because we could show you exactly where in that 3D rendering you have coverage and where you do not. Right. 

[00:11:20] Ricardo Belmar: that's interesting.

[00:11:21] Interesting. 

[00:11:21] That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:23] Jeff Roster: Any sense right now what percentage of the store is covered? I would think in theory they would say a hundred percent, but obviously it can't be a hundred 

[00:11:30] Adam Blair: Yeah. Talk to the employees and see what they say. Right.

[00:11:33] where they take those hidden breaks. I, I don't actually have a sense for that. I mean, it, it's it's, and, and, and it's also the sort of thing again, we, we have the ability to go in and say where those holes are, how to fill them.

[00:11:44] The Digital Twin Vision

[00:11:44] Ricardo Belmar: So do you envision a retailer using this, so, you know, once you have that digital twin, they have the model that they're gonna do a lot of kind of what if and ab scenarios on, product placements on shelves, and rearranging things and doing some modeling with that before they push that down to stores.[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] Adam Blair: Absolutely. I mean, I, I think that that's that, that's absolutely one of the expectations. The other way that I actually like to look about, look at it is you know, most retailers when they provide direction down to the stores, they're providing guidance. And there's different, retailers are different in terms of how much local control that they give, but I love the idea of giving a bit more local control. Right. You know, one, one of the retailers we spoke with about this, they had, they said that the reason they don't give more local control is that they found they don't trust the control at the retail at, at the, at the retailer, at the, at the local site.

[00:12:28] Right. They, they you know, the, the person that has best of intentions and, and the example that they gave us directly was then you end up with a beer next to the back to school section. Right.

[00:12:38] Jeff Roster: It might

[00:12:38] work. I don't know.

[00:12:39] Ricardo Belmar: I don't, I don't know if that's unintentional, that

[00:12:41] Jeff Roster: it would've worked at.

[00:12:42] Ricardo Belmar: exclusively as a parent. I don't know if that's unintentional.

[00:12:44] Jeff Roster: definitely would've worked at Chico State. Dropping a daughter off at San Diego State, it absolutely would've worked there.

[00:12:49] Adam Blair: Maybe a little off brand for the retailer though.

[00:12:51] Ricardo Belmar: Maybe just a bit. Yeah, maybe a little.

[00:12:53] Adam Blair: But, but, but, but you give that sort of control down and now you actually introduce some randomness into the larger system. And that's actually a good thing in this [00:13:00]case, because as long as you're able to measure and then close that feedback loop, when somebody goes and does something that's silly, you can, you'll see the behavioral changes of that.

[00:13:10] When somebody does something that's, that's surprisingly effective, you'll see those re results too and be able to understand why. And so then you can pull that data up to the corporate level and feed it down to all of your stores, and so you can, you know, create more of a, learn a much tighter, more effective learning cycle as a result.

[00:13:27] Ricardo Belmar: interesting. So I, I guess I have to ask, how did you come to this idea and what, what motivated you to create this solution. 

[00:13:35] Adam Blair: Yeah, so it's, it's I guess it, it came through through a, a, a path, a journey, I suppose. It actually started couple startups I've had now this is my third, my third startup. The previous two have been in overhead, R F I D.

[00:13:47] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. 

[00:13:47] Adam Blair: And and, and one in particular, the first one was we were partnered with Intel in, in their responsive retail platform from 

[00:13:54] Oh, okay.

[00:13:54] Years back.

[00:13:55] Ricardo Belmar: I remember that.

[00:13:55] Adam Blair: Yeah. And so one of the things that we found early on when we did some, some of our [00:14:00] early R F I D deployments, we were getting like 85% of the, the total I inventory that we could actually like read within about an hour of.

[00:14:09] we

[00:14:09] found if we just left it on running continuously for long periods of time though, and we added just a, a strong probabilistic algorithm on top of it, that we could actually infer the inventory you needed for the purposes of restocking to a 99% plus accuracy by just at any given moment, just running over an extended period of time.

[00:14:27] Because you could see the dynamics of the store. You could see how

[00:14:31] so I haven't read something for a day. It doesn't, is it more likely that it's outta stock or it's still here and it's just not readable? Or is it, is it gone? And so by applying that sort of that that sort of algorithm and that model on top of the store, we are able to make much better, much more effective use of the really messy data that we had.

[00:14:49] Right? So it, it started with that. As I got into talking to people in the computer vision space as well.

[00:14:54] They have similar problems, right? Where you have, it's very messy, very uncontrolled data. And so you [00:15:00] start applying these higher level algorithms to it, and you start to get to the better insights, right?

[00:15:04] You get, you start to answer the questions, you start to put yourself in a place where you can answer the questions that the retailers actually have, right? And, and to step back a little bit to the inventory question, ? Retailers don't really like, they think they want to know what, what is in their inventory list, right?

[00:15:21] But in reality they want to know, should I restock right now? Right? And, and what items should I be restocking when they want to know, can I ship this? Can I have somebody that's looking at this item online right now? Should I send them to the store to pick it up? Right? Those are two very simple, very, very different questions that are, you know, it's, it's somewhat arbitrary to ask them of the same list. Right? And so by building the more comprehensive model, you can get to something that can answer those real questions that are being asked of the store, right? And so that's how we think about it. We think about it as queering the digital twin for whatever information. And the, the digital twin will give you the best answer for that [00:16:00] question, given the full context of the store, right?

[00:16:04] If you're down to one umbrella, one umbrella, and you haven't sold them in a week, any, any in a week, right? You might be inclined to say, well, go ahead and send somebody that's 15 minutes away if I told you that it hadn't been raining in a week and it's raining now. Right? That answer's very different, So that's how we're looking at it, is the full context response.

[00:16:21] Jeff Roster: So who do you sell into in that regard? Is that, is that BI? Is that what is that?

[00:16:26] Adam Blair: Yeah, we think it's it, it, it's, it's most likely the cio ct CTO type level, right? Because we, we think about it in terms of the full data for the, for the, for the store. right? You think, we think about it in terms of you know, the, that the, the data source, because it, it, it is, it's a little bit tricky, right?

[00:16:42] Because it is a lot of potential users for any of this data within the, within the retail store, and, and we're thinking about it being the CEO or the CTO being the conduit into the rest of the retailer.

[00:16:52] Jeff Roster: Well, they'd be the one that buying it. But I mean, it it, where would I put that in my, in my tech stack? I mean, is that, is that business intelligence, is that I don't know, [00:17:00]video analytics, I guess. I mean that we've had that conversation too, it seems, seems pretty video in a lot of analytics. So are you comfortable with that sort of a classification. 

[00:17:08] Adam Blair: I mean, I think I'd prefer being more business in business intelligence than, than, I mean, I, I, I don't like it being the source of the data. I like it being the, the context of the data. But I, I, you know I think that's something we're gonna have to work through with the, the different retailers and how they're organizationally structured too.

[00:17:23] Right? Because sometimes the, the titles don't completely match the function.

[00:17:26] Jeff Roster: That makes sense

[00:17:27] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's, that does happen. That's true. Okay. . Well wow. I mean this is, I'm always fascinated by digital twin technology right now, as I think this is we're still sort of in early days on, on how retailers can leverage this kind of technology. What kind of questions can they answer by using it?

[00:17:43] Kind of your, your last example there, Adam, about, you know, how, how you can have just slight variation, right? Very different questions to answer. And by leveraging that digital twin, you can come up with an answer where the absence of that, you know, how, how many different systems do you have? To be able to figure out what the answer is that that's being [00:18:00] facilitated here.

[00:18:00] So I think this is really, really a fascinating space to watch. And Jeff, to your point, you know, now this is the second kind of conversation we, we've kind of come across where we're plugging into LP as a data source but using it in a pretty different, more creative way necessarily than, than we might otherwise think of.

[00:18:16] Jeff Roster: I w I am writing the email to my, our, our mutual friend Tony, to say,

[00:18:21] Ricardo Belmar: say are you thinking about this?

[00:18:22] Jeff Roster: just curious what, just so what the LP sense is on that. But

[00:18:25] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. So Adam, if somebody wants to reach out to you and, and find out more about what you're doing in Site Bionic, what's, how should they reach out to you?

[00:18:32] Adam Blair: Yeah. Honestly, best way is just reach out directly adam@sitebionics.com. Also on LinkedIn is always a good way to get in touch with me. And happy to have conversations. Right? We're early. The conversations are, are, are the greatest value. The building, the relationships is, is is the most important thing for us right now.

[00:18:47] Ricardo Belmar: Great. Fantastic. Well, Adam, thanks so much for joining us and we appreciate you taking the time out to meet with us, and we'll be, we'll be watching out to see how things progress for you.

[00:18:56] Adam Blair: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:18:57] Jeff Roster: Outstanding. Thanks. Bye.

[00:18:59] Ricardo Belmar: [00:19:00] bye everyone. 

[00:19:00] Show Recap

[00:19:00] Casey Golden: Well, welcome back everyone. And wasn't that an interesting take on digital twins? Did you catch the ever important reference to computer vision? 

[00:19:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yep, I did too. I did too. And this was a short but sweet session that we had with Adam. I mean, they are really leaning into helping retailers answer tough questions about their store, ranging from merchandise layouts to just general operations. I mean, having that digital twin opens a door to so many possibilities and AB tests that you can run without having to spend the time and effort to physically change it in the store and know what kind of results you're going to get. And this is just why I've been a big proponent of digital twins, is that one super important and practical use case for metaverse applications today.

[00:19:50] Casey Golden: I agree. I don't think a lot of people know how much we have been doing physical twins in the [00:20:00] industry, like building the whole entire area of your Macy's shop and shop somewhere else to flo, do floor sets and and, and not just one, but you know, 30 retailers where their floors going, how that set's gonna look.

[00:20:14] Stack heights. I think that I mean, we'd have whole teams that flew in to go ahead and, and play with that before the merchandise plans went out. Having these spaces from your stores into like throughout the whole entire process. It's just, it's, there's so, there's such a money savings here that if you can turn those cameras from a cost center to generating revenue,

[00:20:40] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly.

[00:20:41] Casey Golden: How awesome is that?

[00:20:43] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly.

[00:20:43] Casey Golden: most times when we think of like a digital twin, everybody thinks that it's avatar clothing,

[00:20:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Right,

[00:20:48] Casey Golden: right? Which I love. But I think that there's, there's so many different applications that where we spend millions of dollars every season [00:21:00] that could be recaptured and spent elsewhere by using these different types of digital twins in different ways of like visualizing Even just traffic pattern.

[00:21:11] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, E. Exactly, exactly. I mean, just think of all the what if scenarios you can do, like you were saying, right? Where before you could have a team of people take days, right. To experiment and try different options, different layouts. And now you just put 'em in that, in the digital twin you can see exactly, you can do a fly through, and and kind of walk through that virtual space, see what it, what it's gonna look like to you and decide maybe that's not the option you want. I mean, it it, and it really does turn that whole cost center of having to absorb the cost of making those changes. Now it's something that helps you get to revenue faster, right?

[00:21:41] Because now you, you can implement the changes. You'll know what the outcome is gonna be. You've predicted it. And now when you're asking the store teams to go and do these things, it's not an experiment anymore. Now, you know that you're doing something that's gonna have a positive impact right to your, your revenue stream. So it just makes so much sense. I really believe people should be [00:22:00] adopting this more and more. So I think that Adam is on to a good, a really good solid application here with Site Bionics, and we hope to see more of them in the future.

[00:22:08] Casey Golden: Yeah, I mean, cutting lead time is, is a really big

[00:22:12] Ricardo Belmar: Huge. 

[00:22:13] Casey Golden: So what's coming up next in this series? We've got one more to go, right?

[00:22:17] Ricardo Belmar: that's right. We've just got one more in the series and sure enough, this is probably my favorite of the set. You know, at the start of the series I teased that it was a follow up to that popular discussion we recorded at N R F. We did run into a few difficulties, however.

[00:22:32] Casey Golden: Difficulties. Okay. I didn't realize there was gonna be a mystery attached.

[00:22:37] Ricardo Belmar: Well, remember the TRI chat that Jeff and I had with Vicki Cantrell and Ron Thurston at nrf, the one that was supposed to be a a 10 to 15 minute discussion that turned into an almost an hour.

[00:22:48] Well, yep. Well, we all agreed to do that same chat again at Shop Talk. But we did run into some scheduling challenges.

[00:22:56] Sure enough, we were all so busy there was only one time slot that we could [00:23:00]manage to, to get together and, and RETHINK Retail was kind enough to let us use their booth space at Shop Talk to do this recording. So we planned it for the end of, I think it was day two at the show. But sure enough, that was also the time that Shop Talk had their happy hours scheduled on the expo floor.

[00:23:16] And I mean, literally as soon as Jeff and I got to the Rethink booth and we were about to start setting up the recording equipment, suddenly we. All kinds of loud music starts blasting over the speakers because, you know, it's happy hour time, so it's time to put some music on the, on the show floor. I guess that was part of the entertainment.

[00:23:33] So as you might guess, there was just no way we could record any audio under those conditions with all that background music playing. So we ended up deciding, okay, let's regroup. The week after the show, we'd all have some time to digest what we saw. Think about it. And we just do it a normal remote recording.

[00:23:50] And so this last episode was not exactly recorded in person, but as a bonus it does mean that there's gonna be full video for everybody to watch this time.

[00:23:58] Casey Golden: Well, that's [00:24:00] a fantastic way to close out the series and I'm sure it'll definitely be worth it. Now there's expectations that everybody's done their homework. So,

[00:24:09] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, maybe I set that up a little too strongly. I hope, I hope we meet everyone's expectations now that I said that. But, but for now I, I'm just gonna thank Adam Blair for joining Jeff and me for this recording that we just went through at Shop Talk. Thank you, Adam. We will definitely be watching for Site Bionics' progress over the rest of the year.

[00:24:27] Casey Golden: and on that note, Ricardo, this can only mean one thing. It's a wrap.

[00:24:33] Show Close

[00:24:33] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed this season's shows, especially our podcast crossover miniseries, please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute. Plus, remember, you can watch us, not just listen on our YouTube channel and like, and comment there.[00:25:00]

[00:25:00] If you wanna know more about what we talked about today, including a full transcript of the episode, take a look at the show notes for handy links and more deets. I'm your co-host, Casey Golden.

[00:25:10] Ricardo Belmar: If you'd like to connect with us and share your thoughts on this season and the crossover series, follow us on Twitter at Casey C Golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter and LinkedIn at Retail Razor for the latest updates. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.

[00:25:27] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[00:25:32] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail if you cut through the clutter. Until next time. This is the retail Razor Show. 

How well do you know your in-store shopper versus your online shopper? If you’re like most retailers, you probably believe you know more about those online shoppers. But what if you had a full set of analytics on your in-store shoppers? What if you knew how shoppers react to a product they pick up off the shelf? Why they put it back instead of purchasing it? Meet ShopperAI, a startup that’s trying to change that perception by leveraging the existing video footage you have from loss prevention cameras to understand shopper intent and sentiment.

It’s the second in our podcast cross-over event with This Week in Innovation and special guest host Jeff Roster! Recorded live and in-person during Shoptalk 2023, Jeff and regular host Ricardo Belmar sit down with ShopperAI’s CEO, Lanor Daniel, and VP of Strategic Growth, Ari Pereira, to learn just how significant the insights are that retailers can learn about their in-store customers using their existing LP camera infrastructure. And if you’re a startup, you’ll also learn some important tips about how to present your solution to retailers by showing compassion first and foremost!

We’re standing at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list – if you enjoy our show please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your regular hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

The Retail Razor Show

Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazor

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Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

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Host → Ricardo Belmar,

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Read my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey

TRANSCRIPT

S2E12b In-Store Analytics with ShopperAI

[00:00:00] Show Intro 

[00:00:20] Casey Golden: Hello Retail Razor Show listeners and viewers, and welcome to retail's favorite podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike. I'm your host, Casey Golden.

[00:00:34] Ricardo Belmar: And I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar. Welcome to another episode in our Shop Talk live crossover event with Jeff Foster and This Week In Innovation podcast.

[00:00:43] Casey Golden: These crossover podcast series are really so much fun and I have to start going to Shop Talk on a regular basis. I do.

[00:00:53] Ricardo Belmar: Well, it would be amazing for her to join us next time. Casey, we missed here on this series for sure. So on today's show, [00:01:00] we are talking about the consumer struggle factor when choosing a product on the shelf. How to convert in-store data you didn't realize you had into meaningful customer insights. And the best contribution to your data analytics, loss prevention can make.

[00:01:15] First I've got a startup life Question for you, Casey.

[00:01:20] Casey Golden: Oh, bring it. Typically My answer is yes. More caffeine, please.

[00:01:25] Ricardo Belmar: Of course, of course it is. So, so here's the question. So how important is compassion when working with retailers?

[00:01:33] Casey Golden: Oh, that's good. There needs to be a lot of room for compassion. Operators have heavy workloads and technology has a tendency to add more work, not less. I feel that outsiders always need to go in humble and serve pretty much the opposite of our day-to-day with investors and startup culture. Really focusing on like the what if, how would, how important is just go in knowing and acknowledging that [00:02:00] you know nothing.

[00:02:00] They know everything.

[00:02:02] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. You're, you're, you're really there to help make them better, right. Not tell 'em what to do, but you're acknowledging that it's not that they're doing anything wrong, it's that there's always room to do better

[00:02:13] Casey Golden: Because they're doing something so amazing. You wanted to bring this solution to them first.

[00:02:19] Ricardo Belmar: it. There you go. There you go. That's right. It's, it's an honor to bring it to them because they're the best.

[00:02:25] Casey Golden: They are, and that's why we decided to build these companies for like the best. Right.

[00:02:30] Ricardo Belmar: right, that's right. That, that is so, so the right attitude and, and wait till you see where that comes into play in this discussion. So as you might have guessed in this show, we are interviewing a startup, Shopper AI. An Israeli startup specializing in a unique form of video analytics with the goal of giving you in-store data analytics that's as good as what you get on your e-commerce site.

[00:02:52] So their, their c e o explains it makes the analogy that, you know, they, they are trying to be the Google Analytics for your store,

[00:02:59] Casey Golden: [00:03:00] Fascinating. Now I see where the loss prevention angle comes from

[00:03:03] Ricardo Belmar: right?

[00:03:04] Casey Golden: all the security cameras providing that video footage for analytics. Right?

[00:03:08] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. Exactly.

[00:03:10] Casey Golden: Well, now I can't wait to see where this struggle factor you mentioned comes to play and how compassion works into all of this.

[00:03:18] Ricardo Belmar: Well, it will definitely be illuminating for sure. No doubt about it. It's all part of our Shop Talk Live crossover event with Jeff Roster and This Week In Innovation. We recorded live and in person at Shop Talk, of course in Las Vegas last month. And Jeff really demonstrates how the struggle factor plays into making choices as a consumer.

[00:03:38] So there's a good story about that that he uses to kind of illustrate that in the discussion. Plus we end with a really great discussion on how hard it is for startups to pitch to a retailer without coming across, perhaps a little bit too arrogant in trying to solve problems for the retailer. Which I think you just nailed it there, Casey, in your description of how to approach that, [00:04:00] that pitch session with the retailer.

[00:04:01] We'll, we'll see how that goes.

[00:04:04] Casey Golden: All right. In that case, let's get right into the interview with Shopper AI's, CEO, Lanor Daniel and their VP of Strategic Growth, Ari Pereira with you and Jeff.

[00:04:16] ShopperAI Interview

[00:04:16] Ricardo Belmar: ​Hey Everyone, welcome to another podcast crossover. This time coming to you live and in person from Shop Talk 2023. I'm Ricardo Belmar and I'm here with good friend Jeff Roster, host of This Week in Innovation. How you doing, Jeff?

[00:04:36] Jeff Roster: You know, I'm I'm actually a little slow today. I might have gotten just a slight hard on day one of Shop Talk lots of evening research opportunities that I was

[00:04:44] Ricardo Belmar: re research opportunities. Is that what we're calling it now? 

[00:04:47] Jeff Roster: that what we're calling it. Okay,

[00:04:48] Ricardo Belmar: We'll go with that. 

[00:04:49] Jeff Roster: Really good research to be honest with you. But definitely you know, first day tons of energy It's just a great, it's really a, I'm really impressed with this venue because I had three events and they were all within, I dunno, you could throw a rock and [00:05:00] hit the main part of the exhibit and so, which meant people were walking by. So you not only had your event, but you also had all that traffic coming by 

[00:05:07] Ricardo Belmar: all the passers by, yeah.

[00:05:08] Jeff Roster: was Just a fantastic day day one I thought.

[00:05:11] Ricardo Belmar: I agree. Day one was pretty, pretty interesting compared to, this is my second Shop Talk. Compared to last year, I think it was busier, a little more action.

[00:05:19] I think people were enjoying themselves, a little bit more on day one than maybe last year, where last year this was probably for most people their first time out in an in-person event. So I think we're all getting a little bit more used to that. So this is a continuation, I guess I'll call it, of our crossover from NRF, where we had a number of super interesting interviews with really interesting retail tech companies.

[00:05:41] And in that theme, we've got a fascinating discussion today for listeners. We have with us the team from Shopper AI that we're really excited to chat with. So I'm gonna ask Lenore and Ari to please introduce yourselves.

[00:05:54] Lanor Daniel: Hi everyone, my name is Lanor Daniel. I'm the CEO and co-founder of ShopperAI.

[00:05:58] Ari Pereira: Hello everyone. [00:06:00] I'm Ari Pereira I'm the VP of Insights and Strategic Growth for Shopper AI. Thank you for having us in the podcast.

[00:06:06] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, it's great to have you here. So why don't we start by having you tell us a little bit about what's the challenge that Shopper AI addresses for retailers and how you're solving that.

[00:06:14] Origins of ShopperAI

[00:06:14] Lanor Daniel: Yeah. So basically we started four years ago in Israel. Me and my co-founder Sivan came from marketing online, digital marketing landscape. And we got partner with the retailer and we asked the question, how can we analyze data from your store?

[00:06:30] And he was like, what data? And we were like, you know, in e-comm you have Google Analytics in order for you to be better, to optimize, to convert more. Conversion. What's conversion? And then we understand that there is a big gap between what's going on in the online landscape and what's going on in the stores.

[00:06:48] And it got us so fascinating because, you know, ecomm just keeps growing and growing and we like to purchase online. It's easy. You feel like the website knows you, everything is so [00:07:00] focused and accurate. And when you go to a store, all the mess, all the noise, all the things going around and you feel like, I don't wanna go to a store, I want to buy online.

[00:07:09] And basically this thing that we see in the past four and five years, e-com is growing fast and it's easy to understand. There is a lot of data you can be better, and the website really actually knows you and what's happening in offline stores that you come as a shopper. Shoppers, they're paying so much money for marketing, they're paying so much money for personnel, logistics promotions, and they don't know what happening with the user's journey. They don't have any data of users. I'm saying users because it's anonymously, so they don't know what's going on in the store in front of the shelves. Where are the problems? And this is where Shopper AI come to the picture. So this is what we've done in the past four years, building technology that allows us to grab this data from an offline store.

[00:07:57] Jeff Roster: So let's talk about what it takes to get that [00:08:00] data.

[00:08:00] Converting In-store Data to Insights

[00:08:00] Lanor Daniel: Okay so basIcally. When we started to work with retailers in Israel, we didn't really understand how deep the gap is. So what we found out that in order for us to collaborate with retailers when they have all these things going on, like all the logistics and personnel, what I just mentioned, you need to be very easy, seamless integration.

[00:08:21] And for that, we only had the security camera, so we need to crack the, the idea how we can get the data from a security camera that is already there. So we've been through four years of developments with engineer professors and like the best of the best. And we build an algorithm, a software that once we have a connection to the IP of the security camera, automatically takes the video.

[00:08:45] We can show it as well, simple video from the store and turn everything that we just see right now to data.

[00:08:54] and from a data to a dashboard. So if we take the equivalent on Google Analytics, Google Analytics, [00:09:00] analyze each and every movement in the website, what you're looking for, user's behavior, and put it in a dashboard.

[00:09:06] So same thing over here. This is our website, the shelf. Each and every category is different. And what we see, it's all the movements and everything that they're doing. It's listed. We're saying you need to monitor your touches from the shelf, just like you monitor your clicks. Then we have conversion funnels, interaction.

[00:09:24] We have a toucher, we have market shares. This is what everybody knows. So we have a toucher and we created a new language and things that if you come from E-com world make sense, but here for, for the industry, it's a bit new. So this is the process. We get connection to an IP of the security camera, the video, we turn it into data, and this data set turns into a dashboard.

[00:09:49] Ricardo Belmar: So you've taken e everything that we're used to seeing in e-commerce metrics around, you know, if I the equivalent of looking at a product page, then by taking the video feed you're mapping that to, is this [00:10:00] person looking at a particular product on the shelf? If they're picking it up? If they're taking it, then you know they've added it to a basket like they would in an e-commerce site.

[00:10:07] Lanor Daniel: they Correct.

[00:10:08] Ricardo Belmar: So you can imagining, you can measure how long is someone standing in front of a product to see how effective the shelf placement is.

[00:10:13] Lanor Daniel: Correct. And add another more thing for that. What you cannot see in online website. , it's a struggle rank. So we have ranking that you can use. So you mentioned time. So for example, things that we are looking for a specific product, a shampoo or a snack, or even in a, you know, in a Foot Locker store, you are looking for a shoe and then you're in front of the shelf, you're looking and I, something happened there that you're starting to struggle.

[00:10:40] You know, this place like nevermind. I'll do it later.

[00:10:43] Ricardo Belmar: Okay

[00:10:43] Lanor Daniel: You know this feeling. So we have a struggle rank. You cannot have a struggle rank online.

[00:10:48] Ricardo Belmar: Right. So you, you, so you have a measure of what that customer's sentiment was when they were standing in front of the shelf looking at products. So you have a little, you're adding some insights into their decision making process while they're shopping.[00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Lanor Daniel: so it's accurate.

[00:11:01] We are discovering the decision making tree. So each and every movement becomes suddenly a full map of what's happening. This is our dashboard by the. We can show it as well. So this is the decision tree looks like an octopus, but every moment since the moment that the shopper arrived, bef in front of the shelf, then we start the measuring.

[00:11:24] So we have people who stopped, who are interested. You have people who interacted with a category and you have people who touched a certain product, look at it, put it back, and then either abandon the entire category. And this is for a retailer, a very bad thing because it lost the opportunity to sell the product.

[00:11:41] And what we saw that happen during the research time that we've conducted in Israel, if you took a certain product, you looked at it, you put it back, you probably bought it somewhere else. We saw based on the research that 85% of those shopper go home. Maybe they stop in a convenience store and bought that product that they [00:12:00] were looking, but put it back.

[00:12:01] So this is our lost potential.

[00:12:02] The Consumer Struggle Factor

[00:12:02] Jeff Roster: So how do you deal with, let's say if you followed me in my grocery shopping about four months ago, I really cleaned up what I was eating. So I'm paying very close attention to high fructose corn syrup. I'm paying very close attention to carbs, all, all that stuff. So I, I will pick up a product, look at it, and, and the struggle aspect.

[00:12:20] It was interesting. I've never heard that term before, but I'm looking at it going, Ooh, too many carbs. Put it back. That was, I mean, that was just me analyzing the product and putting it back. There's, there's no chance, well, hopefully there's no chance I'm buying that because I've already made that calculation.

[00:12:32] I don't want that. How, how are you classifying that kind of an engagement and how frequent is that? Is is hopefully more people are, are paying attention to what, what we're consuming.

[00:12:40] Lanor Daniel: So this is a good example. We are not doing personalization measurements yet. We're looking for the big numbers. So basically I give the equivalent of Google Analytics. So what's happening in the store, every shopper that entered the category is measured. So every shopper, if we see this kind of a [00:13:00] behavior for 70% of the shoppers looking, turn it back and put it back.

[00:13:04] We can say there is something in the product, in the ingredients that there is a problem with that.

[00:13:08] Jeff Roster: Interesting. 

[00:13:08] Ricardo Belmar: Interesting. Very interesting 

[00:13:10] Jeff Roster: is crazy.

[00:13:13] So if I'm, if I'm producing a product that let's say, maybe isn't the, the most healthy or not even close to being healthy and, and your data comes back and says, Hey, you have this, huge percentage of people that are looking at your product and putting it back.

[00:13:27] Wow, I've never heard that before 

[00:13:29] Lanor Daniel: Yeah. and it's based on real life data. And I'll take it to a different category. You spoke about healthy food, but you know, take shampoo category. So one of our clients in Israel, it's a big shampoo distributor, and he was like, I don't know why my shampoo is not selling. I think it's the price. And so we are not thinking, we are watching data and analyzing and what we saw, it was amazing. 

[00:13:53] Like, we had this questionnaire that we were doing with it onboarding, and we asked could it be a problem with the product [00:14:00] itself? And they were like, no, it's the number one product. We did test, we did like a focus group. In the focus group, we ask everybody, which is, which is the best smell, and they choose that smell.

[00:14:11] And this said, this is the best smell. So there is no way there is a product ah, problem. So we open the camera. And in Israel there is a thing that we're doing once we touch the shampoo, if it's a new shampoo, we, we like to open and smell it.

[00:14:23] Jeff Roster: Oh, Jesus

[00:14:25] Lanor Daniel: Is that, is that common

[00:14:27] Ricardo Belmar: of course. Yeah. That's common. Yeah. Oh, I've, I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah. That's 

[00:14:31] Lanor Daniel: It's common.

[00:14:32] Yeah. So it's not just Israel is, 

[00:14:34] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. 

[00:14:35] Lanor Daniel: So what we saw, 75% of people, like the shoppers came to the shelf. They were looking at the new product, touching, taking the product. So that means it's not a price issue. I took it already, it's in my hand. And then they open, smell it, and they were like, Ugh, put it back

[00:14:52] Ricardo Belmar: because you could see it on the video.

[00:14:53] Lanor Daniel: listen, it's crazy. 

[00:14:55] Ricardo Belmar: You see on the video that they didn't like like 

[00:14:56] Lanor Daniel: it's crazy. And then you show those numbers, like it's [00:15:00] hundreds of thousands of people every day. You know, in a, in a big chain. And they were like, there's no way. And I was saying like, listen, if you ask somebody a question, ask me if you look good today, I'll say, yes, , maybe I don't

[00:15:12] You know what I mean? Maybe it's 

[00:15:14] Jeff Roster: Wait a minute. You said we look good today.

[00:15:18] Lanor Daniel: So I'm

[00:15:18] Ricardo Belmar: yourself. Jeff

[00:15:21] Lanor Daniel: like in a focus group, people are saying like the rational thing and, and it doesn't mean that they will be motivated to purchase that product. And once you identify the problem, we're talking like in a category.

[00:15:33] Identify the problem, the, the vendor itself or the retailer itself can understand, okay, so I don't need to do like a big sale or a big promotion because even

[00:15:41] Ricardo Belmar: it's not price 

[00:15:42] Lanor Daniel: exactly 

[00:15:43] Ricardo Belmar: it's not price 

[00:15:43] Lanor Daniel: to identify the problem

[00:15:45] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. So, so this is, so we, you and I have talked about this, Jeff, when ever, we see some of these interesting survey, consumer surveys, that show up in the industry and our, our friend at George Mason University that's doing a very different kind of consumer in insight survey where, and, and I think your [00:16:00] example reflects that, Lenore, very closely because you have consumers in a focus group, if they know they're in the focus group and they know there, there are lots of people in the group, they may be psychologically less inclined to want to go against the group because you don't want to feel like you're the one that did that said what?

[00:16:15] You're the, you're the one that's different, but you're right. When standing in front of the products at the store, in front of the shelf and you actually look at it and smell it and you're, you think, oh, this isn't what I like at all, and you make a completely different decision.

[00:16:28] Next Generation Shopper Research

[00:16:28] Ari Pereira: That's why we are the next generation of shopper research because we can really look of what is happening in front of the shelf, and we are translating that into different insights in terms of the shopper journey, the shopper behavior, and everything that is happening in store. That's where most of the retail stores are blind today.

[00:16:48] Lanor Daniel: And take it one step ahead, because we're talking on in store, but let's talk about chains. In, in America, the scale is much bigger than in Israel. This is why we waited so much up until the [00:17:00] technology and the structure of the, you know, the architecture of the software will be scalable enough. So we spoke about one store, but if you're a chain like Nike or Walmart, and I give you your entire map, and we are connecting in all of the stores, suddenly you can see that.

[00:17:16] You get alerts, not just about the shopper struggle ranks, you get alerts from the entire chain. So for example, in Denver, Denver, Colorado, what we see now, it's like we have less conversion. We have a problem with specific female that don't buy it. And as a manager or CEO or or VP marketing, you can see it pushed to you, as alert, what is the problem in the chain? And then you can take drill down to see the video that we saw before, specific category, what's the problem? So it's not just one store, it's scalable. We can see it 

[00:17:51] Ricardo Belmar: scales the whole chain. 

[00:17:52] Lanor Daniel: Exactly. And then the metrics is different. And we can do static statistics for the entire chain, which brings us to a different [00:18:00] universe.

[00:18:00] And that was the idea, like making an unscalable world scalable,

[00:18:05] Ricardo Belmar: so, so really you're combining the performance metrics that you would expect on your e-commerce site, but you're delivering that in store. And then on top of that, you're delivering all of these actual shopper insights and on shopper sentiment on their behaviors while they're engaged in that shopping.

[00:18:22] Lanor Daniel: Exactly. 

[00:18:22] Ricardo Belmar: All in one dashboard, 

[00:18:23] Ari Pereira: yes, and when you think about harmony, right, You have all the metrics in E-com and most of the industries, they have some difficulty to make the data make sense because they are looking at something in the brick and mortar space. They are looking something different in e-com. And when you have similar KPIs, you can start to bridge the data and you can start to have a holistic view, which today you might be different because you're looking two different ways, but now you can have a holistic view of the data. Both places.

[00:18:56] Lanor Daniel: Full pictures

[00:18:57] Jeff Roster: So in your [00:19:00] deployments in Israel, I'm guessing you probably have more security cameras, although I think probably in America we might be catching up. How do you have to add anything additional to get the da? Anything from a hardware perspective or you are literally just using the footprint that's already existing.

[00:19:15] Lanor Daniel: the beginning, we're starting only with what's existing and it gives you so much. 

[00:19:19] Jeff Roster: Wow. 

[00:19:19] Lanor Daniel: so much because you don't have anything like this. It's ongoing all day. Think that you're doing all the statistics of each and every shopper that answers the shop. So in the beginning, maybe there will be some you know blind spots.

[00:19:33] Like we don't see everything, but we see most of it. So we can recognize most of the problems. And after a certain time, if the retailer wants to upgrade, we can put like our own cameras. In Israel, we add some cameras, but most of the chains that we're working with, we don't need

[00:19:49] Ricardo Belmar: you don't need to add anything. 

[00:19:50] Jeff Roster: And what, what's your thinking as far as US retail? Do they have enough security cameras? It's the same deal that you're gonna get more than enough to, to get going.

[00:19:58] Lanor Daniel: So it's, it's interesting [00:20:00] this question. So the, our first time we touched base with America was at the nrf. We didn't really know what to expect. Mm-hmm. , We have Ari in our team and she's very experienced. , but all of us came from Israel. So what we found out in the nrf actually one of the meetings that we've conducted there so the VP marketing told me, she was like, we have like $30,000 worth of security cameras in our store and we're not doing anything with it.

[00:20:29] And basically now you're saying that we can earn money from that.

[00:20:32] Jeff Roster: well, let me make sure I understand. They're using those cameras for security purposes. They're just not using them. So a hundred years ago when I was back in retail we were not. I can say it cuz the company's outta business. Now, Mervins, we were not allowed as managers to use LP cameras for observing employees.

[00:20:50] Just from a performance perspective. That was absolutely verboten. LP didn't, wouldn't allow us to even do that because we're all like, can I just look instead of walking all over this distribution center, can I just sit here?[00:21:00] So I don't know. Yeah. So I don't know. Is that still the, the is, does that still something you're gonna have to battle with lp?

[00:21:07] That, hey, we actually wanna use your cameras for other reasons I could get where they don't want you to be moving their cameras, but is that an issue or is that, have we already moved past that?

[00:21:15] Lanor Daniel: is that so today they are looking at employees, they're looking for performance. Those are some of the problems and issues that we heard from the industry while we were at nrf. And also for security matters. There is a big thief thing right now, right?, 

[00:21:31] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. 

[00:21:31] Jeff Roster: yes there is

[00:21:32] Ricardo Belmar: I you're a little familiar with 

[00:21:33] with that, 

[00:21:33] Jeff Roster: Jeff. 

[00:21:33] Yes. I'm, I live in California, so yes, very familiar with that. 

[00:21:37] Lanor Daniel: Yeah.. 

[00:21:37] Jeff Roster: It's not even an lp, it's more a more a political thing of, of we're no longer prosecuting crimes and, you know, less than 900 bucks, so you can literally steal $800 worth of 

[00:21:46] Lanor Daniel: more, yeah, so we heard that a lot from, from a lot of retailers. Like they're, they're, they're believing that they had, there is a very high percentage today of. Thief that is going on in the store and they can't really see everything even with their [00:22:00] security cameras. So today they're using that for security and so for performance as well, trying to it's not an issue.

[00:22:07] And basically our software is fully anonymously. If you saw the movie, everything, it's blur. I'm not looking to understand who is the person personally, I'm looking to understand the problem with the touches, with the body movements. That's what we're looking for. So, with with that being said, there is no problem

[00:22:24] Jeff Roster: Wow. Very cool.

[00:22:25] Ricardo Belmar: I guess at the end of the day too, compared to when you're thinking Jeff, now these are all IP based cameras. So everything is a video stream being stored in a server somewhere that even LP is using to go back to bring back footage. So now you're just taking a, you can take advantage of that same IP stream for a completely different purpose and, and let marketing have some advantages.

[00:22:45] Store operations have advantage or you're extending the usefulness of the equipment that's already there 

[00:22:50] Jeff Roster: Yeah, boy. 

[00:22:51] Lanor Daniel: Exactly. 

[00:22:52] Jeff Roster: just adding another budget to, to bind that, that infrastructure. So that's, that's fantastic.

[00:22:57] Ricardo Belmar: bringing a lot more value that way. Wow,

[00:22:58] Lanor Daniel: Yeah. And it's, [00:23:00] this is the exact point. So it's already there. They're not making money out of it. I'm not really sure how many thief they're catching from it. So then we come and then we bring them. Look, you get information, you get Ability. By the way, all this data that we are collecting, we're doing AB test.

[00:23:20] So you know, in online we're saying like there is the, the certain color that you're choosing for the button, which color convert more. It's very easy to chain change online, off line. 

[00:23:30] Ricardo Belmar: You can see that now, right? to actually show

[00:23:32] Lanor Daniel: So we are changing like things, we're moving things and you see that conversion metrics go up or. and we want to really be better for the shoppers. And we're looking for, this is why I show the map. Like each and every area in New York, there are different needs that in Texas 

[00:23:46] Ricardo Belmar: mm-hmm 

[00:23:46] Lanor Daniel: makes sense, right? 

[00:23:48] So why does, why doesn't it look different? 

[00:23:50] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Why not adapt it? Yeah.

[00:23:52] Lanor Daniel: And you speak about health, if we see in a certain city in Israel that there is more people who are looking for the ingredients and looking to [00:24:00] buy healthier food.

[00:24:00] So why don't you as a retailer, put more shelves for healthy people? Like there is a lot of products put. Make it more accurate to the people around. And then if you see that there is a store which has all the, I dunno, best, healthiest food, you would like to go to check it out. Because right now you're keeping your diet, you're keeping your health, so the store will be better for you.

[00:24:24] Up until today there were, you know, all the managers were, were gathering data by, by doing this market research once a year. And here you can see how shoppers change and their needs and to be connected to their needs daily.

[00:24:39] Jeff Roster: Gosh, that's,

[00:24:40] Ricardo Belmar: so you got some,

[00:24:41] Jeff Roster: I'm stunned

[00:24:41] Ricardo Belmar: advantages. You you're validating some planograms. You've got benefits for the category managers. 

[00:24:47] Lots of different roles that can

[00:24:48] Lanor Daniel: can you imagine E-com word without Google Analytics? Let's say now we wanna sell this product or this computer, and we are a team and I will tell you guys, listen, I'm doing e-comm, I'm specialized with, you know, users [00:25:00] analytics. You will bring me the product, I'm gonna build the website and do the sales.

[00:25:05] So we did this business partnership and now I open a website. And then what I, I tell you guys, after one week we sold 1000 computers. Is that good? Sounds good. Right? And the next week we sold 2000 computers. But then I would expect you to ask me from how many people who interacted, right? Like what is the 

[00:25:22] Ricardo Belmar: many people that didn't

[00:25:23] Lanor Daniel: Like this is the first question, right? And they don't have this answer, like the basic answer, like conversion funnel. and then you have it all the time. And if you see that in the first week we had, I dunno, like 100,000 people in the website and the next week I had 500,000 people on the website and it go just with from 1000 to 2000.

[00:25:41] Like,

[00:25:42] Jeff Roster: You know, the question I'd love to have answered is how many people do that struggle engagement with a product? Meaning, cuz if. You know, looking at my behavior in the last three, three months, every single thing I buy at a grocery store, I'm, I'm looking at the ingredients, every single thing [00:26:00] and, you know, I'm, now, I'm gonna be making that, I'll be thinking of you folks.

[00:26:03] I'll be making that face, 

[00:26:04] Lanor Daniel: ah, 

[00:26:04] Jeff Roster: and put something back 

[00:26:05] Lanor Daniel: if

[00:26:05] it's you do it. It's, it's like not rational movement

[00:26:08] Jeff Roster: what I want to know, would it be really fascinating to know, is how many pe, how many, let's say a hundred people looked at a product, how many looked. And, and put it in their shopping cart or, or put it back because that might also be a really interesting indicator, Hey, wait a minute.

[00:26:23] A lot of people are looked at your product, but boy, they look at those carbs, they look at those calories, or they look at that and put it back. That would be really cool too. That might be the, that might be the biggest opportunity to maybe bring some, some more enlightenment to 

[00:26:35] Ricardo Belmar: what

[00:26:36] I mean, think what I'm hearing is you can be even more granular than that, because if I pick up the product off the shelf, the way you are measuring this, if I turn it around to look at the ingredients, so the ingredients are always on the back.

[00:26:45] Yep. Right. You'll. Your data will show that. Well, the reason the person put it back is because they turned it around so you can, you can make a logical assumption. If they turned it around, they'll check the ingredient list and that's why they put it back. Yeah. If they picked it up, looked at the packaging and put it [00:27:00] back, then you might say to the retailer, well, there's something wrong with their packaging, and they should go back to the brand and talk about redoing the packaging.

[00:27:05] Lanor Daniel: Exactly. But we're looking to see not just, you remember it's big

[00:27:09] Ricardo Belmar: but yes. Yeah. How so? It's right across all your stores, across all the customers that went by. If you know 50% of them picked it up and put it back, did

[00:27:16] Lanor Daniel: suddenly, you know that 50% put it back. You 

[00:27:19] Ricardo Belmar: which you didn't know before.

[00:27:21] Ari Pereira: but the mo most important thing, then we can see what was the other product they touched next. Was it healthier? Which one did they buy in the end? Did they buy a healthier product 

[00:27:30] Jeff Roster: Boy, 

[00:27:30] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, 

[00:27:30] Jeff Roster: imagine 

[00:27:31] what our friend at George Mason University 

[00:27:32] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, would do with that data . That's.

[00:27:35] Jeff Roster: I mean, 

[00:27:36] just 

[00:27:36] Ricardo Belmar: would have a field day looking at 

[00:27:37] Jeff Roster: Oh my gosh. Wow. Phenomenal.

[00:27:40] Ricardo Belmar: Wow.

[00:27:41] Activating Insights from Data

[00:27:41] Lanor Daniel: so this is exactly it. Just today, to explain it a little further, so the numbers that everybody knows, it's. The numbers that it's in the cashier, right? How many, what is the market share? What is the market share they're looking to to raise that all the time. But this number, like they already interacted, they touched it and [00:28:00] put it back.

[00:28:00] So there are some categories that reach to 70% abandoned rate, 70%. And what you see, this is very interesting, that from those 70%, like you can see more than 60%, most of the time the same problem.

[00:28:16] Ricardo Belmar: Interesting 

[00:28:17] Lanor Daniel: So if you change a small thing, you can convert those 60% because they already show the interest. It's not just stopping.

[00:28:24] It's not just looking. They, you touched it already. Think about this moment you touch, you look at it. All you need to do is right? 

[00:28:30] Ricardo Belmar: Which is in some ways more than what you would know on the e-com side, because all you know on the e-com side is that you went to the product page, but you don't know anything about other than how long you had that page open, which doesn't necessarily tell you anything about intent.

[00:28:43] But here you actually know and you can know that they make a face at it, right? So you have all these other factors that you're measuring.

[00:28:48] Lanor Daniel: time. What is the average time in a specific category? In snacks category, it's lower than other categories, cuz snacks, it's like more impulse, like cashier area, you know, [00:29:00] always the cashier area.

[00:29:00] We say to put impulse product. Who said who said that? Why? You know what we're doing today, we're we're next. When we are next to the cashier, we're playing with our phone. . 

[00:29:11] Ricardo Belmar: Everyone's

[00:29:11] Lanor Daniel: So there is no focus to the outside and this is the most expensive area today in the store, but you're like this, or maybe with your child or maybe with your fr like everything 

[00:29:21] Ricardo Belmar: is because that was a theory that a grosser decided 80 years ago made sense do. 

[00:29:25] Lanor Daniel: Exactly. And you know the theory that you said that it should be an eye level to sell more. who said that? is it really true? 

[00:29:33] Ricardo Belmar: is it still true. Yeah, 

[00:29:34] Lanor Daniel: exactly. And once you discovered this, you understand the problem. We saw it in one product.

[00:29:40] It was mento, you know,

[00:29:42] the, so Mentos want to, to understand what is their problem, and the VP marketing was like, listen, Lenore, my problem is that I'm not on the eye level. And I'm like, okay, let's check. And what we saw that in the cashier area, if you managed to put away your phone, , what got you attracted [00:30:00] to the shelf was the Mentos color.

[00:30:01] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Interesting. like, yeah. Right, 

[00:30:05] Lanor Daniel: So we saw shoppers. Once they le left the phone looking at the color, the color, attract them to come, they came the touch. That was their first touch. Come touch the Mentos, look at it, put it back, and took the 

[00:30:18] competitive. And the competitive back then when we started was 47% market share and Mentos was 29.

[00:30:25] And what we told Mentos, it's a simple thing, listen. People are looking for you, you're the anchor. They're not purchasing you. So they never saw this kind of data. You need to move around from the competition. Once they move around away from the competition in a different shelf,

[00:30:42] they got like 200 uplift% 

[00:30:46] Ricardo Belmar: Christmas 

[00:30:47] Lanor Daniel: And today, after a year, Mintos is almost 49% market 

[00:30:52] share. and the competitive is 27. But listen, it's a small insight. So we're not saying push it to people that don't [00:31:00] want, if a person, a shopper interacted, something got interested, so 

[00:31:04] Ricardo Belmar: was just grabbing more conversion from people who were already showed some intent in your 

[00:31:08] Lanor Daniel: promise.

[00:31:09] Exactly. Crazy, right?

[00:31:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. 

[00:31:12] Jeff Roster: Yeah,

[00:31:13] no, I I mean,

[00:31:14] Lanor Daniel: I overwhelmed you guys. I'm sorry.

[00:31:17] Jeff Roster: Yeah, that's, well, that's what we get paid to do. We get paid to be overwhelmed? Actually, no. I mean, I just, I just, I just love this idea in that I don't have to put in new infrastructure. Because I've seen it all. I mean, I've seen the concept of flying a drone down an aisle, which is insanity.

[00:31:31] Robots stuff on rails. I mean, I've seen it all. And you know, it's me, myself as an analyst. It's not my job to say, oh, that's good or that, well, it is a little bit, but it's more, you know, what retailers are gonna embrace. And the problem I always have with startups that are some of the smartest people in the WO room, but they'll come in and say, Hey, I can do this.

[00:31:49] And, and then I have, I'm the guy that has to say, do you understand there's 5,000 stores? So 

[00:31:55] Ricardo Belmar: It's what you're doing times

[00:31:56] Jeff Roster: times 5,000 and you see the air just go outta [00:32:00] people. . And

[00:32:01] Lanor Daniel: I have scars from what you're 

[00:32:03] Ricardo Belmar: you're 

[00:32:05] Lanor Daniel: We learned it. We learned it.

[00:32:06] Startup Lessons

[00:32:06] Jeff Roster: Well, welcome to America cuz that is, that is not unheard of to have 5,000. Most of the people you'd be talking to are gonna have a thousand stores.

[00:32:13] Lanor Daniel: Yeah, so this is why we were waiting guys. We were waiting to the moment that will be scalable enough interesting that we have the best features that we can because once you go on scale, there are features that are left behind, unfortunately. But this is what we were trying to build and when we saw that it's working and we can bring it here and still be in the professional level that we wanted to be, then we came and, and, and you just mentioned something, but I think I can say a little bit more about it.

[00:32:42] today, we come with compassion when we see retailers. I didn't understand how hard it is to run a chain It's like a war zone, right? Really? It, it's like each day you go to, I was a captain in the idf. Mm-hmm. in a 200. Mm-hmm. And you know, like [00:33:00] operational. So I know what it is. Like your phone is always your, all the day like, , you know, try to fix problems and make sure that everything is working.

[00:33:06] This is like for, you know, a manager in a, in a retail store, big managers, and then we come and say, Hey, we come to save the world. Exactly. And, and, and so today we come with compassion. We're saying we want to take the burden, you know, with you guys, and we understand how it's working. We understand your problems, we understand the pressure, and we want to take some, mm-hmm , let us help you.

[00:33:27] And this is the idea.

[00:33:29] Jeff Roster: Yeah.

[00:33:29] let me give you some feedback on that. Typically what I hear startups do is come in and start off by insulting the retailer saying, oh, you really don't know what you're doing. I'm 26 years old and I'm, you know, I'm an engineer out of Stanford, and here I'm here to fix you. And I'm, I've sat with 15, 60 year old CIOs. Mad as be Jabbers cuz listen, you have no idea what it's like to work 24 7, 365 when every single person in the store has a phone, is just waiting for [00:34:00] something bad to happen so they can video it and then, and hopefully go viral. And it's like the biggest mistake. And I see it again and again and again when startups will come in and say, Hey, you know, you don't, and it's, it's, I don't think they believe it.

[00:34:11] I think it's a throwaway line.

[00:34:15] I just, you could not be more insulting, not, not you, but that person could not be more insulting if they tried. And it's a very bad strategy to start a pitch by insulting the person that you're asking to buy the technology. So that's i I com. You know, I congratulate you on being being really, really savvy about, about how words impact people, and

[00:34:34] Lanor Daniel: No, because we understand that. We really understand that. We see it. We are working with retailers. We come from the, from the store, we say the field, but we come from the store. We understand, like it took us some time.

[00:34:44] We didn't start it like this in the beginning. This is why I say I'm scarred about it because listen, when you come from a different, like technology wise, to this industry and you were like, what's going on here? Why are they working like this? Why not like this? You come with a lot of, you know, I don't know, I don't [00:35:00] wanna say like arrogance.

[00:35:01] Mm-hmm. , but like, you don't really understand. 

[00:35:04] Ricardo Belmar: understand. 

[00:35:04] Lanor Daniel: You're Right.

[00:35:05] Jeff Roster: No, it, it is arrogance. It's a hundred percent arrogance. Yeah. People that don't, don't listen to, you know,

[00:35:10] Lanor Daniel: we cannot understand 

[00:35:12] Jeff Roster: Yeah. Just, just, I mean, first of all, there's an old, there's an old cowboy expression that says, before you tear down an old fence, know why it was there.

[00:35:19] Lanor Daniel: Correct.

[00:35:20] Jeff Roster: Somebody put that fence there.

[00:35:21] Why?

[00:35:23] Lanor Daniel: Wow. That's really good. Yeah.

[00:35:25] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. You have to understand their why. 

[00:35:27] Jeff Roster: Yeah, 

[00:35:27] Ricardo Belmar: exactly. 

[00:35:27] Lanor Daniel: Exactly. So it took some times, and after we understand and learned, one of our investors is a retailer. So we got like, you know, one-on-one school.

[00:35:36] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. . There you go.

[00:35:37] Lanor Daniel: So we got, I wanna say like the slap from here and the slap from there And then today we understand that and we come with this. Why I say compassion because we need to help. We don't need to put some more pressure. You know, I said with, I remember that was the first time I met an American retailer, a CEO has 1,200 stores and I was like pitching and you know, like, ah, it's my baby.

[00:35:58] And, and he was like, [00:36:00] listen young dear, from Israel. With a very heavy Texan accent. I remember that. And he was like, I don't have time or effort for your mumbo jumbo technology, but if you can show me 5% growth, I will put T-shirt with your name on it on every employee in my store,

[00:36:19] Jeff Roster: Done.

[00:36:19] Lanor Daniel: So

[00:36:20] Ricardo Belmar: that line before. I

[00:36:21] Jeff Roster: I think.

[00:36:22] Lanor Daniel: you know what I mean? So I understand like, yeah, it's the 

[00:36:26] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:26] Jeff Roster: some pretty good coaching you got got

[00:36:28] Ricardo Belmar: in that one for sure. That 

[00:36:29] That was, that was pretty strong

[00:36:30] Lanor Daniel: Come with compassion. Understand if you really want to work in this space,

[00:36:35] be the retailer. Like walk the walk, talk the walk. Understand how you can really help and not just come and say how sophisticated you are. Yeah, yeah. Who cares? It should work.

[00:36:45] I need help right now. I'm fighting right now. Like, so this is the idea and this is the school that we've got and this is why we come. Very, yeah. We have a team with very experienced people. We have history in Israel for the past four years, [00:37:00] and we're looking for our partners here.

[00:37:01] Ricardo Belmar: Well, excellent. I like hearing that. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:37:04] Lanor Daniel: It's different, right? it's

[00:37:06] different. 

[00:37:06] Jeff Roster: I'll give you that. I mean, listen, I've heard hundreds of pitches and I'm, I, I typically wait for that, that arrogance to start. Right. And when it, when the feedback, when they ask for feedback. If I heard, I mean, I've heard it hundreds of times. I, I mean, I hit so hard. Cause it's so, and the, and the thing

[00:37:21] Lanor Daniel: where are they now?

[00:37:23] Jeff Roster: Well, I mean, some have done well, some haven't because they learn, you know? But the point is, why, why? I mean, why? I mean, I guess that's the whole point of what I do in my podcast is I try to bring startup stories of like, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. I mean, it's more don't do than do. But that's, but I mean, I, gosh, I've just sat in that seat so many times.

[00:37:44] NRF Tech, I can remember very vividly, a couple of our friends and I were watching that presentation and the guy just started off and it just, it was a throwaway line. And, and I won't say who, but they wasn't even mine. But they just grimmaced. It's like I'm, I'll never do That's so insulting.

[00:37:59] So anyway, [00:38:00] right. Yeah. Very good.

[00:38:01] Ricardo Belmar: it's a lesson that has, well, has to be learned sometimes. Yeah. Well, Lanor, Ari, I want thank you so much for joining us. This has been a fascinating discussion. I think we've learned a lot here about how to approach retailers in one part of the discussion, but I'm really, truly fascinated by the approach you've taken with this technology and how you're delivering that to retailers.

[00:38:21] So thank you again for joining us.

[00:38:23] Lanor Daniel: Thank you so much for having us.

[00:38:24] Ari Pereira: Thank you for having us.

[00:38:26] Jeff Roster: Our Pleasure.

[00:38:26] Show Recap

[00:38:26] Casey Golden: What a great discussion. I love the closing bit about compassion and how Jeff explained what every startup should know to not come across as arrogant in making your pitch. But then again, maybe he hasn't heard my perfect pitch. There's no arrogance there and I'm always full of compassion. I've been on that side.

[00:38:52] Ricardo Belmar: Yes indeed. Yes indeed. So true. So what, what did you think of their approach to analytics?

[00:38:58] Casey Golden: It is fascinating not [00:39:00] just because they're leveraging existing video cameras. I mean, I think we've all seen other video analytics solutions before. But shopper AI is really attacking the insights in a different way, focusing on the big numbers as Lenore put it, showing you across your whole fleet of stores what consumers are doing, how they're reacting to products.

[00:39:21] I can just see so many AB testing opportunities you could do to learn more about your stores better, and to feed that data and insights back into the brands you work. I'm already seeing another B2B services tie in, just like we keep talking about.

[00:39:39] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I totally agree, and I hope Leor and Ari find ways to lean into that line of thought, what the B2B offering that retailers can deliver to their brands by using this solution. It's a super interesting approach. I hope listeners and viewers agree.

[00:39:52] Casey Golden: So who's coming up next in this series? Got any hints for us?

[00:39:57] Ricardo Belmar: Well, you know me when it comes to hints for these. [00:40:00] So all I'll say is we've got one more startup that Jeff and I met with, and then we close it out with another of my favorite chats with some retail friends. So listeners and viewers will have to stick around to see who it is. But now I do want to thank both Lenore and Ari for joining Jeff and me for this discussion.

[00:40:16] Thank you both so much for joining.

[00:40:19] Casey Golden: So with that, Ricardo, it's time for us to wrap this second episode of Our Shop Talk Live mini-series Crossover with Jeff Roster and This Week In Innovation, it's a wrap and a mouthful. 

[00:40:35] Show Close

[00:40:35] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed our shows this season, especially our podcast crossover events, please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute. Plus, you can watch us, not just listen on our YouTube channel and [00:41:00] like, and comment about this season there, too.

[00:41:02] And if you wanna know more about what we talked about today, including a transcript of each episode, take a look at our show notes for handy links and more deets. I'm your co-host, Casey Golden.

[00:41:14] Ricardo Belmar: And if you'd like to connect with us and share your thoughts on this season and the crossover series, follow us on Twitter at Casey C Golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter and LinkedIn at Retail Razor for the latest updates. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.

[00:41:31] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.​

[00:41:35] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail if you cut through the clutter. Until next time. This is the retail Razor Show.