Future Commerce

Latest Episodes:

The Quiet Builders Sep 23, 2022

Show notes

eCommerce is in need of a deconstructionist movement. Brands should question the norms of their behaviors and their beliefs of “best practices,” but we don’t always take time to reflect.

In this episode, Phillip and Brian explore the nature of deconstructionism, why eCommerce is due for a deconstructionist movement, the quiet builders in our space, and the influence of artists in our space. Listen now!

Building the Future

An eCommerce deconstructionist movement is needed where we question our norms and we question our beliefs and why we do the things we do
People who build the future do things that haven't been done yet.
“If you want to build a pretty successful brand using only best-practices, go for it. But if you want to build the future, you have to do things that have never been done.” - Phillip
“In reality, the thing that is differentiating you is your efficiency in your ability to build something new, not to reinvent the thing that already exists.” - Phillip
“You can build a successful business without questioning things. You're just never going to be a front-runner.” - Brian
If you can’t question why and what you’re doing as a brand, then maybe you shouldn’t exist as a brand
Like Ju Rhyu who “quietly built” to her huge success, there are many out there who are quietly building
It’s interesting to learn what inspires your heroes, especially when their heroes are people you’ve not even heard of before (Phillip and Brian have some intriguing examples of who has inspired them)
“I think that fiction writers and musicians are infinitely more effective than nonfiction writers. I believe in the power of story and the power of mediums that can convey more than one meaning at once. I believe in multi-dimensional thinking.” - Brian
“In the future, there are a scant few who actually can create an impact and emotional resonance and shape the way that customers' desires pull other parts of the industry forward. They are artists in their own right.” - Phillip

Associated Links:

Phillip recommends Dirt and Blackbird Spyplane as two publications to check out and enjoy
Brian recommends listening to Acquired.fm’s episode on the history of Amazon (buckle up because it’s four hours)
Subscribe to Insiders and Senses to read more of our hot takes!
Download VISIONS 2022 NOW!
Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce
Check out Decoded, our newest limited series

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

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Is Private Equity Sexy Now? feat. Magdalena Kala Sep 20, 2022

Show notes

Mags joins Phillip and Brian to discuss the role of Web3 and the blockchain as we enter into the new wave of commerce. Does Web3 open up a new world of possibilities for brands to interact with and meet the needs of their customers? How can brands and investors partner with celebrities to solve problems? Listen now!

Mindful Web3

A successful approach to Web3, from a brand perspective, is asking questions like "Why would we do this? Why should we care? Why should our customers care? And what can we bring to the table that's different and unique because it's built on blockchain?"
“We are just going to be scratching the surface right now of the Starbucks product, but it will embolden other brands to think about what they can do and what they can do in the right way as opposed to a campaign PR-y way.” - Magdalena
“If you want the ultimate decentralization something has to give because you can't have it all in the blockchain context. You either get cheap transactions or you get ultimate security in decentralization and you can't have everything at once.” - Magdalena
Does aligning with a celebrity institute a playbook that other consumer brands have used to try to gain scale?
“If a celebrity has a brand, then a brand itself is also a mind virus that will find a way to propagate. Extremely successful brands are just very efficient propagation of a virus that likes to replicate. And that's why we have enduring brands that last for centuries.” - Phillip
“The magic happens when you are really good at multiple things because you have something that no one else competing with you in each individual area.” - Magdalena
“One of the things that's a big misconception of private equity that I hate that it's all just acquiring, stripping it off, and then question mark, question mark, question mark, profit. That's not how this works. It's very much a partnership because there is something magical in the underlying business and there is a value that the private equity firm can bring to grow it faster than it would grow on its own, independent of just the capital.” - Magdalena
Commercially-minded celebrities can help investors solve problems of distribution and attention with the networks they already have.

Associated Links:

Learn more about Magdalena Kala and @magdalenakala on Twitter
Subscribe to Insiders and Senses to read more of our hot takes!
Download VISIONS 2022 NOW!
Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce
Check out Decoded, our newest limited series

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

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Funereal Commerce Sep 09, 2022

Show notes

“Death eventually comes for us all, why not buy your casket direct and save a bunch of dough?” Today we dive into the digital transformation that has taken place in death care, and how funeral home websites have become marketplaces unto themselves. PLUS: a Veleb gets canceled for “digital blackface.” Listen now!

Caskets, but in Millennial Pink

A large portion of the funeral homes in the United States are owned by private equity rollups that consolidated infrastructure and operations through the 90’s and early 00’s.
Phillip: “Why would you want to go direct [for a casket]? If you have ever been a family member making end-of-life choices for someone that's close to you, there is a very soft and gentle, but really gross, method of upselling in the funeral industry”
Business Wire from 2021 says Titan Casket grows 400% in 2021, and it's poised to move beyond caskets to become a digital solution for funerals in 2022. It has seen its B2B business grow 15 X this year as well in launching a wholesale program. They also are in Sam's Club and Costco.com as of October.
Capitol Records announced just last week that they were bringing on a robot rapper called FN Meka. And that robot was apparently powered by artificial intelligence for some marketing purposes. So it was backed by a major label, backed by Capital Music Group, backed by Blue Note.
The virtual appearance of the rapper people were calling digital blackface and saying that there were tropes and appropriative tropes and maybe racist tropes therein of both the likeness, appearance, and the rap style, and all designed specifically to appropriate culturally that of real people.
Phillip: “Virtual celebrities have an innate advantage in that they are the product of a marketing machine. And a marketing machine would make careful and considered decisions before putting the actions of a virtual celebrity out into the world that would bring repercussions back to the brand.”
Brian: “This feels like corporations want to take all of the artistry out of something and just turn it into something that they can control 100%. They realize that… people are messy. So why don't we do this with non-people? It turns out that you have to have people behind something somewhere.”

Associated Links:

The New York Times piece recounting the cancellation of FN Meka
Titan Caskets Online
Phillip’s Twitter Thread about DTC Caskets

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[VISIONS] Episode 5: The Role of Commerce in Society Sep 05, 2022

Show notes

Show Notes

“Being a retailer of a brand, there are a number of different pressures that I think they have to address, but in doing so, it will only make them stronger companies. It'll only make consumers want to shop with them more.” - Miya Knights
When it comes to sustainability, are consumers really adhering to their convictions or are convenience and practicality leading to incongruent behavior there?
“Retailers are going to have to be a lot more transparent and a lot more in the same way that they've had to cope with the diversification of channels, the complexity of just selling in terms of transparency and choice when it comes to sustainability, particularly around fulfillment, they're going to have to offer a lot more choice than they currently do.” - Miya Knights
“It doesn't matter if you're 100 plus year old brand or if you're like a six month DTC brand. If you don't have that {sustainability}, it's going to be like trying to be a brand now without an eCommerce offering. It's just you're going to be missing out on so much opportunity.” - Michael Miraflor
“My experience of people and how they spend their time with digital products is that they diligence them a little bit less, but classify them as generally bad, much faster, just to say, "They have all my information, so they're probably doing something bad with it, but I don't have as much intensity to scrutinize them." Yet, we interact with those products way more often for the most part.” - Grace Clarke
“Fifty-one percent of our study said you have to fake it till you make it. Forty-nice percent said authenticity at all costs. And I think that that is that's actually the undercurrent of tension that we have in the world, even in our own businesses, is that we have to project outwardly like we are doing everything because we've got to fake it till we make it. When it becomes operationally efficient for us to do it all, we'll really do it all. Maybe. But there's the other side of that which says, "I just want you to tell me the truth. Just tell me the truth.’" - Phillip Jackson
“Folks that care about the purpose of the business, where they want to work and customers that care about who they want in their dollars with you can't sandbag those things. And so it's a very fine line between under-promise and then failing to compel versus pitch the best pitch you can come up with right now in this room and fail to think through whether you can do that the next 52 weeks of the year.” - Mike Lackman
“If we're 100% outcome-focused, I think that leads to insincerity.” - Brian Lange
“Tthere is sort of like the old saying, "People don't buy from companies, they buy from other people." And it's sort of democratized like it's bringing a face, not just one face, but individual faces to a brand and bringing that brand to life in a similar way that we've seen influencers drive sales and be the face of a brand.” - Kiri Masters

Guests

Miya Knights, author, and retail analyst
Kiri Masters, Head of Retail Marketplace Strategy at Acadia
Michael Miraflor, Chief Brand Officer
Grace Clarke, brand and omnichannel strategist
Mike Lackman, CEO of Trade Coffee

Associated Links:

The Visions Report is a 100-page report with deep insights, created by Future Commerce.

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

Have any questions or comments about the show? You can reach out to us at hello@futurecommerce.fm or any of our social channels; we love hearing from our listeners.

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[Step by Step] What Exactly Is the Value in Headless Commerce? (Feat. Tyson Graham, Vue Storefront) Sep 02, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to the LAST episode of Step by Step Season 8! We’re wrapping up the series with Tyson Graham, and will be covering the nuts and bolts of what makes headless interesting. Listen now!

Headless Needs a Real Head

What you want is optionality, but there is another level that isn’t just a first-party option in your eCommerce tech stack. there is an entire level we haven't thought about as an option.
“People don’t buy protocols, they buy products.” – Phillip
There are some advantages of headless in a world where legacy technology is really just slowing down in a sense, and the world is speeding up.
“We realized that there needs to be a head for headless that everyone can use, so the agnostic sort of storefront really is the head for headless. The advantages with optionality means that you can switch things in and out as you need them.” –Tyson
Like a myth or ghost story, headless is very similar. There can be a lot of misinformation spread.
“The unique aspect of your brand as a merchant is that experience. The thing you own is the experience. You're not different because you have a subscription to X-provider. You're not different because you're using a certain CMS, you're different and memorable and ultimately creating value for yourself and shareholders and customers because of that experience.” –Tyson
If you have the right setup, you can zig when others are zagging, but you can’t do that without the right technologies in place.

Associated Links:

Want to learn more about going beyond headless? Download our free Step by Step guide!
Get connected with Fabric!
Learn more about Tyson Graham and Vue Storefront
Listen to our other Step by Step seasons
Find our other Future Commerce episodes on our website

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

[Step by Step] How Do I Move From a Project Mindset to a Program Mindset? (Feat. Jon Reily, bounteous) Sep 01, 2022

Show notes

For our 4th episode of Step by Step Season 8, we’re covering how you can take your brand from having an eCommerce project mindset to a program mindset. Jon Reily from bounteous is here to chat about the difficult parts of shifting mindsets, how we're rewriting the rules, and more! Tune in now!

A North Star or a South Star?

Currently, a lot of brands are struggling with how to move from having an eCommerce project mindset to a program mindset. The most difficult part is that brands need to break the stigma that eCommerce is this big scary thing when it's not.
“We went from calling things just selling things online to eCommerce and then we went back to, well, maybe just selling things online again. Have we come full circle?” – Brian
“It all comes back to the design and you have to ensure that the design is solid in order to make it work.” – Jon
“The downside of all of these tools being out there and being ubiquitous and available to virtually everybody is it's like everything's a nail and we're walking around with hammers trying to find where to use them.” – Jon
In some ways, the programs still need to be in place as you build the foundation, or else you’ll be painting when you haven't finished the foundation.
We are rewriting the rules of eCommerce every day because there is no set way to do things, we’re all learning every day and channels are seeking out answers every day.
“Every single piece of disruption that takes place in a sector, in the following sector, the disruption happens twice as fast.” — Jon
The systems that we build have to be able to flex in the future.
The simple fact is that everyone needs to agree on what the end state is, define the end goal, and have a long-term plan.

Associated Links:

Want to learn more about data? Download our free Step by Step guide!
Get connected with Fabric!
Learn more about Jon Reily and bounteous
Listen to our other Step by Step seasons
Find our other Future Commerce episodes on our website

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

[Step by Step] What Is the Role of Data in Improving eCommerce Experiences? (Feat. Brian Walker, Chief Strategy Officer at Bloomreach) Aug 31, 2022

Show notes

Want to get more from this season of Step by Step? Download our free accompanying guide.

Personalizing Your Data Tools

All the uncertainty around the economy, inflation, and interest rates is affecting decision making and freezing the market.
“Redeploy budgets and focus on getting more out of the existing database of customers you have. Ensure that their journeys support what they're trying to accomplish as consumers and how they want to engage with your brand.” – Brian Walker
We’ve been talking about personalization in eCommerce for decades, but very few brands are actually doing it.
“Those who are personalizing tend to be the ones who have grown share over the last 15 years and continue to reap results. It's hard to have those same results if you're only using out-of-the-box tools.” – Brian Walker
Headless makes a difference in a couple of key areas: The fluidity of the experience and how you can adapt and change it on a website as well as the common backend of your digital business.
“People may have an expectation that headless means easy or headless means simpler. That's not necessarily true. So you really need to do your homework and understand what that means if you’re going to go down that route.” –Brian Walker
“Your sales associates in stores or your service people in contact centers should be leveraging a common system and data store underneath so that they can serve the customer in a contextual, relevant way when you're engaging with them. Those are digitally enabled channels now as well. And therefore, everyone is a digital business.” – Brian Walker

Associated Links:

Want to learn more about data? Download our free Step by Step guide!
Get connected with Fabric!
Learn more about Brian Walker
Listen to our other Step by Step seasons
Find our other Future Commerce episodes on our website

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

[Step by Step] How Do I Choose the Right Technology Partners? (Feat. Michael Bernard, VP of Tax Content & Operations and Chief Tax Officer at Vertex) Aug 30, 2022

Show notes

Want to get more from this season of Step by Step? Download our free accompanying guide.

A Blendification of Brands

State and local governments have continued to rely on sales tax as it is one of the three pillars that governments rely on for income.
Retail invoices have a lot of key components because SKU, price, and tax all have to be correct. Recently, Michael is witnessing more retailers demanding more and more precision.
Believe it or not, over the last 30 years, the sales tax base has actually shrunk. State legislatures have written bills to minimize what can be taxed. In turn, governments can only raise tax rates on discretionary income.
“You always want to select a vendor that will grow with you and can actually meet your needs.” - Michael
The biggest challenge that brands face is selecting the right vendor and not having the right systems to troubleshoot in the wake of a crisis.
Retailers of all sizes come to the table with different billing systems. Pick a partner who can move smoothly between systems.
Services overlooked when choosing a vendor are self-service ability and flexibility, so you can have the option to move your dollars around easily.
“The voice of the customer should be the customer.” - Brian
If brands want to differentiate themselves they need to find software that allows them to be a part of the process.

Associated Links:

Want to learn more about how to take your brand to the next level? Download our free Step by Step guide!
CO drops Feminine Product Taxes
Get connected with fabric.
Learn more about Michael Bernard and Vertex

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[Step by Step] How Can I Make the Business Case for My Brand to Invest in Experience? (Feat. Ryan Bartley, Founder & CSO, fabric) Aug 29, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Season 8 of Step by Step. This season we’re partnering with fabric to discuss how brands can stand out from the crowd by investing in an experiential design. Tune in every day this week to hear from experts on how to unlock your eCommerce growth. Listen now!

Is experience worth investing in?

Ryan Bartley is the Founder of Fabric, a leading modular and headless enterprise commerce platform helping brands and retailers innovate and scale.
Experience is not only your digital experiences and touchpoints within stores but also the brand touchpoints and the service level you give your customers.
“What we're hearing from all of the companies that we work with is really a concern about just what the next handful of months and what the next year looks like.” -Ryan
Start targeting your software and figuring out how to serve your customers in the best possible way
Is now the time to rip and replace legacy tech or is it time to optimize it? It can be difficult to replace, so you should be working on ways to optimize your tech stack, but also looking for ways to optimize your content stack.
“We at fabric personally don’t believe in the word customization, but rather in configuration. It’s your platform, not ours.” -Ryan
“It's intuitive that you should improve your experience and service level because you look at the competitor set in your groups and they're doing it, they're not messing around.” -Ryan

Associated Links:

Want to learn more about how to take your brand to the next leve? Download our free Step by Step guide!
Get connected with fabric!
Learn more about Ryan Bartley
Listen to our other Step by Step seasons
Find our other Future Commerce episodes on our website

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“A Level of Omnichannel That’s Never Talked About” feat. Karin Dillie Aug 26, 2022

Show notes

Joining the show today is Karin Dillie, coming to talk about Recurate’s newest report, all things resale, from Gen Z to Boomers, omnichannel, and more! Tune in now!

Reclaiming Resale

Recurate started as a way for brands to reclaim resale
Recurate has recently released a new piece of research called the Recurate Resale Report, they wanted to dig in and find the data on what is happening in resale
“What we wanted to do was dig in a bit more into primary data and really understand the motivations and behaviors that are happening and what consumers want from brands.” – Karin
In their research, they found a new cohort of customers called “Circulars”: people who are buying and selling.
Resale has happened in previous generations but it's happening differently now, you can interact more than you used to, and you’re able to interact across all the different channels, ages, and genders
“63% of people want brands to do more. Customers are already doing this, some version of it, whether it be localized or online, and they want more help in doing it well.” – Karin
“This is an element of omnichannel that is never talked about.” – Phillip
Everything in direct to consumer era in a nutshell is the level of loyalty and experience that comes with the brand
Brands need to learn how we create this omnichannel relationship with resale in the same way that we've done with channel flexing for buying IRL or turning to Amazon for staples.
It’s all about building the resale operating systems that meet your customers where they want to be. The biggest part of this is helping customers understand that there is value in their items.

Associated Links:

Learn more about Karin Dillie and Recurate
Download Recurte’s Resale Report
Subscribe to Insiders and Senses to read more of our hot takes!
Download VISIONS 2022 NOW!
Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce
Check out our newest Step by Step launching Monday!

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.