S1E13 – Razor’s Edge: The Season 1 Finale!

Welcome to Season 1, Episode 13 of The Retail Razor Show – the season one finale!

It’s been an amazing opening season for the show, but now we have reached the Razor’s Edge – the end of our first season! Ready to finish with a bang? We’ve got a special guest host – yes, that’s right, guest host – Liza Amlani, principal and founder of Retail Strategy Group and The Merchant Life newsletter!

Liza turns the tables on our regular hosts, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden, to hold a mid-year check in on their Top 10 Predictions for 2022 from Episode 4. Then, Liza walks our guests through highlights from throughout the season, remembering great moments with Andy Laudato, COO of The Vitamin Shoppe, Ron Thurston, author of Retail Pride and host of the Retail in America tour and podcast, and Gautham Vadakkepatt, director of the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason University. Listen in to see if your favorite moments from Season 1 made it to the Razor’s Edge!

Have you heard the news! We’re up to #20 on the Feedspot Top 60 Retail podcasts list, so please keep those 5-star reviews in Apple Podcasts coming! With your loyal help, we’ll be moving our way up the Top 20 in no time! Leave us a review and we’ll mention you in a future episode! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your hosts turned guests, helping you cut through the clutter in retail and retail tech:

I’m Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 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 lead partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

And I’m Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. I've spent my career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business. Now I slay franken-stacks!

The Retail Razor Show

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Host → Ricardo Belmar,

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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

S1E13 Razor’s Edge: The Season 1 Finale!

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:00] Liza Amlani: Hello, retail, razor listeners. Welcome to the season one grand finale episode. As you can tell, I'm not one of your usual hosts. I'm Liza Amlani principal and co-founder of retail strategy group and the merchant life newsletter. And I am your guest host today where I'll be turning the tables on your usual host and interviewing them.

[00:00:41] So let's bring them in Ricardo Belmar and Casey golden, Casey and Ricardo. Thank you so much for having me guest host today.

[00:00:48] Ricardo Belmar: Hey, Liza, it's awesome to have you here.

[00:00:50] Casey Golden: So amazing to have you off of Twitter for a moment, on the podcast.

[00:00:55] Liza Amlani: Of course we're, we're changing. We're changing it

[00:00:57] Ricardo Belmar: Of

[00:00:57] Liza Amlani: little bit. so how does it feel being on the other side of the mic today?

[00:01:02] Casey Golden: It's a little different, somehow it doesn't feel like being a guest on somebody else's podcast. So it's a little bit strange, 

[00:01:07] but, 

[00:01:08] this was one of our most popular topics. So

[00:01:10] Ricardo Belmar: That's true. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I, I would kinda say the same thing. It's a little, a little weird, not being the one, asking the questions like we usually do on, on the show. But this will be fun. This will be something different. And you're totally right. It doesn't feel the same as being a guest on somebody else's podcast.

[00:01:24] So this will be an interesting one this time around.

[00:01:26] Liza Amlani: Well, I'm excited to get you guys in the hot seat. So let's dive in. First I'm gonna run through the top 10 predictions you guys made in episode four. And we'll consider this a mid-year check-in. And just because I wanna keep you guys on your toes cuz you know, that's how I roll. I'm gonna keep score on whose predictions are performing better.

[00:01:44] Nothing like a little competition to mix things up.

[00:01:47] Ricardo Belmar: Well, this could get ugly, then Casey's so super competitive. it's a good thing. We're all remote. And there's no risks of things being thrown around the room.

[00:01:55] Casey Golden: Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe not your room I think it's pretty obvious who's gonna have the, have the better record, but there's a reason you know, Ricardo and I are on here. I mean, I think we had a few times where we're like, no, you have to change it. Cuz we can't have everything the same. so.

[00:02:12] Liza Amlani: well, this is definitely gonna be better than I expected. I love it. Okay, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. And the second part, I'm also gonna ask you both what your favorite parts of the season were, and a few other surprise questions about the season. So let's get started with the season one finale.

[00:02:31] Revisiting the Top 10 Predictions for 2022 

[00:02:31] Liza Amlani: Okay. The first prediction was about retail media networks. Ricardo, let's start with you.

[00:02:36] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I think this one's definitely a winner because let's see, since we did episode four, there must be at least, I don't know, like another 50 retail media networks that have been announced by retailers this year. I don't know ranging from what. Like ulta beauty hadn't been announced when we recorded that.

[00:02:49] That's the one that everybody wanted to talk about. I mean, just about, everybody that's either a a big box retailer. I mean, a bunch of specialty ones, that maybe we wouldn't have expected. I think this one's just continuing to grow, so I'm thinking I'm good on that one.

[00:03:02] Liza Amlani: Okay, Casey, let's talk about brick, expansions. I love this one, cuz you know, I'm a big fan of physical retail. 

[00:03:08] Casey Golden: yeah, and I kind of focus on digital these days. So it's kind of nice to pop into bricks every once in a while. It's where we all started, right? 

[00:03:16] there was barely an internet.

[00:03:18] not saying that anybody's old here, but you know, there wasn't very many commerce stories in the beginning, so the passion started on the floor. It's been interesting with Amazon's new, they're still kind of expanding on these, these in stores, reimagining the shopping and buying experience. I've actually seen a lot more traction in that, you know, with all of these tech enabled spaces and a lot more experimenting.

[00:03:45] So, I mean, I think we kind of nailed that this is really going to be a tech enabled opportunity for a lot of bricks and changing the traditional big box. For more entertaining showrooms kind of tagged Glossier as the winner. There's been a lot of changes over there too. So there's a lot of opportunity here for somebody, for a whole group of people to really win on bricks.

[00:04:07] Liza Amlani: Definitely. I also just placed a Glossier order yesterday.

[00:04:11] Social commerce and live streaming, Ricardo., 

[00:04:14] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, this is S definitely one of my favorite topics. Still may, maybe second, only the retail media networks. I think it's still growing, right? I guess one of the big things in the prediction I talked about was this idea that retailers would start relying more on their store associates as the live streamers, as the way of really promoting the whole idea of, of live shopping that way. And I think overall, this one's still building momentum and, and gaining steam. all the social media networks are certainly still putting out more features what Twitter added a new shopping capabilities, which maybe we wouldn't have expected Twitter to do.

[00:04:46] In episode 12, we even talked about Pinterest and, and their new capabilities. So I think there's a lot happening there. And if anything, maybe hasn't come true yet, but I'm gonna still hold out hope here for later in the year is when we start seeing more frontline store associates doing the live streams, and maybe that's picking up steam, I think in more of a, a one to one kind of shopping experience versus a one to many. But I still think that we're gonna see that. I just think it's a natural extension and we might see it first coming from smaller retailers. I, I think because it's easier for them to be more nimble with that and get somebody recording and going live whereas big retailers are just naturally have this motion where they're gonna want to go big and, have big production values and bring in lots of equipment.

[00:05:25] And that's gonna slow them down a bit. But I think we'll still see it happen.

[00:05:28] Liza Amlani: Yeah, I think

[00:05:29] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, I. But I put a lot of emphasis on TikTok commerce, because I've been watching that 

[00:05:35] beta program since

[00:05:36] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:37] Casey Golden: Asia and then pulling out of the us and Europe last week, that announcement I think it's, gonna probably be better for smaller brands than the big ones, because TikTok would've been that commerce channel.

[00:05:50] So who's to know. 

[00:05:52] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think there's still plenty of startups coming up too, that I, I see focusing on, on live streaming. So if I was gonna add something, it would be how things turn out between the big social media platforms versus these dedicated livestream platforms that are mostly driven by startups and how retailers are gonna adopt one versus the other.

[00:06:09] And, and maybe we'll seem do both because it just kind of makes sense to have one off your own website and not totally rely on, you know, a Facebook channel.

[00:06:16] Liza Amlani: Oh, for sure. When we were at the retail innovation show, there were, I think core site had partnered with a live streaming platform, which was super interesting, but I feel like they weren't retailers. So it'd be interesting to see when retailers actually merge with live streamers and partner together to, to have the best CU customer experience

[00:06:35] Casey personal shopping. I love this one.

[00:06:38] Casey Golden: I'm obviously I'm biased. 

[00:06:40] So, brownie points here, customer expectations. I mean, I thought that they were high during the pandemic. 

[00:06:47] They're almost unachievable at the moment. Shoppers are no longer content with that simple transactional purchase outside of like commodity goods. And we, we saw a lot of innovation with the associate led shopping and it went big.

[00:07:03] but I think that there's like a lot of rebuilds when it comes down to the tech on actually operationalizing. And really bringing that in-store experience online and working with customers remotely. We've seen a lot of team, a lot of brands building out specific dedicated frontline staff teams, but putting them online and building virtual teams to really have, you know Trusted product expert or that sales associate being able to, to help them shop and, and build that relationship.

[00:07:33] I'm gonna still betting in that we're gonna see a lot more of it. 

[00:07:36] Liza Amlani: I think 

[00:07:36] so, too. 

[00:07:37] Casey Golden: with like, yeah, I mean, we, have to alleviate all of the mundane tasks that these sales associates have to deal with in order to manage these customers. And make sure that they don't lose their jobs. The sheer volume of online traffic and then trying to provide a personal shopping experience. I think everybody said that it was, this personal shopping shop with the stylist's going into client telling, and that's gonna be new platforms. It's working so. I think it's, it's really exciting to see the brands put this talent at the forefront of the narrative and start giving them software.

[00:08:15] Liza Amlani: I love that you brought up client telling because I started on the shop floor and I definitely had a book that I used to, you know, bring to, to Harrods. That's where I worked in one of my, one of my store roles. And that book went everywhere with me. And that was my client telling software was manual pen and paper and technology would've definitely changed the game.

[00:08:37] Ricardo, let's talk about the shopper experience.

[00:08:40] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think, you know, it technology and in-store experience. I mean, they're continuing down that March to converge. . And bring in more and more things into the store. We've got this year more examples of computer, vision and AI. You know, just look at Amazon's new style store and what they're doing there.

[00:08:55] Some people like it, some not so much, but I think the, the point is we're seeing more and more experiments and more and more attempts to try things out. I think I mentioned when we first talked about this, we talked a little more about where we're AR and VR platform is gonna play in store.

[00:09:09] I don't think we've seen as much with that. Although, I mean, I think there's more AR things happening. I'm I'm. More and more things happening around trying to improve fit in apparel. . It's always a challenge there. But to me, this is all about finding more and more technology in the store, but not in the way of the shopping experience, which makes it so much of a better experience and that we have people wanting to do more shopping in store.

[00:09:32] Right now we've gotten past this idea that online was just gonna totally shut down physical experiences. And, and we're seeing that we're back to back to the norm there. For the most part, I think we'll just see more and more cashierless checkout, more shelf scanning types of. Technologies, whether it's robots or IOT sensors, we're gonna see more and more scan and go.

[00:09:51] So I think this one's moving along, maybe not as fast as I, I would've expected at the beginning of the year when we talked about it. But that to me has more to do with retail is wanting to be cautious about some of these investments versus desire to do them at all. So I think it's all still happening.

[00:10:05] Liza Amlani: Casey by now pay later.

[00:10:07] Casey Golden: Oh, it gets hotter, then the bubble bursts. I'm a big believer and don't spend more than you have, but you know, Regulators are there they're coming. I read all my regulators. All I hear is Warren G 

[00:10:20] Liza Amlani: I love it. Now I have Warren G in my head. Good song.

[00:10:24] Casey Golden: I know, right. We should all 

[00:10:25] have 

[00:10:26] Liza Amlani: I know

[00:10:27] Casey Golden: God, good times. Good times. I think one day we'll look back at, buy now, pay later and say good times. It's, it's been a, they've been getting a lot of traction making, purchases, lack consumer protections and and they can really make hassle free returns 30% APR with just crazy, crazy APR rates.

[00:10:50] There's easier ways to, block out these payments and they've been productive for all the brands. I mean, I don't know if you can even find a website that doesn't offer by now pay later. But I also think it's a very American thing. We are like, we invented the credit card, right? So whether or not it's consumer. So whether or not it's good for the consumer, it's been really good for businesses. But I think that there's gonna be a little bit more regulation and consumer protections on it to really make sure that, when you make a purchase for, $300, it's not gonna cost you three grand. cuz there's been some. Some, some more predatory behavior in this space, but Klarna has really stepped up their game and providing really interesting product discovery in their app rewards programs. And, you know, they recently just bought hero which was a personal shopping app. So they're offering, you know, just looking at the customer journey from start to finish and, you know, trying to set the.

[00:11:50] Up to be more than just a payment system or at least feel like it. Right. So I think the competition's gonna get tougher and they're gonna have to be more interesting to branch out from the regulation, I think, 

[00:12:04] Ricardo Belmar: acquired or merge or combining something's gonna happen.

[00:12:07] I don't think it's gonna keep on this growth path. 

[00:12:10] Casey Golden: ricardo, I'm really interested on your, thoughts on that too. 

[00:12:13] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, I mean you on, on buy now pay later. You pretty much had me at regulators.

[00:12:19] Casey Golden: and I've used it once as an experiment. It's just like, well,

[00:12:22] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. yeah. I, I, I mean, I, I think the very first thing we said back in, in that episode, on that one, right? The, the, it gets hotter and then the bubble burst, I think we're, we're just about, at that point, in my opinion, and there was more and more folks looking. Just what you said, right? The predatory terms, the insane APRs, and it's on a path to have an impact, right.

[00:12:46] To put people into more and more depth when they don't need to be. So I, I don't know. I, I just, I think it's interesting that we see. The BPL companies trying to add more services to their offering that's not part of the core idea right. Of buy now pay later so that their business isn't totally dependent on it.

[00:13:03] And I dunno, in some ways, this is one of these things where it was a huge bubble, but at the end of the day, I mean, How hard is it to replicate by now pay later functionality for a payments company. So where's the differentiator for all these guys to stay in business? I think , the bubble , has to burst.

[00:13:17] Liza Amlani: And when we think about Ricardo, this is one for you, the analytics. AI and machine learning and sustainability and traceability and merchandising returns and predictive analytics, all this stuff that I love to talk about from a merchant perspective. Let's talk about your prediction around this.

[00:13:33] Ricardo Belmar: . So in, in that one I saw that we're just gonna, so, so much more automation. A lot of this technology being used to remove all the mundane and tedious tasks that store employees have to deal with. And, and there are so many new tools coming out with that. I I've been working with a number of different companies now who have new technologies, just for that to make the life easier for those frontline teams.

[00:13:55] And then just looking at returns, returns is becoming an even bigger problem, I think now than it was at the beginning of the year. And I see more technology being thrown at how to solve returns, not in terms of what do you do when somebody wants to return something, but what can you do preventively to make it so that people don't need to buy three versions of the same thing to see which one's gonna be the right one and return the other two. Now there's ways that AI machine learning can help with that analysis. And I think we're seeing solutions that do that. I've seen more retailers implement those and they're seeing tangible changes, where we're seeing reductions of returns in double digit percentages, which is, is obviously going to be meaningful to their sales numbers. You know, think sustainability has just continued down a march , I think more and more news coming out where people start to question some brands as to, are they really engaging in those sustainability practices they've been talking about? Or is there, are they doing one thing in with their right hand, but the left hand's doing something else.

[00:14:50] It kind of works against that sustainability. So to me that says that people are paying more attention to sustainability is starting to matter more which I see as a positive and, and again, I think this is one where , without technology, none of the brands are gonna be able to solve this in a, in a meaningful enough way that's gonna accomplish, the dual purpose goal, which is to demonstrate to their customers that they are engaging in sustainable practices, but at the same time, not do it in a manner that's gonna make their cost skyrocket and make them unprofitable.

[00:15:17] So I think that that's still happening. So I think that's on a good, good March. Predictive analytics. I mean, I, I'm always still surprised when you see retailers show you that, oh, they're still doing their forecasting on a spreadsheet in Excel versus using something more, you know, more appropriately let's say size for, for their business that allows them to, to leverage AI in a better way.

[00:15:36] And I mean, yes, during the pandemic, all these systems tended to, to create more problems and solutions because nobody let's face it, could have the right model that was gonna predict what was gonna be a shortage and, and factor in the supply chain challenges and all that. But now, now those models are starting to get worked in and now

[00:15:53] some of the companies I've been working with are finding that the real reason those solutions led them down the wrong path is because the people that were reading the results were taking different actions than they probably should have been. So it was less the technology as it was the human intervention, that didn't wanna accept what the technology was saying.

[00:16:08] Because they felt that, you know, that was gonna be a different result. So I, I think that's all working itself out. In some ways I think this is one of the , most exciting technology areas in retail because it has the potential to have so much change, even if it's more behind the scenes and most consumers don't see this, it's not obvious to you if you walk into a retailer store.

[00:16:26] But there's so much of this behind the scenes, it has to happen to make the business work. I, just think it's nowhere to go, but up.

[00:16:32] Casey Golden: Yeah, I'm gonna just add a point on there just to kind of leave our listeners with something to think about. We've been measuring the wholesale business for like a hundred years. This is really the very beginning of taking direct to consumer analytics. As we grow these business models out on selling direct to the consumer, there is so much data, so more data than we've ever had.

[00:16:58] And so we're gonna be able to get so an amount of knowledge from this over the next, like three years. That we've never seen or understood about our brand or sales. And I think it's, I, I agree, Ricardo, it's super exciting. I mean, you can just geek out on this

[00:17:16] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, oh yeah. There's we're gonna, we're already keeping those data scientists employed for a long time.

[00:17:23] Liza Amlani: I, I definitely geek out. Yes. I definitely geek out on all that. You know, coming from that merchants and product creation space, the challenge I find is that, we have all this data and we always have so had so much data from loyalty programs and even client telling, but are we really using it to drive? You know, product decisions, assortment decisions. So it will be very interesting to see, you know, in the next three years, I think we should come back to this one in three years and let's see where we are. Let's talk 

[00:17:52] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think, I 

[00:17:52] Casey Golden: We got a 

[00:17:53] Ricardo Belmar: safely put this one on every top 10 list.

[00:17:55] Liza Amlani: Oh yeah. 

[00:17:57] Casey Golden: Yeah, no, we've 

[00:17:59] Liza Amlani: exactly. Well, let's, let's talk about rapid 

[00:18:02] delivery. 

[00:18:03] Casey Golden: Yeah, rapid delivery. 

[00:18:05] Goodness gracious. Does access delivery from any company you're Canada. So

[00:18:14] Liza Amlani: I know I do. I know. Come on. No, no, no, no, no. Getting here. Maybe not two hours, but definitely we're getting

[00:18:26] Casey Golden: I feel yeah, I mean, Rapid delivery gets a rapid shakeout. I mean, too many popped up during the pandemic. It was an incredible opportunity to force, like for force adoption, for consumers to shop buying things online that they, they never even thought was possible. The amount of grocery online. I mean, without the pandemic, would you ever think like rural areas are getting.

[00:18:51] We're getting, you know, two to same day delivery. But we asked in the beginning of the year, is this really sustainable? And I think the, the market has decided that it's not cost effective. And we'll continue to see a lot of acquisitions and consolidation M and a potential here with like micro fulfillment and last mile delivery.

[00:19:10] Very hot space. A major's gonna win. , but there's been a lot of adjustments here, especially this year with even Uber eats. They're not, incredible how long it takes. Amazon canceled their two hour delivery and metropolitan areas. And a lot of them grocery delivery services have ceased to exist in a lot of you know, non-chain grocery stores that was, that were leveraging it.

[00:19:32] I think, we're gonna have to figure out how you can afford to have

[00:19:35] last mile. I'm very curious on how consumers feel about having this amazing service and then it going away and how that affects brand loyalty. So I think there's still a lot to watch here. There's a big opportunity. But it's gonna take a lot of money.

[00:19:48] Liza Amlani: Yeah. And it's almost like we haven't really seen who pays for this. Who's P and L is this really impacting

[00:19:56] right. 

[00:19:56] Ricardo Belmar: I don't know that anybody has the model down yet, to make money off of it because it's kind of this thing where, you know, the. The faster you want to deliver it automatically means the closer you have to stage it to the customer to have a chance, of getting it there. I mean like two hours, we had like the quick commerce brands in 15 minute delivery in cities.

[00:20:14] I mean, if you're gonna do that, then you have to have so many different staging locations and fulfillment centers and you've gotta have the best predictive analytics to know exactly what are the items everybody's likely to order that they want in 15 minutes. And, and then you end up. All the, the providers say, well, we hope to make this work with larger basket sizes, but okay.

[00:20:33] You don't really want a big order because then if you're trying to deliver it in 15 minutes, it takes you too many minutes to pick and pack the order to get what I wanted to get it to someone. . If it's more than a handful of items. So that means, okay, if you can't get your volume based on basket size, you've gotta have it on number of orders.

[00:20:48] Okay. But then you mean more labor, right? Or, or more automation. And either one of those has a cost implication. So you still need to. Work that out. So I don't know. It just doesn't seem like it's sustainable. And then at the end of the day, I think Casey, you asked the right question. What do consumers really need to have delivered in less than two hours?

[00:21:05] Casey Golden: my

[00:21:06] Ricardo Belmar: often enough to make a business out of it.

[00:21:09] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm telling I'm, I'm probably oversharing here, but like the amount of times I ordered a chocolate donut from dunk and dunking donuts around like 11 to 1:00 AM in the morning from Uber eats during the pandemic is ridiculous. but it cost me literally nothing. Now, if I wanted to order that same donut for just to hit a craving at like midnight. It would cost me like $32. Like there are so many fees attached to that now that I'm like, yeah, I don't need,

[00:21:39] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Do you really need it delivered right now? Is it really worth it?

[00:21:43] Casey Golden: yeah. So, I mean, it's those impulses versus primary way of going grocery shopping. So I think that there's, the volume has, has definitely adjusted the purpose of what people are buying the basket size. And then people are out and about, and they, you it's much easier to swing by the grocery store on your way home. 

[00:22:01] Liza Amlani: Exactly. 

[00:22:02] Casey Golden: that just takes your volume away from your pricing.

[00:22:04] Liza Amlani: Yeah. And speaking of pricing and volume , I'm not sure if this is a segue, but Ricardo we're, we're almost done. We're at number nine, low code revolution. Tell us more.

[00:22:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. So I, I kind of hang my hat on this one as , the hidden secret that let's retailers figure out how to do things that used to take them six months and do it in six weeks because you can't wait for an army of your in-house developers to come up with a brand new system for you for any task, like you used to pre pandemic. Now you need things done right away and you wanna build into the schedule, how often you're gonna iterate on that solution to make it better and better. And if there's any technology that makes that doable, it it's everything around low code technologies where you're visually building applications, creating reports and dashboards to keep everybody informed.

[00:22:49] If I just go by, what I hear from my Microsoft colleagues who are doing these deployments with customers, it's like every single opportunity they have involves some kind of low code technology aspect. And most of the partners that I work with all have some sort of an implementation in their solution that lets a retailer customize something via a visual kind of development platform.

[00:23:10] So I'm beginning to feel like there isn't any technology that's gonna be put in front of a retailer that doesn't have a low-code design component to it just to make life easier for the retailer and to gain adoption.

[00:23:19] Liza Amlani: Casey number 10. This is our last one. Everyone web three metaverse crypto NFTs. I don't think you know anything about this space, right? Casey. You actually teach me a lot. I'll 

[00:23:31] Casey Golden: Does anybody like really does anybody? I mean, I think I I've, every conversation I've ever been on is like, well, I'm not an expert. I'm like, come on. None of us are like, we're all learning together. Prepare for some whiplash. It's getting interesting and web three's here to stay. It's not, it's not just one thing.

[00:23:47] We've got an incredibly passionate creator community and consumers are, curious, and we're getting a pretty rapid adoption rate. And, and adding a lot of payment opportunities for commerce and making this bridge. Commerce is going to drive this space to turn it into something that's here to last the biggest challenges are gonna be around data interoperability.

[00:24:14] Retail is famous for silos and web three developers are, are staying aligned with that methodology. So hopefully hopefully we can all break that down. And a lot of companies, thousands of companies have come together to create standards for web three From file sizes to ethics. So I think that that's really exciting.

[00:24:34] I've never seen companies come together quite like this. So fast in a market to say, we want this to stay. We need to work together. Let's not compete. So that's pretty interesting and brands are experimenting. Brands that typically do not experiment, period, are experimenting and they are supporting very large global initiatives to accept crypto at their stores, to launch NFTs and collaborate with content creators, or artists that are not in house, which is another really great, opportunity. That's just rare. So I wanna see a lot more brands build community and really see what they can turn this space into. It's not going anywhere. I can say that. It's definitely not going anywhere. I think it could make all of our predictions in some way. There's probably some piece that could be innovated by using some piece of web three and make our lives a little bit easier and a little bit more, enjoyable, you know, from the consumer to the brand, there's an opportunity here. But we're, the brands are gonna have to experiment to figure out what piece is gonna be the way that they roll it out. So I'm excited about this space. Take it slow.

[00:25:47] Liza Amlani: I'm excited too. I was actually in the the Soho Faragamo store a couple weeks ago, and I saw the the NFT station, I guess. And as a consumer, I was definitely fascinated. So I'm excited to, to see. More of what happens in that space. 

[00:26:05] well, I'm sure that everyone listening is wondering how the score turned out.

[00:26:08] So now as a, an impartial judge and to friends, to you both, you know, I will say that I would say you guys are both pretty spot on. Do you think that there's there's anything that you should have predicted that, should have been on this list? I think that's a, that's an interesting question to ask you both.

[00:26:26] Ricardo Belmar: that's a tough one. And if I were to pick anything, I would say the one thing we didn't, we came close to it, right in Casey's brick and mortar expansion. I don't know that we really talked about whether it was gonna be sort of this pendulum swing, between online commerce growth versus physical stores and just how much people were gonna rush back to stores this year and, and want to enjoy that physical shopping experience. And, and what that implication was towards, the trends the last two years where our e-commerce was just gonna take over everything. Which isn't to say that it's still, you know, moving ahead, it's not like it's gonna contract, it's gonna keep growing just that the pace is back to normal.

[00:26:58] So maybe that's one that we didn't talk about that we, we could have gone a step further maybe in, in that one prediction, but that's the one that comes to my mind. 

[00:27:05] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, coming out, we spoke about it maybe a couple times throughout this entire season, knowing that when that pendulum swings, it's gonna come with a recession. And we didn't really dive in. I think we could have used an entire episode just to talk about. The timing, the impacts of all of this with some type of recession coming into play, because it was obvious the timing wasn't.

[00:27:28] And so it aligning up our holiday season or the kickoff of the new year. You know, there's a lot of companies are expecting to hit their numbers this year because of holiday. So I think we could have definitely dived into a little bit more of the consumer behavior coming out of the 

[00:27:45] pandemic

[00:27:45] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. 

[00:27:46] Casey Golden: say which one of these things is gonna be what a retailer is gonna need to make it through that recession 

[00:27:51] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, and closely relating to that, we didn't predict the, wonky supply chain problems that were been continuous right throughout this year still. Right. I don't think we would've back at the, be when we recorded that episode, would've predicted that oh yeah.

[00:28:04] Target and Walmart , are not gonna figure out how to get their inventory turned straightened out and they're gonna end up stuck with too much product. Right. We would never 

[00:28:10] Casey Golden: is what we do, right? Like, why are we still having, why are we still having issues?

[00:28:14] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:28:15] Casey Golden: yeah, I agree.

[00:28:16] Season 1 Highlights

[00:28:16] Liza Amlani: Well, you know, I'll say that it's definitely a merchandising strategy issue, but you know, nobody asked me let's, let's talk about some highlights from season one. So Ricardo, , which was your favorite clubhouse discussion? I love these by the

[00:28:31] Ricardo Belmar: Ah, oh yeah. Oh yeah. We, we really enjoy these too. I, I have to say, I think my favorite one was the one we did with Andy Laudato COO of the vitamin shop from his book, fostering innovation and, and how to build that culture of innovation in your IT shop. I think that one was my favorite one, just because it was such a wide variety of topics that we cover.

[00:28:50] I mean, we asked Andy about his project management style. We talked about, how that impacts the corporate culture. There was some pretty clever tidbits in there that he talked about in terms of, how to consider how you hire people to align to that culture of innovation.

[00:29:05] He talked about his hierarchy of IT needs and how you can get to earn the privilege to innovate, which I think was really clever. And then, one of my favorite, if I'm gonna pick catch phrases to come out of the season, that one had one of my favorites, which was be a diode that Andy had.

[00:29:19] If you remember that one where he said, as the team manager, you're a diode, you take all the negative things that come to the team, those stop with you as the team leader. And you don't pass those on, but when you get all the good comments, you don't keep those, you pass those on to your team so they can all benefit from the, from the praise.

[00:29:34] That one should, there should be a t-shirt for that one.

[00:29:35] Liza Amlani: I love it 

[00:29:36] Casey Golden: Yeah. I actually took a lot of quotes from Andy. I love his perspective of project management and how to get tech in and actually deployed rather than running so many projects simultaneously. Almost nothing gets done in three years. I really haven't quoted anybody as much as I've quoted Andy from these podcasts, he is a gem. So everybody rewind, go back to that episode and 

[00:30:02] take a listen. It was really good.

[00:30:06] Liza Amlani: I love that episode too. Casey, I have a question for you. Who was your most memorable guest speaker and who surprised you the most? It's a double whammy question.

[00:30:16] Casey Golden: Ron Thurston and it's for both of them. There's probably no coincidence. He's been, he's been in. More than more, no, less than three, three of our episodes. We kicked off with Ron. And, and once you hear Ron advocate for the frontline store teams, you just can't help, but gain a better understanding of the people working in those roles and also feel motivated to wanna improve the work environment for , these associates.

[00:30:42] I knew of him. I had met him on zoom. But that conversation, that podcast, I just completely fell in love with him. And I had no idea he had so much passion for these people until we started talking and like, we didn't stop talking. It was season one, episode one season one, episode two. It was just continued to bring in Ron that, he has this platform, like his voice needed to be out there and share his stories.

[00:31:10] He's an amazing human, so definitely made it to my most memorable

[00:31:16] Liza Amlani: I love Ron too. I love watching where he's gonna be next on his Airstream tour. That is it's super cool. And now I want an Airstream. Obviously. I know that. Yes, we all want it. . 

[00:31:26] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly.

[00:31:27] Casey Golden: I hope it turns into documentary.

[00:31:31] Liza Amlani: I love it. What about you, Ricardo? , which guest would you say? Did you learn the most from.

[00:31:35] Ricardo Belmar: So, I have sort of an interesting way to think of, of that one. So as far as where I learned the most from , I think it was on the episode that we call the sea of academia. We actually had a couple guests there and, and big big shocker. Ron was one of those guests on that episode, too.

[00:31:49] But we also had Gotham Vadakkepatt. Who's the, director of the center for retail transformation at George Mason university. And I, I think that was the one where I learned the most from, because it had a very different view that. I think all of us that talk about retail all the time, we don't often talk about the educational aspect of it and how that plays a role in creating the next generation of retail leaders.

[00:32:09] And I think in that episode, I learned a lot about different perspectives on how to look at that. You know, the thing that sticks in my mind and that one is when Gotham said at the beginning of one of his classes in the semester, he asked his students, how many of you work in retail right now?

[00:32:22] It was something like a big percentage of his class raised their hand and said, yeah, they work in retail and then he asked them, well, how many of you think you want to pursue a career in retail and all the hands went down.

[00:32:31] None of them wanted to. But then by the end of his class, when he brought in a series of guest speakers to talk about different career journeys in retail, in different areas that you can work in in the industry. When he asked the question again at the end, at least half those hands came back up.

[00:32:44] People finally realized, oh, there really is something interesting. It's not just what they thought was a harsh experience, I guess, working in those stores. And, and to me, it kind of ties together what Casey was just saying about the episodes we did with Ron. And advocating for those frontline store teams and this kind of gives a different spin to it.

[00:33:01] So I, I came away learning a lot from that one and how there's an opportunity to influence, those future generation of retail leaders through those educational programs and through those university programs that they're going through to get them to come up with a, different new perspective on the industry, which I think oftentimes people in retail get stuck in their ways. And they're just used to doing things a certain way and you need that , new, new set of ideas to, to change things up.

[00:33:26] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, one in six people on the planet, work in retail in some capacity. And for there not to be a way for you to go to school or go to college or university or specialize. In retail or commerce. I mean, that's kind of mind blowing the amount of education that, and curriculums that are popping up now at major universities to focus on digital transformation and retail , is so hopeful.

[00:33:52] I feel that this is actually going to be. I, I feel like it's really about being respected as a career and getting those good salaries, being able to attract top tier talent. We have big problems to solve, and it's nice to see the universities turn this into an actual specialty.

[00:34:11] Liza Amlani: I totally agree. And it's interesting cuz I also, I went to fashion school and got my degree in fashion. And it's so interesting to see how the programs have evolved to include, you know, things like data scientists or material scientists or textile innovation. So I love that episode two. Now tell us, do you have any special plans for season two?

[00:34:31] What can we look forward to?

[00:34:33] Ricardo Belmar: We'll have some surprises. We've been talking to some folks about a couple of unique segments we may try and do in season two. I'll try not to give away too much, but there'll be some people who might be familiar to listeners from season one who may come back and some who, who will be new to come and gives kinda like a, I'll call it a data angle to our conversations where we'll have one of these guests come in on a segment and it'll be related to the topic.

[00:34:56] They might have an interesting data point or a research statistic that has come up and we'll spend a couple minutes talking about how that has an impact on the topic that week. So I think that that'll kind of mix things up a bit. It's almost kind, if you think of an ask me anything type of scenario, except it'll focus around a specific data theme.

[00:35:15] So that should be a, a clever one and we'll have a new theme. You know, we, some folks maybe didn't realize we had a theme to the episodes that we set for season one. There was a structure to it. We were focusing in on digital transformation and innovation and, and people.

[00:35:30] Which I think was the unique spin that we brought to those other two areas. So we'll have a new theme which we're not gonna spoil for season two, but we'll we'll definitely have a trailer coming out soon to give everybody an idea of what we're thinking for season two and what to expect.

[00:35:43] Liza Amlani: Casey, any last thoughts? 

[00:35:45] Casey Golden: Yeah, our training wheels are off. You know, this started as a, I miss talking to everybody and we all kind of jumped in a room in clubhouse when it was super cool. I don't think anybody's logged into clubhouse for several months. So pretty exciting that, you know, this is season two's gonna be fresh you know, fully planned on purpose in real time, and it's gonna be interesting to see how we started to really like where we are now. And bringing some incredible guests that didn't have a clubhouse invitation and

[00:36:21] Liza Amlani: I know

[00:36:22] Ricardo Belmar: there is that 

[00:36:23] Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:36:24] Liza Amlani: they were, they were 

[00:36:25] hard to come. 

[00:36:26] Casey Golden: They were hard to 

[00:36:27] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, For a while, right? yeah. 

[00:36:28] yeah. 

[00:36:29] Casey Golden: we had some really great guests that 

[00:36:31] Ricardo Belmar: yeah.

[00:36:31] Casey Golden: two.

[00:36:37] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, right. It took a while for them. Yeah.

[00:36:41] Liza Amlani: Yeah.

[00:36:42] Ricardo Belmar: So listeners can expect more of those like the retail transformers series that we kicked off with April Sabral we'll do more of those in season two with some unique guests.

[00:36:50] Liza Amlani: That's awesome. Well, thank you both for having 

[00:36:53] Casey Golden: And flip the script on you. 

[00:36:56] Liza Amlani: oh yeah, you should. 

[00:36:57] Casey Golden: in.

[00:36:58] Liza Amlani: I'd love that, but thank you so much for having me and allowing me to put, put you guys in the hot seat, cuz you know, I love that. And I can't wait to do this again 

[00:37:08] I will. I will talk about all things merchandising and the retail silos. We need to break those down.

[00:37:15] Casey Golden: they're gonna crash.

[00:37:20] Ricardo Belmar: with us, Liza. Oh yeah. 

[00:37:21] Casey Golden: it will happen.

[00:37:22] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. That's right. 

[00:37:23] so, Casey, I think that means we're ready to wrap this one

[00:37:26] Casey Golden: It's a full wrap goodbye to season one

[00:37:29] Ricardo Belmar: and season two awaits. 

[00:37:30] Show Close

[00:37:30] Casey Golden: if you enjoy our show, please consider giving us that special five star rating and review on apple podcasts. Smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute. Want to know more about what we talked about today? Take a look at the show notes for handy links and more deets.

[00:37:49] I'm your cohost Casey Golden.

[00:37:51] Ricardo Belmar: And if you'd like to learn more about us, follow us on Twitter at casey c golden and ricardo underscore belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on LinkedIn and on Twitter at retail razor, and on our YouTube channel for videos of each episode and some bonus content. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.

[00:38:06] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us. 

[00:38:07] Ricardo Belmar: And remember there's never been a better time to be in retail. If you cut through the clutter.

[00:38:14] Until next time, this is the retail razor show.