S2E1 The Retail Avengers vs The Metaverse

Welcome back to The Retail Razor Show – It’s Season 2, Episode 1!

Back for season two of the show, we saved a BIG topic to open up with – The Metaverse!

Yes, our Retail Avengers team has been jumping out of their seats to bring you this discussion, recently held in our Clubhouse room, to answer the biggest, burning questions retailers and brands have about the Metaverse. What exactly IS the Metaverse? What is it not? Why should you be interested and what can you do with the metaverse? How can you use the Metaverse? Is it about building brand loyalty? Commerce? And what about NFTs and web3? All of the above? The Retail Avengers team digs into these questions, and more, to cut through the clutter!

Hosts, Ricardo and Casey then come back to recap the discussion and talk about a few key examples of brands that seem to know what they're doing in the Metaverse right now. Plus, they’ll bring you an easy 5-step roadmap to getting started in the Metaverse. All that in the season 2 opener!

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 move 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, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & 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 director 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!

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

The Retail Razor Show

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Host → Ricardo Belmar,

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TRANSCRIPT

S2E1 The Retail Avengers vs The Metaverse

[00:00:00] Pre-Intro

[00:00:00] Ricardo Belmar: Hey, Casey, it's season two. Now maybe we should do something different for the show intro.

[00:00:04] Casey Golden: Yeah, I've seen some podcasts play different clips from the main interview in the beginning of the show, kind of like a preview.

[00:00:11] Ricardo Belmar: I don't know. That kind of seems like it's been done to death doesn't it? 

[00:00:14] Casey Golden: True. We can always just pick up. In the middle of a conversation and give the audience some FOMO. They wouldn't know whether or not they've missed something or arrived right on time.

[00:00:23] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm, not a bad idea though. I don't know. I wonder if we might get some bad reviews for trying to trick our listeners that way. What if we just added some cool sound effects?

[00:00:31] Casey Golden: That would be too simple. What would happen afterwards?

[00:00:34] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. I guess you got me there. All right. All right. So, we could just start talking about our main topic and give listeners a preview that way of what's to come without really giving away our speaker.

[00:00:44] Casey Golden: Sounds like plan. I think that's what we should do, but how much time do we have to do that? A minute. 30 seconds, two minutes, 15.

[00:00:54] Ricardo Belmar: well, uh, let's see, how long have we already been talking about it? I don't know. We might not have much time to talk about the m... 

[00:01:00] Show Intro

[00:01:00]

[00:01:20] Introduction

[00:01:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hello, and welcome to the first episode of season two of the retail razor show. I'm your host Ricardo Belmar.

[00:01:26] Casey Golden: And I'm your cohost Casey Golden. Welcome retail razor show listeners to our unapologetically authentic retail podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everybody else in retail and retail tech alike.

[00:01:40] Ricardo Belmar: It's great to be back in front of the camera and on the mic.

[00:01:43] Casey Golden: Yeah. And for those of you watching us on YouTube, how about that? , you're actually watching us on YouTube now, not just listening. This is a big step for us this season. And personally for me, I'm blow drying my hair again!

[00:01:58] Ricardo Belmar: totally, totally. And, for listeners or, or maybe I should say viewers, can expect to see us on video pretty much every episode now, apart from when we're bringing you our clubhouse sessions, because you know, obviously those are audio only.

[00:02:11] Casey Golden: Well, Ricardo, this is our first season of the new season. So of course, we've got an amazing topic this week. One that have been asked about and asked for many times,

[00:02:24] Ricardo Belmar: And one that our Retail Avengers crew had really been dying to cover for months and months.

[00:02:30] Casey Golden: That's right. So with all of this anticipation, I am so bummed that I missed the clubhouse session.

[00:02:37] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Especially since the topic is, wait for it, retail and the metaverse. I mean, this one was just about tailor made for you, Casey.

[00:02:44] Casey Golden: Yeah. So I know I'll save my commentary for our recap discussion after the clubhouse session.

[00:02:51] Ricardo Belmar: It'll be worth the wait. So with that lead in, since this is a topic that doesn't really need an introduction, let's just dive right in and listen, sorry, youTube viewers, view , well I guess still listen because it's clubhouse, to the Retail Avengers versus the Metaverse. 

[00:03:11] Clubhouse Session

[00:03:11] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Welcome everyone to the retail razor room. We have a really amazing topic for discussion today. I know the entire group here has been just itching to, come back and talk about the metaverse. And so we've got five folks up here on stage. I am sure there'll be some folks from the audience that are gonna join us later.

[00:03:30] And I know we have one more of our retail Avengers team. It's gonna join us a little bit later in the hour. So without further ado, we'll do some introductions. Jeff, why don't you go first? 

[00:03:39] Jeff Roster: Hi, Jeff Roster former Gartner retail analyst now cohost of This Week In Innovation podcast.

[00:03:44] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks Jeff, Shish. 

[00:03:46] Shish Shridhar: Good afternoon. I'm Shish. I'm the global lead for retail with Microsoft for Startups. I've been in retail for over 20 years primarily focused on AI for retail and solutions around it. And currently just building out a portfolio of innovative startups. Thank you. 

[00:04:02] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you. Brandon 

[00:04:03] Brandon Rael: Brandon Rael, I've also been in and around the retail consumer industries over 20 years. And since our last discussion, I've joined Capgemini Invent team, they focus on innovation transformations and all the digital stuff we love to talk about here. So looking forward to this great conversation about the metaverse and all the potential.

[00:04:19] Ricardo Belmar: And Trevor, 

[00:04:20] Trevor Sumner: Hey everybody. I'm Trevor Sumner. I'm the CEO at of perch. We do interactive digital displays at retail that use computer vision to detect which products you touch. So. We're basically instrumenting the clicks at retail, opening up new intelligence, data streams, and really cool shopping experiences for customers like Johnson and Johnson, joe Malone, Purina, Unilever, many others. 

[00:04:44] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Great. And I'm Ricardo Belmar. I started the retail razor club room here in, in clubhouse last year. Also running the retail razor show podcast with my co-host Casey golden. So everybody in the audience who hasn't subscribed yet, do yourself a favor, hit your podcast player and hit the subscribe button there.

[00:05:01] You'll find some of our past clubhouse sessions showing up in each new episode of the podcast. I'm currently the lead partner marketing advisor at Microsoft for retail and consumer goods. And we are just gonna jump right into the metaverse here. So probably makes sense to start with a few good definitions.

[00:05:18] I think everybody has a definition that it's kinda like that joke about economist s where if you ask 50 different people, what the metaverse is, you get 60 different answers, something like that. But I'll throw this one out, I think this is a Wikipedia definition that defines metaverse as a collective virtual shared space created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality and the internet. And it's also defined as a network of 3d virtual worlds focused on social connection.

[00:05:51] So just to kick things off, what does everyone think of that rather complex definition.

[00:05:56] Brandon Rael: It's a bit overwhelming. Isn't it? , 

[00:05:58] Ricardo Belmar: it's a mouthful for sure.

[00:05:59] Shish Shridhar: it is! 

[00:06:03] Jeff Roster: I'm gonna have to go back to my Catholic school days and and diagram that sentence. Cause I think that's about run on over, run on, over run on, but I, I mean, it's, it's, it's fine. I mean, we're gonna have about a hundred different definitions before this thing really gets up and running. I think though, intuitively we kind of understand what it is.

[00:06:19] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think that's, that's a, a fair, fair statement. I mean, there's gonna be lots of definitions. I think some of the keywords, maybe I pick out from that, whether it was implied or not, is this notion of seamlessly moving between virtual and physical worlds.

[00:06:32] There's the notion of leveraging augmented reality and virtual reality. That's certainly part of it and how you actually go about interacting with that space. There was that last part of the sentence. I, I like where it just throws in' and the internet' into that, because we didn't wanna leave that out.

[00:06:48] but you know, you could view the internet as sort of a, a connecting glue perhaps of the, the metaverse. But I think one question I see gets asked by a lot of people at least one of the early questions is, well, are we talking about a single virtual reality world? Are we talking about multiple virtual reality worlds or is it the combination of all of them?

[00:07:06] And just this idea that I can do things in this virtual digital space that has an impact in the physical world. 

[00:07:12] Trevor Sumner: Well, to me, there is not a, the metaverse, there is many metaverses and many different environments, and I'm watching people, contort themselves to define what this thing is.

[00:07:26] And I think one of the, the greatest contortions was this notion that we're already in the metaverse right, that, you know 10 years ago we spent an hour on our phones and now we spend six hours on our phones. And we interact, if you look at kind of what our digital consumption, looking at TV and looking at other kind of digital formats that, that has gone up and that we are actually already kind of working in these metaverses now I don't know that that's helpful.

[00:07:54] So the question is like, what is the definition that makes it helpful? 

[00:07:58] Brandon Rael: And I think to Trevor's point it's ever evolving, it's ever pivoting. We can't just say that's a single metaverse, it's multiple metaverse with different customer types and different generations. So it's hard to nail down what, you know, what exactly it is.

[00:08:12] And I think what companies like Facebook or meta are doing, or like establishing a metaverse, but there's ones that already exist already that are they're in flight, you know? So it's, it's a very complex undertaken to single it to one, one single metaverse. 

[00:08:24] Trevor Sumner: Yeah. And, and I don't know that Microsoft is doing one metaverse either, right.

[00:08:27] It could be blizzard is one metaverse that they're investing in as, as an environment. And then, another game world has another. And you know, HoloLens potentially, is a whole nother thing. 

[00:08:40] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think you could say that you can divide this into different areas, right?

[00:08:43] There might be a, a metaverse for a work environment that you encounter there's might be a metaverse for gaming. There might be a metaverse that you go to for shopping. There might be a metaverse. You go to for fitness exercises, right? 

[00:08:58] Shish Shridhar: Yep. And, and I kind of think 

[00:09:00] I I've been playing around with a few of these environments, including Microsoft's acquisition from 2018 prior to blizzard something called Altspace VR.

[00:09:09] So Altspace VR is an environment where you can set up virtual meetings. You can have a mall in there. You can have shopping experiences, all of those. And I've also played around with decentraland where, companies like Coors and Miller Coors and, and others have been creating environments.

[00:09:26] And then there is still other ones, the popular ones being sandbox and, and a few others where some of them mimic the real world, because there's that spatial element to the metaphors where you can buy digital, digital, you can buy land and build your malls and build your spaces. And all of those things pretty much like buying domain names in the internet.

[00:09:47] And I think because there's so many of these environments, I think a point will come where you can kind of port between one and the other. I kind of believe there probably will never be a, sort of a, a single place. There will be competing environments always, but I think the tipping point will be where you can create an avatar of yourself and objects that you could kind of port from one environment to the other, make it available in multiple environments as well as in the physical world through AR. And I think that would be the, the convergence that, that we are all looking for, where you don't have to completely rebuild everything in, in all these different environments and brands that are today.

[00:10:29] I think fairly confused about which one should be, be on, should we go to the sandbox. It should we go to, to decentral land or, or one or the other platforms. 

[00:10:40] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think that is maybe the tricky part in these early days of almost competing metaverses . Or competing metaverse worlds maybe is a better way to further refine that statement.

[00:10:52] And how do you decide which one to go to? I, one of the things I've noticed that I've kind of scratched from my head at a little bit is when we see some brands deciding that their, their first experiment here in the metaverse is gonna be to just replicate exactly what they have in physical space and assume that that's gonna cause people to just flock to their location.

[00:11:09] Shish Shridhar: Yeah. I strongly feel about that. 

[00:11:11] Sorry, go ahead. 

[00:11:13] Authenticity, Storytelling, Experiential

[00:11:13] Brandon Rael: Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Shish, I, I think it's, it's all about authenticity and storytelling and, and that's what we're looking for with the emergence of TikTok and Instagram, and you expect something magical and experiential and not, not replicating your day to day life and not replicating a storefront or a grocery store.

[00:11:29] We look for something different, unique and authentic, and that's what we're hoping for in terms of inspirational content, out of the metaverse. 

[00:11:35] Shish Shridhar: Yeah, I kind of think it is, you know, it's an opportunity for brands and retailers really to rethink because in the past, in the 3d environments, you know, retailers have tried to recreate stores in 3d.

[00:11:47] So you could go and do the normal shopping that you do in the physical world. You could do it in the 3d world. And that has never really worked. I think it's an opportunity to, to reinvent and to really say, how can we create experiential shopping? How do we make shopable experiences in the metaverse where we create an experience, which enables us to shop for the things that we want to in that experience, rather than recreating an actual store with shelves and exactly the way it looks like in, in the real world.

[00:12:20] That is certainly one of the aspects for combining the real world and the digital world. But I think in addition, the opportunity really lies in, in creating that experience because this is all about experiential shopping and going beyond the webpage and, and making it more real. 

[00:12:37] Trevor Sumner: Yeah. I, I find that I find this conversation so interesting cuz it just it's so parallels the conversations we had 10, 12 years ago with regards to social media, like which sites do you pick and oh, you just can't put your same website on Facebook.

[00:12:51] You've gotta do something different and what you do on Twitter or Snapchat or, or TikTok. Right. And additionally, you do need to be thoughtful about what you pick, especially in the early days, because one of the interesting economics here is that the early adopters tend to get the spoils.

[00:13:08] Right? So you look at like Ashton Kucher right. He was an early adopter of Twitter. He took on CNN on a race to a million followers. And, those early adopters, get the, get the spoils. And so, you have to lean in and say, what am I doing here that's differentiated, that's actually valuable? Where's the cool factor that people wanna talk about. Cuz otherwise I think most people do like, oh, I'll just port my website. 

[00:13:37] Ricardo Belmar: And there's also I think an element of how do you retain attention? Right? So it's one thing to say, oh, I'm gonna jump into the metaverse I'm gonna create my virtual storefront.

[00:13:45] And you'll probably get a lot of people that will come to see it just for the sheer novelty that first time. But you really need to be thinking about, what's gonna get people to come back the second time and the third and the fourth and the fifth. Another kind of extension to this point that you just brought up.

[00:14:00] The early days of social media, I'm gonna go even further back to the early days of eCommerce and who remembers when there were discussions of people saying, you know, someone should build a virtual mall on the internet and get all the retailers to come and build their eCommerce sites in that virtual mall.

[00:14:15] And we know how that story went. how that played out. 

[00:14:17] Trevor Sumner: Yeah. 

[00:14:17] And, I think I, yeah, I still see the echos of that in VR shopping. Which is analogous to this VR side of the house. And so I think the questions like who's actually doing interesting things versus doing analogous things.

[00:14:31] it's interesting Chris Dixon , talks about this as kind of like business skew morphism, it's just like X for Y , and you're just trying to recreate the, the same thing in the new environment, but the really interesting businesses that have exponential growth create something completely new.

[00:14:48] Trillion dollar opportunity

[00:14:48] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. That that's true. That's true. And I'm, I'm, I'll throw out another interesting data point I saw. So JP Morgan claims that there's a trillion dollar market opportunity in the metaverse and I'm curious what everyone thinks of that data point. I'm sure Jeff has. 

[00:15:03] Jeff Roster: I'll go last. Yeah. 

[00:15:05] Brandon Rael: Hear that sign. 

[00:15:06] Ricardo Belmar: Our analyst has to have an opinion on that.

[00:15:09] Jeff Roster: I'll 

[00:15:09] go last. 

[00:15:10] Brandon Rael: That's a very bold stand. I don't know what they're substantiating that on, but it it's a bold one and let's see what, what emerges, I mean, First, you have to actually capture the attention, capture the imagination, inspire generations with all this amazing content and, and find a way to retain them.

[00:15:26] Like you mentioned to even make this a commercialized opportunity for retailers and brands to want actually spend money and spend time and engage and build communities. So it potentially could be at that level, but it's certainly gonna take a lot of effort, content creation and imagination 

[00:15:45] Shish Shridhar: I agree with what Brandon's saying and I think potentially yes, but I think there's a lot of things that need to happen before that. And you know, my experiments with the metaverse the, the graphics right now is a little clunky and performance is a little sluggish.

[00:15:59] So from a technology perspective, I think we are not fully there. And then the other aspect of it, I think we are still waiting in a way for AR and AR glasses to be ubiquitous cheap enough and performant enough to be used where I think that will be another tipping point we are waiting for.

[00:16:17] So there are certain things that need to happen before we go, headlong into, the metaverse. But I think there is a lot of opportunity in creating those digital experiences and marrying it with the physical world where in the physical world you could experience when you're shopping digital media, digital experiences through AR that was created in the metaverse.

[00:16:41] So you could experience either in the virtual world or the physical world through AR. Then there's so many other experiences like clothing, trying on clothing and, and that next evolution of, of streaming commerce in a way where today the streaming commerce is I would say the beginning, but in the metaverse, it kind of goes into a completely new level where you're experiencing things you're trying on things, and you are engaging with store associates in the metaverse. I've been working with companies that are also experimenting with AI assistance companies like Soul Machines and Deep Brain that are creating these avatars, which are deep fakes of people, but powered by AI engines that are very personal and relevant.

[00:17:26] So when you engage with someone, it could be a real human you're engaging with, or an AI assistant that you're engaging with that is been trained with your data and is becoming very personal as a result. And so those are the kind of experiences I think are gonna evolve . And also, the evolution of streaming commerce is gonna be the other aspect of it. And the ability to actually create all the digital objects like furniture and all those things. Being able to create a digital twin of your home in the metaverse, furnish that home with digital goods that you buy, and then recreate that in the real world through commerce engines.

[00:18:04] And I think the headless commerce engines will play a big part in, in the metaverse where you can buy things, things that you see. So it not necessarily in a store environment, but really making that experience shoppable through, through the commerce engines. 

[00:18:20] Trevor Sumner: So I'm gonna go and say yes to trillion dollars just, you know, without any qualifications, although obviously it depends on how you define this phase.

[00:18:29] Jeff Roster: Well, neither did the writer of the article, so no one needs qualifications, apparently. 

[00:18:33] Trevor Sumner: Totally. And, and, and, oh, actually that's a little bit of my point, which, which is where I'm going with this, which is, you know, look, you, you could back into it and say, the real estate market for the metaverse is at 500 million and supposed to double this year.

[00:18:46] So just the real estate market of the metaverse is a billion dollar market. And that's core metaverse, that's not like messing around and, deciding to like, I'm not picking on Shish here, but like social shopping. I, I don't count that as metaverse, but when it gets to that next stage, as Shish was talking about of being in the metaverse and, and going to the next level, it is, but without playing lines, like they're billion dollar markets and it's so early with like, who's been in decentral land?

[00:19:11] Who's been in the sandbox, very few of us, right? Now at the same time. The question is, if you look at usage, it's younger people it's gen Z and like specifically, like take a look at the data in South Korea, it's astounding, they're spending more money on virtual goods for their avatars than actual physical apparel for themselves.

[00:19:30] That is crazy. Right. I think, yeah. If, if you look at that trillion dollars? Sure. Trillion dollars I'm in, 

[00:19:38] Brandon Rael: I think to that point, the, the luxury sector we're seeing all these major companies are now investing in the metaverse space. They're betting big on it. So Gucci and other major global corporations are an investment in space because it, their brand has such value in it.

[00:19:52] And they're exclusively extends to the metaverse. So if you can capture that audience and capture that imagination to, to where we had the right clothing to have the right accessories for your avatar, then it could be a, a winning proposition. I mean, it could be limitless, to be honest. 

[00:20:05] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I mean, if you just look at virtual goods and games, I think that's a hundred billion dollar market right there.

[00:20:11] So if we're gonna include that then to Trevor's point, you can make this work, right. You can add your way up to a trillion dollars if you keep including these different things. And if you roll in you know, brand to your point with luxury brands, any NFTs that they're starting to release, and I'm, I'm jumping again a little bit to, to that part of the discussion, but you know, you roll that component into your, into the math here.

[00:20:30] You can see yourself getting to a trillion dollars. If you just keep adding more and more components to it. 

[00:20:34] Trevor Sumner: And then the last, last point I wanted to make that that, that we hit to at earlier is I also don't believe anything that these guys say, right? Like it's JP Morgan chase. He like he's writing.

[00:20:43] Jeff Roster: There you go. 

[00:20:44] Ricardo Belmar: I think you just told Jeff's comment. 

[00:20:46] Jeff Roster: Yeah. Thank you. You just stepped on my line 

[00:20:48] Trevor Sumner: as analysts you wanna predict things just so that you get clicks. I remember in 2001,

[00:20:53] Jeff Roster: no, you don't. Analysts analysts want to make intelligent points. Hack writers wanna do that. So real analysts don't wanna do that.

[00:21:02] Trevor Sumner: I like, I, I don't know. I think analysts wanna get attention too, cuz they wanna sell the research. I remember in 2001 Forrester predict, well, they're not, especially when you predicted out six to 10 years and there's no consequence, right? In 2001, I was at a wireless center company and Forrester was predicting mobile internet traffic would outpace, internet traffic in five years.

[00:21:24] It took,

[00:21:24] Ricardo Belmar: I remember that 

[00:21:25] Trevor Sumner: 15 and it's just like, it just wasn't even in five years it was nothing. It was less, it was less than 5%. 

[00:21:31] Brandon Rael: Well, they had the form factor, the iPhone wasn't invented in time for that 

[00:21:35] Trevor Sumner: well, the analyst should have known that. So my, my point is JP Morgan chase missed the boat on cryptocurrency. So they wanna throw out a big number and they did. 

[00:21:43] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. Jeff, you wanna add anything to that? 

[00:21:45] Jeff Roster: Yeah, I mean, just, I just hate these articles because one I think Trevor's really a hundred percent correct. It's it's just, you're throwing out to put out a, interesting number it's click bait to a certain degree.

[00:21:55] I'd have to look at the methodology. Are we talking about IT spend to build the metaverse? Are we talking about revenue moving through the metaverse? Just, I, I don't see them. I don't see these articles being helpful as somebody that tries to understand how to forecast things. It just. It's silly.

[00:22:07] I think it's a big number. I haven't actually put the numbers together. I, I don't see a reason to do that, but it they're big and they're huge and they're gonna grow. Yeah. And that's that that's all I need to do is, is somebody that comments on the space, but is it 1,000,000,000,002, Ricardo, what was the largest number we saw?

[00:22:22] Cause we were kibitzing about that a while ago. I 

[00:22:24] mean, it was, I don't know how many was there? 

[00:22:26] Ricardo Belmar: Was there someone else that said it was more than a trillion? I, I can't remember now. 

[00:22:29] Jeff Roster: Oh yeah. 

[00:22:29] Ricardo Belmar: This is the one that stood out to me most recently. 

[00:22:31] Jeff Roster: Cause there's, there's an art and science to the game of forecasting.

[00:22:34] There should be a methodology you should be publishing that you should be talking about what you're talking about. You should talk about definitions and none of that work has really been done that I've seen evidence by the, the conversation we had to start with, you know, sort, sort of wrestling around with what a definition is.

[00:22:48] Ricardo Belmar: Right. 

[00:22:48] Jeff Roster: So to, you know, do these clickbait articles just it's just frustrating. 

[00:22:52] Brandon Rael: It's a coupling with the per Jeff's point. If you're adding in live events and advertising and keep expanding a definition of, of metaverse, it could be 800 billion to a trillion, but it's just a loose definition of it. You know, I understand gaming Roblox, et cetera.

[00:23:06] And those, those , newer, authentic spaces that we're talking about. But if you're adding all those availments in there, it will get expanded.

[00:23:12] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. That's a fair point. I see we've got some raised hands and Ananda, I just invited you up onto the stage. If you have a comment or a question for us.

[00:23:20] No, Really, What IS the Metaverse?

[00:23:20] Ananda Chakravarty: How's it going? 

[00:23:21] Ricardo Belmar: Hey, Ananda, how are you? 

[00:23:22] Ananda Chakravarty: I'm thanks for inviting me, Ricardo. I do have a couple of questions. I honestly, I'm, I'm kind of new at this whole metaverse concept. I'm you know, you guys have given me some explanations, but I think your first comment when you brought in that very ambiguous definition of metaverse really still gave me a lot of pause as to what we're really counting when we're talking about all these dollars, trillions of dollars that are potentially coming in from many different sources into a either a channel, a, a throughway, whatever you wanna call it.

[00:23:52] Aren't these just dollars that are going into variations of the internet, or maybe even variations of social commerce. I'm just wondering what really defines the metaverse right now. And what, what is the real, I guess conceptually, what is it supposed to really be? Is it like that second life?

[00:24:09] The only places I've seen the metaverse in real you know, from a realistic point of view has been in the gaming universe. You go to a Minecraft Mojang location. You can find tons of people playing, engaging, and effectively having their avatars in the universe. Right. But I've not seen that from a retail perspective.

[00:24:26] I've not seen that from almost any other kind of context. Maybe Shish you have some, you had some thoughts of some examples that you shared, but I'd like to get a better definition of what it really means to be a metaverse and what that is from an overall perspective. 

[00:24:40] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I'll jump in on, on a couple thoughts there and then maybe Shish, I think you might have some things to add. I mean, for me, there has to be an element of this, you know, virtual world that is representing something in the digital space that you're interacting with. So whether we call that, a virtual world, you access through VR glasses or something like that, it, I think is sort of a secondary point.

[00:25:00] I think you're right, that in the gaming space is probably where it's leading in this area. If my kids are an indication, then things like Roblox, is sort of an early version of, of what can happen in the metaverse. Although I'll, as a side note, make a point that I just read an article today about how Roblox, since they IPOed, I think their about their stock has dropped about 50%. So I don't know if that's sending a message or not, but I think gaming is definitely an area that maybe leads the way here.

[00:25:23] I have seen some good examples of what I alluded to early on in the session about the metaverse at work, where companies would use a virtual space, for example, to facilitate onboarding new employees. So in a remote work era when you don't necessarily bring all of your new hires into a common physical location, you could bring them into that virtual space and have them interact with other employees and go through training exercises and such there.

[00:25:48] I think there's definitely a use case there. And then I've seen in the manufacturing side and, and production environments. If you're building a product and you need to either do maintenance on something, or you're trying to figure out how things are connected in a assembly line. You know, there there's some value in using an augmented reality experience there, which I would, again, still label as part of a metaverse that allows you to virtually manipulate some of the physical items that you're working with in a way that might help you understand how you need to manipulate them in the physical space.

[00:26:19] So it's the idea that Shish mentioned earlier about digital twins. I think that's an early use case that makes a lot of sense for metaverse applications. I think what we're all kind of getting to, and I'm curious, everybody else here will think about this comment, that when we start looking at the commerce application of it, which is really what, what retailers care about, what consumers might care about, where are those use cases coming from? And I'm gonna let everybody comment, but I think the next thing we should probably get to, because I think it's related, you know, we often hear the term metaverse not too many sentences removed from terms like web 3.0 and NFTs. And I think there's a reason for that association when it comes to evaluating the commerce implications, but I'm gonna leave that comment there for us to come back to and see what everybody else here has to has to say in response to Ananda's comment.

[00:27:06] Jeff Roster: Well, so I love that. And you can tell Ananda was a analyst. Cause if you draw the circle big enough, you mean you could, you could drag everything into it. But I think what I would say is in that's just now, since I've spent so long talking to some of the folks that are building these pieces of metaverses. There's technology that that's at play right now.

[00:27:23] If you look at some of the interviews I did Obsess is doing 3d objects and that will clearly be a key capability in a metaverse world. And that's available on websites today. AR I think, you know, certainly not here, but far more interesting to me than, than VR is because I can, you know, being a pilot I'm used to having a lot of data feeds come in and I want to be able to walk through a store and look for nutritional information the way I do when I'm flying. So there's big chunks that were in the very, very early stages of a buildout, which is why I hate those articles that say it's a two or 3 trillion or $1 trillion market, because we're the early stages of this build out.

[00:27:56] I think Roblox is, is their market cap is phenomenal and that's a component of it. So there's, there's pieces that are there and there's, speculation and everyone wants to get their, you know, get their clicks in. But there's a lot of real true value that I'm seeing already in pieces.

[00:28:11] Trevor Sumner: So can we shift the conversation about who's doing really cool stuff in, in the metaverse and like start defining the problem space less by abstract lines that and define a little bit more about like real world stuff that people can do in the metaverse things that are interesting or even successful at this point.

[00:28:28] Ananda Chakravarty: Would love to hear that Trevor. I mean, just, you know, when I think of metaverse, I'm thinking second life I'm thinking we had islands and all sorts of cool, neat stuff there with big huge I guess advertising, if you will a huge banner for IBM in, in a, you know, a corner of this quote world.

[00:28:45] But what did it really translate into in terms of dollars in terms of value in terms of productivity for the, the world? I mean, that's the question at the end of the day. 

[00:28:54] Where physical and virtual converge

[00:28:54] Shish Shridhar: And I kind of think the, the second world and the virtual worlds that's been done in the past is sort of just leading up to where we are now, the metaverse, which is the convergence of physical worlds and virtual worlds and, and really having a multidimensional interface to, to that environment. So people can join into a metaverse right from the physical world, could be shopping in an area or in a physical space and become and interact with people in the virtual space and the other way around. And I think that convergence of real world and virtual world is one of the, I would say the bigger differentiators in addition to you also mentioned, you know, the ability to, to monetize engagements, to be able to create things in the metaverse and experience those things by those things in the physical world, as well as the, the virtual world.

[00:29:44] And I think that's the other aspect, which second life didn't really have. It didn't really have that convergence of real world and, and physical world and the, the ability to experience it, you know, no matter what, where you are. And I think that's really the, one of the differentiators anyway. 

[00:30:00] Trevor Sumner: Yeah, I, I would agree with that.

[00:30:01] And so let's talk about what, what some of that looks like. Right? So stock X, for example launch an NFT where you'd get a, a physical product as well as your virtual product. And so, you'd get your Nike air Jordan's and you get a virtual version as well. Now, that's kind of a cool way to think about, collectibles, the challenge came several weeks later when Nike sued them and said, whoa, you're violating our trademarks by selling a virtual Nike item. And right, so like this, some stuff that needs to be worked out there are other people who are treating this physical purchase as also this digital representation patron, you could buy a bottle patron, they get like a special, you know, commemorative patron, icebox, I think they called it. And you get also a physical bottle that's, a limited addition, et cetera. 

[00:30:47] So I, I think of it almost as like a lot of this as a membership club and NFTs as like a deed to something. And in this case, like either a loyalty club or a membership club that gives you access to the physical world.

[00:30:58] I think when you, you start, if you think about loyalty as like points, if, if the points in your metaverse as a game. Start giving you access to the real world. If your interaction in the metaverse with Chanel gets you to the new Chanel fashion show or the, the new, line that comes out and you get to, to go to the store or some V I P this starts becoming really, really compelling.

[00:31:24] And it's a way for brands to create engagement with their brands across all different properties and convert to real world commerce and, and virtual commerce too. And, and I think that's exciting. 

[00:31:35] Brandon Rael: Yeah. And, and add to all that we talked about luxury being the, the ultimate sandbox for, for the metaverse it's, it's already happening.

[00:31:42] Gucci's has sold a digital the honest purse, but thousands more than it's worth in real life. So versus a physical product. Dulce Gabbana, sold a a 5.7 million nine piece NFT collection. Saying that their gems can't be found in real life, on earth and in the digital world, metaverse, world's more, more exclusive and more prestigious.

[00:32:01] And then Nike lands on the Roblox platform. And they also acquired the virtual sneaker and collectables company or a star company called RT FK T studios. So Nike has been one of the leaders and luxury space has been on fire. 

[00:32:13] Trevor Sumner: Let let's talk about Nike land for a second.

[00:32:15] I think that's a great example. Right? So how are retailers using it? So Nike land, you can buy shoes that don't exist in the real world. Well, okay. Who cares? Well, they can look at the popularity and say, oh, people really like this shoe. We're gonna use it as kind of data demand data to determine which products that they are going to create.

[00:32:37] So they may launch a hundred virtual shoes. Just take their top 10% performers and actually create real versions of those shoes. If you think about that as part of your marketing funnel, as your brand engagement funnel that's pretty exciting. And then you can start thinking about, well, if you bought that shoe and we end up making it, you get 20% off or you get it engraved or you get, the special version of it with, you know, who knows, you know, like, 

[00:33:03] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, there there's like a loyalty implication that goes along with that, right.

[00:33:06] Loyalty, a hundred that makes it much more appealing in, in both spaces, right? Digital 

[00:33:11] Trevor Sumner: Totally. And if, because of all of these benefits, you spend time in Nike land and you spend hours and hours interacting with Nikes, Nikes, Nikes, Nikes, Nikes. What are you gonna do in the real world?

[00:33:22] Ricardo Belmar: You need buy more Nike. 

[00:33:23] Trevor Sumner: Right. You're gonna buy more. Nike, you're gonna talk about Nike. You're gonna wear more Nike. You're gonna talk about how the Nikes you're wearing matches your avatar in Fortnite and allows you to jump 20% higher. 

[00:33:35] Ricardo Belmar: You're gonna post pictures on Instagram. 

[00:33:36] Ananda Chakravarty: Trevor, have a strange feeling.

[00:33:38] You actually own a pair of Nikes, just a guess 

[00:33:42] Brandon Rael: strong feel. 

[00:33:42] Trevor Sumner: Okay. All right. So just virtual ones, one, I, I do own Nikes. I'm sure. Somewhere in my collection, but they're, they're, they're not my basketball show choice. And I'm not actually all that loyal to Nike as a brand. It turns out, but I think what they're doing here is really.

[00:33:56] Ananda Chakravarty: Yeah, I kind of like that example, but because that's the closest I've gotten from what I've seen out there and Jeff kind of hit on the, a couple of points on this as well, by the way. And that is when we start thinking about these different pieces that are, that are coming together, are they really big enough to be mainstream, right?

[00:34:13] I mean, that's what metaverse, and this whole thing that meta itself and Facebook is trying to push is that this is really a mainstream function. That's, that's gonna be, you know kind of a, a, a combination of what's gonna happen in movies, like ready player one and and The other one, right?

[00:34:28] I mean, that's, what's eventually going to be the world, as we know it, if you will, the physical and the blurring of, of this digital avatar state, I just don't know how much reality there is to that. If these are very, you know, focused on these very specialized cases, it has to be something that is really very popular before it becomes anything close to mainstream.

[00:34:48] And I don't think we're close to that at this time. 

[00:34:50] Ricardo Belmar: it's definitely early. 

[00:34:51] Trevor Sumner: So the, yes, but you know, you're talking about concerts in the metaverse being attended by tens of millions of people. Like that's pretty size. I mean, like, I don't know what you talk about scale, but like that's, that's the biggest concert in the world.

[00:35:05] Ricardo Belmar: It depends on the category. Right. And you know, we started out this, with the Nike example, talking about an apparel example, and, I could argue, for example, apparel overall, I think is actually in some ways could be defined as a shrinking market, right? Because what the same amount of money that used to take for you to buy apparel 20 years ago, you can buy a lot more now, putting the side, whether it's a luxury brand or an off price brand, you can get more for your money in apparel, which means that individual apparel brands, they've gotta find other ways to diversify a bit and find new sources to get revenue from what potentially is a shrinking share. So one area where they can do that of course, is in this metaverse digital space. You know, another example of thrown an addition to Nike, Ralph Lauren, right? Ralph Lauren created a space in Roblox and they've, they're selling digital Ralph Lauren collection to Roblox gamers.

[00:35:51] So is, is that a significant revenue source for them? I'm not sure that it is now, but I think, from an experimenting point of view, it's a great idea to try it. I think that's where we'll see lots of interest from retailers is just trying different things. This is one of those areas where there's gonna have to be a lot of experimentation now, long term, is that a significant amount of revenue?

[00:36:11] And I think it could be cuz Trevor to your point, if millions of people start getting interested, that's a potentially, much larger audience than you get from a physical space. 

[00:36:20] Trevor Sumner: Right. And, and also, do we measure this as marketing dollars? Right. Right. I got 10 million people to look at this thing.

[00:36:27] Like they didn't buy the thing, but did that translate to some 

[00:36:30] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. What did it do to our brand awareness 

[00:36:32] Trevor Sumner: brand awareness and eventual sales, right, 

[00:36:34] Ricardo Belmar: exactly. Yes. It's one more touch point to track in that customer journey. 

[00:36:38] Trevor Sumner: Right. And, and so, there's a company called pretty little things that created a digital only model that they're now using in their advertising, right? Like what if we start thinking about, the ability to leverage metaverse in all other types of digital content channels and then to the point of, Hey, let's not do the analogous thing. Like, oh, I wonder what a werewolf would look like in Gucci.

[00:37:01] Like how do you start doing stuff that's more creative and interesting and, and goes across all of that. And what's the value of that from a marketing return on investment. 

[00:37:09] Shish Shridhar: I think the, idea that Trevor kind of pointed out about new idea validation is a very powerful one for brands. So really testing out the digital products, the popularity of the digital products before going into production in the real world, and this could apply to apparel shoes, it could apply to furniture, furnishing the digital twin of your home with, with furniture and then getting, a sense of, is this a good design enough before actually going into the real world and potentially maybe car designs, all of those kind of things.

[00:37:38] I think it's got a huge potential. 

[00:37:40] Ananda Chakravarty: I know Michael. Hasn't had a chance to talk, but he's on the stage. So maybe 

[00:37:43] Ricardo Belmar: welcome, michael . 

[00:37:45] Michael Zakkour: Hey guys, 

[00:37:46] Brandon Rael: rockstar. Michael, 

[00:37:47] Ricardo Belmar: how are you? 

[00:37:48] Michael Zakkour: So many loved and familiar faces. 

[00:37:51] The foundation is only a beginning for retail

[00:37:51] Michael Zakkour: Okay. Just a couple things I think that need to be cleared up. There's a lot of confusion, nevermind with the average person and consumer within our industry, whether it's retail technology, development, whatever between the metaverse, web three, NFT, and blockchain.

[00:38:08] And we've been talking clearly about the metaverse, but there's some underlying foundational with web three NFT, blockchain, and how it relates to retail. The first thing I wanna say is they're not the same thing. The thing that we see most often, or I see most often out in the marketplace is people confusing web three and metaverse meaning sort of the same thing.

[00:38:32] They're not. The second thing I'd wanna say is there is no metaverse yet. It doesn't exist. Okay. And if you run into a company Zuckerberg who tells you they're building the metaverse runaway quickly, if you run into anybody who has a complete answer that says, I know what the metaverse is and will be run away.

[00:38:57] right. It's just not possible at this point. We are with metaverse web three NFT and blockchain integration, basically where internet technologies and eCommerce were in 1997. Right. We're at the very, very early stages of it. What I can tell you is you do need to think about where the metaverse web three NFT and blockchain exist as separate entities and how they integrate to eventually come to occlusion on something that is something we can call a metaverse or a multiple of a metaverse.

[00:39:35] Okay. As it relates to retail one of the most surprising and, and happiest things I've seen is that, you know, six years ago, I was still arguing with all of my luxury clients about whether they should even recognize that something called the internet exists. And a lot of these luxury companies have gone all in and are the leading edge on developing metaverse based web three NFT, blockchain offering. So interesting there.

[00:40:05] And so this is really guys on the retail front. I can't emphasize this enough. Retail is the leading edge of what will become the metaverse. I can't define for you what it is right now, but we are building it. So I think, I don't know if it was Ananda,

[00:40:22] it might have been Ananda who asked, are there some real life examples of where this is going? We can look at the Gucci platform. We can look at what LVMH is doing with digital avatars, but all of this is it's something beyond an add-on to the internet. As we know it, it's a complete redefinition of how we experience, right.

[00:40:44] And you guys have heard me talk about ecosystems and the new retail model being the complete integration of online, offline technology, supply chain, entertainment, and media. This is the next step above it. How do you bring that to life in 3d? Whether it's use of devices or not. It doesn't matter, guys. We don't know what the metaverse is yet.

[00:41:08] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. That's an interesting point. Certainly in the early phases of any new technological area, right though, that early phase, there's the novelty of it being new. That gets attention.

[00:41:17] You can spend through any number of, of marketing outlets to drive traffic the first time. The real question is how do you keep them coming back. And I think there's a, a component there, you know, we've only touched or I realize we're coming up on the hour, so I'm gonna bring us to a closing point here.

[00:41:31] With one last comment I'll throw out and you guys did a good job bringing this up and differentiating between web three NFTs and, and the metaverse. But it's the combination of these things, right? It's the combination of how brands are going to drive the usage of these elements to make that experience worth repeating and worth experiencing over and over and over again for those consumers.

[00:41:52] And I think that's, what's going to be the, the key experiment area. We see happening at least over the next year. And in these, I'm gonna keep calling it the early phases. It may be here, but I think Michael, the way you put it was very nice that, you know, whatever it is, it's not well defined yet. And that's probably why we all struggled at the beginning of this hour to come up with a good definition that wasn't as clunky as the one that I read off from Wikipedia.

[00:42:16] And that's because it really is still something that has to be figured out by everyone who's going to not just dip their toes in, but dive in and build something.

[00:42:25] Especially when you have, what I would describe as the convergence of a number of different technologies that are making this possible at the same time that I guess opens the door for a lot of less interesting ,let's say, solutions and capabilities, but, we're essentially bringing together, I'm just gonna list out all the things that we've mentioned, there's blockchain, low code, VR, AR of course the internet, which was just thrown in, I love how that was thrown in that Wikipedia definition at the very end of the run on sentence.

[00:42:50] And that's just to start right. There are a number of other technical capabilities and technologies, and all of these had to converge to get us to the point where we can start to build this out. So I think it's exciting to see where it's gonna go. It's exciting to see what retailers and brands are going to come up with.

[00:43:03] And that's why we like to keep this discussion forum going. Cuz it gives us a way to, to speak to different things with our collection of speakers, everybody's got a different viewpoint, a different focus area that they've read about and we've all consumed different types of content and different pieces of articles and such.

[00:43:20] So when we all get together and cover one topic, we can all bring a different angle to it. 

[00:43:24] And I think with that note, we're gonna wrap things up in the room today. The the fact is , this topic is so rich and so involved that we, we could have had just a short bullet point list of 10 other things to talk about and probably fill another 10 hours of this.

[00:43:38] So I'm sure we will be scheduling more metaverse discussions in the future . And with that, I'm gonna thank everyone for joining us in the audience and thank our folks who came up here for some questions and all the other speakers, and we will close out the room from there. Thanks everybody. 

[00:43:54] Metaverse Recap

[00:43:54] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome back retail, razor show listeners and viewers. We hope you enjoyed that Retail Avenger's clubhouse session on the metaverse.

[00:44:07] Casey Golden: It was a great session. I love the focus on what the metaverse is and what it's not. And honestly, you guys just killed me with the debate on this trillion dollar opportunity. This is gonna, you know, grab your popcorn. Like this is gonna be fun.

[00:44:21] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that really got everybody jumping on that one. A good, good discussion on a few retail examples too, like Nike for one, I mean, what, what do you think about what Nike's doing, Casey?

[00:44:30] Casey Golden: It was really smart for them to just acquire artifact. really early. And throw legal to round up and protect their brand. They're filing new trademarks and sending out cease and desist to companies trying to make money off their swoosh. And I think that this is something that a lot of brands are doing right now is getting ready, getting prepared and protecting their brand.

[00:44:53] And they're gonna have to do that. Nike land, their Roblox micro metaverse has already attracted like over 7 million people in 224 countries. Like this is not a bad start. This, this space has such low expectations on the design side.

[00:45:12] just play

[00:45:13] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Yeah.

[00:45:14] Casey Golden: it. Doesn't have to be perfect.

[00:45:17] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I have to agree. Have to agree with that one that that's so true and, and pretty impressive, that they've got so many people attracted to it at these early stages. So, one of the topics I do think we covered a bit, but honestly we could do another entire show on it. Is this idea of digital twins.

[00:45:33] Shish brought it up first. I think we touched on it with Nike specifically, and then Trevor highlighted it a bit more for me, the idea of brands using these digital twins to test new products, see what's popular, then use that knowledge and insight and to decide what products and features they wanna drive to scale maybe for a big product launch.

[00:45:53] And I think that's a massive use case. It certainly shortens the time to market. In that whole process. So I, I have to believe we're gonna see more and more of that. And I suppose it's kind of right up your alley. Isn't it. Casey.

[00:46:03] Casey Golden: Yes, but I mean, the conversations I'm having is, defining a digital twin it's it's, it's turning into an omnichannel debate of like, what is a digital twin? And I've seen brands using digital twining as an opportunity to pre-sell the physical item include an avatar wearable file. So that they are digital twin to their avatar providing a gift with purchase for like a flex on the item, by sharing that an NFT with an, an artistic version or a very photo realistic version of the item kind of with that proof of purchase and authenticity.

[00:46:45] And then just to test a new product into the crypto community, right. This web three and crypto community is a different consumer group. They may have had this consumer group already serviced in their stores or online, but they didn't know that trait necessarily. They didn't know that the, that consumer is also part of a different community, then what they might be familiar with or the way that they would've seen their communities in general.

[00:47:13] So there's a lot of different digital twins that are out in the market. And I think we really need to understand what is a use case for these digital twins and what do they do because it's consumer facing. And so just like omnichannel, this is gonna get very confusing.

[00:47:31] If we can't decide what a digital twin is, and maybe there's a wearable twin or a meta twin, or I don't know, we need to start coming together and using words that mean something

[00:47:45] Ricardo Belmar: Be before we have another Omni channel.

[00:47:47] Casey Golden: before we have another Omni channel

[00:47:51] Ricardo Belmar: You have to agree with that. And you bring up a, a good point too there about the, community building aspect of all of this, especially when you start to tie in web three and NFTs and in the metaverse, which admittedly, we, we didn't have a lot of time to get into that in the clubhouse session. I'm sure there'll be some future sessions for that kind of discussion.

[00:48:10] But I, with, with all these kinds of examples, would you say apparel and luxury brands are kind of taking over the early metaverse right now? Are they really the early adopters? I mean, who would you say is missing out right now? That should be jumping in.

[00:48:22] Casey Golden: Luxury is leading technology. Like I just said that luxury is leading 

[00:48:27] Ricardo Belmar: out there now. 

[00:48:28] Casey Golden: Is out there and I am so, like, I just got goosebumps. Like I am so proud of the luxury industry adopting tech. And being on board this innovation train, it makes so much sense for the luxury space because the crypto and web three, the crypto space is literally the NFT space was built off of rarity, exclusivity, and these are all the values that are shared, you know, VIP's, this is something that luxury space can really get behind because they have the same core values, unlike a self serve model or a Facebook advertising model. It's very hard for them to get on board because the core values at the end of the day are so separate.

[00:49:12] So that's why I believe there is a future over here. Luxury's going to figure it out. I don't know what that means at gap, but, Balenciaga is doing a really great job. Gucci's killing it and they're building it into their business. And I think that it's wonderful. They are early adopters. And at the end of the day, we're in the business of selling products, selling physical products.

[00:49:37] I haven't spoken to a single brand that has been excited about selling a digital good. they're like, so if I make this 3d asset or this digital good, or this NFT, like how much product can I move?

[00:49:50] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Yeah. How does that help me sell the physical products I'm sell.

[00:49:55] Casey Golden: They want to sell physical goods. Even though like, it could be a lot cheaper to sell digital goods. We are going to be figuring out what these digital twins are and how they're going to facilitate these real life purchases. And that's essentially how it's going to be defined, but the brands see I'm finding, they just wanna sell more product.

[00:50:15] Ricardo Belmar: right. 

[00:50:15] I mean, at the end of the day, the digital goods they might sell, it's like in the, all the video game, virtual worlds where you see all of these digital assets sold, it's, it's real money. It's, meaningful money, but compared to what these luxury brands are selling and, and generating in sales, in physical goods, it's an incremental revenue at most. It's not gonna replace the physical goods revenue, but it helps motivate more physical sales.

[00:50:40] Casey Golden: oh my goodness. I just have to share this there is narrative out here right now. That that there are companies that are creating digital clothing saying that this is the most sustainable way to shop, and this is how we're going to save the world. I'm like, I'm sorry, but what are we wearing me buying a digital t-shirt.

[00:51:02] How is that

[00:51:03] Ricardo Belmar: help you in the real

[00:51:04] Casey Golden: shopping? 

[00:51:07] Ricardo Belmar: How are you, how are you, wearing that digital t-shirt Casey

[00:51:10] Casey Golden: Right. Like, I'm sorry, but that's not going to work. I still need to go buy physical clothes, but just the narrative twist on this, that this is the most sustainable way to shop, and 

[00:51:20] Ricardo Belmar: That's one way to look at

[00:51:21] Casey Golden: these resources.

[00:51:22] Ricardo Belmar: That's one way to look at it.

[00:51:24] Casey Golden: I just couldn't, I just couldn't.

[00:51:26] I had to, just leave for a moment and I'm like, yeah, I don't even know how to have a conversation with this person right now, because , they do not believe that anybody should be physically manufacturing clothes. I'm like, this is kinda impossible here.

[00:51:41] Ricardo Belmar: That's gonna go far in the, in the industry for sure.

[00:51:43] Casey Golden: Yeah. I just like, okay, I'm confused, but okay. Continue.

[00:51:49] So one thing that, that came up in the clubhouse discussion that is worth more attention is this idea of multiple metaverses. What'd you get, let's just keep confusing the consumer, but you have some thoughts on this and I'd love to hear them.

[00:52:05] Ricardo Belmar: Oh

[00:52:05] Casey Golden: like, let's dive.

[00:52:06] Ricardo Belmar: I let let's dive into this one. We didn't go too deep, deep into it, but yeah, I, I think there's at least, fundamentally three kinds of metaverses and yeah, it'll probably confuse consumers, but hopefully we'll we'll get through that.

[00:52:17] Cuz I think much like omnichannel, consumers don't care about the terms or the words they just care about what are they doing with it? So, I think of these three groups, first being industrial and a big part of that is this whole discussion we just had on digital twins.

[00:52:31] There's factory modeling and automation. There are a lot of consumer goods brands taking advantage of this, where they're modeling their entire production lines. It's helping them get better visibility into their operations. They can use historical sensor data. You see a lot of this being coupled with iOT technology. So that as that manufacturer, they learn over time. They look at the data over the history of their manufacturing process and they figure out how to make it better, how to operationalize new changes without having to physically do them at the factory so they can see what the impact is.

[00:53:04] And that leads to a more efficient, lower cost production, so this one's all about simulating and then automating in the real world based on what you learned in that metaverse model. And you can think about things beyond retail, right? And you and I have talked about medical applications, there's telehealth, where this makes sense training for healthcare providers.

[00:53:23] You can see how pharma companies might use this in their research work for designing new life saving drugs. And, you know, and then plus, we're already seeing healthcare converging with retail. So this is an area we could see some interesting things that none of us have thought of yet start to come up.

[00:53:37] So that's industrial metaverse then, then I think of the workplace metaverse and this one's kind of interesting. So with all the work from home that everyone's been experiencing in the last few years, Accenture is an example that comes to my mind. They actually built a version of their headquarters, in a metaverse and they started doing their new hire onboarding in that metaverse space.

[00:53:57] So rather than, giving you a whole bunch of PDF follows or emailing you a ton of material as a new employee, you actually join the office workplace. Metaverse. Meet other avatars of other new hires and other employees. And you can actually move around this place. You can manipulate, 3d models of what the office looks like.

[00:54:16] You might have a 3d whiteboard space in there so that what you would've done in a conference room with a 2d whiteboard you're doing in this workplace metaverse and then after you've been onboarded , you start holding meetings in this virtual space and it starts to look like the sci-fi movies we see when people are waving their hands in the air, manipulating things on a holographic screen, and you can do that in the metaverse right with the right technology and the right tools that you can't do that on a 2d whiteboard.

[00:54:41] This is where there's some interesting Microsoft technologies that are at play to make this interesting. I work with some partners who are doing this this kind of space.

[00:54:48] So lots of possibilities there. And then the third metaverse I think of is probably the one that most consumers think of, which I'll, I'll call it the entertainment metaverse, but it's basically, where all the virtual reality games come into light, so , that's a pretty straightforward one to understand.

[00:55:02] I would argue though, the real significance of all these is that any of these metaverses can be looked at as delivering a commerce capability. It's not just the entertainment metaverse that we expect to see commerce happening. It could be any of these. There's nothing that says I have to have a hard and fast rule about what that metaverse model is.

[00:55:21] The whole point in this metaverse space is I'm not constrained by physical reality limitations. I can do things any way we want. So why couldn't there be commerce applications across all of them?

[00:55:31] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, I'm not working with goggles on, so staring at a computer screen for 18 20 hours a day is bad enough with our eyes and mental health. There's lots of people who get migraines. This is very much a conductor for it. And the people who are building the meta for work or these metaverses for work, they don't even work in the metaverse that they're building.

[00:55:58] So I just don't know how we're expected to participate. If the builders can't find the value in building the metaverse for work in it.

[00:56:10] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[00:56:11] Casey Golden: I just it's. If they can't find the value to do it on a day to day and be building there, then I don't see how anybody else is expected to go in there and do it if they already don't wanna do it.

[00:56:23] And don't find it as productive. 

[00:56:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, we didn't get into that in the, the clubhouse session, but I, I can't remember. It might have been Shish that brought it up, that everybody gets excited talking about the capabilities with these metaverse technologies, but at the end of the day, the fact that no one's gonna sit around in the workplace metaverses for eight hours a day wearing all this equipment. Everybody's already stressed enough being on teams calls and zoom calls for hours on end during the day. So who's gonna add more layers to that. So, and I think again, shish brought up the point that while the technology's really good.

[00:56:53] It's made a huge amount of progress. It's still not quite where we need it to be for these things to be a hundred percent mainstream. And to be totally comfortable. For short periods, sure. I mean, I can see the onboarding piece, right? You're the new hire. There's an onboarding session that might be an hour here, a half hour there, but it's not a straight 10 hour, day kind of thing, because nobody wants that.

[00:57:15] Casey Golden: oh yeah. Most people work like eight, 10 hour days.

[00:57:18] Ricardo Belmar: oh, yeah, yeah. Except maybe, you know, startup life, but that's another show

[00:57:24] Casey Golden: so no, I think the retail training and the company onboarding in the metaverse is valid, I mean, I think we've all started a job at some point where our first day, we just, we get handed a four inch, six inch binder and told to read it, memorize it. This is your first day. So I think that, that definitely could change.

[00:57:45] And even just being able to have that mentorship, even if it's like an AI in this type of situation where you can go through multi-step training multi-month multi-year. I think the retail training is a huge opportunity because it would allow for easier role play between a customer and the retail associate, even because, I mean, I don't know about you if somebody says, okay, go role play.

[00:58:15] I'm like already on the floor, like laughing uncontrollably. Cause I can't do it.

[00:58:20] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:21] Casey Golden: like 

[00:58:21] Ricardo Belmar: true. Yeah. That that's not an easy thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:24] Casey Golden: not an actor for a reason. So I think that there's it does take a little bit of that personal personality or whatever away from us, so we can just kind of be and like play a video game. And it's a lot easier to absorb over time than it is reading this four inch book, especially in things where you need to be customer facing.

[00:58:44] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think you make a good point there. And with all of these caveats and, conditions and constraints that we're highlighting, I suppose we would be totally remiss if we didn't offer some thoughts on, okay, where do you go next with the metaverse? We've kind of told you what cool things there are happening, what it is.

[00:59:03] We've talked about things to watch out for. So what do you do about it? And of course, this was one of our 2022 predictions from back in season one, episode four, back then , we said metaverse was an important trend for this year. Obviously we're still talking about it. So I think we kind of nailed that one.

[00:59:17] But while we didn't go so far as to say it was gonna be a new money generating sales channel for retailers and brands, we did say that you should be experimenting with the metaverse and with NFTs and, and web three, start feeling out where your customers are, what appetite they have for all of this.

[00:59:32] And I think we even mentioned digital twins back then, too, which we've highlighted a lot in this episode, and it's still my favorite use case right now. So Casey, what would be your top recommendations for brands?

[00:59:43] Casey Golden: Yeah, I think number one, you've got to start building a community. An email address is not a relationship. Open up a discord account and start moving your email marketing list into discord members has two way conversation. Step two, I would pretty much say like get on Twitter, reactivate the brand's Twitter account.

[01:00:05] Everybody in this space is not on Instagram, so, they need to go ahead and get onto Twitter. Third step I'd essentially say, like start collecting your customers' crypto wallet addresses. So you can start understanding, do you have an address? Do I need to provide education? And can you go ahead and make sure you know how many customers you have access to, to essentially airdrop think of it as like web three's email address?

[01:00:30] That needs to essentially just happen now. I really suggest brands launching an NFT and not necessarily, this whole collection. It doesn't have to be a big deal. It doesn't even have to be in the press. It just needs to be hyper segmented to a small group to learn and build these initiatives with the brand for those NFT holders.

[01:00:51] And until you have a compelling utility, this could be a V I P NFT, and you just invite 600 people or 200 people. And just really try to figure out how do you engage with these NFT holders? How do you talk to them? What do you do for them? What's the benefit? Does it get you a blowout at a salon in New York?

[01:01:15] Because like they're friends, does it get you private shopping on e-com? Does it get you New York fashion week tickets, you know, really thinking about , what's the value of these customers having this NFT and just spend time until you can figure out something that makes sense. And then go ahead and move into those initiatives.

[01:01:34] Also, I mean, it's been a constraint for me recently is just not having digital assets. They're not ready to move. So, I mean, going forward, I would love to see all the brands just create all of the 3d and wearable assets when they create the collection and decide like, as soon as you write the production order, please go send out the, the designers to go ahead and create all of those 3d digital assets so that if anything happens from the date of production, a lot of us do that, like six to nine months in advance all the way through the selling season.

[01:02:12] If something interesting happens, you have the assets you can act, right. I've got 3d designers that are pulling stuff off in a matter of five days for New York fashion week right now from like multiple brands. I'm just like, okay, moving forward. Can you just go ahead and have this whole next collection that you have in production?

[01:02:33] done. I don't know what we're using them for. You don't know what we're using them for, but if you just have them, it would be quite helpful. So I mean, to me, these are the most important things to get started. It's not flashy. It's not cool. It's not in the middle of times square , but we have to start at the very beginning.

[01:02:57] Who are your customers? Where are they at right now? And that's kind of like what we need to know. And so I think just building the community, being a part of it, that's like step one.

[01:03:09] Ricardo Belmar: Excellent. Excellent points. I think we could probably call that the the retail razor shows five step program or five step roadmap to the metaverse.

[01:03:16] Casey Golden: yeah, so basic

[01:03:19] Ricardo Belmar: it covers all the basics. Exactly. Exactly. So Casey, kinda like I said to the, the Retail Avengers in the clubhouse session, and we could just talk for hours and hours on this topic. So I'm sure we're gonna be coming back to this in the future.

[01:03:32] Casey Golden: a hundred percent. I mean, the metaverse isn't going anywhere. You and I aren't going anywhere. So I'm really glad that we're going to revisit this in future episodes. but all good things must come to an end. So I think it's time we thank all of our clubhouse audience and wrap up this episode.

[01:03:51] Ricardo Belmar: it is that time.

[01:03:52] Clubhouse Thank You

[01:03:52] Casey Golden: Before we close. We'd like to thank everyone who joined us on stage for this clubhouse session to talk metaverse and ask questions. So a special shout out

[01:04:05] Ricardo Belmar: to frequent visitor to our clubhouse rooms, Ananda Chakravarty, currently the vice president of research at IDC in the retail group for his great question about real world examples of retailers in the metaverse looking for success.

[01:04:18] Casey Golden: And a super friend of the show, Michael Zakkour, founder of five new digital for setting the foundation for what the metaverse really is today versus what it will become tomorrow. And what that means for retailers.

[01:04:32] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you Ananda and thank you, Michael.

[01:04:34] Casey Golden: so Ricardo, I think that's a wrap for our first episode of season two.

[01:04:39] Ricardo Belmar: Indeed it is! 

[01:04:41] Show Close

[01:04:41] Casey Golden: We hope you enjoyed our show and consider giving us a five star rating and review on apple podcasts. Don't forget to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute! 

[01:04:54] Wanna know more about today's show? Take a look at the show notes for handy links and more deets.

[01:05:00] I'm your co-host Casey golden.

[01:05:02] Ricardo Belmar: And if you'd like to learn more about us, follow us on Twitter at caseycgolden and Ricardo_Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure to follow the show on LinkedIn and on Twitter at RetailRazor, plus our YouTube channel for videos of each episode and the occasional bonus content. 

[01:05:18] I'm your host Ricardo Belmar.

[01:05:19] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[01:05:21] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail. If you cut through the clutter.

[01:05:28] Until next time, THIS is The Retail Razor Show!