Unpacking the Digital Shelf

In these challenging times, brands are looking for opportunities for growth and experimentation with rapid feedback. Its possible for some that international expansion could be part of that growth plan, and that’s why we tapped into the experienced brain of Daniel Roberts, once founder of Australian product content solutions provider SKUvantage, now part of Salsify. Dan brings a decade of experience in the retail, brand, and consumer markets in Australia and New Zealand to outline the opportunities in the market and how to best take advantage of them.

To create wisdom from accumulated numbers and knowledge. That is the mission of adaptive analytics provider Analytic Partners ROI Genome project, an ongoing series of intelligence into trends, truths, and myths in marketing published by adaptive analytics provider Analytic Partners. Their Mike Menkes, Senior Vice President, joined the podcast to walk us through the insights you should know to drive short term and long-term performance.

For many innovators in digital commerce, the dream is building a brand from scratch that grows to a scale where some larger company wants to pay a LOT of money for it. Then, you buy an island. These days the path to that dream is a bit more rocky and more complex, but with the right fundamentals in place, a vibrant DTC brand can still drive a lot of value. Like in Coca Cola’s 5.6 billion dollar acquisition of BodyArmor sports drinks late in 2021. Ryan Lewendon, Partner at law firm Giannuzzi LewENdon LLC, helped negotiate that deal but also worked with body armor and tons of other D2C companies throughout their lifecycle. Ryan joined Rob and Peter to lay out the necessary elements for a DTC growth path that will return maximum, and lasting, value.

Everyone in ecommerce and digital knows that the competition for experienced talent is intense. Lauren Stiebing, Founder and CEO of LS International, specializes in recruitment for consumer goods companies and retailers. She brings her wealth of experience in what it takes to find and win a candidate, best practices that can apply across categories. Special note: Listen to the end, for details on how to download a quick reference guide from Lauren and the DSI on questions to ask yourself as you are recruiting digital talent.

We live in the most interesting times - with both the blessings and the curses that come with that. In retail and commerce today, that means processing all the noise of short term inputs against longer trends and core truths and deciding what investments to make and roads to take. Tom Goodwin, a retail consultant, author, speaker and asker of the annoyingly perceptive question, brings his latest views on the interesting times we live in, the opportunities that await, and the importance of often choosing the simplest path as the most meaningfully consequential.

“We like the operational headache.” This quote from the conversation with Mehtab Bhogal, Cofounder of Karta Ventures, perfectly describes the grit and expertise it takes to make a living rescuing and reinvigorating distressed DTC businesses. Mehtab shared his turnaround process, how he evaluates opportunities, and his perspective on the current and future environment for DTC success as headwinds continue.

As we all know, the ground of commerce and consumer behavior continue to shift under our feet as we near the end of the 1st half of 2022. What do we know, and how should we shift to stay nimble and drive performance and profitability? Andrea Leigh, formerly of IdeoClick and now Founder and CEO of ecommerce education consultancy Allume Group, rejoins the podcast to put the recent earnings reports and shareholder meetings in perspective as we gird our digital loins for the next six months of adventure in a digital first world.

The demand for ecommerce and digital talent at brands is skyrocketing, and the Great Resignation, or the Great Reshuffling, is on. Whether you’re hiring, or looking, this episode is for you. Lisa Heins took her experience in recruiting roles at Microsoft and Amazon and 8 years ago founded Talent Concierge, a practice focused on recruitment in ecommerce and advertising roles, particularly for marketplaces. She brings a wealth of perspective and tips to the DSI audience on how to navigate the current environment to attract the best candidates or find your next career opportunity.

There is no destination in commerce, only the journey. So the key is to get continuously better at the steps of the journey. Lynsey Sweales, CEO of SocialB, a International Digital Marketing & Ecommerce Agency based out of the UK, spends every day working with brands to get the fundamentals of digital commerce success right, with a sharp eye on winning share of shelf. Lynsey shared her experiences and processes for building brand personality, nailing SEO, and making the product page meet the consumer where they are.

In today’s new era of digital commerce, it can be incredibly difficult for executives at brand manufacturers to know how to measure their performance on the digital shelf and to make decisions on what metrics to use. To answer these questions, the Digital Shelf Institute partnered with Profitero, a leading ecommerce Analytics Platform, and brand executives from the DSI Executive Forum, to create A DSI Member’s Framework for Digital Shelf Measurement. This podcast is a rebroadcast of a DSI webinar featuring, Molly Schonthal, now CEO of the Digital Commerce Institute, Mike Black, CMO of Profitero, Wayne Duan, Vice President of Ecommerce and Digital Commerce, Constellation Brands, Dean McElwee, Director of International Ecommerce Strategy - Global Tools & Storage, Stanley Black & Decker. A rollicking conversation about how to start winning the ongoing battle to measure what you manage.