In the red corner, Target and Kroger. In the blue corner, Amazon. Ding ding!? | What's the point of a digital transformation and do we even need that jargon anymore? | Retailers are betting big on another Prime Day outage this upcoming July | Weird news of the week (poor Macy's)
Lila and Jeremy Stuart are the founders of Hari Mari. When shopping for flip-flops and discovering bland inventory, they found an idea — creating a new and improved flip-flop. You might call them flip-flop fanatics?
Drew Green is the CEO of Indochino - Drew has built one of the world's fastest growing apparel brands. Under his leadership since 2015, the company has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 48%.
As always at National Retail Federation's yearly bonanza, we get to meet with some of the most interesting new technologists, thought leaders, and retail pros. This year was no different. Sara Whiffen from Rohvi took a little time out of her crazy schedule to sit with us and talk retail. Specifically, we talked about a new-ish term, called "re-commerce".
Like every show, José and Todd end up roaming the halls like a couple decently dressed zombies. With coffees. And bags. Anyway… This time we ran into a really interesting company that found a VERY underserved space for brands. IRL, meaning exactly that - In Real Life - is helping brands of all types find new customers in that gap between retail stores and online. Using emerging channels such as Airbnb, WeWork and Health Clubs, IRL not only makes it possible but super easy for brands to cut throu...
In this special Shop.org 2018 episode we have someone we found really charismatic and interesting during her Shop.org mainstage session with Guy Raz. Her name is Miki Berardelli, CEO of KIDBOX, and she sat down with José and I to talk about just that - her time at KIDBOX and why it's been such an impactful few years for her and the retailer. We will hear more about KIDBOX, but essentially KIDBOX is the first kids' personalized style box that provides parents with a convenient way to dress kids i...
Casper the friendly store | Old Brands & New Brands | Google’s Double Decker in Chicago | Weird News of the Week
The hype is real. Even after hours of downtime, countless cute dogs served on broken pages, and frustrated shoppers; Amazon still rakes in $4B+ in revenues on Prime Day 2018. In this episode, we have a little fun in our post-mortem of the only Black Friday in Summer.
José gets some time with retail and consumer trends business reporter Barbara Thau to talk about the one thing people really want with their in-store experience, the impact of out-of-stock situations on the bottom line, the tech that is cool but maybe not as useful as we thought, and the domination of Amazon's retail and marketplace models.
In this Golden Jubilee of an episode: Subscription disruptors disrupted | Luxury finally caves | Children's Place wins the toy | Weird News of the Week
Amazon is your new stalker | Kidbox | Can Algorithms Dictate Taste? | Weird News of the Week
When you think of Detroit, do you think of fashion? You may not, and that's ok - but not for long. Jeffry Aronsson, retail turnaround and transformation specialist, is hell bent on changing that.
3 Things We Learned at Shoptalk | A Shoptalk session reaction | Wonder twin powers, activate! | Weird News of the Week
Economist’s jobs are hard. There’s really no other way to put it. In this episode, we spend 20 minutes to take a look back at 2017, a better than expected holiday season, and what’s to come for 2018, with National Retail Federation’s Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz at NRF BIG Show 2018.
Where did those discounts go??? | Sit down, Microsoft. | Store No 8 Gobbles Up Another. | Weird News of the Week
It didn't fit, so she did something about it. Not just for her, but for all women. We got to spend a very interesting 20 minutes with Cricket Lee from FitLogic at NRF 2018. ---- About Cricket Lee While shopping for clothing and struggling to find clothes that fit, Cricket Lee realized there was a fit problem across the fashion industry. She set out to solve that problem, and improve the shopping experience for all women. Cricket is a veteran of the retail industry who has invented a revolutionar...
José and Todd got a few minutes at NRF 2018 with Michelle Bacharach from FINDMINE. It's a little noise in the background because there were just a few thousand people in the area. Michelle tells us all about FINDMINE and why their "complete the look" tech is changing the way we pair our outfits and the way retailers represent their brand. Michelle Bacharach is CEO and Co-Founder of FINDMINE. As a product and strategy expert, she’s experienced in growing startups and large media companies by laun...
Great story behind this hot custom clothing company out of Boston! Fan Bi is the Founder and CEO of Blank Label, a custom men's clothing brand based in Boston. He dropped out of Babson in 2009, with one semester left, to start the company. He's a recipient of the BusinessWeek 25 Under 25 and INC 30 Under 30 awards. Blank Label Overview Blank Label is a men's clothing brand with stores in Boston, Chicago, D.C., Atlanta, Denver and online. Through their own custom clothing line, their mission is t...
It's a Game of Pac-Man for Amazon. | Bot or Not? | Do I Hear an Echo? | Weird News of the Week!
Nike moving out. Whole foods has some rotten apples. Honeymoon is over for Gap. Wait, what honeymoon?. Weird news of the week ---- Nike Moving Out Donald Trump’s private real estate empire officially lost one of its most important tenants on Monday, when Nike announced that it is closing its store at the president’s 6 East 57th Street property in New York City next spring in favor of a new location just a few blocks away. The announcement comes a year after commercial landlord SL Green disclosed...
Who won Black Friday and Cyber Monday? The shifting state of fashion in 2018. Weirdest news of the week in retail (involves Unicorns). ---- Who won Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Winners: Best Buy According to data from QSR International, Best Buy was tagged the most in tweets categorized as "very positive," and it overall had the most successful advertising campaign of 15 brands studied. That's likely because the retailer took a different strategy this year — veering away from pushing a sense o...
Have you heard of "hearables"? Well, now you have. We are joined by the co-founders of "hearable" startup, Peripherii. Their first product is a "smart earring" with built in virtual personal assistants like Siri and Google Assistant to add amazing functionality to jewelery. Not only can these earrings take and make calls and whisper alerts, it can respond to voice commands, call an Uber, or dim the lights in your room. Co-founders Priti Moudgill and Sonal Budhiraja tell us how it all started and...
We are joined by Aman Advani - the CEO and Co-founder of Ministry of Supply. This episode truly represents the intersection of technology and fashion - literally weaving technology into the fabric we wear. Does the name 'Ministry of Supply" sound slightly familiar? If you are a James Bond fan, it should.
Augmented Reality is about to explode in retail. Downsizing the store in ways we never expected. Automation is coming and it can't be stopped. ---- Augmented Reality is about to explode in retail AR is the key to connecting the physical world with digital. And, AR has already been in our daily lives in the form of Snapchat and Pokemon Go. So, we have already been trained. The introduction of Apple’s ARkit, a developer platform for augmented reality, and the subsequent launch of iOS 11, which hos...
Coach is now Tapestry and people are losing their minds. Under Armour isn’t cool anymore (Todd loves UA, is marginally cool, and doesn't agree with this). Amazon is flexing its supply chain muscles once again.
Part 2/2 of our Shop.org special welcomes guest Casey Sullivan from Barneys New York. Casey oversees startup and growth initiatives at Barneys. We talked about: Digital initiatives at Barneys How to please all customer segments at once, shopping simultaneously? How does Barneys balance the physical and digital experiences for each segment yet maintain a cohesive, consistent experience? and more...
In this Part 1 of our two part Shop.org special we welcome the ladies from Retail Minded - Nicole Reyhle and Jasmine Glasheen. Things we talk about: Why independent retailers are important to the survival of retail. Do they experience the same challenges the bigger retailers do? Are members of the Amazon Marketplace concerned about the tighter grip Amazon is placing on them in terms of competition and requirements? Can department stores survive this re-invention of retail? Are their brands stron...
Malls are back - and far from dead. This holiday, people will care more about experience and convenience - we discuss why. Is Amazon's 2nd full-fledged HQ coming to your city?
Mariam Naficy - Minted CEO, spends some time with us. She shared with us some what it took to start Minted, why Minted's business model is unique, how technology is being used, and if there are plans to open stores. https://www.minted.com/
Episode 30 gets a healthy dose of Amazon (shocker) and their latest Whole Foods news along with the future of Amazon Prime. Since it's earnings season, which is our favorite time of quarter, we pick on Dick's Sporting Goods and Foot Locker. \<3
