Amazon - it's a jungle out there for sellers, particularly in these times of economic and supply chain headwinds. Jason Boyce, Founder & CEO of Avenue7Media has spent his entire career driving success on Amazon, as early as 2003 with his own brand, and now for a wide range of Amazon sellers through his digital marketing agency and his book The Amazon Jungle. Jason joined the podcast to offer up to the minute advice for the strategies brands need to not only weather the storms ahead but take ...
Aug 22, 2022•33 min•Ep. 166
Every brand is looking for the most efficient ways to grow sales and compress operating expenses and in this environment of rising digital acquisition costs, it is brick and mortar that is rising back to the top of the strategy conversation - but the economics and efficiencies must be right for a brand to test and learn and scale that strategy . Amish Tolia is co-founder and co-CEO of Leap, a platform that helps brands launch and operate retail stores to grow their brand with less risk. He joins...
Aug 15, 2022•38 min•Ep. 165
What’s the old adage? You can’t manage what you don’t measure. And defining the right KPIs to measure and optimize the business value you are driving on the digital shelf has long been a moving target. But there is now enough experience and best practices developing out there to really build a solid discipline around it. This is a podcast audio version of a webinar featuring of course Lauren Livak, Director of the Digital Shelf Institute and driving force behind the playbook, and our special gue...
Aug 08, 2022•41 min•Ep. 164
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 opportunit...
Aug 01, 2022•27 min•Ep. 163
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.
Jul 25, 2022•36 min•Ep. 162
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 LewE...
Jul 18, 2022•45 min•Ep. 161
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 ...
Jul 11, 2022•30 min•Ep. 160
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 ...
Jul 04, 2022•48 min•Ep. 159
“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.
Jun 27, 2022•44 min•Ep. 158
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 adven...
Jun 20, 2022•39 min•Ep. 157
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 curr...
Jun 13, 2022•33 min•Ep. 156
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...
Jun 06, 2022•36 min•Ep. 155
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 webina...
May 30, 2022•59 min•Ep. 154
Thomas Parkinson, co-founder of PeaPod, ItemMaster, and dean of grocery ecommerce and digital experiences, is now putting his 30 years of experience into creating Sifter.shop, what he calls a Nutrition as a Service platform that helps consumers find, explore and buy products that fit their personalized dietary needs. In an age where sustainability and nutrition also happen to drive better margins, Rob and Peter talk with Thomas about his career putting the e- in front of things, and what Sifter ...
May 23, 2022•32 min•Ep. 153
There may be no more rapidly evolving element of consumer marketing today than retail media. At the forefront of that evolution is Kroger Precision Marketing, as America’s largest grocer innovates to create a retail media platform that drives a delightful experience for the consumer and attributable results for their supplier partners. Things are moving very fast over there, so we invited Cara Pratt, SVP at Kroger Precision Marketing in to bring us up to speed.
May 16, 2022•31 min•Ep. 152
May 09, 2022•44 min•Ep. 151
This is the 150th episode of Unpacking the Digital Shelf! For this episode, we returned to our very first guest, Sonesh Shah, who is now Global President at Dremel. Then, and now, we count on Sonesh to help expand our brains around what great leaders should be thinking about now to continually reinvent an organization and products that drive growth and connection. Rob Gonazalez and Peter Crosby reunited with him to talk about what he’s focusing on between now and episode 300.
May 02, 2022•51 min•Ep. 150
Every moment of friction in the consumer journey represents a revenue risk to the organization. The trick is, knowing what those frictions are and knowing which ones to focus on to drive the greatest financial impact to your bottom line. Paula Courtney, President and CEO of The Verde Group, uses their customer dissatisfaction research to ID and quantify those opportunities and remove costly frictions from your consumer experience. Lauren Livak and Peter dug in with Paula on their methodologies a...
Apr 25, 2022•38 min•Ep. 149
There is a dirty word in Amazon ecommerce that we have to discuss: profitability. Or, in many cases, the lack thereof. Driving profits on the world’s biggest online retailer is not an easy mission. That’s why we invited Martin Heubel, former FMCG category manager at Amazon, and now leading his own Amazon consultancy Consulterce, to join us on the podcast to discuss his detailed framework to maximize profits while growing your business with Amazon.
Apr 19, 2022•37 min•Ep. 148
Fred Reichheld has spent a career at Bain creating and advancing the Net Promoter Strategy at some of the world’s greatest companies. And he knew it worked, not only to drive happy customers, but also outstanding financial success. In his new book, Winning on Purpose, he brings the receipts to prove it. Full of data, case studies, and practical approaches, Fred outlines the path to quote, turbocharge your loyalty growth engine using the most efficient and sustainable fuel ever invented: happy cu...
Apr 11, 2022•36 min•Ep. 147
Today it's never been clearer that Performance advertising-- forever linked with the DTC start-up media darlings of the past five years-- is the cool kid on the block. At the same time, mention the word brand building to your CEO and you're likely to be sent to the land of misfit toys . In fact, in his book Post Corona, professor Scott Galloway went so far as to declare the death of the brand age, saying that algorithms, user reviews and convenience all make the old fashioned notion of brand irr...
Apr 04, 2022•38 min•Ep. 146
When we heard that Outer, the premium outdoor furniture company, had achieved 1000% growth in no small part through customer-hosted sessions in their backyards during a pandemic, I knew we needed to find out the strategy behind it. Terry Lin, an industrial designer plus former Walmart.com merchandiser and Co-Founder & Chief Design Officer at Outer, joined Lauren Liva and Peter to talk nanoinfluencers, Shark Tank, and the ABCDEs of company culture that is creating a new global brand in outdoo...
Mar 28, 2022•38 min•Ep. 145
Throughout a 15 year career at Johnson & Johnson, Matt Fantazier, has careened from Finance, to Brand Management and now Director, Digital Experience at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health. Each stage of that journey has informed a way of working as a servant leader, helping teams prioritize, execute and focus on the right metrics to drive the right business result. Matt joined Lauren Livak and Peter to talk us through his career journey and the set of skills and focus areas required to dr...
Mar 21, 2022•30 min•Ep. 144
Excelling at ecommerce and digital marketing takes a certain combination of diverse skills, often difficult to find in one human being. Aaron Zagha, CMO of Newton Baby, thinks of it as a mix of math, magic, and art. Aaron joined Lauren Livak and Peter to walk us through how that mix shows up in the daily battle for consumer delight, well-rested babies, and optimizing for total growth at Newton Baby.
Mar 14, 2022•36 min•Ep. 143
The internet as we know it is in the midst of massive change. The buzzwords abound - blockchain, crypto, Web3 NFTs. It all adds up to a new way that people connect, interact and transact with each other digitally. It will have significant impacts on marketers, but many of those impacts and their timing are yet unknown. It seems like now is the perfect time to begin an extended conversation about what these shift and innovations are, and what they might mean for brands now and in the years and de...
Mar 07, 2022•34 min•Ep. 142
Beating the competition on any digital channel, but especially Amazon, is not a set it and forget it exercise. From their deep expertise as the Amazon digital marketing agency of record for over 125 brands, the team at Bobsled marketing has developed a POV on what it takes to succeed on Amazon. And the measurement of maturity makes you a caterpillar, spider, chameleon, or Lion. Kiri Masters and Caroline Adams from Bobsled Marketing brought to the podcast their Amazon evolutionary scale from a re...
Feb 28, 2022•35 min•Ep. 141
No question, being an ecommerce leader is one of the most challenging jobs in commerce. You need people that are on your side - shepherds, you might say, that get how hard it is and spend a lot of time thinking about how to help. Chris Perry and Oskar Kaszubski, cofounders of FirstMovr, have sat in that seat across brands such as Kelloggs, Reckit, WellPet, Kimberly Clark and Mondelez and now spend their days on education and change management advisory through their firm FirstMovr (there no e in ...
Feb 21, 2022•43 min•Ep. 140
Welcome, everyone, Peter Crosby, executive director of the Digital Shelf Institute here. Welcome to the 7th webinar in our 10-episode Digital Shelf Playbook Series, and the first of 2022. Continual optimization of the product page is the holy grail of driving discovery, conversion, and brand impressions and loyalty in this digital-first age. But in reality, you can’t optimize everything at all times. Choosing where you place your investments and doing it efficiently and with transparency takes a...
Feb 14, 2022•45 min•Ep. 139
Today, Shoppers are creating post-purchase videos on over 35 platforms in 89 languages. Each of those represents an opportunity to amplify an influencer’s voice or learn from them. But how do you discover, amplify, and drive conversion through the right videos on the right product pages and channels? Ajay Bam, CEO & Co-founder of Vyrill, has created a platform that watches & listens to millions of videos online so you don’t have to. Ajay joined Peter and Lauren Livak to tell us how.
Feb 07, 2022•33 min•Ep. 138
It’s 2035. When you get there, what is it you wish you would have done as a leader in commerce for your organization now to prepare to win in that future? John Rossman, Author of the Bestseller “The Amazon Way” and Managing Partner at Rossman Partners, is spending every week spinning out a newsletter offering the practices, metrics, and skills you can use to make sure your 2035 self isn’t mad at you. The newsletter is called The Digital Leader, and John joined Peter to talk about his top-perform...
Jan 31, 2022•37 min•Ep. 136
