Future Commerce Podcast: eCommerce, DTC and Retail Strategy

"Sommoliers of Retail"

Future Commerce Podcast: eCommerce, DTC and Retail Strategy

Main Takeaways:

  • Instagram discovers that Phillip has a thing for sneakers.

  • Facebook wants to venture into matchmaking, and they certainly have enough data to do it.  

  • Can data-rich companies step up their security game?

  • Retailers are using real-time data to put employees in the right place at the right time.

  • Personalized wellness packs: The future of health?

  • Professors are leaving the classroom for a better paycheck.

Facebook Uses AI to Mine Data it Already Owns:

  • Facebook has decided to use artificial intelligence or AI to look at Instagram data, even though, they already have access to all that data anyway because they own Instagram.

  • So basically Facebook is reading your Facebook posts?

  • Instagram learns of Phillips very secret shoe obsession.

  • Everyone learns that Instagram(owned by Facebook) is somehow tracking shopping that goes beyond Instagram.

  • Phillip and Brian are shocked to learn that Facebook is sending out non-GDPR compliant emails.

Mark Zuckerberg Matchmaker Extraordinaire?

Can Humans Adapt to the World's Triumphs and Troubles?

     Twitter Needs to Get Rid of Its Ponytail:

  • 330MM Twitter users were sent into a possible panic after Twitter sent out an email that the user's passwords had been exposed.

  • Twitter insists that even with this breach, the company didn't think that anyone's account had been compromised, but users should change their passwords anyway.

  • Phillip says that Twitter handled this perfectly well.

  • This was one of Phillip and Brian's predictions for 2016.

  • Are companies getting better at security, or just at owning up that their security is terrible?

  • Twitter was proactive in immediately making customers aware of this issue, but as Phillip makes clear, this breach wasn't as much a risk for customers, and showed Twitter putting their customers need for transparency first.

Can Stores Use Time-Tech to Improve In-Store Experience?

In-Store Experience is Becoming a Mainstay For Retail:

  • Macy's acquires Story, proving that experiential retail is a thing, and that in-store experience is everything.

  • Phillip says that we are going to need "sommes of retail" to tell the story of how products come into being.

  • Brian says Nordstrom has already accomplished this.

  • And with experts in the field becoming necessary this may lead to even more automation of jobs that can be done by a machine.

Personalized Products Give Consumers a More Tailor-Made Fit:

  • Phillip is super excited about Care/of, a company that is created personalized wellness packs based on a customers individual needs.

  • This kind of product really drives the customer experience emphasis home: it doesn't just ask questions, it asks all the questions about diet, lifestyle, goals, allergies, and even your level of belief in supplements themselves.

  • care/of also asks about mental health to ensure that there won't be any negative interactions with the recommended supplements.

  • And if you are a skeptic like Phillip (and Phillip is indeed a skeptic), have no fear, because the service includes the number of double-blind studies on each supplement and its effectiveness.

  • The entire process is incredibly personal, from the questions, to the 30 daily-use packets with the customers name on each one, even down to the various inspirational quotes meant to improve the overall experience.

Facebook is Hiring Professors Away From The Classroom:

Retail Tech is moving fast and Future Commerce is moving faster.

Go over to Futurecommerce.fm and give us your feedback! We love to hear from our listeners!

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