Retail Uncharted

Although Google pushed it's cookie ban to 2023, retailers need to prepare for a cookie-less future now. Shoppers expect greater privacy and security than ever before, says NRF VP of Retail Technology and Cybersecurity Christian Beckner. On this episode of Retail Uncharted, he explains how retail marketers can get privacy and security right while still driving sales.

Back-to-school shopping is at peak, says Sidecar Senior Customer Strategy Manager Brice Dunn. Due to changing policies around in-person learning, many parents are still racing to purchase supplies. On this episode of Retail Uncharted, Brice explains how retailers can tap into this late shopping surge and stay on top of fast-moving back-to-school trends.

Retailers may think they control their website and their prices, but the rise of third party coupon codes through browser extensions like Honey and Capital One Shopping are changing that. Clean.io CMO Kathleen Booth spoke with Retail Uncharted to explain how retailers can limit the impact of third party coupon codes and provide exceptional online customer experiences.

Shoppers love livestream shopping for its interactive and seamless in-app buying experience. In this episode of Retail Uncharted, livestream shopping expert and Insider reporter Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins shares her tips for retailers looking to grow sales from livestream apps.

School is back and back-to-school shopping is bigger than ever. It's critical that retail marketers tap into their data to make the most effective decisions during the fast-paced shopping season. OfficeSupply.com president Joe Schaefer & Sidecar's Brice Dunn offer their advice on how retail marketers can leverage real-time search data to sell more.

The biggest customer experience mistake retailers make is fueling shopper frustration. Poor product discovery, checkout, and delivery all make shoppers' lives harder, says author and host of The Modern Customer Podcast Blake Morgan. She spoke with Sidecar's Mike Perekupka about practical strategies retailers can use to build better customer experiences for the modern shopper.

Shoppers are more loyal to Amazon than ever before. During the online shopping boom of 2020, many consumers were won over by Amazon's convenience, Prime perks, and fast shipping. As a result, more and more retailers have turned to Amazon as a key sales channel and advertising platform. In this episode, Sidecar's Brittany Lerario offers retailers strategic advice to tap into Amazon growth and tactics for driving revenue and brand awareness on the platform. Plus, Brittany offers tips for retailers looking to capitalize on the Prime Day sales boost.

There’s no mistake that social media advertising had a huge year in 2020. With more consumers spending time on Instagram and Facebook, retailers were finally able to unlock the sales potential of these channels. ROAS increased as much as 29% year over year on Facebook, for example. In this episode, Sidecar’s Director of Social Media Corey Feldman breaks down the most important social media advertising trends from the 2021 Benchmarks Report and discusses key changes impacting these channels like the iOS 14.5 update.

What’s the key to convincing shoppers to buy your product? Satisfy their emotional needs, says Chris Gray, a doctor of clinical psychology and founder of The Buycologist. “Every purchase we make is to make our future better in some way. It’s always motivated by emotions,” he says. In this podcast, Chris speaks with Sidecar’s Mike Perekupka about what shopper psychology is and how it can help retailers more accurately map the customer journey.

Jonathan Martin and Sandie Shin, two of Sidecar’s senior Customer Strategy leaders explore Google Ads data and trends from the just-released 2021 Benchmarks Report. These retail marketing experts dive into the stats that surprised them most in this year's report and offer practical strategies for retailers looking to scale their Google Ads campaigns.

It’s time to rethink how Facebook can help you achieve your e-commerce goals. In this episode, AllHeart paid social manager Randall Evenson explains how Facebook became a critical part of the retailer’s customer acquisition and revenue growth strategy. With granular prospecting and retargeting on Facebook, the medical apparel and equipment retailer was able to implement full-funnel marketing and create a ripple effect that boosted performance on all of its paid marketing channels.

Baby Boomers are the most valuable shopping demographic for online retailers. Despite their smaller numbers, Baby Boomers have more buying power than Millennials and Gen Z’s and hold over half of all household wealth in the U.S., explains Jasmine Glasheen, a speaker, thought leader, and writer for The Robin Report, The Sourcing Journal, and other retail publications. On this episode of Retail Uncharted, Jasmine explains how the pandemic solidified Baby Boomers' position as the wealthiest generation and most valuable demographic for online retailers.

Dive into the top takeaways from Sidecar’s 2021 E-commerce Marketer Survey with podcast regulars Mike Farrell and Mike Perekupka and get insights you won’t find in the 50-page report. Tune in to learn what skills sets are most in demand for e-commerce marketers, marketers' top priorities for 2021, and what steps you need to take to advance your e-commerce marketing career. 

The inaugural season of the Retail Uncharted podcast is coming to a close! To recap the season, unpack its biggest lessons, and predict what’s in store for retailers in 2021 and beyond, we gathered our podcast hosts and commentators for a final Season One episode.

Total Retail Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan shares key findings and advice from the Top 100 Omnichannel Retailers Report with Retail Uncharted's Mike Perekupka and Mike Farrell. They discuss the biggest trends in omnichannel retail and how services like buy online pickup in store and curbside pickup could save retailers this holiday season.

iProspect CEO Jeremy Cornfeldt spoke about the digital marketing agency's biggest priorities for 2021, what online marketing channels retailers should prioritize in the year ahead, and how iProspect’s partnership with Sidecar is setting his team up for future success.

iProspect CEO of the US Jeremy Cornfeldt shares his insights on leading a top digital marketing agency during the pandemic and his advice for retail leaders.

Google's Head of Retail Patty Devlin talks about key trends that are defining the 2020 holiday season and how retailers can prepare for success despite uncertainty. Host Mike Perekupka interviews Patty and Sidecar's Senior Director of Integrated Digital Strategy Mike Farrell on what they thing the major trends will be this holiday and how retailers can capitalize.

Fanatics founder and executive chairman Michael Rubin shares the key lessons he’s learned in his retail career, speaking with Sidecar CEO Andre Golsorkhi. His biggest piece of advice for the Amazon era: differentiation. If retailers can’t stand out with a unique product offering or service, they will struggle to thrive in the new retail landscape.

In this episode of Retail Uncharted, Sidecar’s Mike Perekupka and Brittany Lerario take a deep dive into Mission Boat Gear’s Amazon Advertising strategy and how it supports the retailers’ marketing efforts on other marketing channels.

In this episode of Retail Uncharted, we spoke with Prince Ghuman co-founder of PopNeuro.com and author of Blindsight: The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes or Brains and explored how neuromarketing can potentially revolutionize the way retailers approach online advertising. 

In this podcast, we discuss what the retail industry will look like after COVID-19. What permanent impacts should retailers be planning for now? Featuring co-founder of JustBrand Limited Justin Silverman, Senior Product Manager at Sidecar Mike Perekupka, and Senior Director of Integrated Digital Strategy at Sidecar Mike Farrell, this podcast predicts how the retail industry will evolve in light of COVID-19 and the biggest trends retailers should prepare for.

Shoppers have fallen in love with online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Wal-Mart. These marketplaces provide a level of convenience shoppers have come to expect, from a wide breadth of products to fast shipping times and incredibly low prices. In fact, according to Internet Retailer, nearly 50% of all online purchases were made on these platforms. Sidecar spoke with Internet Retailer Research Director Fareeha Ali in a recent podcast to discuss its newly released Online Marketplaces Report which tracks the fastest growing marketplaces around the world and provides valuable strategies for retailers trying to navigate this space. While Fareeha admits the growth of marketplaces creates greater competition for online retailers, it also creates new opportunities. Listen to our interview to learn how retailers can take advantage of the marketplace opportunity and prepare for the rapid growth in this space.

Moosejaw, a leading outdoor equipment and apparel retailer, recognized the constraints of last touch attribution when it began to scale its business. “We were knocking it out of the park in terms of last touch with direct response and lower funnel marketing campaigns,” explains Kelli Patterson, Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Moosejaw. “But in order to scale, we knew that we needed to be able to measure brand awareness and launch campaigns that could drive new customer acquisition.” That’s why Moosejaw made the switch to multi-touch attribution, adopting a custom model that uses a game theory methodology in order to attribute fractions of a sale to different channels. Kelli spoke with Sidecar in our latest podcast about how Moosejaw made the switch, what challenges her team encountered along the way, and what the results have been so far.

Personalization has come to dominate the world of online retail. Whether retailers are delivering more targeted marketing messages or providing custom product recommendations, personalization has permeated every stage of the customer journey. Some retailers are even experimenting with personalized pricing, which involves providing different product prices to different users, based on data like location, browser, and past shopping behavior. While this may seem like an effective way to ensure maximum profits, Rafi Mohammed cautions retailers against this approach. Pricing strategy consultant and author of “The Art of Pricing: How to Find the Hidden Profits to Grow Your Business and The 1% Windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow,” Rafi has found retailers run the risk of damaging their brands by offering different prices for the same products. “Amazon was caught doing this in the early 2000s,” explains Rafi. “It offered different prices to different customers based on their user data. It was well documented, and it caused an uproar. Amazon did eventually say, ‘We will never do this again.’ It’s unfortunate that retailers are making this same mistake.” In this podcast, Rafi explains a better way for retailers to optimize pricing without angering their customer base.

One of the top influencers in the world of predicting customer behavior, Peter Fader, Ph.D., discusses customer lifetime value and the advantages of adopting a customer-centric approach. Dr. Fader is Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

In a conversation with Sidecar, research fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Michael Schrage argues that investing in one's customers, and in turn creating better customers, is the key to groundbreaking retail innovation. The most successful companies today have embraced this paradigm shift by making their customers more valuable to their business, says Schrage. Netflix, for example, has transformed consumers into movie and TV bingers through careful technology investments in recommendation engines and streaming. Subscribers who avidly watch Netflix’s programming and enthuse about their favorite shows with friends are far more valuable to Netflix than the average consumer. In this podcast, Schrage explains how retailers can emulate top companies like Netflix and actually create better customers.

If anyone understands the past and future of department stores, it's Mark Cohen. As former CEO of Sears Canada and as a 40-year veteran of the industry, Cohen boasts key insights into the challenges and opportunities department stores face. Many of these are the same opportunities and challenges retailers in general are struggling to grapple. In this conversation, Cohen provides key lessons all retailers can apply in order to remain competitive in a changing industry. In particular, Cohen says that retail executives must be flexible and anticipate that trends today may not exist tomorrow. Executives must constantly assess their markets and use up-to-date and even predictive analytics to stay ahead of the curve.

There's no doubt that customer reviews inform consumers purchase decisions. Research from Nielsen reveals the strong influence of online consumer opinions–71% of global consumers trust them–but very little research is available that uncovers just how much of an impact this user-generated content can have on retailers’ bottom lines. The Spiegel Research Center, a research division of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, wanted to fill this knowledge gap. Executive Director Tom Collinger and Research Director Ed Malthouse conducted several research projects on the effect of customer reviews on conversions. Their research explored how the number of reviews, the average star ratings, the price of the items reviewed, and several other factors impact the ultimate purchase decision. In this podcast, we explore the actual impact of reviews on sales, and how retailers can increase conversions as much as 270%.

Vicki Cantrell, Executive Director of Shop.org and SVP of Communities at the National Retail Federation, is speaking at the 2016 Shop.org Digital Summit in Dallas, TX. Shop.org will gather more than 5,000 retail professionals to network and discover the latest in digital retail.  Last week, Vicki provided Shop.org 2016 preview on the podcast podcast. Our chat is the perfect appetizer for Shop.org, but it’s a must listen for anyone working in e-commerce. We discussed what’s on tap at this year’s Shop.org, new ways to think about mobile, social media’s ongoing evolution, and skills retailers need to win in today’s e-commerce landscape. Listen to our complete conversation to get a taste of one of the most important annual events in retail.  

Few people know e-commerce like Zak Stambor, Online Marketing Editor at Internet Retailer magazine. While reporting the latest industry news, Zak speaks with a wide assortment of retailers and marketers — providing him with a truly holistic understanding of this exciting space. In this podcast, we discussed IRCE, the ever-changing Google SERP, tactics for search success, and why mobile is still a challenge after all these years. Our chat is the perfect primer for IRCE. If you’re not going, check it out anyway for a quick survey of today’s e-commerce terrain.  

Having started in e-commerce during the industry’s early days, Brock Weatherup has a lot of perspective on what digital marketing strategies work to grow an online retail business, and what efforts fall flat. Much of his experience is rooted in the pet care segment. He was CEO of PetFoodDirect, then took the helm at Pet360, which was acquired by PetSmart in 2014. After the acquisition, Brock became PetSmart’s Chief Digital Officer. In this podcast, Brock shares some of the lesson for success he's learned during his career and offers insights on the trends that will shape the industry in the years to come.