Podcasts about Demandware

How does early-stage positioning help hospitality tech vendors stand out, scale faster, and stop guessing? And what can you do when your messaging sounds just like everyone else's?In this episode of dojo.live, we welcome Jacki Brown, strategic product marketing leader and founder of Jacki Brown Marketing. This conversation dives deep into the power of early-stage positioning—and why product marketing should never be an afterthought for hospitality tech vendors.Jacki breaks down the common misconceptions around marketing in the B2B hospitality space and explains what's really behind the industry's “sea of sameness.” She shares a practical 3-part research framework—market, competitors, and buyers—that helps companies define what truly makes them different and valuable. From confronting the fear of narrowing focus to knowing when (and how) to bring in product marketing, Jacki offers candid advice and actionable steps for vendors at any stage of growth.Plus: where product marketing should live, how to build the muscle without a full team, and what trends are reshaping messaging in 2025 and beyond.About Jacki BrownJacki Brown is the Founder and CEO of Jacki Brown Marketing, LLC, a consultancy that helps hospitality and travel technology companies navigate growth by identifying and crafting their positioning and messaging, then scaling that across digital channels and into lead-generating marketing campaigns.With nearly two decades of experience in marketing, Jacki honed her skills working with renowned brands such as Amadeus Hospitality, Demandware (now Salesforce Commerce Cloud), Shark Vacuums, and Nexxus Haircare, where she shaped global marketing strategies that significantly impacted pipeline growth and sales. She lives in Portsmouth, NH with her husband and two young children.

Episode 378 of The VentureFizz Podcast features two of the Co-Founders of Copley - David Henriquez, CEO and Sean Marshall, Chief Operating Officer. It is just a necessity for any thriving tech ecosystem. You need companies that scale and people from those companies take their learnings and go off to start their own company. HubSpot has been a big feeder of alumni who have gone off to start companies and you are starting to see the next wave with founders coming from Toast and now Klaviyo. What's even better is when you see the founders of these anchor tech companies fund the next generation of entrepreneurs. David & Sean were part of the hypergrowth scale up years at Klaviyo that ultimately led to a pillar public tech company in the Boston tech area. David held a variety of engineering & sales engineering roles, whereas Sean led global sales. Now, they are building a new company with a third Co-Founder & CTO, Mike Torra called Copley. It is an AI-Powered Content Optimization Platform that allows marketers to quickly create, test & deploy content everywhere. Copley recently announced a $4.8M pre-seed round of funding led by Asymmetric and Underscore. And yes, the founders of Klaviyo - Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen are investors… plus Tom Ebling & Jeffrey Barnett of Demandware which was acquired by Salesforce. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Startup fundraising advice for first-time founders and the importance of building long term relationships with investors. * The background stories for both David and Sean. * The explosive growth years at Klaviyo. * The full story of Copley in terms of the problem they are solving and their unique approach to finding early adopter customers. * GTM advice for early stage startups and the importance of storytelling. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Rich Lyons, founder of Lyons Consulting Group, shares his story of joining the e-commerce industry. He discusses the importance of strategic partnerships, recounting his collaboration with Demandware, now Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and its impact on e-commerce implementations. The conversation covers the significance of company culture, customer-centric strategies, and the balance between innovation and tradition in online business.  Rich also delves into the design versus functionality debate in e-commerce platforms and the evolving role of technology, such as AI, in enhancing customer experiences. The episode offers valuable lessons on navigating growth, acquisitions, and maintaining a strong company ethos in a competitive market. Show Highlights: The evolution of e-commerce and his role in the growth of Demandware, now Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Strategic alliances and the importance of shared success models in the tech industry. Exploration of company culture and customer-centric strategies, emphasizing the value of customer relationships over contractual disputes. Discussion on balancing design and functionality in e-commerce platforms to enhance conversion rates. Composable vs. all-in-one commerce solutions and their impact on customer experience. The role of AI and technology in transforming customer experiences in the e-commerce landscape. Reflections on industry consolidation, acquisitions, and maintaining company ethos during market changes. Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review,” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second, and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Supporting Resources: Join the Commerce Cloud Community: http://sforce.co/commercecrew To learn more about Commerce Cloud Innovations, go here: https://www.salesforce.com/commerce/innovations/  Interested in being a guest or know someone who should be? Use this nomination form: http://sfdc.co/podnomination  *** Episode Credits If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com. Let them know I sent you.

ABOUT THE GUESTTom Griffin is the President of Passport, a leading provider of international shipping and eCommerce solutions. With a career spanning over 20 years, Tom has held pivotal roles in some of the most innovative companies in the eCommerce and logistics industries. He began his journey at Yantra, a pioneer in distributed order management systems, before joining Demandware, where he played a crucial role in the company's rise as a leading SaaS eCommerce platform, culminating in its acquisition by Salesforce. At Passport, Tom leverages his extensive experience to help brands navigate the challenges of cross-border commerce, enabling them to expand their global footprint efficiently.HIGHLIGHTS[00:00:31] – Importance of meeting delivery expectations to drive customer retention and lifetime value.[00:06:02] – The shift from outsourcing eCommerce operations to managing them in-house.[00:09:25] – Expanding into new countries to double your addressable market while managing customer acquisition costs.[00:13:00] – Challenges and benefits of stocking inventory locally versus shipping internationally.[00:17:14] – Transparency in shipping costs and delivery times as key to preventing cart abandonment. QUOTES[00:18:21] “The key to success in cross-border eCommerce is not just about logistics but creating a seamless, localized experience for the customer from the moment they land on your site.” – Tom Griffin[00:24:50] “For brands, international expansion can be simpler and more cost-effective than they might think, thanks to advancements in technology and strategic partnerships.” – Tom Griffin[00:16:54] “The biggest driver of cart abandonment is surprise—whether it's unexpected taxes, duties, or unclear shipping costs. Eliminating these surprises is essential.” – Tom GriffinFind More About the Guest:LinkedIn: Tom Griffin on LinkedInCompany Website: Passport Shipping

Stephan Schambach hat in den 90ern Intershop gegründet, für Milliarden an die Börse gebracht und ein paar Tage später gesehen, wie der neue Markt und damit auch sein Baby abstürzt. Intershop gibt es bis heute, zwischenzeitlich hat Stephan jedoch Demandware gegründet, an die Börse gebracht und für mehrere Milliarden an Salesforce verkauft.Seit ca. 9 Jahren arbeitet er an Newstore und bringt damit die Apple Store Experience in die Stores anderer Top-Marken.Stephan liefert einen tiefen Einblick in seine unternehmerische Laufbahn und Erfahrungen. Stephan spricht auch über die Bedeutung von Unternehmertum und Innovation, besonders in der Technologie- und Softwarebranche, und betont die Notwendigkeit, sich auf globale Märkte zu konzentrieren, insbesondere in den USA. Ein globaler Player made in Europe ist seiner Meinung nach kaum machbar, aber nicht unmöglich.Was du lernst:Welche Unterschiede herrschen im Amerikanischen vs. deutschen Ökosystem, die den Erfolg deines Startups beeinflussen?Wie steht es um die deutsche Entrepreneurship-Education und wo gibt es Nachholbedarf?Welche grundlegenden Tipps solltest du als First Time-Founder beim Aufsetzen deines Boards beachten?Welche Qualitäten sollten gute Unternehmer mitbringen und wie passt man sich über die Jahre als Unternehmer neuen Marktgegebenheiten an?ALLES ZU UNICORN BAKERY:https://zez.am/unicornbakery Stephan SchambachLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanschambach NewStore: https://www.newstore.com Unicorn Bakery Whatsapp Broadcast:Hier erfährst du alles, was du als Gründer wissen musst: https://drp.li/jrq5S Unser WhatsApp Broadcast hält dich mit Einblicken in die Szene, News und Top-Inhalten auf dem Laufenden.Marker:(00:00:00) Was sollte man über deine Unternehmen und über Newstore wissen?(00:07:26) Wie seid ihr beim MVP vorgegangen und wie lange hat es gedauert, den ersten Kunden zu überzeugen?(00:13:10) Wie hast du dein Team bei Newstore aufgebaut, worauf hast du geachtet und wie hast du dein Founding Team incentiviert?(00:19:27) Was sind dir für Unterschiede zwischen dem amerikanischen und dem deutschen Ökosystem aufgefallen?(00:22:35) Welche Krisen musstet ihr schon meistern?(00:26:08) Welche Qualitäten sollten gute Unternehmer mitbringen und welche Probleme siehst du bei Entrepreneurship-Education?(00:32:58) Wieso bist du der Meinung, man könne keinen global relevanten Player aus Europa heraus gründen?(00:39:09) In welchen Bereichen musstest du dich beim Bau einer Firma über die Jahre an neue Gegebenheiten anpassen?(00:50:22) Remote Work vs. hybrid vs. office culture - wie stehst du dazu?(00:53:51) Wie validierst du Ideen und neue Geschäftsmodelle?(00:57:37) Worauf achtest du bei deiner Investorenwahl und wie aktiv managst du dein Board?(01:00:36) Was sind grundlegende Tipps für ein gut funktionierendes Board? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Salesforce Commerce has a long history in the ecommerce platform market, from the acquisition of Demandware to the birth and growth of SiteGenesis. SiteGenesis was built before mobile dominated online shopping, so there are newer architectural options for SFCC customers. Many Salesforce customers are facing a big decision: stick with an old SiteGenesis version, or twist to either SFRA for a mobile-first solution or the newer composable storefront. In this episode we aim to dispel some of the concerns with remaining on SiteGenesis. Customers don't have to migrate if they have the right SI partner to maintain SiteGenesis but there are pros and cons of staying on this path that need to be understood, for example limitations with the roadmap, maintenance of 3rd party connectors, effort doing releases and maintaining performance. The market is evolving, with some Salesforce customers having already moved to SFRA or composable storefront, which is making other retailers review their platform choice. We're joined by leading SFCC agency partner Tryzens, who also have experience delivering solutions on ecommerce platforms like Magento and Shopify. Listen to Liam Downes, Director of Strategy and Success, and Shivko Rusev, SVP Salesforce Practice, share their views on how to approach Salesforce migrations and what type/size of business is best suited to the modern SFCC solution and why.

Tom Ebling is the former CEO of Demandware, a company that was acquired by Salesforce in 2016 for $2.8 billion. Today Tom is a Board Member and Advisor to SaaS companies. He joined Ryan to talk about how win-loss insights have driven him and his teams to make better, more strategic decisions. From identifying a product gap that led to an acquisition, adding some much-needed nuance to buyer intel limited by seller bias, and proving one of his CEO-competitors was making stuff up, win-loss analysis has been a fundamental part of every company Tom has worked at.You can watch the full interview on Klue's YouTube ChannelBlindspots is brought to you by the Compete Network: the #1 community for competitive intelligence and enablement professionals. Key Moments(00:10) Ryan's first-ever customer at DoubleCheck(01:29) How Tom leverages win-loss insights (04:29) How big is the gap between seller intel and buyer intel?(06:38) Using win-loss insights to drive decision making(08:23) Gaining competitive intelligence through win-loss analysis(12:15) Presenting win-loss insights at board meetings(14:26) How Tom used win-loss insights to inform mergers and acquisitions(18:13) Tom's advice for starting a win-loss programProduction Team:Host: Ryan SorleyProducer: Ben RonaldAudio Editor: Michael PanesSupervising Producer: Adam McQueen

Wed, 17 May 2023 22:10:00 +0000 https://twpodcast.podigee.io/84-new-episode 7584f12ee6b844579d399c16f5a1ba70 Der Serien-Gründer zählt zu den Pionieren des E-Commerce. Mit Intershop lieferte Stephan Schambach die Software für den Online-Handel, mit Demandware holte er alles in die Cloud. Und mit NewStore will er die Online- und Offline-Welt im Retail verschmelzen. Im TextilWirtschaft Podcast spricht Stephan Schambach über die größten Hürden im Omnichannel-Business. TW-Redakteurin Judith Kessler verrät er, warum sich große Multilabel-Händler mit der Transformation oftmals schwer tun, welche Rolle das Metaverse spielt und was nach dem Smartphone kommt. Sie haben Fragen, Anregungen oder Kritik? Schreiben Sie uns an

Josh Walker is the Co-Founder and President of Sports Innovation Lab where he oversees the company's innovative and proprietary market intelligence platform. Through market analysis and unbiased research, he empowers brands to develop and implement game changing, breakthrough experiences in a new age of sports and entertainment fandom. His work at Sports Innovation Lab represents the convergence of his career as a researcher, advisor, entrepreneur, and sports journalist. A former Vice President of Research at Forrester, Josh was responsible for launching the company's Forrester Wave evaluation framework, designed to accelerate innovation by connecting technology buyers with the best vendors. After Forrester, Josh spent time as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at General Catalyst advising fast-growing companies including Brightcove, Kayak, and Demandware. He soon became a serial entrepreneur himself, using his passion for technology and data to launch and grow several venture-backed companies such as CityVoter, Comlinkdata, and Stattleship. Josh is a graduate of Middlebury College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the conversation Josh mentions the book Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are, which can be found across book retailers.

Shirley Paley sees the big picture. She's a strategic GC and leader covering companies with varied legal needs. While her background is in IP she has a multifaceted legal leadership approach having served as GC at 2 very different companies. Prior to those GC roles she was instrumental in the growth and eventual acquisition of Demandware by Salesforce which became Commerce Cloud. Currently she's leading legal at Formlabs, one of the largest 3D printing companies. The DPBC podcast is a TechGC production. Learn more about the TechGC's thriving in-house legal community at https://www.techgc.co/ Follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-dale-7705b83/ Follow TechGC on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techgc

In today's episode we are joined by Maxime Rebibo, a Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud Specialist based in France. We discuss what first attracted Maxime to working with Demandware, prior to their acquisition by Salesorce and then explore whether or not he saw the acquisition as a positive. We go over the differences between the B2C and B2B offerings by Salesforce as well as looking at the skills required to work on B2C and how the development on this platform differs from coding on the core Salesforce platform. Maxime explains the types of companies he regularly sees opting for Salesforce B2C Commerce, what makes a project complex and how Salesforce have built on and expanded the Demandware platform.  Finally, Maxime talks about the challenges people face with trying to gain Commerce Cloud experience, but offers some resources that people may find useful. Make sure you are following Maxime on Linkedin where he regularly shares Commerce Cloud related content. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Headless commerce gets lots of attention as a "must-do" but is that the whole story? Watch me dig into the discussion with Dedrick Boyd, CEO of www.techsparq.com. Boyd and his team are the go-to problems-solvers often brought in when there is trouble. According to Boyd, "We are brought in when they want to upgrade their platform or when they are on the old version of Demandware and they wanna move to the new Salesforce or storefront reference architecture for Salesforce. Or they have an older version of Magento and, , they didn't realize they actually needed a lot of dev talent to run on Magento. We have historically always been able to tackle complex integrations. Oftentimes when there are projects that are kind of in trouble or if they just require, a little bit more handholding that's where we, we work really well." We also get into Immersive Commerce - what is I-Commerce, it's search and discovery just much, much better. Tune In. Learn With Me.

Wie sieht eine gelungene Omni-Channel-Lösung aus? Und wie lässt sich der stationäre Handel in die Digitalität verlagern? Diese und weitere spannende Fragen bespricht Sven Rittau mit seinem Gast Stephan Schambach, Pionier, Visionär und Gründer von Intershop Communications, Demandware und NewStore Inc.. Als Serial Entrepreneur ist Stephan Schambach ein Legende des digitalen Handels. Bereits 1994 brachte er mit Intershop Online die erste E-Commerce-Software auf den Markt. 2004 legte er mit der SaaS-Lösung Demandware nach, die später in die Salesforce Commerce Cloud überging. Mit der 2015 erfolgten Gründung von NewStore Inc. hat sich der E-Commerce-Experte nun die perfekte Plattform für Omnichannel-Modelle zur Aufgabe gemacht. In der Folge mit Stephan Schambach und Sven Rittau lernst Du:

Rob Garf, VP of Industry Strategy and Insights for Salesforce on Georgia Business Radio Joining us today is Rob Garf, VP of Industry Strategy and Insights for Salesforce Commerce Cloud here to discuss predictions for retail shopping. I've sat on all sides of the retail table -- as practitioner (Lids, Marshalls, Hit or Miss), industry analyst (AMR Research), strategy consultant (IBM), and software leader (Demandware). I'm currently a VP at Salesforce where I lead Industry Strategy and Insights for the Retail team. I get to work with execs at leading brands and upstarts from around the world on unified engagement strategies.       Love writing, speaking, and participating on retail boards. Lead a team that provides market intelligence, consumer insights, and business value analysis to influence product strategy and develop thought leadership. Develop and maintain strategic framework to evolve and articulate product vision, strategy, and roadmap. Conduct primary and secondary research to gain insights on industry opportunities, competition, market size, and portfolio expansion. Develop and maintain sales tools and methodologies to substantiate business value. Chair Client Advisory Board (CAB) that consists of leading retailers from around the world. Q & A: Q: More orders are expected this year from phones and tablets than from computers? A: For the first time during the holiday season, shoppers will place more orders from their phones than computers or tablets. Q: AI based products, how they are expected to drive holiday revenue this year? A: AI will be huge, with AI-based product recommendations driving 35 percent of all holiday revenue. Q: When are most people expected to do their shopping this year? A: Black Friday will be the top digital shopping day of the season again, capturing 10 percent of the season's revenue, while Cyber Monday will net eight percent of sales. Q: Which social media platforms will most influence shopping behavior? A: Instagram Q: How do personalized experiences affect the way people shop? A: Consumer preferences overall, such as their preference to buy from purpose-driven brands and retailers that value customer service. Q: How does Salesforce know? A: It powers leading retail brands like adidas, Puma, Coca-Cola, DVF, Lacoste and many others, and it has been able to make these prediction based on insights from 500M shoppers across the globe.   Where can we go for more information? Learn more at:  https://www.salesforce.com/solutions/industries/retail/overview Connect with Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-garf-224395 Georgia Business Radio Interviewing industry and thought leaders with compelling stories. Relevant content on current business trends live from the Pro Business Channel studios in Atlanta. In addition to the live broadcast, content is distributed across multiple syndicated platforms with more than 500,000 downloads. Show Host: Rich Casanova, Chief Visionary Officer Pro Business Channel Rich Casanova began his broadcasting career in California's central valley at KSKS-FM. While in California he also ran a successful entertainment company whose staff and crew entertained over 100,000 people. After moving to Atlanta and selling his entertainment company, Casanova ventured into publishing as the Publisher and Franchise Owner of Coffee News, headquartered in Bangor, ME. Later became the Founder and CCO, Chief Connection Officer, of an online platform where local business professionals register to receive a free list of the top 100 networking events in metro Atlanta. With a name like Casanova and his gregarious personality, Rich was a natural as a music radio DJ. "I got the radio bug early in my career and often thought how great it would be if there was an opportunity to participate in a talk radio format with a pro-business perspective interviewing thought leaders from the local...

About the guest: Adrien Naeem is Europe General Manager at Narvar. Narvar is on a mission to simplify the everyday lives of consumers. The platform focus on driving customer loyalty through seamless post-purchase experiences that allow retailers to retain, engage, and delight customers. Prior to Narvar, Adrien has worked many years at Demandware, now Salesforce Commerce Cloud, he knows pretty well the eCommerce platforms landscape. Adrien is also the host of a well-known French podcast “Le café de l'eCommerce”. - Adrien Naeem on Linkedin - Narvar website More info on the news discussed: - Linkpop launch announced by Harley Finkelstein on Twitter - Shopify help center regarding Shopify Email cost - Shopify changelog on Marketing Automation - Shopify help center regarding Customer Segmentation - Shopify help center regarding predicted spend tier - Shopify changelog on customer country on signup - Shopify blog post on managing App Store trust and quality You can follow: - The @ShopiShopaShow on Twitter - @ShopiShopa Consulting on Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin - @ChristopheDavy on Twitter - @ChristopheDavy on Linkedin Also: - Visit ShopiShopa Consulting website - Read ShopiShopa Consulting blog

This episode we welcome our fellow "Rethink Retail Top Influencers"  Nikki Baird, Ricardo Belmar, and Alicia Esposito. Julia Raymond Hare and Gabriella Bock also join us to explain what the Rethink Retail's list is all about. But first we take on the news of the week, including the continuing "profitless prosperity as exhibited by Warby Parker's expanding losses and the big drop in market capitalization among disruptive retail brands. We also unpack the National Retail Federation's annual forecast, including how to think about the impact of inflation, whether their e-commerce prediction is a bit optimistic and how impacts are likely to be bifurcated. Then we welcome our panel of experts and delve into what they as see as remarkably important for the future, including innovation within brick-and-mortar locations, how to drive innovation through iteration and the growing embrace of convenience. We also explore what our influencers see as important technologies and get their quick take on retailers (legacy and up-and-coming) to keep an eye on this year.  Rethink Retail's Top Influencers List.  Steve's recent Forbes articles related to our news segment After Earnings Whiff Maybe Warby Parker Can Learning Something From Old School DTC BrandsThe Profitless Prosperity of Retail Disruptor BrandsWayfair, Stitch Fix and Pure-play E-commerce's Scaling Problem. Relevant Past Podcast Episodes Why Does It Take a Crisis for Retailer's to Innovate? The Profitless Prosperity of Disruptor Brands Understanding Warby Parker and the Power of Customer-based Valuation To record a question for us to answer on a future episode go to speakpipe.com/remarkableretail About Nikki BairdNikki Baird is the vice president of strategy at Aptos, a retail enterprise solution provider. She is charged with accelerating retailers' ability to innovate. She has been a top global retail industry influencer for several years, with a background in retail and technology. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and has been quoted as a retail subject matter expert in The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Huffington Post, and National Public Radio, among many others. Nikki brings perspective from all sides of the retail technology equation: she has been an industry analyst for nearly fifteen years, co-founding Retail Systems Research, the premier boutique analyst firm focused on the retail industry. Prior to co-founding RSR, Nikki was an analyst at both Forrester Research and Retail Systems Alert Group, where she covered retail industry and technology topics. Prior to that, she was director of marketing for StorePerform, a store execution management software provider, and director of product marketing for Viewlocity, a supply chain software provider focusing on adaptive supply chain execution and exception management. Nikki came to Viewlocity from PwC Consulting, now IBM Global Services, where as a senior manager she led IT strategy consulting engagements for retail and CPG clients. Nikki has an M.B.A. from the University of Texas, Austin, focusing on operations and IT. She also holds a bachelor of arts in political science and Russian, with a minor in physics, from the University of Colorado, Boulder. About Ricardo BelmarRecently named a top 100 retail industry influencer by RETHINK Retail, Ricardo is a marketing strategist and digital transformation specialist. He founded Retail Razor, to advise retail tech organizations of all sizes with their go-to-market, brand strategy, and integrated marketing by leveraging his many years of tech industry experience, and media and industry analyst relationships. He also advises retailers on how to build & scale transformational customer experiences. Most recently, he joined Microsoft as Senior Partner Marketing Advisor for Retail & CPG where he strives to use his experience and network to strengthen Microsoft's retail tech partner community.A frequent contributor to blogs, podcasts, and publications in the retail, payments, and enterprise software industries, focusing on digital transformation and customer experience, Ricardo is a Top 10 social media influencer at the annual NRF Big Show. He is a featured member of RetailWire's BrainTrust panel, a previous ICX Association director, a RETHINK Retail Advisory Council member, and a founding Advisory Council member of George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation. He has been named Social Media Mayor by RIS News four times at retail conferences and is a contributor to Retail Customer Experience, Mobile Payments Today, and The Robin Report. Ricardo is a supporter of the RetailROI charity organization and can be found leading industry discussions on Clubhouse in the Retail Razor Club and on Twitter and LinkedIn.Throughout the past two decades, Ricardo has worked for technology and managed services providers targeting the retail ecosystem in roles as head of their product, product marketing, or marketing organizations. Ricardo holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia and is a Section4 Certified Strategist, Brand Strategist, Product, Platform, and Innovation Strategist. About Alicia EspositoWithin my eight-year tenure at G3 Communications, I have evolved extensively. Starting as an Associate Editor for our B2B retail publication, Retail TouchPoints, I have worked my way up the ranks, quickly becoming an expert and thought leader in all components of retail and customer experience. In my time as Associate Editor and Senior Editor of Retail TouchPoints, I interviewed some of the industry's top C-level executives from brands like Reebok and have covered a myriad of different "beats," including social marketing and commerce, mobile, omnichannel strategy and even supply chain management. I covered several key industry events nationwide, including NRF's BIG Show, Shop.org and eTail, and became a VIP press attendee at user events for vendors like Aptos, Demandware, JDA and Salesforce.Beyond my editorial obligations, I helped build the proprietary research and custom content division of Retail TouchPoints, helping our clients ideate, develop and roll out some of their top-performing assets. Now, as Content Strategist for G3 Communications, I help my internal team members create content, plan marketing campaigns and manage our family of events, including the B2B Marketing Exchange (Content2Conversion Conference) and the Retail Innovation Conference. I also help clients across all three of our brands (Retail TouchPoints, Demand Gen Report and Content4Demand) in several key areas of their content marketing journey, including: - Persona creation - Buyer-focused messaging - Content audits and gap analysis- Content ideation - Content creation - Repurposing and modularization- Content and design alignment - Long-term content strategy and nurture planning About Julia Raymond HareI ask a lot of questions - it's one of the most exciting parts of my career! I'm a podcast host, marketing professional and data nerd all in one. After spending 4 years in global marketing roles for the digital agency Valtech, I co-founded its media brand RETHINK Retail. By interviewing retail executives, academics and thought leaders, I deliver retail insights for leaders, from leaders.My "formal" 3rd-person description: Julia Raymond is passionate about marketing management, building connections with others, analytics and research, with a core focus on the retail industry. She earned her BSBA with honors from the University of Florida while she was a teenager. Her post-graduate degree is a Master of Science in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University. Julia is knowledgeable about international markets from her experience in global roles reporting directly to the Chief Marketing Officer at Valtech where she led creative and marketing teams; she is the Editor in Chief and co-founder of its media brand RETHINK Retail, curating the latest content around the evolution of retail in today's connected world through mediums such as podcasts, research and periodicals.About Gabriella BockRETHINK Retail's Managing Editor + Writer/Producer of the Retail Rundown, an award-winning retail podcast featuring news, insights and interviews with the world's most influential retail thinkers. What does the future of retail look like to you? Pitch me at gabriella@rethink.industries. About UsSteve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his       website.    The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book  Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at  Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a      Forbes senior contributor and on       Twitter and       LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel      here.Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada's top retail industry podcast,       The Voice of Retail, plus  Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  ,      The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and now in its second season, Conversations with CommerceNext!  You can learn more about Michael   here  or on     LinkedIn. Be sure and check out Michael's latest venture for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue,  his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!

About SamA 25-year veteran of the Silicon Valley and Seattle technology scenes, Sam Ramji led Kubernetes and DevOps product management for Google Cloud, founded the Cloud Foundry foundation, has helped build two multi-billion dollar markets (API Management at Apigee and Enterprise Service Bus at BEA Systems) and redefined Microsoft's open source and Linux strategy from “extinguish” to “embrace”.He is nerdy about open source, platform economics, middleware, and cloud computing with emphasis on developer experience and enterprise software. He is an advisor to multiple companies including Dell Technologies, Accenture, Observable, Fletch, Orbit, OSS Capital, and the Linux Foundation.Sam received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego, the home of transdisciplinary innovation, in 1994 and is still excited about artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology.Links: DataStax: https://www.datastax.com Sam Ramji Twitter: https://twitter.com/sramji Open||Source||Data: https://www.datastax.com/resources/podcast/open-source-data Screaming in the Cloud Episode 243 with Craig McLuckie: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/innovating-in-the-cloud-with-craig-mcluckie/ Screaming in the Cloud Episode 261 with Jason Warner: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/what-github-can-give-to-microsoft-with-jason-warner/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Redis, the company behind the incredibly popular open source database that is not the bind DNS server. If you're tired of managing open source Redis on your own, or you're using one of the vanilla cloud caching services, these folks have you covered with the go to manage Redis service for global caching and primary database capabilities; Redis Enterprise. Set up a meeting with a Redis expert during re:Invent, and you'll not only learn how you can become a Redis hero, but also have a chance to win some fun and exciting prizes. To learn more and deploy not only a cache but a single operational data platform for one Redis experience, visit redis.com/hero. Thats r-e-d-i-s.com/hero. And my thanks to my friends at Redis for sponsoring my ridiculous non-sense.  Corey: Are you building cloud applications with a distributed team? Check out Teleport, an open source identity-aware access proxy for cloud resources. Teleport provides secure access to anything running somewhere behind NAT: SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters, internal web apps and databases. Teleport gives engineers superpowers! Get access to everything via single sign-on with multi-factor. List and see all SSH servers, kubernetes clusters or databases available to you. Get instant access to them all using tools you already have. Teleport ensures best security practices like role-based access, preventing data exfiltration, providing visibility and ensuring compliance. And best of all, Teleport is open source and a pleasure to use.Download Teleport at https://goteleport.com. That's goteleport.com.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and recurring effort that this show goes to is to showcase people in their best light. Today's guest has done an awful lot: he led Kubernetes and DevOps Product Management for Google Cloud; he founded the Cloud Foundry Foundation; he set open-source strategy for Microsoft in the naughts; he advises companies including Dell, Accenture, the Linux Foundation; and tying all of that together, it's hard to present a lot of that in a great light because given my own proclivities, that sounds an awful lot like a personal attack. Sam Ramji is the Chief Strategy Officer at DataStax. Sam, thank you for joining me, and it's weird when your resume starts to read like, “Oh, I hate all of these things.”Sam: [laugh]. It's weird, but it's true. And it's the only life I could have lived apparently because here I am. Corey, it's a thrill to meet you. I've been an admirer of your public speaking, and public tweeting, and your writing for a long time.Corey: Well, thank you. The hard part is getting over the voice saying don't do it because it turns out that there's no real other side of public shutting up, which is something that I was never good at anyway, so I figured I'd lean into it. And again, I mean, that the sense of where you have been historically in terms of your career not, “Look what you've done,” which is a subtext that I could be accused of throwing in sometimes.Sam: I used to hear that a lot from my parents, actually.Corey: Oh, yeah. That was my name growing up. But you've done a lot of things, and you've transitioned from notable company making significant impact on the industry, to the next one, to the next one. And you've been in high-flying roles, doing lots of really interesting stuff. What's the common thread between all those things?Sam: I'm an intensely curious person, and the thing that I'm most curious about is distributed cognition. And that might not be obvious from what you see is kind of the… Lego blocks of my career, but I studied cognitive science in college when that was not really something that was super well known. So, I graduated from UC San Diego in '94 doing neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and psychology. And because I just couldn't stop thinking about thinking; I was just fascinated with how it worked.So, then I wanted to build software systems that would help people learn. And then I wanted to build distributed software systems. And then I wanted to learn how to work with people who were thinking about building the distributed software systems. So, you end up kind of going up this curve of, like, complexity about how do we think? How do we think alone? How do we learn to think? How do we think together?And that's the directed path through my software engineering career, into management, into middleware at BEA, into open-source at Microsoft because that's an amazing demonstration of distributed cognition, how, you know, at the time in 2007, I think, Sourceforge had 100,000 open-source projects, which was, like, mind boggling. Some of them even worked together, but all of them represented these groups of people, flung around the world, collaborating on something that was just fundamentally useful, that they were curious about. Kind of did the same thing into APIs because APIs are an even better way to reuse for some cases than having the source code—at Apigee. And kept growing up through that into, how are we building larger-scale thinking systems like Cloud Foundry, which took me into Google and Kubernetes, and then some applications of that in Autodesk and now DataStax. So, I love building companies. I love helping people build companies because I think business is distributed cognition. So, those businesses that build distributed systems, for me, are the most fascinating.Corey: You were basically handed a heck of a challenge as far as, “Well, help set open-source strategy,” back at Microsoft, in the days where that was a punchline. And credit where due, I have to look at Microsoft of today, and it's not a joke, you can have your arguments about them, but again in those days, a lot of us built our entire personality on hating Microsoft. Some folks never quite evolved beyond that, but it's a new ballgame and it's very clear that the Microsoft of yesteryear and the Microsoft of today are not completely congruent. What was it like at that point understanding that as you're working with open-source communities, you're doing that from a place of employment with a company that was widely reviled in the space.Sam: It was not lost on me. The irony, of course, was that—Corey: Well, thank God because otherwise the question where you would have been, “What do you mean they didn't like us?”Sam: [laugh].Corey: Which, on some levels, like, yeah, that's about the level of awareness I would have expected in that era, but contrary to popular opinion, execs at these companies are not generally oblivious.Sam: Yeah, well, if I'd been clever as a creative humorist, I would have given you that answer instead of my serious answer, but for some reason, my role in life is always to be the straight guy. I used to have Slashdot as my homepage, right? I love when I'd see some conspiracy theory about, you know, Bill Gates dressed up as the Borg, taking over the world. My first startup, actually in '97, was crushed by Microsoft. They copied our product, copied the marketing, and bundled it into Office, so I had lots of reasons to dislike Microsoft.But in 2004, I was recruited into their venture capital team, which I couldn't believe. It was really a place that they were like, “Hey, we could do better at helping startups succeed, so we're going to evangelize their success—if they're building with Microsoft technologies—to VCs, to enterprises, we'll help you get your first big enterprise deal.” I was like, “Man, if I had this a few years ago, I might not be working.” So, let's go try to pay it forward.I ended up in open-source by accident. I started going to these conferences on Software as a Service. This is back in 2005 when people were just starting to light up, like, Silicon Valley Forum with, you know, the CEO of Demandware would talk, right? We'd hear all these different ways of building a new business, and they all kept talking about their tech stack was Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. I went to one eight-hour conference, and Microsoft technologies were mentioned for about 12 seconds in two separate chunks. So, six seconds, he was like, “Oh, and also we really like Microsoft SQL Server for our data layer.”Corey: Oh, Microsoft SQL Server was fantastic. And I know that's a weird thing for people to hear me say, just because I've been renowned recently for using Route 53 as the primary data store for everything that I can. But there was nothing quite like that as far as having multiple write nodes, being able to handle sharding effectively. It was expensive, and you would take a bath on the price come audit time, but people were not rolling it out unaware of those things. This was a trade off that they were making.Oracle has a similar story with databases. It's yeah, people love to talk smack about Oracle and its business practices for a variety of excellent reasons, at least in the database space that hasn't quite made it to cloud yet—knock on wood—but people weren't deploying it because they thought Oracle was warm and cuddly as a vendor; they did it because they can tolerate the rest of it because their stuff works.Sam: That's so well said, and people don't give them the credit that's due. Like, when they built hypergrowth in their business, like… they had a great product; it really worked. They made it expensive, and they made a lot of money on it, and I think that was why you saw MySQL so successful and why, if you were looking for a spec that worked, that you could talk through through an open driver like ODBC or JDBC or whatever, you could swap to Microsoft SQL Server. But I walked out of that and came back to the VC team and said, “Microsoft has a huge problem. This is a massive market wave that's coming. We're not doing anything in it. They use a little bit of SQL Server, but there's nothing else in your tech stack that they want, or like, or can afford because they don't know if their businesses are going to succeed or not. And they're going to go out of business trying to figure out how much licensing costs they would pay to you in order to consider using your software. They can't even start there. They have to start with open-source. So, if you're going to deal with SaaS, you're going to have to have open-source, and get it right.”So, I worked with some folks in the industry, wrote a ten-page paper, sent it up to Bill Gates for Think Week. Didn't hear much back. Bought a new strategy to the head of developer platform evangelism, Sanjay Parthasarathy who suggested that the idea of discounting software to zero for startups, with the hope that they would end up doing really well with it in the future as a Software as a Service company; it was dead on arrival. Dumb idea; bring it back; that actually became BizSpark, the most popular program in Microsoft partner history.And then about three months later, I got a call from this guy, Bill Hilf. And he said, “Hey, this is Bill Hilf. I do open-source at Microsoft. I work with Bill Gates. He sent me your paper. I really like it. Would you consider coming up and having conversation with me because I want you to think about running open-source technology strategy for the company.” And at this time I'm, like, 33 or 34. And I'm like, “Who me? You've got to be joking.” And he goes, “Oh, and also, you'll be responsible for doing quarterly deep technical briefings with Bill… Gates.” I was like, “You must be kidding.” And so of course I had to check it out. One thing led to another and all of a sudden, with not a lot of history in the open-source community but coming in it with a strategist's eye and with a technologist's eye, saying, “This is a problem we got to solve. How do we get after this pragmatically?” And the rest is history, as they say.Corey: I have to say that you are the Chief Strategy Officer at DataStax, and I pull up your website quickly here and a lot of what I tell earlier stage companies is effectively more or less what you have already done. You haven't named yourself after the open-source project that underlies the bones of what you have built so you're not going to wind up in the same glorious challenges that, for example, Elastic or MongoDB have in some ways. You have a pricing page that speaks both to the reality of, “It's two in the morning. I'm trying to get something up and running and I want you the hell out of my way. Just give me something that I can work with a reasonable free tier and don't make me talk to a salesperson.” But also, your enterprise tier is, “Click here to talk to a human being,” which is speaking enterprise slash procurement slash, oh, there will be contract negotiation on these things.It's being able to serve different ends of your market depending upon who it is that encounters you without being off-putting to any of those. And it's deceptively challenging for companies to pull off or get right. So clearly, you've learned lessons by doing this. That was the big problem with Microsoft for the longest time. It's, if I want to use some Microsoft stuff, once you were able to download things from the internet, it changed slightly, but even then it was one of those, “What exactly am I committing to here as far as signing up for this? And am I giving them audit rights into my environment? Is the BSA about to come out of nowhere and hit me with a surprise audit and find out that various folks throughout the company have installed this somewhere and now I owe more than the company's worth?” That was always the haunting fear that companies had back then.These days, I like the approach that companies are taking with the SaaS offering: you pay for usage. On some level, I'd prefer it slightly differently in a pay-per-seat model because at least then you can predict the pricing, but no one is getting surprise submarined with this type of thing on an audit basis, and then they owe damages and payment in arrears and someone has them over a barrel. It's just, “Oh. The bill this month was higher than we expected.” I like that model I think the industry does, too.Sam: I think that's super well said. As I used to joke at BEA Systems, nothing says ‘I love you' to a customer like an audit, right? That's kind of a one-time use strategy. If you're going to go audit licenses to get your revenue in place, you might be inducing some churn there. It's a huge fix for the structural problem in pricing that I think package software had, right?When we looked at Microsoft software versus open-source software, and particularly Windows versus Linux, you would have a structure where sales reps were really compensated to sell as much as possible upfront so they could get the best possible commission on what might be used perpetually. But then if you think about it, like, the boxes in a curve, right, if you do that calculus approximation of a smooth curve, a perpetual software license is a huge box and there's an enormous amount of waste in there. And customers figured out so as soon as you can go to a pay-per-use or pay-as-you-go, you start to smooth that curve, and now what you get is what you deserve, right, as opposed to getting filled with way more cost than you expect. So, I think this model is really super well understood now. Kind of the long run the high point of open-source meets, cloud, meets Software as a Service, you look at what companies like MongoDB, and Confluent, and Elastic, and Databricks are doing. And they've really established a very good path through the jungle of how to succeed as a software company. So, it's still difficult to implement, but there are really world-class guides right now.Corey: Moving beyond where Microsoft was back in the naughts, you were then hired as a VP over at Google. And in that era, the fact that you were hired as a VP at Google is fascinating. They preferred to grow those internally, generally from engineering. So, first question, when you were being hired as a VP in the product org, did they make you solve algorithms on a whiteboard to get there?Sam: [laugh]. They did not. I did have somewhat of an advantage [because they 00:13:36] could see me working pretty closely as the CEO of the Cloud Foundry Foundation. I'd worked closely with Craig McLuckie who notably brought Kubernetes to the world along with Joe Beda, and with Eric Brewer, and a number of others.And he was my champion at Google. He was like, “Look, you know, we need him doing Kubernetes. Let's bring Sam in to do that.” So, that was helpful. I also wrote a [laugh] 2000-word strategy document, just to get some thoughts out of my head. And I said, “Hey, if you like this, great. If you don't throw it away.” So, the interviews were actually very much not solving problems in a whiteboard. There were super collaborative, really excellent conversations. It was slow—Corey: Let's be clear, Craig McLuckie's most notable achievement was being a guest on this podcast back in Episode 243. But I'll say that this is a close second.Sam: [laugh]. You're not wrong. And of course now with Heptio and their acquisition by VMware.Corey: Ehh, they're making money beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, that's all well and good, but an invite to this podcast, that's where it's at.Sam: Well, he should really come on again, he can double down and beat everybody. That can be his landmark achievement, a two-timer on Screaming in [the] Cloud.Corey: You were at Google; you were at Microsoft. These are the big titans of their era, in some respect—not to imply that there has beens; they're bigger than ever—but it's also a more crowded field in some ways. I guess completing the trifecta would be Amazon, but you've had the good judgment never to work there, directly of course. Now they're clearly in your market. You're at DataStax, which is among other things, built on Apache Cassandra, and they launched their own Cassandra service named Keyspaces because no one really knows why or how they name things.And of course, looking under the hood at the pricing model, it's pretty clear that it really is just DynamoDB wearing some Groucho Marx classes with a slight upcharge for API level compatibility. Great. So, I don't see it a lot in the real world and that's fine, but I'm curious as to your take on looking at all three of those companies at different eras. There was always the threat in the open-source world that they are going to come in and crush you. You said earlier that Microsoft crushed your first startup.Google is an interesting competitor in some respects; people don't really have that concern about them. And your job as a Chief Strategy Officer at Amazon is taken over by a Post-it Note that simply says ‘yes' on it because there's nothing they're not going to do, or try, and experiment with. So, from your perspective, if you look at the titans, who is it that you see as the largest competitive threat these days, if that's even a thing?Sam: If you think about Sun Tzu and the Art of War, right—a lot of strategy comes from what we've learned from military environments—fighting a symmetric war, right, using the same weapons and the same army against a symmetric opponent, but having 1/100th of the personnel and 1/100th of the money is not a good plan.Corey: “We're going to lose money, going to be outcompeted; we'll make it up in volume. Oh, by the way, we're also slower than they are.”Sam: [laugh]. So, you know, trying to come after AWS, or Microsoft, or Google as an independent software company, pound-for-pound, face-to-face, right, full-frontal assault is psychotic. What you have to do, I think, at this point is to understand that these are each companies that are much like we thought about Linux, and you know, Macintosh, and Windows as operating systems. They're now the operating systems of the planet. So, that creates some economies of scale, some efficiencies for them. And for us. Look at how cheap object storage is now, right? So, there's never been a better time in human history to create a database company because we can take the storage out of the database and hand it over to Amazon, or Google, or Microsoft to handle it with 13 nines of durability on a constantly falling cost basis.So, that's super interesting. So, you have to prosecute the structure of the world as it is, based on where the giants are and where they'll be in the future. Then you have to turn around and say, like, “What can they never sell?”So, Amazon can never sell something that is standalone, right? They're a parts factory and if you buy into the Amazon-first strategy of cloud computing—which we did at Autodesk when I was VP of cloud platform there—everything is a primitive that works inside Amazon, but they're not going to build things that don't work outside of the Amazon primitives. So, your company has to be built on the idea that there's a set of people who value something that is purpose-built for a particular use case that you can start to broaden out, it's really helpful if they would like it to be something that can help them escape a really valuable asset away from the center of gravity that is a cloud. And that's why data is super interesting. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “Boy, I had such a great conversation with Oracle over the last 20 years beating me up on licensing. Let me go find a cloud vendor and dump all of my data in that so they can beat me up for the next 20 years.” Nobody says that.Corey: It's the idea of data portability that drives decision-making, which makes people, of course, feel better about not actually moving in anywhere. But the fact that they're not locked in strategically, in a way that requires a full software re-architecture and data model rewrite is compelling. I'm a big believer in convincing people to make decisions that look a lot like that.Sam: Right. And so that's the key, right? So, when I was at Autodesk, we went from our 100 million dollar, you know, committed spend with 19% discount on the big three services to, like—we started realize when we're going to burn through that, we were spending $60 million or so a year on 20% annual growth as the cloud part of the business grew. Thought, “Okay, let's renegotiate. Let's go and do a $250 million deal. I'm sure they'll give us a much better discount than 19%.” Short story is they came back and said, “You know, we're going to take you from an already generous 19% to an outstanding 22%.” We thought, “Wait a minute, we already talked to Intuit. They're getting a 40% discount on a $400 million spend.”So, you know, math is hard, but, like, 40% minus 22% is 18% times $250 million is a lot of money. So, we thought, “What is going on here?” And we realized we just had no credible threat of leaving, and Intuit did because they had built a cross-cloud capable architecture. And we had not. So, now stepping back into the kind of the world that we're living in 2021, if you're an independent software company, especially if you have the unreasonable advantage of being an open-source software company, you have got to be doing your customers good by giving them cross-cloud capability. It could be simply like the Amdahl coffee cup that Amdahl reps used to put as landmines for the IBM reps, later—I can tell you that story if you want—even if it's only a way to save money for your customer by using your software, when it gets up to tens and hundreds of million dollars, that's a really big deal.But they also know that data is super important, so the option value of being able to move if they have to, that they have to be able to pull that stick, instead of saying, “Nice doggy,” we have to be on their side, right? So, there's almost a detente that we have to create now, as cloud vendors, working in a world that's invented and operated by the giants.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service. Although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLTP and OLAP, don't ask me to ever say those acronyms again, workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora, and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: When we look across the, I guess, the ecosystem as it's currently unfolding, a recurring challenge that I have to the existing incumbent cloud providers is they're great at offering the bricks that you can use to build things, but if I'm starting a company today, I'm not going to look at building it myself out of, “Ooh, I'm going to take a bunch of EC2 instances, or Lambda functions, or popsicles and string and turn it into this thing.” I'm going to want to tie together things that are way higher level. In my own case, now I wind up paying for Retool, which is, effectively, yeah, it runs on some containers somewhere, presumably, I think in Azure, but don't quote me on that. And that's great. Could I build my own thing like that?Absolutely not. I would rather pay someone to tie it together. Same story. Instead of building my own CRM by running some open-source software on an EC2 instance, I wind up paying for Salesforce or Pipedrive or something in that space. And so on, and so forth.And a lot of these companies that I'm doing business with aren't themselves running on top of AWS. But for web hosting, for example; if I look at the reference architecture for a WordPress site, AWS's diagram looks like a punchline. It is incredibly overcomplicated. And I say this as someone who ran large WordPress installations at Media Temple many years ago. Now, I have the good sense to pay WP Engine. And on a monthly basis, I give them money and they make the website work.Sure, under the hood, it's running on top of GCP or AWS somewhere. But I don't have to think about it; I don't have to build this stuff together and think about the backups and the failover strategy and the rest. The website just works. And that is increasingly the direction that business is going; things commoditize over time. And AWS in particular has done a terrible job, in my experience, of differentiating what it is they're doing in the language that their customers speak.They're great at selling things to existing infrastructure engineers, but folks who are building something from scratch aren't usually in that cohort. It's a longer story with time and, “Well, we're great at being able to sell EC2 instances by the gallon.” Great. Are you capable of going to a small doctor's office somewhere in the American Midwest and offering them an end-to-end solution for managing patient data? Of course not. You can offer them a bunch of things they can tie together to something that will suffice if they all happen to be software engineers, but that's not the opportunity.So instead, other companies are building those solutions on top of AWS, capturing the margin. And if there's one thing guaranteed to keep Amazon execs awake at night, it's the idea of someone who isn't them making money somehow somewhere, so I know that's got to rankle them, but they do not speak that language. At all. Longer-term, I only see that as a more and more significant crutch. A long enough timeframe here, we're talking about them becoming the Centurylinks of the world, the tier one backbone provider that everyone uses, but no one really thinks about because they're not a household name.Sam: That is a really thoughtful perspective. I think the diseconomies of scale that you're pointing to start to creep in, right? Because when you have to sell compute units by the gallon, right, you can't care if it's a gallon of milk, [laugh] or a gallon of oil, or you know, a gallon of poison. You just have to keep moving it through. So, the shift that I think they're going to end up having to make pragmatically, and you start to see some signs of it, like, you know, they hired but could not retain Matt [Acey 00:23:48]. He did an amazing job of bringing them to some pragmatic realization that they need to partner with open-source, but more broadly, when I think about Microsoft in the 2000s as they were starting to learn their open-source lessons, we were also being able to pull on Microsoft's deep competency and partners. So, most people didn't do the math on this. I was part of the field governance council so I understood exactly how the Microsoft business worked to the level that I was capable. When they had $65 billion in revenue, they produced $24 billion in profit through an ecosystem that generated $450 billion in revenue. So, for every dollar Microsoft made, it was $8 to partners. It was a fundamentally platform-shaped business, and that was how they're able to get into doctors offices in the Midwest, and kind of fit the curve that you're describing of all of those longtail opportunities that require so much care and that are complex to prosecute. These solved for their diseconomies of scale by having 1.2 million partner companies. So, will Amazon figure that out and will they hire, right, enough people who've done this before from Microsoft to become world-class in partnering, that's kind of an exercise left to the [laugh] reader, right? Where will that go over time? But I don't see another better mathematical model for dealing with the diseconomies of scale you have when you're one of the very largest providers on the planet.Corey: The hardest problem as I look at this is, at some point, you hit a point of scale where smaller things look a lot less interesting. I get that all the time when people say, “Oh, you fix AWS bills, aren't you missing out by not targeting Google bills and Azure bills as well?” And it's, yeah. I'm not VC-backed. It turns out that if I limit the customer base that I can effectively service to only AWS customers, yeah turns out, I'm not going to starve anytime soon. Who knew? I don't need to conquer the world and that feels increasingly antiquated, at least going by the stories everyone loves to tell.Sam: Yeah, it's interesting to see how cloud makes strange bedfellows, right? We started seeing this in, like, 2014, 2015, weird partnerships that you're like, “There's no way this would happen.” But the cloud economics which go back to utilization, rather than what it used to be, which was software lock-in, just changed who people were willing to hang out with. And now you see companies like Databricks going, you know, we do an amazing amount of business, effectively competing with Amazon, selling Spark services on top of predominantly Amazon infrastructure, and everybody seems happy with it. So, there's some hint of a new sensibility of what the future of partnering will be. We used to call it coopetition a long time ago, which is kind of a terrible word, but at least it shows that there's some nuance in you can't compete with everybody because it's just too hard.Corey: I wish there were better ways of articulating these things because it seems from the all the outside world, you have companies like Amazon and Microsoft and Google who go and build out partner networks because they need that external accessibility into various customer profiles that they can't speak to super well themselves, but they're also coming out with things that wind up competing directly or indirectly, with all of those partners at the same time. And I don't get it. I wish that there were smarter ways to do it.Sam: It is hard to even talk about it, right? One of the things that I think we've learned from philosophy is if we don't have a word for it, we can't be intelligent about it. So, there's a missing semantics here for being able to describe the complexity of where are you partnering? Where are you competing? Where are you differentiating? In an ecosystem, which is moving and changing.I tend to look at the tools of game theory for this, which is to look at things as either, you know, nonzero-sum games or zero-sum games. And if it's a nonzero-sum game, which I think are the most interesting ones, can you make it a positive sum game? And who can you play positive-sum games with? An organization as big as Amazon, or as big as Microsoft, or even as big as Google isn't ever completely coherent with itself. So, thinking about this as an independent software company, it doesn't matter if part of one of these hyperscalers has a part of their business that competes with your entire business because your business probably drives utilization of a completely different resource in their company that you can partner within them against them, effectively. Right?For example, Cassandra is an amazingly powerful but demanding workload on Kubernetes. So, there's a lot of Cassandra on EKS. You grow a lot of workload, and EKS business does super well. Does that prevent us from working with Amazon because they have Dynamo or because they have Keyspaces? Absolutely not, right?So, this is when those companies get so big that they are almost their own forest, right, of complexity, you can kind of get in, hang out, do well, and pretty much never see the competitive product, unless you're explicitly looking for it, which I think is a huge danger for us as independent software companies. And I would say this to anybody doing strategy for an organization like this, which is, don't obsess over the tiny part of their business that competes with yours, and do not pay attention to any of the marketing that they put out that looks competitive with what you have. Because if you can't figure out how to make a better product and sell it better to your customers as a single purpose corporation, you have bigger problems.Corey: I want to change gears slightly to something that's probably a fair bit more insulting, but that's okay. We're going to roll with it. That seems to be the theme of this episode. You have been, in effect, a CIO a number of times at different companies. And if we take a look at the typical CIO tenure, industry-wide, it's not long; it approaches the territory from an executive perspective of, “Be sure not to buy green bananas. You might not be here by the time they ripen.” And I'm wondering what it is that drives that and how you make a mark in a relatively short time frame when you're providing inputs and deciding on strategy, and those decisions may not bear fruit for years.Sam: CIO used to—we used say it stood for ‘Career Is Over' because the tenure is so short. I think there's a couple of reasons why it's so short. And I think there's a way I believe you can have impact in a short amount of time. I think the reason that it's been short is because people aren't sure what they want the CIO role to be.Do they want it to be a glorified finance person who's got a lot of data processing experience, but now really has got, you know, maybe even an MBA in finance, but is not focusing on value creation? Do they want it to be somebody who's all-singing, all-dancing Chief Data Officer with a CTO background who did something amazing and solved a really hard problem? The definition of success is difficult. Often CIOs now also have security under them, which is literally a job I would never ever want to have. Do security for a public corporation? Good Lord, that's a way to lose most of your life. You're the only executive other than the CEO that the board wants to hear from. Every sing—Corey: You don't sleep; you wait, in those scenarios. And oh, yeah, people joke about ablative CSOs in those scenarios. Yeah, after SolarWinds, you try and get an ablative intern instead, but those don't work as well. It's a matter of waiting for an inevitability. One of the things I think is misunderstood about management broadly, is that you are delegating work, but not the responsibility. The responsibility rests with you.So, when companies have these statements blaming some third-party contractor, it's no, no, no. I'm dealing with you. You were the one that gave my data to some sketchy randos. It is your responsibility that data has now been compromised. And people don't want to hear that, but it's true.Sam: I think that's absolutely right. So, you have this high risk, medium reward, very fungible job definition, right? If you ask all of the CIO's peers what their job is, they'll probably all tell you something different that represents their wish list. The thing that I learned at Autodesk, I was only there for 15 months, but we established a fundamental transformation of the work of how cloud platform is done at the company that's still in place a couple years later.You have to realize that you're a change agent, right? You're actually being hired to bring in the bulk of all the different biases and experiences you have to solve a problem that is not working, right? So, when I got to Autodesk, they didn't even know what their uptime was. It took three months to teach the team how to measure the uptime. Turned out the uptime was 97.7% for the cloud, for the world's largest engineering software company.That is 200 hours a year of unplanned downtime, right? That is not good. So, a complete overhaul [laugh] was needed. Understanding that as a change agent, your half-life is 12 to 18 months, you have to measure success not on tenure, but on your ability to take good care of the patient, right? It's going to be a lot of pain, you're going to work super hard, you're going to have to build trust with everyone, and then people are still going to hate you at the end. That is something you just have to kind of take on.As a friend of mine, Jason Warner joined Redpoint Ventures recently, he said this when he was the CTO of GitHub: “No one is a villain in their own story.” So, you realize, going into a big organization, people are going to make you a villain, but you still have to do incredibly thoughtful, careful work, that's going to take care of them for a long time to come. And those are the kinds of CIOs that I can relate to very well.Corey: Jason is great. You're name-dropping all the guests we've had. My God, keep going. It's a hard thing to rationalize and wrap heads around. It's one of those areas where you will not be measured during your tenure in the role, in some respects. And, of course, that leads to the cynical perspective as well, where well, someone's not going to be here long and if they say, “Yeah, we're just going to keep being stewards of the change that's already underway,” well, that doesn't look great, so quick, time to do a cloud migration, or a cloud repatriation, or time to roll something else out. A bit of a different story.Sam: One of the biggest challenges is how do you get the hearts and the minds of the people who are in the organization when they are no fools, and their expectation is like, “Hey, this company's been around for decades, and we go through cloud leaders or CIOs, like Wendy's goes through hamburgers.” They could just cloud-wash, right, or change-wash all their language. They could use the new language to describe the old thing because all they have to do is get through the performance review and outwait you. So, there's always going to be a level of defection because it's hard to change; it's hard to think about new things.So, the most important thing is how do you get into people's hearts and minds and enable them to believe that the best thing they could do for their career is to come along with the change? And I think that was what we ended up getting right in the Autodesk cloud transformation. And that requires endless optimism, and there's no room for cynicism because the cynicism is going to creep in around the edges. So, what I found on the job is, you just have to get up every morning and believe everything is possible and transmit that belief to everybody.So, if it seems naive or ingenuous, I think that doesn't matter as long as you can move people's hearts in each conversation towards, like, “Oh, this person cares about me. They care about a good outcome from me. I should listen a little bit more and maybe make a 1% change in what I'm doing.” Because 1% compounded daily for a year, you can actually get something done in the lifetime of a CIO.Corey: And I think that's probably a great place to leave it. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, how you think about these things, how you view the world, where can they find you?Sam: You can find me on Twitter, I'm @sramji, S-R-A-M-J-I, and I have a podcast that I host called Open||Source||Datawhere I invite innovators, data nerds, computational networking nerds to hang out and explain to me, a software programmer, what is the big world of open-source data all about, what's happening with machine learning, and what would it be like if you could put data in a container, just like you could put code in a container, and how might the world change? So, that's Open||Source||Data podcast.Corey: And we'll of course include links to that in the [show notes 00:35:58]. Thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it.Sam: Corey, it's been a privilege. Thank you so much for having me.Corey: Likewise. Sam Ramji, Chief Strategy Officer at DataStax. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with a comment telling me exactly which item in Sam's background that I made fun of is the place that you work at.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

In today's episode we welcome Stephan Schambach, serial entrepreneur building market changing companies in the e-commerce space. Prior to his current software NewStore, providing Ominchannel-as-a-Service, Stephan launched Intershop and Demandware that was acquired for $2.8 billion by Salesforce. They say timining is everything, when launching a business. But what is the secret to get it right? How to narrow down focus and go big, when there are so many exciting opportunities? And once launched, how to find your first customers? He answers all these questions and shares his take on the NFT space as well as on the European investment ecosystem. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanschambach https://www.newstore.com linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann 0:00 Intro 1:00 The energy that powers Stephan 03:03 Stephan's passion for building companies internationally 06:20 The challenges of starting international companies in Europe 09:30 Finding ideas for new ventures and executing them 14:00 How to determine the right time for launching a startup 18:10 The influence of the first customer 21:10 How to find the first customer 22:30 Trends to watch out for in the ecommerce space 25:30 Stephan's take on opportunities with NFTs 27:45 Raising venture capital in Europe and building a European tech stock exchange 32:45 Quick fire round: Middlename | Something broken that entrepreneurs should fix immediately | Technology that will transform the future | Core concept 33:52 Closing

In 2020, consumers spent 375 billion dollars in the U.S. shopping online – give or take a few million. Much of that was driven by the pandemic and major online companies like Amazon and one or two others absolutely killed it. Because of the pandemic, more and more brick and mortar retailers were forced to the online marketplace – with great results. Today, ecommerce is so routine that the vast majority of consumers use it every day. There is now a shift into the business realm as companies are beginning to see how they can benefit from an online marketplace for their customers: distributors, wholesalers, and suppliers and how companies can find new outlets for their products or services in untapped markets around the world. In this episode, we're going to look at Salesforce Commerce Cloud, a powerful product that has been designed to allow B2B as well as B2C commerce on the same platform and what's involved in implementing it. Guest Bio Liam Huston wears two hats – as Gerent's Practice Lead for Commerce Cloud and as a Solution Architect. Liam's experience with online commerce stretches back more than 20 years. He has been a CTO, CEO, and company founder in the ecommerce field. He was a Demandware developer for Guthy-Renker, the global direct marketing giant and has also created the means for ecommerce platforms to integrate with beacons to create an enriched proximity-based consumer experience – what we now refer to as geo-fencing. Key Ideas 01:39 – Reasons why B2B companies benefit enormously from an online commerce presence 04:10 – What do businesses need to consider if they want to move to a B2B platform of operation? 06:43 – Why Salesforce Commerce Cloud eliminates the need for two different platforms: one for B2B and one for B2C 09:19 – The strengths that Salesforce Commerce Cloud brings to the table to drive revenues higher 17:35 – How an experienced implementation partner like Gerent can help guide and shape the client's solution for optimal results

How to use the power and uniqueness of your voice to build business. View the full video interview here. RJ Stephens is the Chief Revenue Officer of Airdeck. He possesses over 20+ years SaaS sales and sales leadership experience, from working for large public companies such as Demandware (now Salesforce Commerce Cloud), Digital River, and divisions of and Oracle / NetSuite; to 4 early stage and innovative tech startups. He has worked with a broad range of technologies including most of the top commerce technology companies, web / data analytics, conversion optimization, chat, custom application development, software implementation agencies, peer-to-peer fundraising tech, and now an asynchronous communication platform; in roles from Strategic Account Director to SVP of Sales & Marketing. Before getting in tech, RJ ran health-clubs and consulted in the fitness industry (Golds Gyms) for 5 years and was part of a team that launched a health club concept on the East Coast. He grew up in a small town in Central Illinois (Dad was a farmer) , graduated from University of Illinois, but ended up landing in a warmer climate and never left. Now he lives in San Diego with his wife and 3 children.

“We no longer go online, we live online”- GoogleIn our discussion of the 4th Essential ("Mobile") in Steve's Essentials of Remarkable Retail framework we probe how smart devices have created a world where we can always be shopping and the new best location for our brand is wherever the customer happens to be with their smart device. Mobile is the ultimate silo-buster, allowing for an increasingly blended shopping world where the lines between physical stores and e-commerce are blurred.Adding to our conversation of how mobile is becoming the new front door to the store is online shopping pioneer and serial entrepreneur Stephan Schambach, who has been front and center in the evolution of e-commerce as the founder of multiple groundbreaking companies. He's also the author of Makeover: How Mobile Flipped the Shopping Cart. A few of Steve's related articles:The Customer is the ChannelOmnichannel is Dead: The Future is Harmonized Retail. Stephan Schambach has been changing the commerce world since 1992. From founding Intershop and building the first standard software for online shopping, to putting retail in the cloud with the founding of Demandware (which was acquired by Salesforce for $2.8 billion dollars), Schambach has seen it all in retail. The visionary who brought the retail industry online shopping and cloud service solutions is laying the foundation for the future of digitally-influenced retail once again as the founder of NewStore, an Omnichannel-as-a-Service platform that allows brands to run their retail stores on iPhone. He's also the author of Makeover: How Mobile Flipped the Shopping Cart. Learn more about Stephan and NewStore here. You can also follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.Steve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his   website.   Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption was recently named the best retail book of all time by BookAuthority. It's available in hardcover, audiobook or as a ebook at   Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a   Forbes senior contributor and on   Twitter and   LinkedIn. You can check out his speaker "sizzle" reel   here. Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast,   The Voice of Retail, plus    Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  and   The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.  You can learn more about Michael   here  or on   LinkedIn.  

The best way to chart a path forward is to understand the state of the industry and the possible changes that could occur in the near future. In business, that means keeping an eye on all of the trends in your industry, analyzing data collected by yourself or others, and letting the insights be your guide. One of the most popular places to find insights is through industry reports put together by large organizations that have access to billions of data points, which can be graphed out and analyzed on a deeper level. The Shopping Index is one of those reports. It is put out quarterly by Salesforce and it contains information about consumer behavior, shopping activity across numerous platforms, and a look into how different industries are performing. In one of the most recent Shopping Index reports, Salesforce collected information from more than one billion global shoppers in order to paint an accurate picture of what the world of ecommerce looks like. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, we break down some of the key findings in the  report with the two people who helped put it together, Caila Schwartz and Ann Marie Aviles. Caila is the Senior Manager of Strategy and Insights, Retail and Consumer Goods at Salesforce and Ann Marie is the Senior Associate of Industry Strategy & Insights at Salesforce. So what’s ahead for the holiday season? How much of the consumer behavior adopted during the pandemic will stick around? And why do people stay loyal to a brand? Find out on this episode.Main Takeaways:Invest in the Basics, Not the New Shiny Object: Even if you have the coolest new technology and a unique website experience, if your customer gets to the point of purchase and sees you don’t have inventory or that delivery will take weeks, that customer is lost. Make sure you have the basics covered before you start bringing anything extra to your site. Come In, Stay Awhile: Past data has proven that when consumers adopt new digital behaviors, they tend to stick with that behavior. As every holiday season passes, and more people shop online, those customers are maintaining that online behavior long-term. Each holiday season can be viewed as a stepping stone in digital growth. The holiday season can create a new normal if you have a strategy to meet demand and then retain the consumer.Move to Mobile: In recent years, and especially during the pandemic, there has been a significant shift toward mobile and social shopping. As the number one driver of orders, mobile experiences should be a top priority for any business owner in the future.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie Postles:Welcome, welcome to our very first roundtable style episode. This is Stephanie Postles, Co-Founder of mission.org and your host of Up Next in Commerce. Today, we are chatting with Caila Schwartz and Ann Marie Aviles. Ladies, welcome to the show.Caila Schwartz:Thank you.Ann Marie:Thanks for having us.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I'm excited. It should be interesting having a three person call, like I said, it's the first one. So we'll see where it goes. It'll be fun. So, Caila, can you first introduce yourself? Tell me a little bit about you and your role?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, so I'm Caila Schwartz. I've been with Salesforce for six years now. I am on the Industry Strategy and Insights team focusing on retail and consumer goods. And I am responsible for several initiatives throughout the year that our team puts out into market, which include our quarterly shopping index, as well as all of our holiday reporting. So really utilizing real shopping data to understand the consumer and help put together some insights that can help our customers make some strategic decisions.Stephanie Postles:Amazing. And Ann Marie, what about you? Tell me a little bit about your role?Ann Marie:Yeah, happy to. So I'm also on Caila's team, but I have a slightly different focus. So I've been at Salesforce for just about a year and a half now by the way of Forrester research. So my background is definitely in research. And so I'd like to think of the shopping index as a fine line and I provide the cheese and the consumer perspective on what their priorities are, how their habits are changing through a lot of in depth research work.Stephanie Postles:Amazing. So that's a good place to start, then I really want to dive deep into the shopping index. So maybe Ann Marie, if you want to start there telling me a little bit about how long is the shopping index been around? What is it? And how can a customer or any shop owner use the shopping index to further their business?Ann Marie:Sure. So for this one, I think Caila, since she actually created the shopping index would be the perfect person to describe its origin story.Stephanie Postles:Perfect, Caila, take it away.Caila Schwartz:Thank you, Ann Marie. Well, I can't claim the genius behind it because it was actually created by someone much smarter than myself, a several, several years ago. I would say about maybe its seven years ago. So we've been publishing, like I said, the shopping index quarterly for the past ... I want to say six or seven years. So it's one of our longest running assets. I inherited it about four years ago. And it came out of a project or initiative to understand the consumer. And back in the day we were from the Demandware. So I worked for Demandware, before I got acquired by Salesforce, and we had access to all of this data from our platform.Caila Schwartz:And internally, we started asking questions about how we could potentially use this data to help give insights to our customers on consumer behavior. And the shopping index was born. So it's really become the bedrock piece of content that helps us start to ask questions that then lead to a lot of these other great pieces of content and research that we do. So like I said, it's our longest running asset. But as far as how consumers or customers are using it, it really is a benchmarking tool. And it's meant to be like a sounding board.Caila Schwartz:How are you performing against your peers? Is there opportunity for improvement? And using it as a way to uncover some of those questions for customers, about their business, and areas that they can focus on?Stephanie Postles:[inaudible 00:04:51]. That's a good point to go through what are some of the really key metrics that people find the most value in and maybe we can talk through maybe what Q2 look like. What are some of the things that people really rely on?Caila Schwartz:That's a great question. I think it really depends on the individual business and what their unique challenges are. I know that right now, everyone's experiencing some really big searches in digital activity on their websites. So the biggest question that we have right now is, is this normal? Am I doing well, compared to my competitors? Am I not doing as well? So, bringing it back to those core metrics around traffic growth, spend growth, conversion rates. So really bringing it back to the basics almost, of understanding and getting really a basic understanding of performance compared to the market.Stephanie Postles:Yes, this report sounds awesome. I'm looking through it right now, it looks like it's in a really cool Tableau dashboard, which is really fun, and easy to digest. Some of the things that I'm looking at now are when it comes to computer and mobile growth, it seems like ... now it seems obvious, but a lot of people have shifted to mobile, but then maybe the cart abandonment piece has not increased as much, maybe if you can talk a little bit about that. I'm trying to think if I'm a shop owner, and right now all my traffic has been on desktop, and now it's shifted in to mobile, but then I'm not able to convert the customers as well. What are you seeing behind that data to maybe help with that piece?Caila Schwartz:Yeah. In an example like that, where we can break it down by device and say, "Hey, we're seeing a lot of traffic coming from mobile, but it's not converting as well." Mobile traffic is up, traffic overall is up. The conversion is far down, or looking at your add To cart rate or your cart abandonment rate to see, are consumers getting to that cart? And are they finishing that checkout process? So, trying to identify those points of friction within the shopping journey, using this data, and so if we see that there's a high level of cart abandonments, or checkout abandonment, that would lead me to believe that there's something about that checkout experience that isn't ideal. And we see that, especially on mobile.Caila Schwartz:The mobile shopping experience, at least the checkout experience it's come a long way in recent years, but the whole tapping in all of your little form fields on your mobile device is really cumbersome. And so, thinking about ways to flatten that funnel through mobile wallets, whether it's through Pay Pal, or Apple Pay, or Google pay. So those are some of the ways that a shop owner could utilize that data to see, okay, where are the points of friction within that shopping journey? And mobile is the number one driver of traffic and orders. And we've seen over the past several years mobile really accelerate as the number one device for consumers.Caila Schwartz:So as a business owner, if you're thinking about what device to prioritize, creating a great mobile experience is going to be the top of your priority list. But what's interesting about 2020 is that even though we're still seeing this massive shift to mobile, which we still are, computers have actually had a resurgence. And it really highlights the need to have a great experience across all of your touchpoints. So even if you're focusing on mobile, you have to think about providing a great experience, no matter where the consumer chooses to engage with you. And I think that's something that is really easy to forget, because sometimes you can get so hyper focused on one particular device or channel or tactic, and it really is about the big picture.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I completely agree. I can also see some of these ... like you said, these are things that you can benchmark your business against, and it would give me peace of mind anyways, if I could say, "What is the average?" And it's nice that on your [inaudible] report, you have it, or you can select it by vertical. So I was just looking at a footwear vertical because we've had Puma and Little Burgundy shoes on and being able to see what is the average order value and the discount rate that other people are offering and the cart abandonment like, "Oh, okay, maybe 80 something percent is actually has always been normal, so what can I do to become better than that?" Or if I'm worse than that, at least I know what the average is. So it seems like you could not only give peace of mind, but then also see areas where a shop owner could improve, which is great.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. Remember, these are just averages so and there's people that are doing better, there's people that are doing worse. So where do you stand amongst that? And then where are those opportunities for improvement?Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the social traffic data you guys collect? Because I'm looking at that now, and it shows the social traffic share increasing by mobile. And I think I know what that means, but maybe detail that a bit so I can see what the opportunity is, by that share increasing?Caila Schwartz:Yeah. So our social data that we collect is coming from the social referral data. So data from a social platform, whether it's Instagram, or Facebook, or Pinterest, any channel that's directing traffic to an ecommerce website, as a referral. It's also paid in organic. So we're collecting that visit data and we're looking at it through the lens of, okay, is this social referral from a mobile device, is it from a computer? And then we look at it overall. And then the percentages within that chart are looking at the share of traffic, against all other sources of traffic. So if it says, 10% of mobile traffic, or 10% social share for mobile devices, that means that 10% of all mobile traffic came from a social referral channel.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that makes sense. We've actually heard that theme, quite a bit from many previous guests, where they're talking about the social shopping experience and how they're relying on influencers, and how, of course, there's a lot of platforms Instagram, TikTok that people are looking at right now. But that seems like if a shop is not playing there or a brand is not there, you should probably be there, because it's rising.Caila Schwartz:Oh, totally. And Ann Marie can really go into more detail on this, but in our snapshot series, research, we did some research on just the different types of pieces of content that consumers are engaged with, and I know social was right up there. Ann Marie, can you elaborate on what you guys found from that?Ann Marie:Totally. Yeah, happy to. So you're totally right. Social is the talk of the town right now. Typically, we see social referred traffic hit around 9-10% around the holidays, which is when you see all of those peak online numbers. But now that's just the usual during quarantine times when everybody's IRL lives have been pushed online. And through the snapshot research series that we did, where we surveyed thousands of consumers every two weeks to see how their shopping habits were changing, how their emotional states were changing over time. And we found that since the onset of the pandemic, 63% of US millennials, said they had made a purchase over social media.Ann Marie:So it's really turning into ... we like to call it the mall of the 21st century because social media platforms are where you can congregate with your friends, you can chat and you can discover new artists and new products. So as you called out before, we're seeing Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, all definitely cash in with awesome new features, which just continues fueling the fire. The easier it is to sign up for a product drop, or learn about a new makeup line, the more consumers flock to it, and then the more innovation these companies provide on the back end. So it really is exciting.Stephanie Postles:That's great. Are there any new channels that you guys saw popping up that maybe others wouldn't be aware of right now?Ann Marie:So one big trend that we're seeing, explode over in Asia was shoppable videos. So during the pandemic, I love this example because it was so wild to me. Rural farmers started live streaming their different produce because they no longer had access to things like farmers markets. And I believe the stat now is on ... In Taobao, we have over 50,000 rural farmers that will sell their different fruits and vegetables and produce to an online audience that will just see the video and immediately click tap and make the purchase. We even saw that Shanghai did their fashion week, all online where you could stream models coming down the runway, and immediately say, I definitely want that dress or those shoes and make the purchase in real time.Stephanie Postles:That's great. What platform was that, where you can actually click and make [inaudible 00:15:25]? Because I still feel like there's a bit of friction on some of the social platforms that I use anyways, that it's not always very easy to buy, I'm even thinking about Instagram, I follow a bunch of influencers, and they talked about the outfits but then you have to go to a different app to maybe find it, and then it opens up again in a different browser. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I don't even remember what I was looking for. So is there a different app? Maybe [inaudible] they're using it makes it more frictionless.Ann Marie:Totally. Yeah. So in China, it's all about Taobao. But in the US, we're starting to see tech companies make investments there. So Snapchat is now launching a bunch of shoppable like video series, where they will announce new product drops, and you can buy it in app. I know, Google has something in the works called Shoploop. And a couple other tech companies are starting to release new programs so that in the US or in Canada, we'll be able to have a more seamless experience. Because you're totally right. It feels like a webpage hopscotch where you just want to learn more about one product, and then you get rerouted, four different times, definitely not optimal.Stephanie Postles:And it's out of stock. Lop off.Ann Marie:Yeah. Don't get me started.Stephanie Postles:So with all these new tech investments that are being made, and a lot the larger players are investing in this area, is there anything that a brand can do to start preparing for this, either with their tech stack, or just making sure that they're ready when Google comes out with their new technology that can maybe be implemented? What should a brand be doing right now to prepare for this?Ann Marie:Totally. So I think one getting a sense of your audience and what they want. It's a very basic statement, but maybe you don't need to be the earliest adopter on this technology if your consumers aren't streaming as much videos. But I would say the most important thing is just one, you alluded to it earlier, but making sure you have a really solid set of ideas about what products you actually have, inventory and fulfillment, if this huge journey is just going to end up in an out of stock. That's a really bad experience. So I would say that before launching into shoppable videos, make sure you have a handle on the basics. And that's a huge issue we're seeing with fulfillment period, where stores are having a hard time getting a sense of where their inventory even is. Is it locked in a warehouse? Is that in a store, do they have it available? So I would say, step one, just make sure you have a solid order management system, a good handle on where your inventory is, and how you can access it before moving further down the road.Stephanie Postles:So if your inventory is a mess right now, and you're still like, this company is like, "Oh, man, I don't even know what to do, my retail store closed down." And like you mentioned, it's probably in a warehouse somewhere, but how much do I have? Our team hasn't been able to go there in a while. How would you recommend them starting from scratch right now to start building a good inventory system where they can tap into that, know what they have and not have out of stock issues that I have actually been seeing a ton recently?Caila Schwartz:That is a great question. I think it really first starts with a great order management system. And being able to share information across multiple systems. So thinking about data integration, and not having any data siloed of any one system and then implementing processes and procedures to make sure that you have the stock available in your stores, and then you have your emergency stock set up so that you're not servicing inventory visibility on the website that isn't truly there. When we think about the holiday season, inventory is a huge player because ... and a huge topic of conversation because fulfillment is going to be such a challenge, last mile delivery is going to be such a challenge. There's such a huge shift to digital. There's a huge shift in B2C parcel delivery right now.Caila Schwartz:The system is overloaded. So how does a brand or retailer get packages to consumers when they don't even know if they can rely on traditional parcel delivery? So thinking about moving inventory closest to the source of demand. And that's really all about utilizing your data, understanding where that demand lies, and getting it there and in order to facilitate shipping from store or fulfilling from store, and all of those things, or utilizing some of these newer tactics like crowdsourcing, Uber and Lyft, to deliver packages. So it really comes down to having a really great system, forecasting your demand, and not just forecasting your demand or forecasting where your demand is going to be, and making sure you put your inventory there. And making sure that all of your systems are able to communicate with each other so that you can have a really well rounded view of your customer, your organization and what steps you need.Caila Schwartz:You can then use that information to understand what necessary steps you need to do to get your business to where it needs to be in terms of inventory management.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I love that. It seems like there's definitely a lot of room for companies to look at their back end processes. I know we were we had a previous guest on the show that was talking about every order that comes in it has the rules behind the scene that say, "Okay, you're calling or you're buying from California, so pull from the warehouse in San Francisco. Or you're in Maryland pull from the D.C. one." And I had all that setup in the back end, but they had just recently implemented that. And it hadn't been something they had before. I'm like, "Wow, that's really smart. Why doesn't every company have that?" Because why would you ship something across the country if you could pull from a store or a warehouses that's right near that customer?Caila Schwartz:Exactly.Stephanie Postles:The other thing I was looking at right now was the average order value. And I was surprised to see on average that it had decreased in Q2 2020. And I guess I was a little bit surprised by that. Because I hear everyone's moving online, and people were buying a lot of new things that maybe they hadn't bought before, whether it's around toys and home improvement. There's a lot of new needs have sprung up when everyone's at home right now. So can you walk me through a bit about why the average order value went down in Q2?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I think that what we saw in Q2, we saw massive growth in digital spend. So 71% year over year growth in actual spend. So people were buying more, or buying more online. What's interesting about AOV, its average order value per order. What we saw, at least in terms of consumer behavior in Q2 was a shift to ... Yes, there was the essential purchasing, which happened in March. But in Q2, we saw a shift towards non essential purchasing. And so there was this cup for purchases.Stephanie Postles:That was on me.Caila Schwartz:Yeah.Stephanie Postles:I want a new make up, I don't know why. I don't go anywhere, but I want it now.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. So, I probably have a package coming every day from Amazon, like "Oh, look at this cool new contraption. Let's try it out."Stephanie Postles:[inaudible] the dopamine now, we can't go in and see people and have fun conversations. So we just want a new package every day.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. So I think that what we saw this decrease in average order value is really a function of people just placing a quick hit order, a satisfying psychological needs to ... just seeing like, your Amazon guy or your UPS deliverer show up was like, "So exciting."Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Hi, friends, how you doing?Caila Schwartz:Exactly. So I think there is a component of that. And so I think when people are ordering more frequently, or average order value tends to be lower. Also, what we do know is that average order value on phones tends to be lower. And so we saw significant increase in mobile orders, like I said before, makes up the majority of orders by device, when we look at it compared to computers and tablets. So consumers are likely not doing a big shopping list on their phones, they're watching TV and scrolling their social feeds and buying. So I think that was a function of that type of behavior. And that's why [inaudible] probably dipped a little bit in Q2.Stephanie Postles:Got it.Ann Marie:But I will say that we might expect this to change too because the reality is very similar to you both where I'll have a different package coming in every day. But that's incredibly expensive for retailers, if you think about all those shipping costs, and then layer on the fact that a lot of logistics companies are ramping up their prices for the holiday season. So I think increasingly we're going to see retailers implement more bundling, or just higher minimums, to make it worth all of those shipping fees. So we're watching their numbers closely to see, of course for the holiday season next quarter and the quarter after that, how the average order value does evolve over time.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that's really interesting thinking about a lot of people right now do want things, even if they're smaller and are starting to get used to that two day shipping and free shipping, I know at least myself want to go somewhere. And it's like, pretty high order value to get free shipping, and like, sometimes I'll just like give up and go look somewhere else. So it seems like there's an interesting balancing act between making sure that you're running a business in a profitable way, and that you're figuring out how to ship things and not just shipping these little one off things here and there, but then also not scaring away your customer to where they come in and they're like, "Whoa, $75 minimum before free shipping." I don't know, that's too much.Stephanie Postles:Another thing I wanted to, anyway, maybe you can touch on a bit more is the snapshot series you were mentioning. You talked about how you were getting a read on consumers every two weeks, but I didn't hear too many details around what you were actually seeing now versus maybe even a couple months ago or last year, like what are the biggest changes that you've seen among consumer buying behavior and sentiment?Ann Marie:Sure, yeah. I think some of the biggest jumps were, So a couple of things we were tracking was adoption of new shopping habits. And so it's no surprise to hear that curbside pickup or buy online pick up in store rocketed up in popularity alongside contact, plus payments. But it was really great to see numbers to those statements. So in the initial weeks of the pandemic, we saw curbside pickup grow, I think it was close to 38% in popularity as entirely new categories of shoppers, I'm thinking my older parents were trying these new means of getting the essentials home. But another really cool thing that we tracked and we saw evolve over the course of the pandemic itself too, which is priorities. So one of the questions we were asking and tracking was when it comes to loyalty or how you choose which brands and retailers to purchase from, what are some of the most important factors?Ann Marie:And early on when we're hearing a lot about core years and unrest with certain brands and their shipping practices, and health concerns, one of the top priorities and be more loyal to a brand was how they were treating their employees. And over time, we saw that shift to a more, I would call it inventory focus and also accessibility focus, meaning that the number one reason to shop with a certain brand at the end of the day was, do they have everything I need in one place? Because those out of stock notifications were definitely driving everyone crazy.Stephanie Postles:So when you said how they were treating employees, what do you mean by that? Because when I walk into the store, I probably wouldn't know or when I'm looking at a e commerce shop, I don't think I would really know how they're treating their employees. Like I wouldn't have the nitty gritty. So what do you think people are looking for when they're looking for that metric to stay loyal to a brand?Ann Marie:Sure, yeah. So for that, it was employee health and wellness. So are they ensuring that people are wearing masks? Are the hours reasonable? It's not something that you would necessarily see [inaudible] aside from the mask when walking into a store, but there are a ton of news reports and of course, I won't name names here, but there are a lot of news reports about disgruntled employees having to work overtime or not having the same health benefits during the crisis and yet having extremely public facing roles if you think about in-store associates at a grocery store or a pharmacy. And so that was something that rubbed consumers the wrong way and did impact some purchasing habits. But over time really, that number one reason to be loyal to a new brand or website was about of course price, but really number one was availability and in stock.Stephanie Postles:Earlier you mentioned these new customers that are coming online and had been coming online the past couple months. How are you guys thinking about retaining those customers? Are they going to be here after the pandemic is over? Will these new shoppers still be wanting contactless delivery and being able to pick up curbside? Is this going to stay or do you think quite a few of them are going to revert back to their old habits?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I can take this one on. We know from our research and looking at our data that whenever we see big spikes in digital adoption, which is historically typically seen in the holiday shopping season, but more specifically CyberWeek, we see huge rates of digital adoption during this weeks. And what we know is that when consumers adopt new digital behaviors, they tend to stick around. So every holiday season, we see a huge surge in that new digital shoppers. And at the end of every season, we see what we call a new digital baseline. So it's like a weird set of stairs, where digital spend, digital traffic is pretty flat for most of the year. And then during CyberWeek, it spikes way up. And then it starts to fall towards the end of the season. And then once we hit January 1, it spikes back down. But it never goes back down to the level that it was before CyberWeek.Caila Schwartz:So we see it's like a stepping stone or set of stairs. It just keeps creeping up after every CyberWeek. So what this tells us is that consumers are adopting behavior that they might not have otherwise adopted, if they had not been enticed to shop online. And they're shopping online because there's a lot of great deals online, there's a lot of incentives online, there's a reason to know no longer ... not say no longer, but people aren't lining up outside of their local stores at 5 am on Black Friday anymore. It's becoming less and less of a thing, because people can shop from anywhere all throughout CyberWeek and get great deals from the comfort of their homes.Caila Schwartz:And so what we know from that is that when consumers adopt new digital habits, they don't typically just go away. And yes, people will want to go back to the store, but the conveniences of curbside, especially for buying groceries and other types of goods are really going to ... I don't think we're going backwards, we saw buy online pick up in store search to really take hold last year and that was a non pandemic year. So I think that what's happening in 2020, none of this is going away and it's going to continue to ... it's not going to accelerate at the same pace, but people are still going to retain these behaviors that they've learned.Stephanie Postles:I think that's a really interesting point too when it comes to thinking about if a brand is starting to see that there may be having higher profitability when it comes to maybe mobile orders, or they're just seeing higher conversions or something, maybe giving the consumer an even bigger reason to shop a certain way so that they can retain them in the long term. Because it seems like once you get them there, then you've captured them on that platform. And if you have a platform that you prefer them to order on or a certain way to order, it seems like they might want to incentivize them to do that, even if it is having a slightly higher sale price or something to bring them there, so then they can have that customer longer term where they want them, if that makes sense.Caila Schwartz:Exactly. It's all about the entire customer journey too. It's not even just about that purchase, it's about thinking, how do you engage that consumer and provide them with great content? And that was something that we really saw come out of the pandemic through those Instagram Live sessions. You could take a class of the loo lemon superstar, like athlete, and do that live on your phone. How cool is that?Caila Schwartz:We saw these really great pieces of engagement that came out of it. And then not only that, but thinking about how you service that customer after the sale, and making sure that you're offering many different types of ways to resolve problems, whether it's through a self service type of a knowledge base, or live chat or bots to really like ... bots might seem impersonal but sometimes people just want to know like, where's my order? How do I return? And it's things that you can really offload easily so that you can focus on giving a really great personalized experience to some of your more challenging cases and so really thinking about retaining the customer after the sales, just thinking about the entire journey, recognizing that it's not linear, there's a lot of different paths and twists and turns that that shopper is taking, and continuing to be there for that customer and embedding yourself where they are.Stephanie Postles:Love that. Ann Marie, what were you going to hop in and say?Ann Marie:Just to wrap up the last statement in terms of, are people going back to normal? The reality is that, at least in the United States, plenty of states are re-opening. And we're seeing in the shopping index that instead of, there's this huge climb of hockey stick growth in terms of digital orders, but it's not going back to normal. It's not bell shaped at all. It's exactly as Caila described that leveling off in that step shape. And one question that we had asked earlier on in the pandemic is, do you think you'll go back to buying in person after all of this is over? And we found that at 60% of consumers said that they were likely to continue buying essential goods online [inaudible] subsided. So there's definitely a significant amount of stickiness there.Stephanie Postles:That's great. Were there any surprises in the data or anything maybe? I don't know if you guys ask long form questions or get answers in that format, but anything surprising, or funny or interesting, that you weren't expecting?Caila Schwartz:Ah, that's a good one. Ann Marie, do you have anything that surprised you?Ann Marie:It's funny how none of these trends are brand new, right? Like Caila mentioned, buy online pick up in store has been around, so has contactless purchases and buying online. It's really just the sheer acceleration of all of these habits that was mind blowing to actually see in the numbers. So our data set contains the clicks and taps of over a billion shoppers. And we saw that data set increased by 40%. So we saw 40% net new online shoppers since the pandemic. And so well, yes. We know that people obviously are doing more shopping online as their quarantine, it was really wild to quantify it in that way.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that's great. Yeah, very interesting to see. So, I want you guys to predict the future now. So what are you thinking Q3 results are going to look like?Caila Schwartz:Well, we're digging into Q3 right now as we speak. So we just ended Q3 yesterday. So I don't have any updates to share yet. But looking at the data, initially, a few weeks ago, and seeing where we were, we're still we still see a massive acceleration to digital. And we saw huge, huge growth in Q2, we're seeing a little bit of a leveling off in Q3. I think it's a function of people just not shopping as much for back to school this year, because a lot of kids are home, and also waiting on a heavy promotion filled fall and winter.Caila Schwartz:The growth is still very significant, much greater than we typically see in Q3. And so while I don't know final numbers, I think we're going to see a lot of the trends that we saw in Q2 continue to shift into Q3.Stephanie Postles:That would be good to see. Ann Marie, anything to add?Ann Marie:One trend that I'm excited to continue tracking frankly for next quarter is just this embrace of social. So, not only are consumers really flocking to buy new products, signing up for product drops, but the flat platform forums themselves. And brands themselves are doing such cool things on different social media platforms. The other day, I saw Marc Jacobs was launching a new product, and they had this huge Zoom party and you could walk into different Zoom Rooms.Ann Marie:And one of them, you could get your portrait done over Zoom video. Yeah. And so they had a lot of great user generated content, because people were tweeting about their portraits and Charlotte Tilbury, which is a makeup brand, they're doing these free 10 minute makeup tutorials that you can have either over FaceTime, or they can just stream it as well to learn how to bedazzle your eye just because eye makeup is where it's at now that half of our faces are covered with masks. So, the creativity is something that I'm just amped to see especially as we gear up for the holiday.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, that's a really good reminder to figure out how to stand out like that, because there are a lot of creative things you can do, you just have to think differently about the platforms that you can utilize. So, that's really fun thinking about the Zoom Rooms. I also think it's interesting thing about how you can maybe leverage influencers and incentivize them to sell for you through these platforms. So like you're mentioning with the makeup videos, how can you have maybe people that you can tap into to do maybe one on one quick tutorials to people so they walk away with an experience that they're like, "wow, that was memorable. And I'm going to talk about it right afterwards," to get that UPC content.Ann Marie:Absolutely, yep. Influencers are a huge plan. We're seeing a lot of video views coming in from influencers more so than brands themselves. So it's definitely a powerful tool to rely on. A trusted advocate for your brand to draw people to your content.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, completely agree.Stephanie Postles:All right. Cool. I will jump into the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce commerce cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you both a question, and you have a minute or less to answer. But I should probably just give you 30 seconds or less to answer since there's two of you. Are you ready?Caila Schwartz:Yes. I hope so.Stephanie Postles:All right. Caila, I'll start with you. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Caila Schwartz:Oh, I'm going to say that fulfillment. Fulfillment, last mile will have the biggest impact on ecommerce.Stephanie Postles:All right, Ann Marie.Ann Marie:You know what? I was going to have the same answer. So definitely fulfillment and also continually improving that checkout flow make it as easy as possible to get shoppers from their daydream product to having it at home.Stephanie Postles:Yep, completely agree. All right, what's up next on your reading list? Ann Marie first.Ann Marie:Oh man, for commerce or in general?Stephanie Postles:In general.Ann Marie:Oh my goodness. So, I just started a new book called On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, which is the story of an immigrant moving to the US. And it's like a journey of self discovery. And it's really beautiful. So highly recommend.Stephanie Postles:I like that. That sounds good. I have to check it out. Caila, how about you?Caila Schwartz:I have two children. So my reading list these days consists of children's books.Stephanie Postles:[inaudible] there.Caila Schwartz:Pete The Cat is up next tonight.Stephanie Postles:I like it.Caila Schwartz:Oh, yeah. We're all booked with the cat.Stephanie Postles:I'll have to check that out. [inaudible] all about Max and Ruby over here. So I'm trying something new to get away from that.Caila Schwartz:Kitty Cat, it's like straight out of the 1970s. They use a lot of like, it's groovy.Stephanie Postles:Oh my God.Caila Schwartz:So, my four year old is running around saying, "It's groovy."Stephanie Postles:I like that. Bring it back.Caila Schwartz:Yeah.Stephanie Postles:[inaudible] turns back. That's good. What about commerce news? What kind of things do you all pay attention to stay on top of the trends other than internal research?Caila Schwartz:I'll go first. Say definitely there's a lot of commerce experts on Twitter. I love just scrolling through Twitter and seeing what the sentiment is and what people are talking about. It really gets a good pulse check on that to see what other industry leaders are thinking about. And I'm a data nerd, so I love reading through like e-marketer and statistics and seeing what the latest results are.Stephanie Postles:Great, Ann Marie.Ann Marie:Yeah, I would say, Twitter is a great curated view of what's hot. I love following Michelle Grant, Jason Goldberg, Brendon Witcher. But in addition to that, I do stay on top of a lot of the data, but I have a definite favorite newsletter and that's Retail Brew. It comes out a couple times a week, it's incredibly well written, really thought out, and it's not necessarily about being the first to report on a trend but they go really deep. So, it's a really great explanation to what's going on and why.Stephanie Postles:I like that. Yeah, a lot of people are ready to do newsjocky type of newsletters, and I like the ones that actually go deep on topic where I walk away and learn something from it.Ann Marie:Same. Absolutely.Stephanie Postles:What's Up next on your Netflix queue? Ann Marie first.Ann Marie:I would say I haven't been Netflixing. I've been trying to get away from the screens as much as possible.Stephanie Postles:That's good. That can be an answer. That's good. Caila, what about you?Caila Schwartz:Great question. So I recently heard of this on the radio this morning, actually, after dropping my kids off at daycare. There's this true crime series. I think it's called The Family Next Door.Stephanie Postles:Yeah.Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I heard it was really interesting and creepy. I'm going to try and convince my husband to watch that later.Stephanie Postles:What is your favorite ecommerce tool that you see people using or that you may be tested out a bit that you think is really impactful?Caila Schwartz:You want to go first Ann Marie?Ann Marie:Sure. Yeah, I would say I have a lot of fun with the AR like makeup try ons. I think they've come a long way. So big fan of L'Oreal's ModiFace. And also just Apple Pay. It sounds really nice. It could be able to just scan my finger and then just have everything be checked out and done with instead of filling out 100 different fields and messing up my zip code has made my life as a shopper much better.Stephanie Postles:That frictionless experience, just like you said, super important.Ann Marie:You have it.Stephanie Postles:What about you, Caila?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, I'm a big Apple Pay lover, because I do most of my shopping on my phone. So I love just being able to double tap and be on my merry way. And I have to go find my credit card hidden somewhere under the couches. But for me, I love them. So I am a terrible decorator. And so I get all my ideas from Instagram. So I love being able to use the searchable images. So you can search the image and they'll make recommendations. Wayfair has an app that does this. It'll pick out recommendations from your catalog based on the image that you put into the search box, and so I think that's so cool, because I've been able to find a lot of things that like, oh, where do you source this? How do you find this? Who carries this? So I think that's a really cool feature that I am totally loving these days.Stephanie Postles:I love that. Alright, and the last one, if we were to have a Caila and Anne Marie podcast, what would you both want to talk about? What would the show be about and who was your first guest be? This is where you have to collaborate a bit.Ann Marie:Oh, wow. Oh, boy, Caila should it be the highs and the lows of social media or what are you thinking? We have a lot of conversations about this.Stephanie Postles:Oh, it sounds like there's already one brewing behind then.Ann Marie:Always up to something.Caila Schwartz:I know, right? Yeah. We've definitely had a few rounds of the impact of social, positive and negative.Stephanie Postles:That would be a good one. And who would your guest be for that?Caila Schwartz:If we could have anybody?Stephanie Postles:Anyone.Caila Schwartz:Oh, man. Well, you could just go right to the top and get Mark Zuckerberg and ...Stephanie Postles:There you go. Yeah, why not? We'll get him on.Ann Marie:Let's do it.Caila Schwartz:Yeah c'mon.Stephanie Postles:I'm on the new show. I like it. That's a good one. Okay. But Ann Marie, this has been a very fun roundtable. Thank you for being my first guest to try this out with me. Where can people find out more about the shopping index and your work and the two of you?Caila Schwartz:Yeah, well, we are both on Twitter, where we publish all of our content. My handle is Caila Schwartz. I also launched an Instagram page. We're publishing all of this content as well. It's called Data_Candy, Data underscore Candy so you can follow along with me there. Ann Marie, what about you?Ann Marie:Sure. Twitter's a great place to find me @AviAnnMarie. So, A-V-I-A-N-N-M-A-R-I-E. And also check out Salesforce's blog, Caila and I are always writing up the what it means behind all of the data on the shopping index. So you could do a quick Google search for Caila Schwartz or Ann Marie Aviles at Salesforce blog to see the latest in commerce trends.Stephanie Postles:Love that. Thanks so much for joining.

Schambach is a serial entrepreneur and commerce pioneer. He is credited with inventing the first-ever standard software for online shopping at Intershop, and later revolutionizing e-commerce by offering it as a cloud service with Demandware (now Salesforce Commerce Cloud). As founder and CEO of NewStore, he's solving the omnichannel problem facing so many retailers and brands.

This week's guest is Ulrike Mueller, a former CTO known for creating innovative software products throughout all of her career. She started back in the 80's as a programmer, and was part of the movement that pioneered the Software as a Service model for eCommerce on an enterprise scale. Building the technical foundations, software, even hardware, years before the SaaS model was a standard. The most notable platforms she helped create are Intershop in the 90's, Demandware in the 2000's, and New Store in 2015. This episode is packed with over 30 years of experience and insights, and key advice for young CTO's on both technical aspects of the role, but also priorities, team building and the mindset needed to be successful in this career.

Heute sprechen wir über Saleforce und Mobify. In der letzten Woche wurde bekannt, dass sich der bekannte Cloud-CRM-Anbieter den Mobilspezialisten einverleibt. Mobify, ein kanadisches Unternehmen, dass eine Cloud-Lösung für das Bereitstellen mobiler Apps (a.k.a. Progressive Web Apps – was genau das ist, hatte ich hier vor einige Zeit aufgeschrieben) anbietet, soll dem Vernehmen nach in Zukunft das Frontend der Salesforce Commerce Cloud liefern. Shopsystem-Historiker werden sich erinnern: das ist das ehemalige Demandware, das also nach all den Jahren ein technisches Upgrade bekommt. Wie gut die Integration dann tatsächlich klappt, lässt sich schwer vorhersagen, Salesforce jedenfalls ergänzt sein Force.com-Portfolio um einen weiteren wichtigen, zukunftsträchtigen und gut vermarktbaren Baustein. Außerdem sprechen wir kurz über den German Accelerator, über die Unternehmen wie etwa Frontastic (zusammen mit Makaira so etwas wie das deutsche Mobify) die ersten Schritte im US-amerikanischen Market machen sollen.

Stephan Schambach hat in seinem Leben große Erfolge, aber auch viele Krisen erlebt: In den 1990er Jahren ragte sein Intershop-Tower in Jena als Symbol des Neuen Marktes in die Höhe. Nach dem Platzen der Dotcom-Blase gründete der Pionier des Onlinehandels das Clound-Unternehmen Demandware, das 2013 verkaufte wurde. 2015 startete er in den USA Newstore, das E-Commerce-Lösungen anbietet. Schambach lebt in Boston und Berlin, wo Horst von Buttlar ihn zum Gespräch traf. Ein Interview über Krisen und Neuanfang – und die Zukunft des Handels. Dem Kaufhaus prophezeit Schambach eine düstere Zukunft.+++Die heutige Folge wird Ihnen präsentiert von den ŠKODA Wechselwochen! Clever: Viel wollen und mehr bekommen: Wechseln Sie jetzt von Ihrem alten Fahrzeug zu einem neuen ŠKODA und sichern Sie sich eine attraktive Eintauschprämie bei ausgewählten Modellen und Ausstattungen, z.B. 6.000€ beim KODIAQ Sportline. Bis zum 31. Juli 2020. Mehr Informationen bei Ihrem teilnehmenden ŠKODA Partner oder auf skoda.de +++

Nach verlängerten Osterferien melden wir uns zurück am Podcasting-Mikrofon. Wie wir an verschiedenen Stellen sehen können, nehmen Shopsystem-Hersteller die Corona-Krise unter anderem zum Anlass, den Wert der Time-To-Market neu zu entdecken bzw. zu betonen. commercetools hat diese Woche beispielsweise einen eigenen App-Store (Integration Marketplace) vorgestellt, über den Integrationen zu Drittsoftware-Anbietern schneller gefunden und genutzt werden sollen. Auch ein neuer Accelerator auf Basis von Vue.js ist jetzt im Angebot, das Ziel: Shop-Launches innerhalb von zwei Wochen ermöglichen. Spryker setzt im Zeitersparnis-Rennen noch einen drauf und spricht auf seiner neuen Website von Zeiten unter einer Woche. Für Shopify fällt das eher unter die Kategorie „war bei uns schon immer so“, aber auch hier gibt’s überraschende Bewegungen: Saucen-Hersteller Heinz hat in Windeseile eine D2C-Strategie auf den Weg gebracht. Außerdem: Intershop-, Demandware- und Newstore-Gründer Stephan Schambach im OMR-Podcast Der Onlineshop der Mayerschen Buchhandlung wird zum 28.08. abgeschaltet (danke Andreas für den Hinweis!) Last but not least: die K5-Konferenz wird leider nicht wie geplant Ende Mai stattfinden

Subscribe | Transcript | Comment The Episode in 60 Seconds Elana Anderson, CMO of Veracode, sat down with us at RSA 2020 to discuss the essentials of effective marketing leadership. Elana has had an unexpected journey leading up to her current role. She began her career as a consultant at Accenture and led many marketing and product teams before accepting a position at Veracode. According to her Twitter profile, she is the “marketer marketing marketing to marketers.” This interview delves into: How Elana's unique perspective strengthens her marketing leadership How Veracode has grown since its last acquisition The value of revisiting marketing fundamentals What enables Veracode to be a great partner The marketing advice all CEOs and CMOs need to hear Our Guest Elana Anderson’s marketing background spans nearly three decades as a marketing executive, industry analyst, and consultant working with Fortune 500 B2C and B2B enterprises. Previously, Elana led global marketing for the SaaS e-commerce leader Demandware and was Vice President of Strategy and Products at marketing tech provider Unica. “Elana’s success building global brands in established and emerging markets is testament to her deep technology expertise and marketing prowess,” said Veracode CEO Sam King. At Veracode, Elana implements go-to-market strategies, creates programs to drive customer growth and advocacy, and amplifies Veracode’s global presence to reach new audiences and expand its geographic footprint. Show Notes Check out Veracode’s newly released case studies: Veracode Enables Cox Automotive to Integrate Security into the SDLC and Increase Speed to Market Automation Anywhere Leverages Veracode to Secure their Leading RPA Solutions Advantasure's Secure SW is a Competitive Advantage YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE A TRADITIONAL HISTORY IN MARKETING TO BECOME A GREAT CMO… …just a unique perspective. Elana’s first marketing role was Head of Marketing at Demandware. Before she was the marketer, her buyer was the marketer. She essentially marketed to marketers. Elana’s background has allowed her to work with many, many companies on many different aspects of marketing. “I was building a business. I wasn't a marketer. I was advising marketers, I was building our consulting practice and our consulting offerings. I was building our portfolio of services to marketing organizations.” - Elana Anderson ELANA’S TENURE AT VERACODE Elana’s team has been focusing on strengthening Veracode’s voice in the market. Before the impact of COVID-19, Veracode was at RSA launching a new brand platform and visuals that inspire boldness and confidence to create software that changes the world. Read more about Veracode’s impressive booth display at RSA 2020. Elana has made structural changes to her team that bring out the strength of each core pillar of marketing. Achieving growth in your organization means plotting a vision for the future, getting people to recognize it, and fostering excitement within your team. MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS WILL ALWAYS REMAIN THE SAME Fundamentally, it’s about understanding what makes your customer tick and engaging them in conversation. Who is the customer? What do they want? What do they need? What do they feel? How are they moved? What’s their pain? “The idea of conversational marketing or customer engagement isn’t new. We’ve been talking about it for years.” - Elana Anderson VERACODE SECURITY LABS Veracode’s Security Labs enables developers to work in an interactive coding environment to find and fix appsec vulnerabilities. In launching the tool, Veracode’s mission is to empower developers to change the world while providing them with the skills needed to prevent attacks. VERACODE IS ALWAYS LISTENING Since Veracode can see how developers are integrating and interacting with the platform, they are able to use that data to provide valuable feedback and guidance. Veracode’s Customer Advisory Board enables customers to provide feedback on the product and engage directly with product managers. “Our business model behind what we do enables us to be a better partner.” - Elana Anderson THE MARKETING ADVICE ALL CEOS NEED TO HEAR Your CMO needs some independence in order to do their job effectively. Avoid silo marketing. Allow your CMO to focus on moving the business. A great CEO-CMO relationship resembles a strategic partnership. Many CMOs get stuck on the tactical implementation, the micro-view of marketing. You must consider the business as a whole and what it means to move the company forward. It’s about understanding the market, understanding the customer, and understanding what you’re trying to achieve as a business. “I’ve always been a student of marketing. I don’t bring a recipe book to the job.” - Elana Anderson HOW MARKETING LEADERS SHOULD FORM RELATIONSHIPS WITH ANALYST GROUPS Building rapport and trust with your analyst is essential. The relationship should never be transactional. It’s about getting to know each other. It’s about understanding tendencies and being able to engage and use that resource to help you further your business.

Stephan Schambach is the founder of NewStore which operates a platform for retailers to run their stores on iPhone. The company has raised $130 million from General Catalyst, Salesforce Ventures, Enjoyventure Management, and Activant Capital. Prior to this he founded Demandware (acquired by Salesforce for $2.8 billion), Torqueedo (acquired by DEUTZ for $100 million), and Intershop.

Stephan Schambach is the founder of NewStore which operates a platform for retailers to run their stores on iPhone. The company has raised $130 million from General Catalyst, Salesforce Ventures, Enjoyventure Management, and Activant Capital. Prior to this he founded Demandware (acquired by Salesforce for $2.8 billion), Torqueedo (acquired by DEUTZ for $100 million), and Intershop.

Segment 1: The Growth of First Party Data Tech David Raab of the CDP Institute, growth advisor Anand Thaker, and Chitra Iyer talk about the rise of first party data tech - from personalization platforms to experience clouds, data integration to CDPs and everything in between. Highlights of the discussion include: - Factors behind the rise of ‘first party data tech’ - What’s problematic about ‘consent’ replacing cookies - Why publishers will make data vendors irrelevant over time (and the trouble with that). Hint: think mini walled gardens and the need for fair data exchange co-ops - Why CDPs could take over where DMPs left off Segment 2: The CDP Institute’s 2020 CDP Industry Update The CDP Institute revealed all the data that’s shaping the CDP industry as we head into 2020, and we have the man himself- David Raab – to answer questions that we think you are thinking. Starting with the over 8 CDP acquisitions in 2019 to the most recent one by Salesforce, to why marketers need simpler labels to help define what the platforms do. Highlights of the discussion include: - Why and how the CDP industry is consolidating and why the number of stand alone CDPs will come down - The Salesforce acquisition of Evergage. Omer Artun, Founder of AgilOne - a CDP that itself got acquired by Acquia in 2019, is now the Chief Science Officer at Acquia. Here’s his comment on the Evergage acquisition: “Salesforce knew they had a huge gap in customer data and customer intelligence. Their service cloud, marketing cloud (Exacttarget), CRM and Demandware don't talk to each other in any customer specific way. They first claimed Krux would become their customer hub, then they bought Mulesoft then bought Dataroma, a marketing dashboard company which they are trying to build a CDP around. Now, they are putting their money behind Everage. However, Evergage is not a CDP - it's web personalization that can handle profiles. Most brands are looking for robust identity resolution, analytics capabilities that can stitch and analyze many sources of data. Evergage can neither stitch in an enterprise manner nor offers analytics with any rigor.” So, how will this acquisition exactly help its customers? We tell you. - The role of CRM in the data driven marketing landscape and why labels will matter (or not) when it comes to offering CX solution platforms - Why ‘campaign CDPs’ are the fasted growing CDP segment today (even though ‘data CDPs’ are the most funded) Get your free copy of the CDP Institute’s 2020 Industry Update for free, from here. https://www.cdpinstitute.org/general Hail of the Week: We start 2020 on a positive note with a big hail for privacy related funding: - SuperAwesome out of the UK (just raised $17 million) for kid-safe media - SECURITI.ai raised $50 million for privacy technology - Google is planning to block third party cookies - Global Alliance for Responsible Media is working to identify and boycott harmful online content Follow us on Spotify, Google podcast or leave us a review on iTunes. Have a great week. Thank you! Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/show/4CmetQ62mdBz62KtfXetiZ Google Podcast-https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLnNvdW5kY2xvdWQuY29tL3VzZXJzL3NvdW5kY2xvdWQ6dXNlcnM6NDM0MDYzODIwL3NvdW5kcy5yc3M iTunes-https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/martechadvisor-podcasts/id1373600978?mt=2

Und schon wieder ist die Woche rum und wir blicken zurück auf die Shoptech-News dieser Woche, die es dank der NRF Bigshow diesmal in Hülle und Fülle gab. Da ist zum einen der Versuch von Microsoft, sich wieder etwas mehr mit dem Thema E-Commerce zu beschäftigen; mit Bing for Commerce möchte der Anbieter seine Suchmaschinen-Katalog auch Enterprise-Kunden zur Verfügung stellen, um ihre eigenen Produktkataloge zu indizieren und online durchsuchbar zu machen. NewStore, nach Intershop und Demandware die dritte Gründung von Stephan Schambach, die sich auf mobile Lösungen für den klassischen Einzelhandel konzentrieren, bekommt 20 Millionen Dollar von Salesforce Ventures. Außerdem: der kanadische Cloud-Commerce-Anbieter Elasticpath kauft das britische Headless-Unternehmen Moltin. Interessant daran scheint vor allem, das Elasticpath sich selbst damit ein Technologie-Update verpassen kann – das Modell, den On-Premise-API-Layer Cortex als echte SaaS-Lösung auf dem Markt zu platzieren, scheint mittel- und langfristig dann doch nicht so tragfähig zu sein. Last but not least: Shopware hat die Version 6.1 und damit das Final Release seiner neuen Version veröffentlicht, die nach eigenen Angaben schon mehr als 3000 mal installiert wurde.

As chief architect of Intershop, co-founder and chief architect of Demandware, CPO/CTO of NewStore, and now board member at Frontastic and strategic consultant, Ulrike has seen and been part of the many shifts shaping the commerce platform market. Join us for a trip down memory lane and a look toward the future Podcast all Platforms https://linktr.ee/commercetomorrow http://commercetomorrow.com/ https://twitter.com/commerce2morrow https://soundcloud.com/commercetomorrow https://www.facebook.com/CommerceTomorrow https://www.instagram.com/commercetomorrow/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsZHLe6SEep5zLnNoF7S0PA?view_as=subscriber

Guest Michael Skok started his first software business as a teenager, spent 21 years as an entrepreneur and then the past 15 years as a venture investor. The Underscore VC cofounder has founded, worked with and invested in startups, and created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of value. Along the way, he also mentored and taught for 4 years at Harvard University, and created the Startup Secrets series. As an entrepreneur and an investor, Skok has focused on breakthrough technologies and disruptive business models including Open Source, Cloud, IoT, and emerging domains such as Blockchain, Virtual/Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. He has served on or is active on many private and public boards such as Acquia, Demandware (now a Salesforce company), Mautic, Salsify and Zaius. He has also participated in leadership roles in many industry groups such as the Software Publishers Association where he was Chairman for many years in Europe. In 2015, Skok co-founded Underscore VC, which has built a reputation as an active investor aligning talent from its Underscore Core Community with startups. Discover more Boston Speaks Up at Boston Business Journal's BostInno: www.americaninno.com/boston/boston-speaks-up/

Jamus has a strong history of success in the tech industry. He was an early member of the team at Demandware, which was a massive success story in the early days of SaaS. He played a key role in the company's growth to an IPO in 2012 and the company was later acquired by Salesforce.com for a reported $2.6B. Jamus is now leading Moltin, a venture backed company that embraces an API-first Headless Commerce Service for high-growth businesses with sophisticated consumer engagement strategies. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Jamus' background and the overall progression of his career. * A deep dive into the story of Demandware and how they were able to scale the company to an IPO and acquisition. * All the details on Moltin and how the company and its technology is disrupting the digital commerce industry. * Advice for executives who are looking to take on a CEO role at a company. * Tips on how to make the transition into a founder-led company a smooth one. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hablamos Julián Cañadas, Country Leader Ibérica en Adobe e Ignacio Riesco, CEO de Interactiv4 y organizador de Meet Magento España.En Junio de 2018 Adobe culminaba la compra de Magento, una solución Open Source para Comercio Electrónico. La operación se cuantificaba en 1.680 millones de dólares (unos 1.400 millones de euros) y generó muchísimo revueo en el ecosistema del Comercio Electrónico y del retail.En ese momento, desde BrainSINS publicamos un informe conteniendo las opiniones de 40 profesionales del eCommerce en España planteando puntos positivos y algunas dudas acerca de este movimiento.En este informe, yo mismo planteaba mi opinión, desde 4 ejes:Por un lado este movimiento suponía un órdago hacia lo Enterprise. Magento llevaba años tratando de potenciar este segmento y, a pesar de contar con el reconocimiento de Gartner y algunas grandes referencias, se habían producido demasiados bandazos a nivel estratégico que hacían que la apuesta no cuajara del todo. Adobe se presentaba como el compañero ideal para llevar a Magento a este segmento.También permitía a Adobe entrar en un vertical que llevaba persiguiendo desde hace tiempo: el eCommerce y retail, con una oferta super complementaria a otras de sus soluciones como el Marketing Cloud. Después de las compras de Hybris por parte de SAP y de Demandware por parte de Salesforces, tampoco quedaban muchas grandes opciones en el mercado, o al menos ninguna otra soluci

Se aliviará el beto ante Huawei El secretario del Tesoro de Estados Unidos, Steven Mnuchin, dijo el domingo que el presidente Donald Trump podría aliviar las restricciones de los EE. UU. A Huawei si se avanzaba en el comercio con China, pero sin un acuerdo, Washington mantendría tarifas para reducir su déficit.   "Creo que lo que el presidente está diciendo es que, si avanzamos en el comercio, tal vez esté dispuesto a hacer ciertas cosas en Huawei si recibe consuelo de China y ciertas garantías", dijo Mnuchin. "Pero estos son temas de seguridad nacional". Ver más https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-mnuchin/mnuchin-says-trump-could-ease-up-on-huawei-if-trade-talks-advance-idUSKCN1TA0G0   China amenaza a los grandes La semana pasada, el gobierno chino convocó a las principales empresas de tecnología, incluidas Microsoft y Dell de los Estados Unidos y Samsung de Corea del Sur, para advertir que podrían enfrentar graves consecuencias si cooperan con la prohibición del gobierno de Trump de vender tecnología estadounidense clave a compañías chinas. Según personas familiarizadas con las reuniones. Ver más https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/business/economy/china-huawei-trump.html   Google advierte al gobierno de Estados Unidos que su prohibición sobre el gigante tecnológico chino Huawei en realidad pone en riesgo la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos al obligar a Huawei a producir un sistema operativo inseguro que podría ser explotado tanto por gobiernos como hackers. Lo afirman en un nuevo informe del Financial Times, que ofrece un vistazo al esfuerzo que se está realizando entre bambalinas a medida que se desarrolla la Nueva Guerra Fría en el mundo de la tecnología. Ver más https://es.gizmodo.com/google-dice-que-el-veto-a-huawei-amenaza-la-seguridad-n-1835322757   Este viernes Facebook anunció que no permitirá que sus aplicaciones -entre las que se encuentran Instagram y Whatsapp- sean preinstaladas en los smartphones de la compañía china. La decisión de Facebook se debe al veto impuesto por varios países, liderados por Estados Unidos, a Huawei, alegando que supone un riesgo para la seguridad nacional. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-48562932   Según los nuevos datos, más de un tercio de las compañías tecnológicas de más rápido crecimiento en Europa se basan ahora en Gran Bretaña. El Reino Unido ha creado 13 compañías "unicornio", firmas valoradas en más de mil millones de dólares, durante el año pasado, con un total nacional de 72. Las investigaciones compiladas por Tech Nation y Dealroom muestran que Londres lidera el crecimiento en todo el continente, con 45 unicornios. Berlín es el hogar de 10 unicornios y París nueve. Ver más https://news.sky.com/story/uk-tech-created-13-billion-dollar-startups-in-2018-11738841   Ryanair está listo para lanzar una nueva aerolínea en Malta, revela The Irish Times. Se cree que la aerolínea está en conversaciones avanzadas con el gobierno de Malta sobre el lanzamiento de una aerolínea llamada Malta Air. El acuerdo, que se anunciará pronto, hará que Malta Air opere inicialmente con seis aviones antes de expandirse a 12. Ryanair actualmente opera seis aviones en Malta con su propia marca, y se dijo anteriormente que había mostrado interés en hacerse cargo de la aerolínea de bandera nacional. , Aire malta. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/ryanair-to-launch-new-airline-in-malta-1.3920710   Salesforce dice que está comprando la compañía de visualización de datos Tableau por $ 15.3 mil millones en acciones. La compra, la mayor adquisición de Salesforce hasta la fecha, ayudará a la compañía a ampliar sus ofertas de productos que se centran principalmente en ventas, marketing y servicio al cliente, dice la CNBC. Los principales acuerdos anteriores de Saleforce fueron Mulesoft en 2018 por $ 6,5 mil millones y Demandware en 2016 por $ 2,8 mil millones. Ver más https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/10/salesforce-stock-drops-sharply-on-tableau-buy.html       https://twitter.com/ChrisBecerraSoy https://www.instagram.com/ChrisBecerraSoy   Síguenos en https://www.instagram.com/graninvento https://twitter.com/graninven

Three years ago, Tim Adams probably never imagined that today he would be taking spin classes in Geneva, Switzerland. At the time, the seasoned finance leader could be found queueing up at Logan Airport to board yet another flight to San Francisco. Of course, one could argue that a certain Logan departure gate ultimately helped to put Geneva spin classes on the horizon, since it played no small role in transporting the CFO to a round of talks that helped to seal the sale of the finance leader’s earlier company Demandware of Woburn, MA, to Salesforce of San Francisco back in 2016. As Demandware’s CFO, Adams says, he was involved when an unsolicited offer arrived from Salesforce after the e-commerce platform had achieved consecutive years of 30% growth. “It’s sometimes hard to sell a company when you enjoy what you are doing and there’s a personal aspect, but you have to put that aside to do what is right for the company’s shareholders,” explains Adams, who today is CFO of ObsEva, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Geneva, Switzerland. “When I joined ObsEva in January 2017, mission number one was a successful IPO to raise the money that we needed to develop our compounds,” explains Adams, who operates from the company’s Boston office. While ObsEva achieved “mission number one” shortly after his arrival, financing stills remains top-of-mind for ObsEva’s finance chief, who–regardless of travel–likes to make exercise a part of his daily routine. Asked if he’s opened a gym membership in Geneva, Adams tells us that his next spin class is one departure gate away. NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

A former developer and long-time veteran of the commerce platform industry, Bill Tarbell of Workarea Commerce has made a career of simplifying the complex. He shares where we’ve been and how the commerce industry needs to continue its evolution to better serve retailers and merchants of all sizes. In this episode, we discuss: Three eras of commerce platform evolution, from early “framework” type offerings (ATG, IBM WebSphere) to open source and ease-of-use pioneers (Magento, Demandware) to today’s modern, SaaS-based solutions (Shopify, Workarea Commerce) How Workarea aims to bring greater flexibility and customization to retailers and merchants who want to create an innovative experience across channels and customer touch points The difference between “microservices” and “headless” commerce architectures Where microservices works best versus headless approaches or “monolithic” platforms How standardization is coming (but isn’t here yet), when the commerce platform market becomes truly commoditized – more innovation to meet market needs is needed Why retailers/brands should make time to evaluate and understand what type of technical approach and platform will work best for the organization – and hold vendors to high standards of transparency in the sales cycle Why 2019 should drive greater integration of commerce and content, and enable brands' ability to deliver both faster than ever

Episode 004: Choosing Shipping Carriers for Your Website   Episode Summary:  The eCommerce customer experience doesn't end when a package leaves our facility. Who we use for shipping carriers can matter greatly from both a customer experience perspective and for our bottom line. In this episode, Julie discusses the factors you should consider when choosing which shipping carriers to use for your website.   Episode Links: https://www.usps.com/ https://www.ups.com/ https://www.fedex.com/ http://www.dhl.com/ https://www.shopify.com/ https://www.shipstation.com/   Episode Transcript: Announcer: Are you looking to take your online business to the next level? Well, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Business Method, with your host, Julie Feickert.   Julie Feickert: Hello and welcome to Episode 4 of The Savvy Business Method podcast, where we talk about how to plan, start, and grow your business online. I'm Julie Feickert, and my goal is to help you build practical business skills, so you can provide a better life for your family. Before we start today, a quick reminder that you can find links to resources I talk about here in the show in the show notes, along with the complete transcript of the show. I realize that sometimes you're going to need to go back and find a piece of information and a transcript can be really helpful for that. So let's talk about our topic for today, which is choosing shipping carriers for your website. If you are selling physical products, you're going to need to use someone to get those products to your customers, right? And who you choose ends up mattering for several reasons. First, your shipping carrier plays a real role in your customers experience. Yes, we want our customers to have a great experience on our website, we want them to find the products, be able to figure out what works best for them, buy the products smoothly, and then have the products start the shipping journey to them quickly, right? That's our job as website owners. But when we choose a shipping company to work with, we are then passing that responsibility for the customer to have a good experience to the shipping carrier. And luckily, most of the carriers do a pretty good job of this, right? But things happen. If you've ever ordered something online and had it get lost in transit, or just significantly delayed, or maybe you've had something arrive broken or even destroyed in transit. I mean, I've seen some crazy destroyed packages in my time. Let me tell you, it's amazing what can happen to a package. These are all factors that influence how the customer views they're shopping experience with you. The second reason why this matters is that shipping is one of the largest costs that we as a website owner have to take on. Getting our products to our customers is really expensive, and so we don't want to be taking any more costs than necessary, and we want to be getting to best experience for our customers and for ourselves for our money. And the third reason is that in the end, problems cost us time, money, and customer goodwill. If you've ever dealt with a package that's gone missing, or been destroyed in transit, you know how frustrating it is to have a customer who's upset who is getting a hold of you. That costs you time and money. You're trying to keep them happy and you typically going to end up having to reship that package, right? So that's costing you money. And meanwhile you're off trying to deal with the shipping carrier and file an insurance claim, that's costing you time. I mean this just starts to really eat away. It eats away at your productivity, it eats away at your budget, and it eats away at your customer goodwill. So let's walk through the factors that you need to be considering when you're choosing a shipping carrier to work with, or more than one shipping carrier to work with. Now, quick disclaimer here: I am not just going to tell you which shipping carriers are best. As we talked about in Episode Two, when we discussed optimizing your payment options on your website, I feel like I do all of you the service if I just say "Oh, you should do this, this, and this." Because you are going to have a unique circumstance. You are going to have changing circumstances. The providers that are available are probably going to change. The shipping market has been stable for a long time, but there's some signs that companies like Amazon might me coming in and offering some additional competition so some things are changing, right? Better to have all the information so that long-term you can make the best possible decision for your business. Also, today I am going to focus on shipping providers in the United States. This is my area of expertise; is shipping within the United States and that's the group I am most comfortable talking about. This included the United States Postal Service, UPS, FedEx, and to a lesser extent, DHL. They are a much smaller player in the United States these days. But if you are outside the United States, these same general factors that we're going to talk about really apply everywhere right? So stick around, you'll probably still get the information that you need, even if we don't talk about your specific country's options. Okay, so the first factor you need to consider when choosing a shipping carrier is which shipping carriers will integrate easily into the eCommerce platform that you're using, so in this case you're looking at the software that you are using to run your site. So this could be something like Shopify, or Volusion, or DemandWare, or Magento, but whatever it is you're using likely already has preferred providers, or carriers, so maybe like the Post Office and FedEx, or the Post Office and UPS, something like that where they're already integrated into the platform and this is going to make your life so much easier. That's not to say you can't consider a different provider but there may be more work involved and would just suggest that you put that into your calculations, right? Like, if you are going to need custom development work on your site in order to ship with, say, DHL, then that is something you need to give serious thought to. Okay, let's talk about cost. Cost is so near and dear to all of our hearts, right? Shipping is very expensive and the more we can get the cost down, the better. Without question, the average weight of your packages is going to be the biggest factor in determining how much they cost to send. Now, the shipping carriers are all constantly jockeying for position here and especially for low weight packages, packages under 2 pounds, there's this constant competition and switching around of services available, but if you are shipping things that are very lightweight, I just want to put a shout-out out there that you really should look at the Post Office. FedEx, and UPS, and DHL to a certain extent are all trying to compete for that business but the reality is that the Post Office, at least at this point, is still a less costly option for those smaller packages. One of the companies I used to have, our average package was, I think, like 6 ounces. We were shipping things that were very small and light. And so, the US Postal Service's First Class Mail actually was a great option for us. It was only a couple of dollars, it included tracking, First Class Mail in the United States, last time I checked, is being flown on FedEx airplanes so it's getting places pretty quickly, there's a lot of good things about First Class Mail. So, if you're in a position where you have things that are lightweight, don't forget about the Post Office. Another factor you should really be looking at when you're choosing your shipping carriers, and this kind of goes back to the platform integration we were talking about, is you want to be able to shop rates. And this means when you weigh the package in your system, and you put in the address, you really want to be able to see multiple shipping options. Sure, you could memorize the map and have a really good idea just looking at, you know, a two pound package is going 4 zones away, is it going to be a better price with this service or this service. You may have the ability to do that, most of us probably are not going to memorize a shipping table. So, I would just encourage you to be thoughtful when your choosing your systems and doing these integrations to make sure you don't lose the ability to price check. I really can't think of a situation where you would have the best shipping deal with only one carrier all the time, unless you are shipping one uniform package all the time. Another way you can potentially save money on shipping charges is to use a preferred provider through your eCommerce platform. So let me give you an example: My eCommerce site that I currently have is setup through Shopify. Shopify actually has negotiated rates with The Post Office and UPS. So if we ship through one of those two options, we get a fairly substantial discount, one I'm actually fairly happy with. So that's something to keep in mind too, sometimes using a preferred provider through your platform can save you money. The other way to get discounts on shipping costs is to be shipping a lot of stuff. Once you're shipping in volume companies like FedEx and UPS negotiate your rates with you. I'm not going to claim that that is any fun, I have done it many, many times, and I could happily go the rest of my life without having one of those conversations again, but just note, that as you grow, if you are shipping on your own account and not through, like, a platform like Shopify, you might eventually qualify for some discounts. Okay, so the next factor I really would encourage you to look at is how easily you are going to be able to work with the carrier's customer service department if something goes wrong. If you are shipping things that are perishable, or if your clients have very specific expectations when it comes to timeframe for delivery, then you really need to take that into consideration, and which shipping carriers are willing to make you those guarantees. And, if your package doesn't arrive in time, or if it arrives damaged, or if it gets lost, what does filing a claim look like? Does the shipping carrier offer as much insurance at an affordable cost as you're going to need to cover your product? What's the process for filing that claim? Is it very time consuming? Are claims generally paid out promptly? Is there an argument that's going to ensue? These are just the sorts of questions you want to be asking. Now, this might not matter at all if you're shipping very low value items, then this might not be the place to spend your time and money worrying. But if you're shipping costly items, particularly costly to you, then this something you need to give some serious thought to. So hopefully from today's discussion there are a few things that jump out at you that are most important for your business that you need to consider when you're choosing shipping carriers. I would encourage you when you're doing your research to reach out to local entrepreneurs and ask them who they use, and what their experience has been, because a part of your experience is going to be determined by the group that is picking up and handling your packages wherever you are. Also you can reach out to the companies themselves, especially if you are shipping a decent amount of product, you may be able to ask for a rep to be assigned to your account so you can ask these questions directly to a single person, have that single point of contact. So you've got some options here. Thanks for joining me today and geeking out over shipping options. I hope you had fun, and I hope that there are a few things now that you can think about and go apply to your own business. I'll be back in your feed in a few days with a new episode. If you haven't yet be sure to subscribe at that little button in iTunes and Stitcher and that way you'll be notified when the next episode is available. If you'd like to learn more about me, or The Savvy Business Method or you'd like to reach out and ask a question, or give me an idea for a future episode; I'd love to hear from you. You can find me a savvybusinessmethod.com as well as on Facebook and YouTube. Bye for now!   Announcer: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Savvy Business Method with Julie Feickert. If you enjoyed todays episode please leave a review and subscribe, and for more great content and to stay up to date, visit savvybusinessmethod.com, and Savvy Business Method on Facebook. We'll catch you next time.   Episode 004: Choosing Shipping Carriers for Your Website

In this episode, Alexander Ringsdorff, Vice President of Corporate Development at NewStore, Inc. talks about the new startup from Intershop and Demandware founder Stephan Schambach and how they supports physical retail with they mobile apps.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: A new book by O’Reilly Press discusses product management for B2B software applications. It’s titled Building for Business. Much has been written about product management and the development of software products, but little that specifically addresses the characteristics of the B2B environment. The authors join this episode to discuss how product management is different for enterprise software products, including: Differences in consumers from B2B and B2CThe impact a direct sales team hasHow the scale of enterprise customers impacts product workThe need for effective collaborationUsing organizational knowledge The authors are Blair Reeves and Ben Gaines. Blair is a Principal Product Manager at SAS Software and has previously held senior roles at Demandware (now a Salesforce company) and IBM. Ben is a Group Product Manager for Adobe Analytics and previously managed digital analytics at ESPN.

Case Study - Go-to-Market Strategies - Branding at Demandware by Startup Secrets

Case Study - Go-to-Market Strategies - MVS at Demandware by Startup Secrets

Case Study - Game-Changing Business Models - Demandware by Startup Secrets

Startup Secrets brings our set of case studies to you, in podcast form!

Startup Secrets brings our set of case studies to you, in podcast form!

Startup Secrets brings our set of case studies to you, in podcast form!

We welcome Blair Reeves to the show to discuss Enterprise Product Management tips and techniques from over 15 years working in product.  Blair Reeves is a Principal Product Manager at SAS Software, and has previously held senior product and leadership roles at Demandware (now a Salesforce company) and IBM.   He speaks, writes, and consults on product management in enterprise software, remote workforces, and other topics. Follow him on Twitter at @BlairReeves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

EP110 - Holiday 17 Hot Take with Rob Garf of Salesforce.com Rob Garf (@retailrobgarf), is the VP of Industry Strategy and insights at Salesforce Commerce Cloud.  His team has access to insights from all the Salesforce Commerce Cloud clients (formerly Demandware).  We have a broad ranging conversation about what he's seeing this holiday season and trends he expects for next year. You can read more about his teams insights here: Salesforce Reveals Black Friday Was the Busiest Digital Shopping Day of the Holiday Season Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 110 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on November 30th 2017. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature - Google Automated Transcription of the show Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 110 being recorded on Thursday November 30th 2017 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot & Rob: [0:40] Hey Jason and a welcome back Jason and Scott show listeners. Jason R series that is a hot take on holiday 17 continues here in episode 110 we're excited to have the first time to the show someone you and I've known both for a long time and I've been trying to get on the show and we finally made it work, Rob Garf rub is the VP of Industry strategy and insights at Salesforce Commerce Cloud welcome to the show Rob. [1:06] Thanks gentlemen it's great to be here I feel honored to be amongst digital Commerce loyalty I feel like I'm obliged to say first time long time. Jason: [1:17] Appreciate it you know one thing we always like to do on this show is give listeners a little bit of context about how you came into your your control, I'm in what what the scope of the current role is so I know, like ourselves I know you've been kicking around the industry for a little while can you you talk to us about your career matriculation and what you're doing at Salesforce today. Scot & Rob: [1:44] Yeah yeah absolutely literally retail is in my blood my father actually was at a supply chain a bunch of different retailers around the country when I was growing up and I didn't have any, prettiest aspirations of getting into retail but I did grow up working in his distribution centers and working in some stores at. Ricky work for in retailers that he worked for and really really cut my teeth in a genuine way in headquarters, right around 99 2004 Lids the specialty hat retailer, where I live Ecommerce and at the time we're doing some really fun things like buy online pickup store we had an endless aisle app we didn't know, really what we're doing and put it together you know I shoestring budget but it worked and it was a lot of fun, and tell you guys probably are the only ones on the show that will remember that we ran into world back almost 20 years ago of course they're long gone as a, e-commerce platform but anyways from there. Certainly continue to kick around was industry analysts at AMR research leaving retail practice moved to lead retail strategy to IBM when I was in fortunate to land at demandware. Which took me about 5 years in when we got Acquired and summer 2016 by Salesforce, what is known as the Commerce cloud my role it's really fun I get to kind of put all the hats on that I've worn over the last 20 25 years and I lead a team called Industries for insights and really. [3:22] In short it's it's our job to stay in the market, understand where the industry's going would you that primarily through research and then we turn that back over to the industry, our customers and we use that to better understand where we should bring our company products so it's been a lot of fun over last coming up on 7 years for the last year-and-a-half as part of Salesforce. [3:44] Very cool and then another one of the reasons you wanted to get you into this series is you guys have been releasing some holiday data and I don't I don't recall you doing much of that, demandware tell us about what's going on there and for listeners that don't know let's let's kind of help them understand the scope of the day that you guys would have and kind of where it comes from. [4:06] Sure yeah I think that's going to start some good contacts on the conversation I'm sure we're about to have so even wear a cloud platform that enables retailers and Brands to connect, to their consumers across the Myriad of different channels whether that's personally online or through mobile store. Social even the increasingly iot invoice devices we collect a lot of data in fact on a monthly basis we have 500 million Shoppers Traverse City. Rousey ultimately buying, AR platform across around 3000 sites and not representing retailers in 53 country so we take that information we aggregated up and very thoughtful and secure way and it really helps us, gauge meter Digital Trends and then again we as part of our perky turn that back over or consumers help them Benchmark I'm sorry. Back over to our customers retail Brands and allows them to better Benchmark the business and then broadly it allows us to see you know where where the industry's going what are some of the major Trends and we've been doing, what are we reporting for some time but we really double down on the holiday this year to turn it into some interesting insights as to what we predict and then be what we're seeing. [5:27] Cool so if we if we kind of start at 30,000 ft view did you have any forecast for holiday or you're not in the forecast visiting just kind of looking at insights. Yeah so week we had some predictions based on the data from the platform, what we see in the past quarter past years and we also did some primary research as well, so yes and I get right into it tell him which I talk to you about kind of what we saw a little bit and get back yeah, you know like how did you guys did you think holiday would be 15% that came in at 20 and then you have any other kind of macro stuff and we'll get into some of the individual days in a minute but the the big picture what do you think. [6:09] The big picture yeah so you know back in September October we release them prediction information or three key points that we among many others that we hold in on and in one piece was, cigarettes, wow discounts were going to be abundance as they normally are creeping earlier and earlier in the year we felt like the holiday season would smooth out, a bit in terms of actual demand and that's in fact what we saw by the end of. Monday Cyber Monday only 35% of digital shopping was completely, and so there's still a lot of Runway to go there the second piece that we saw is that 40% of. Statically Millennials will be doing a lot of research and Discovery through voice assistance in. Alexis in the world in the Google homes and Sirius of the world and we don't have data yet to back it up. Quantitatively button talking to our customers there they're definitely testing and. Playing with poison in Lexington circular craving some skills around shipping notifications and, order status which I think is a nice step forward on the convenience play of the of the three. Last one was in this really started last year. [7:38] Black Friday becoming more and more of a digital day you know we score screw up all of us here Scott Jason you know with. Black Friday more of a store based way doorbusters and getting out of the, Thanksgiving craziness at family and getting some the stores and works we're seeing a real uptick both and we predicted and we in fact saw it as a really big, really big digital day as well so I can dive in all of this in particular but those are some of the variations Rahsaan and how they kind of played out over the last. 789 days I would say. Jason: [8:15] Awesome but just want to get an idea of how Granny or the data use you see is your the the actual platform that that all these retailers are are using for their, so I'm assuming you get, pretty granular data so you you mentioned for example discounting like are you are you able to to see the actual sort of. [8:35] Is was pricing that that is offered by your customers and are you guys sharing any data about like how promotional this holiday. [8:44] Season has been versus past holiday season. Scot & Rob: [8:47] Yeah yeah absolutely so you know one of the things we saw as I mentioned discounts starting earlier and earlier we're calling it. You know game of discount chicken right it's like the retailers are moving it more and more, towards the beginning of November opening hoping that the consumers will by and by the way though we all know, what happened but in terms of the rates and yeah we're seeing across the, the Cyber week starting on the Tuesday 2 days before American Thanksgiving and then going through through Cyber Monday, we saw an average at 28%. Discount rate so there's some really nice discounts really teaching on Cyber Monday will see a little bit of a wall and then once again we anticipate another Spike, around December 11th and for few days further when, consumers are starting to feel the crunch of the shipping window starting to close and retailers taking advantage of that kind of emotional oh gosh I need to get it now or I'm not going to be able to get that deliver to my doorstep. I'll put the other interesting part if I could be on just discounts is what we saw a round free shipping. And so across the week as I defined a moment ago we saw 84% of orders, that were free shipping in fact on Cyber Monday alone it actually spiked up and was the highest 89% so in what was seen as a really nice to have in past years really the expectations the consumer is. [10:30] We want it free or not at all and so as a consumer if you're on and listening, definitely look for those free shipping and if your retailer you got to get the game if you're not already. Jason: [10:44] Yeah yeah and I did just maybe put that in a little bit of context comes Gore would say that that year-round about 65% of all e-commerce sales are with free shipping so when you see a spike up to 85 to almost 90% that's, a version of a promotion that retailers are running and it just turns out free shipping is the most effective promotion you can run if you if you don't already offer it because, it seems like consumers are really weary to make any purchases that that where they have to pay for shipping. Scot & Rob: [11:16] Yeah that's right and that's why I talked about in the context of. Discount since you know a lot of our customers are in the luxury and apparel space where they want to try to us from Apperception perspective hold onto price Integrity but free shipping is a nice way as you mention to essentially give, it total cost of ownership if you will discounts on getting that a product you on. Jason: [11:39] For sure you also mentioned Black Friday becoming a little bit more of a digital holiday and that that's only seems like a trend that we've seen as well, are you starting to see you mention that a lot of deals are peaking on Cyber Monday are you starting to see a spike of. Online deals on Black Friday as well or do you feel like like as a consumer you're going to get better deals on Monday then you can get on Friday. Scot & Rob: [12:03] Yeah I mean it's it's just to get really deep we saw a 27% discount rates on Black Friday compared to 29% on Cyber Monday. [12:16] Negative Outlets closed right but generally speaking when I step back we're seeing that, deals have really in demand in fact has been smooth over across, the seven days of cyber week where in the past it was for consumers got to get the deal on Friday in the store or Monday. I'm online and I'm finding both based on a research and helping a sample size of one and doing a bit of shopping myself is that retailers are becoming a lot more transparent about the length. [12:53] In the duration of their promotions and there's not as much of a. Gosh I got to get it on Friday or I'm going to lose out so yeah I know that's my roundabout way of saying there's a spike Cyber Monday at 29%. We see 27% but overall we're seeing deal smooth out through the entire week. Jason: [13:17] Yeah that that is interesting that is that's one of the challenges with promotions right is that the promotions are going to be most effective, if there's almost some scarcity to them like if consumers believe that that deal is going to end on Friday and that's the best deal I'm ever going to get if. It we're promoting stuff on Friday and all the consumers have a a real belief that there's going to be an even better deal on Monday then the. Promotions tendon not have the desired effect into your point in the old world the consumer attended the only know what we tell them right so we said hey big sale on Friday that's the only information the consumer has not had but today. The consumer knows everything and they have. Perfect transparency and oh by the way there's probably 50 websites that are designed to telling them what what deals are the best each day and what did the historical, best time to buy all these products are so it's hard to hard to get away with any of those those promotional games anymore. Scot & Rob: [14:13] It's really good point I think it's a really good point in the fact that. Retail for finally listening you know what I mean in terms of their acknowledging that consumers have a lot more control in Access than ever before and why not be a little bit more, transparent around the pricing in motion so that while you are giving a little bit away on the scarcity side you're giving a little bit more away saying I don't. Each go to another retailer cuz I think I missed that window right. [14:44] Put it makes me I know Salesforce is really big on the AI in it you guys call York or a Einstein if you guys do any exploration of kind of could you plug that in there and try to have the AI out smart smart the consumers on this whole, pricing game of chicken thing, yes and we are doing that in fact we actually have some interesting data around artificial intelligence and how that has actually influenced a lot of the, the sales when it comes down to it so what we found across again these sample set that we have is that. [15:21] And I'll pick on Black Friday so on Black Friday 6%, Shoppers engage or clicked on a product recommendation that was powered by artificial intelligence so that recommendation was based on the shopping Behavior. Either a known consumer in the various digital profile and preferences that have been accumulated or an unknown based on the clicks that. They did either on-site or off-site and while it was only 6% its Rove 32%, of the revenue so huge impact when retailers can turn this data into intelligence and get it in front of the consumers in a meaningful way throughout the journey. Jason: [16:14] That that's fascinating I'm always curious like how how are you defining artificial intelligence for the recommendation and in that case cuz it you know obviously you know there's there's multiple definitions of artificial intelligence but I have a feeling all the the vendors that are in the the Salesforce Commerce Cloud link exchange that have been doing, recommendations for for 5 or 10 years would probably call their engines artificial intelligence wouldn't they are. Scot & Rob: [16:40] Yeah they likely will and so yeah we're at the very core it's. From machine learning that is taking in all of the data that's, being generated on the platform by that retailer and allowing the algorithm to continually learn and in an automated way. Dr. Relevant interaction LG interesting part is that, artificial intelligence Einstein is both making the merchant in marketer the retailer smarter so they're just getting more fishing around planning, their pricing in there but then it's also Autumn eating a lot of manual rules-based type of Assortment, that the consumer will interact with on the site cool, yes it's need to see you and you're always Acquisitions talk about synergies sounds like there's already a rich set of capabilities over on the sales for side that you guys are tapping into. [17:41] For sure yeah I mean particularly on the Einstein front given the fact that salesforce.com on this across across the entire company so yet while we have a date, with in Commerce Cloud we are we are definitely leveraging, all of the Innovation that's happening back at San Francisco from machine learning to visual, intelligence to voice intelligence to natural language processing so it's it is really exciting where as we came, India the Acquisitions with some pretty cool. [18:20] Artificial intelligence were able to now look to our colleagues and really amp it up quite a bit and again. The fun part about this is It's really baked into the plan. So it snow in the same console that a marching will do their promotions in their assortments and figuring out the promotional calendar so they don't have to talk between different screen so you know going back to data. It's really showing while you know small, portion of consumers are coming across these product recommendations and stay clicking on then it's driving a lot of Revenue and I assume at some point we'll talk about mobile but, in a very small form factor world that we're living in now making sure where you might have one if two products that are made available getting those right ones, in front of the consumer makes all the difference in the world yeah real estate is definitely the premium, just want to talk about mobile one quick thing that you just kind of made me think about so early are you talking about skills being kind of a prediction you guys as part of the platform can you just kind of turn on for a new beer Merchants an Alexa skill or or. [19:36] You know you're watching what's happening there before you do something like that. [19:40] Yeah so you know Boyce in general is something we're looking at our customers given our open platform already testing some out there finding it just the way they're not necessarily seeing. Today. You're clicking the bottle like it's not really clicking or tapping are you but you know having to buy happen but it's more on some of the purple, research Discovery or on the other side service but that's more happening for your partners or independently given again are open platform our customers are able to innovate and extend vrep eyes, Darius didn't ask Dex like order and customer and price and, so on and so forth I figured I would keep your interest though given I know it's a Hot Topic around these parts so obviously what you're seeing on The Voice side it's typically around this holiday anything. Pop up for you and your discussions, I always check the specials that the Amazon has there and just interesting to see what they're choosing to push that way I think. Retailers that are doing it our way out on the Edge at this point we haven't heard a ton Jason have you heard anything. Jason: [20:53] In general I think even though the most dominant voice players would say nobody really expects voice to be a primary interface for Commerce I mean there's there's just a bunch of. Deficiencies like most things you buy have a bunch of variance you pick a color and a size and potentially a brand and like, getting interrogated for all of those details to place a a Commerce order via voice. [21:16] Actually isn't a super elegant experience so while they're there certain products that lend themselves to voice Commerce and there certainly are people that are engaging in voice Commerce. [21:26] It's not like oh man that's the better user interface in the whole world is going to shift to voice. For Commerce I think it's really obvious that voice is going to be a major you user interface overall and I think we're going to see voice being used a lot too. Manage and modify order so you know once you start buying all your groceries online for example and you have an auto replenishment order. You probably using voice to say hey I'm going to Grandma's for Thanksgiving you know let's cancel this week's grocery order or hey I need to make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, let's let's add these ingredients to my. [22:04] My normal list but I really think that's going to be the the primary role of a voice in Commerce more so than it is. [22:15] Product Discovery or you know first time order types. Scot & Rob: [22:19] So it's super interesting to me is incorporating voice for on-site search right so you're still looking at, the screen but you're able to search using voice and then layering on top artificial intelligence or putting artificial it's on the bottom whichever way you want to look at it architectural e in any case but being able to really help. Again really cut down the time between inspiration and ultimately getting to the product that. The customer wants but I hear what you're saying in terms of perhaps you know on site to eat navigation versus doing it by. Talking to a device saying I want this product that I've never seen before. Jason: [23:02] And I think the use case you mentioned makes all the sense in the world in particularly on mobile we already see you like that voice as a user interface in Mobile has huge adoption in China are ready and so I think that's inevitable. Here and in there are some fascinating nuances that happened there right because when customers type into our search box with a keyboard. We've taught them all how to type to how to do keyword searches right so two people type the words that they think. [23:34] Are are most likely to come up with that results but when people speak to a voice interface they tend to speak in full sentences and so what's what's interesting is. There's voice search as we get 10 to have a lot more contacts. Then that type searches and that actually enables us to give more relevant results. Which is which is interesting but you do have to think about your indexing and your your if your you know a content creator on this product detail Pages you need to think about your SEO strategies and things differently when a meaningful percentage of your. [24:08] Your customers are are searching via voice so I would certainly agree with that and I think. [24:13] I'm not sure that that's a huge piece of the market this year but I would suspect by next year. [24:19] It's a much bigger part I guess weather thing that slightly interesting is to the extent that you are going to shop via voice obviously Alexis the dominant voice platform out there. And you know they predominantly want you to buy from from Amazon although you know they recently made an announcement of a partnership with. [24:36] Best Buy to enable you to do Commerce through Best Buy. [24:41] You know that you have to add a few extra words to that search but what's interesting is so everyone that wants to compete with Amazon has the problem of not having a product catalog like Amazon has and not having all the sales data that Amazon has to help. [24:54] Sort of determine what what brand you probably want when you ask for batteries and so we're seeing like Google in particular. Go out and start to do these Partnerships with retailers where the retailers are sharing their first party data with Google to make search more more context really relevant on. Google home with those retailers and it occurs to me that they'd be really smart to partner with a platform like you to enable that for all of your clients not. [25:25] How to give away any future product strategy but yeah. Scot & Rob: [25:27] Your way into much but I can say that certainly you know we're always looking at ways to extend our platform and I'm realizing that. [25:38] More and more Commerce is happening off property right and so you know our whole business model from the beginning of time was. Consumers go to a Retailer's website and buy and the reality is more and more of that happening off property so. Retail RC to push their brand or the consumers are we want to help them we want to help them do that and if that's you know again partner in to make that happen. Definitely looking at those Avenues Cooper Ford Jason continues to, can you know an uncontrolled Corner about future product releases this pivot to mobile, so I remember the early days of demand where you guys were in this wacky thing called the cloud and and some of the earliest successes were convincing people to let you run their mobile site because you guys were really good at responsive and all that and then, pretty quickly earned the entire site so you guys have been kind of mobile Pioneers from from as early as I can remember I've seen a lot of your. Quotes of been around mobile give us what what do you see in as far as mobile Trends and and how did that meet your expectations. [26:50] Yeah so. Willie we think the headline or one of the key headlines for the holiday this year so far is Mobile in the continued adoption. [27:04] By consumers not just to browse but to actually buy and if you remember mention one of the three predictions was Thanksgiving being a really big digital. Holiday and we take the major driver to that is mobile. You know cuz really in the past it was consumers had to wait either well going to the way back time machine to 2005 one day to get to a high speed internet connection but even at home. On Thanksgiving or Black Friday oh gosh I got to open my computer I got to put in my username and password I got to bring up a browser I got up, yeah there are a lot of steps there's a lot of friction and really it do the day the mobile phone is the remote control of our daily lives right it's tether to us so, it's really just creating instant access like it does any time of the year. During Thanksgiving during Black Friday through the entire cyber week for consumers just to take out their phone. And in brows but what's happened you know the last couple years is. Most retailers have really stub their toes around their their mobile strategy didn't really make it easier so why you kept on seeing traffic creep up. They were still that friction Aaron consumers ultimately like either wait until they get to a computer or weighted went to the store to buy but again. [28:38] Consumers are pulling out their phone on Thanksgiving on Black Friday and actually buying so just some of that we think are some, mind blowing status is. Some I guess I'll give it to you for the Cyber week we saw Mobile Share, traffic at 61% to 61% of the traffic was coming from Mobile by the way we to find Mobile as home, .. Tablets are a separate category there but what I think is even more interesting is that, mobile Sheriff orders for the week was 41% and that was up by the way from 34% for the week. [29:21] Your prior so the idea. And we can talk about and I love your perspectives on this like what are retail can talk about what a retailers doing to make it easier but that's that's the bottom line they're really breaking down the friction between inspiration and purchase and not. Part of what's contributed again to Black Friday being a big digital day in the smoothing out in general of demand across the entire 7 Days of cyber week so it's really, if I could say inflection points a big shift that we've been seeing for quite some time and it's actually coming through to fruition. Jason: [29:59] Yeah I I think it's it's really fascinating we talked about it it'll a lot on the show we called the mobile Gap and essentially that's that. That you know the fact that. [30:11] Increasingly traffic is all shifting to mobile but the conversion rate on mobile tends to be a lot lower than desktop and so on these big holiday days when. It's in a mobile traffic by Stephen Moore. Like you know there's there's a potential catastrophe of 61% of my my traffic is on mobile in that unit converts it you know 1/3 or 1/4 the desktop traffic used to convert I'm actually going to lose money on the site and Zoe. That the fact that you're seeing that mobile Gap Nero like obviously. Is 61% of traffic and only 41% of the sales are happening there still is a gap but that you know that's a lot better than when it's 60% of the traffic and only 25% of the sales. [30:53] So interesting to think about the series y that Gap is near Owings I certainly have some I'd be curious to hear if you have any thoughts but. It is equally interesting question is. [31:09] Whitney Rose is it just narrowing because of something that you need to Holiday. And so once we get through holiday. We're going to revert back to that you know same old nasty mobile Gap we've been living with for the last couple years or have we systemically figure you know improve the mobile experience enough that we're actually starting to see a permanent shift, tomorrow mobile purchases. Scot & Rob: [31:31] Yeah so I think the flywheel has started and it's not going to slow down and so one other interesting data point and then I'll give you a couple of my. Hypotheses as to why no. Why this is happening but I hate this part of the conversation by the way so if we do the mask on Thanksgiving. For the first time mobile order share bypass computer order share so that's like. Big deal right so 46% of orders on Thanksgiving were Mobile in 45 we're on computer now actually reverted back for the rest of the week but it just shows you like. Okay computer is continue to. Creep down and finally mobilize that Stout I think that's going to continue to a degree you know going to the point around why you no like I contributed it. [32:31] Put it on two things one we talked about a bit or more than a bit which is a I so applying to buy to the small form factor. That's huge benefits cuz they get that you mention it so little real estate figuring out what that it goes back to the what has no right product Right Price Right Time there it is, and then the other one that were tracking is around the check out because it was not terrible was an awesome but it wasn't terrible and so I was terrible. We all missed the rookie still are in terms of okay now I can put my name okay now I send put my address and credit card and whatever else the. [33:15] Adoption of integrated payments like Apple pay and Android pay in PayPal for that matter. We should not really helping in fact we anticipate nearly 10% of iOS orders will be by Apple pay and so that's just making it. Easy and so I think it will go higher as more and more consumers use Apple pay, and I'm part of the reason why isn't hires because more more people are using it yet but it's on again one of these things so that you know I'm a man and I do think it's one of these things work, consumers kids are getting this experience they're going to have more confidence where they didn't before that it will then. [34:01] Come make its way into the other 360 ish whatever many days you want to say year. Jason: [34:07] Yeah for sure and I'm going to. Drill down into those in just a sec but I do want to ask one of the data point if you happen to have it so, you're one of the problems we always have with mobile as is conversion rates lower right so that's what we've been talking about but another typical problem with mobile is, people tend to use mobile to buy fewer items per cart so you know the average order items per cart you know is a lot closer to 1 on a mobile device than it is on a desktop so I'd be curious when using these like nice bikes in Mobile / holiday. Are you tracking the items per order and are you seeing that Spike up as well. Scot & Rob: [34:48] So we track it I don't work all of that data is, and the next episode or we can sweat it out at some point right let's do that because that stuff ice we definitely track it and we know what it is generally but I don't know what it is comparatively for this time of year between mobile, shopping cart so let's let's get that with W nice cheese or let's get that out today. Jason: [35:10] Perfect. [35:12] If I do surgery with you like I tend to think that there's kind of a systemic thing that's improving about mobile that hopefully makes for a permanent change in Mobile Gap and then there is a. Kind of tertiary thing that improves mobile around holiday right like to this system a thing to me I totally agree with you it's improving the checkout experience and reducing friction in the checkout experience. And integrated payments is the easiest way to do that there also are just. [35:41] Better best practices in user experience there's things like using you know the Google Maps API or someone's Alice's API to enter. [35:50] Addresses with waywest clicks then the traditional Fifield thing the the Apple pay. [35:59] Those things are interesting but for example this year Google launched this thing called the payment request API. Which is a 8 method built into their browsers in their mobile browsers that makes it way easier to store payment information on your phone. Once and auto and security auto fill all those forms from from every retailer that supports it and so once retailers start supporting that that pin request API. Check out becomes much lower friction there and we're starting to see see some pretty significant deployment so I think they're a bunch of things working in favor of. Reducing checkout friction and I I suspected hope that that's going to. Eagle a permanent reduction in the mobile Gap and that's super important to me because Scott and I actually had a debate about whether that mobile Gap was going to go away or not last year and I think I said it was so if it doesn't I'm going to I'm going to lose that fat. Scot & Rob: [37:00] What happens when it goes away. What are you talking about well I guess you got plenty of topics. Jason: [37:04] Yeah yeah I mean by quick weave shortage of topics has never been Scott and eyes problems. [37:12] The but the other thing that I do think just works in Mobile favor over holiday is what I'll call buying intent right that. [37:22] There's a lot of reasons a consumer would go to a Retailer's website. [37:26] So you know I used to use the phone book to get the phone number and find out if there's a product in stock. [37:33] Today I'll go to the website and look up online whether the product in stock before I drive to the store. I used to use the newspaper circular to see if the store has a sale today I'll go to the website and look and see if they're having a sale. I used to use the Yellow Pages to see where the store nearest me was today I'll go to the store locator on the site to see where that the store was all all so they're all these. [37:56] Visits that happened to a retailer site where no one ever intended to buy anything they intended to get information off and that they're going to use to visit a store. [38:07] And so all of those things are actually happy things that you unscrewed that consumers are doing but they have the unintended consequence of making conversion rate look lower. [38:16] Inside out during holiday when a higher percentage of the overall traffic are coming to the site with the specific intent to buy something. [38:26] That that affects gets diluted and so I think it's. It it's just a natural thing that as traffic goes up on these on these days when people are mostly trying to buy online. That we're going to see the mobile Gap near a little bit but I do also think that the the the longer-term happier reason is. It is just getting easier and easier to, to check out and send Chopper stuff into your point as artificial intelligence gets better so the right product show up in front of you quicker and as we know it. Things like boys interfaces that are easier and faster than, typing you know complicated searches and a search engine that I got that just all going to work in mobiles paper. Scot & Rob: [39:09] For sure I'd like to find you some we actually track that throughout the year and that's a that's a nice leading indicator as to what consumers are thinking so I'd like that like that apply to the mobile in Holiday. [39:22] Any talk about some of the key days hear anything else on mobile that that you want to. [39:32] Again I think the key piece of it is it's it's helping to a bit smooth out the the demand because the consumers have that access and control in Tazewell. Reference before that transparency and and it's in it showed. As as consumers just continue to go to that as their mechanism to connect with the retailers. [39:57] About a Multi-Device because you guys are running, go towards the side against after you logged in effectively but anything anything interesting their arguments people I say as well people are on their phone and they're doing research and they throw something in the cart and then they go to the desktop and check out now, I've never been a big believer of that but haven't had enough data to either agree or dispute. [40:23] Yeah for sure I mean that is happening and we're seeing the data because we're able to give an arm. Persistent cart were able to see that consumer through most of the digital if not all of the digital Journey right and we are seeing fact that there are multiple digital touch points before. The buy button which is of course just driving retailers absolutely Baddie because most of them can't attribute know where the demand is coming from and where else only they're buying and kind of needing it all together but we're finding that. For sure to be the case and that we're seeing it even, more so during the holiday time when if you can believe it or not, consumers are even more time starved and distracted so they are starting their shopping journey in one stage for One Touch point and then. Consummating in another so yeah that's it that's a big Dynamic that's happening and also they're using in many cases the, you know the shopping cart if you will as a registry or a wish list and allowing them to also do a lot of research for not only, gifting to others but self-gifting is well will self-gifting on, the start digging into so many ski days and you hit on some of them is as we, been going over the broader topics but what was pick November kind of first which is I guess the kickoff there through Thanksgiving but not including Thanksgiving. [41:54] Anything have you guys been watching that. And as I feel like it is accelerated compared to last year a lot of retailers are kind of now calling it you know a month of black Friday's and they're trying to get consumers to ACT earlier or any anything by that kind of. Early holiday. Talk about. [42:11] Yeah for sure I mean it goes back to this game of discount chicken and it's not only between the retailer and a consumer it but it's between or among all. The retailers and there were some that just went out of the gate really strong right on November 1st and if retailers didn't. Already planned for that we saw that there were several that actually scramble to to make it happen but. Are TV shows that wow the discounts continue to. He brought forward the consumer is still in control and it might have helped with. Brand recognition and certainly to get a jump on the preference of the shop where and when but. Only 35% and I say only cuz it still needs a lot of Runway will occur of digital shopping by. [43:09] This month is not Monday what we also stopped by the way just to kind of give you a broader sense of When shopping will be complete we anticipate we, predict that 50% of the digital shopping will be complete by December 3rd so that's right up on us and then 80% by December 15th right again right around. [43:28] That what I would say nautical shipping windoware. People even though they might be promise to get the product in a certain amount of time or it's starting to get a little worried about that but that's my long way of saying yeah we're definitely tracking this the discount keys. [43:45] And other promotional activities what we started to see to I don't know if it was purposely plan for. This time of year or not but more more subscriptions. That are being launched a subscription Services right so stance as an example just launching their there. [44:09] Their subscription for socks or Fruit of the Loom so I wonder if that has a little to do with hey this is an interesting gift to get this time of year that last throughout the entire year. Jason: [44:21] That is totally interested I haven't noticed that transfer I will redouble my Maya observations and follow that, as we move from that kind of pre pre Thanksgiving. And start looking at it's a big 5 days what what are you guys seeing in terms of Thanksgiving Black Friday, that the weekend and then Cyber Monday. Scot & Rob: [44:43] Yeah absolutely yes sir we saw just actually across the seven days to. Throw it out there we saw a 26% / All Digital growth and we saw. Really high spike in Black Friday and it actually based on our data was the biggest digital shopping day. Of the holiday season but we also saw Thanksgiving being. Significant growth as well so people aren't again aren't waiting and so you know across the board we're seeing some really really nice growth as we anticipated because of the strong digital growth that we saw. In our shopping index in Q3 we anticipated it but it was really really interesting to see you again particularly on Black Friday. Jason: [45:36] Very interesting in just a clarification some vendors like see a subset of all the the. E-commerce traction transactions and they they use a statistical model to try to extrapolate that and say. And here's you know here's what we think happened in a hundred percent of the industry in your case. I think you're being a little more straightforward right like when you say 26% grilled you're talking about like all the Salesforce Cloud customers I sent you a saw 26% growth in so that that may or may not perfectly mirror the entire. E-commerce industry or the entire internet 500 or something like that do I do I have that right or are you trying to do a. Scot & Rob: [46:19] That is. [46:21] That is totally fair and so we do have a great cross-section of retailers and branded manufacturers of every size, but that is in fact the case we do not apply Cisco model on top of we have here we just used the R3000 sites across 53 countries as as the sample set, and that's another important the 6th and I think is ours is global we can and do subsequently slice it by. Size and by geography and by segments phenotype. A retailer but in this case we are providing Global numbers across all of the segments. Awesome so we're running up against time and appreciate you recording this in the evening preciate you taking time out of your end of your busy day here I was going to get out of holiday mode towards the end here and, you've already been super helpful with some of the voice Commerce stuff that we left talk about in an AI, any interesting non-holiday trends that that you can share as you look kind of towards the next year or even three to five years out. [47:33] Yeah you don't want friend where fracking really closely and it's I would say in the context of AI is. Actually putting the consumer or. The consumer data back in the consumer experience near a hypothesis is that we've been talking about putting the customer incentive everything you do for the last 10 15 20 years I remember. Writing reports on it as an analyst but with. The increasing importance of AI there's increasing importance on actually figuring out how to better manage and. Operationalize your consumer data physically because it's just scattered in many cases all across the difference operational systems and so, really interesting Theory Focus over the next 12 months on the data which isn't that, sexy honestly but it's something we need to do so we think there's going to be a lot of investment there were looking at that closely from the my team and a research perspective and what that's going to look like. [48:37] We also you know given. [48:41] Now part of Salesforce for the last year-and-a-half certainly looking at what does a platform look like. That helps manage the journey from all the way up the final at you know as you know, Discovery research coming through Commerce and fulfillment and service and advocacy and that's what's really getting us excited as you know with the densities coming together. Salesforce applying artificial intelligence to it we think there's this great value to be had by by retailers Brands to and rethink their front end systems, animal holistic of unified way. Jason: [49:30] I do think that's an interesting opportunity I actually think there's two Trends are somewhat related in that like one of the problems we had start they have a data is that there's a ton of of. Data within an Enterprise but it's all trapped into these you know the spirit silos so there's like. The personalization engine on top of your eCommerce engine that knows something in your analytics for e-commerce know something else and your customer service guys know something else and you know that to that consumer that doesn't look at those two separate Services they're like. Man I sure did all this information about myself and they should go to use that to have way more relevant interactions with me and reduced you know a lot of friction and they shouldn't be asking me all these questions they already know about me. But for the retailer to solve those. They got to break down all those silos and integrate all that that data so I actually think the leveraging AI to get better experiences and kind of you know. Doing a better job of integrating all of your systems are are closely related. Scot & Rob: [50:32] Yeah for sure no I think you articulated that really well if they all kind of playoff each other I guess the other point to is what can send you to see, your Brand's going Direct on and become even more vertically integrated in retailers, certainly going back for this life-changing and creating unique differentiated through products and services and so forth but you know really where you'll become interesting is. How Brands and retailers as a reference before moves Beyond just their property which is, really uncomfortable for many of these organizations because since the beginning of time it was about pulling the consumer to their property and owning them and not sharing them and now needs to be more of, pushing their brands where the consumers are and that might be in various Partners or third parties that you know, that's where the demand is being created so be asking to see I'm more of whatever you call it distributed Commerce or conversational Commerce property, Daiquiris retailers outside your comfort zone from a technical perspective much as you know operational perspective as well to go where the consumers are. Jason: [51:53] I totally agree and in fact I'll even give a little Club to your architecture that's sort of beneficial for all those those things. [52:03] The challenges you know that all of these new opportunities are launched it's hard to know which ones are going to be huge successes and which ones are are just kind of. [52:14] Buzzy and there's potentially a significant amount of effort to implement the technology to try these things so Pinterest launches shoppable pins. Hey is that going to be a huge thing or is that a novelty Apple pay makes itself available through a web browser is that you know the most important thing I could do my inside or not and if you're. [52:36] If you're a site with a non-friend Connor solution that you sort of own. And you got a bunch of developers that have to implement each of these things you have to make big strategic bets about which ones you're going to chase and which ones you're going to try to be a fast or follower on. But when one of the awesome things about your cloud-based solution is. [52:59] You guys tend to do those implementations and then you know the customers wake up to the new version of the platform and it and just all of those those things are available and often like super easy and low friction to turn on and try. And you know I do think. That your your customers you know tend to be in a better position to implement and try some some of those new features and learn which ones are going to work and which ones aren't much quicker then. Then maybe some of the the more Legacy on-prem Solutions. Scot & Rob: [53:32] Yeah well I appreciate that and certainly the consumers are moving really quickly in, stating the terms to a large degree and so yeah I mean gone are the days of 12 months implementations to get a mobile site up or even you know a month to get Apple pay going it's Let's test the stuff if it works awesome, it doesn't let's move on but let's not invest too much time and energy and put too much risk on the business oh yeah I'm in the cloud model continual innovation. Certainly agility we're seeing our customers take advantage that weather we're putting. The innovation in the platform of their innovating but themselves or third-party say I appreciate it specially coming from you the recognition of that and you know Cloud certainly as a key enabler. Jason: [54:20] Well Rob that's why she can be a great place to leave it because it does happen again, we have burn through our a lot of time but definitely one thank you for taking time out during what I know is a super busy season for you and sharing what the Salesforce. Scot & Rob: [54:38] Thanks so much helmets absolute pleasure and happy holidays to everybody thanks Rob. Jason: [54:43] Until next time happy commercing.

Stephan Schambach ist einer der erfolgreichsten Seriengründer seit Beginn der digitalen Zeitrechnung. Angefangen mit Intershop in Jena, über den 2,8 Mrd. Dollar Exit von Demandware an Salesforce bis hin zur spannenden Neugründung Newstore in Boston/Berlin hat er eine Menge Shopsysteme gesehen und gegründet. Warum er daran glaubt, dass Newstore die richtige Lösung für viele stationär geprägte Marken ist, und weshalb man lieber in den USA oder China gründen sollte, erklärt er im Interview. Viel mehr spannende Infos über E-Commerce & Digitale Transformation gibt es in meinem Buch: http://goo.gl/w6n4AS Noch mehr Interviews & Insights gibt es auch bei Kassenzone.de: http://goo.gl/XS0iT9 Hier geht es zum Podcast Sponsor Condardis: http://goo.gl/wbqqLL

Stephen Millard joined in January 2016 to lead Notion’s platform strategy. Stephen joined from Eccomplished, a retail tech advisory and strategic partner to Notion Capital. As CEO and Founder, he worked exclusively within the early stage retail technology sector, developing investment and growth strategies for companies including Amplience, Aurora Commerce, Brightpearl, Demandware, Detego, eCommera, Intelligent Reach and RichRelevance. He was previously Oracle European Marketing Director and MessageLabs Global Marketing VP.​

John Somorjai is Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and head of Salesforce Ventures. Salesforce has over 3,000 partners and 150+ enterprise cloud and SaaS companies in their current investment portfolio. They’ve also had 30+ exits and five IPOs (on top of the 150!) You can look up more about Salesforce, its acquisitions, and investments at Salesforce.com. They’re @Salesforce on twitter, but also have various other handles including @SalesforceVC, and @MarketingCloud. But you can find John at @jsomorjai on twitter. He’s extremely smart and definitely worth a follow, so give him a shout. One of the things we didn’t get to discuss in this interview is that Somorjai has his JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley. I think that’s interesting context for how he got to where he is at Salesforce and how he might think in evaluating startup companies for potential investment. He was a senior director of corporate development at Oracle for almost 5 years before taking on a VP of Business Development role at Ingenio, a high growth company that was eventually acquired by AT&T. Somorjai then joined forces with Marc Benioff at Salesforce, and since 2005, John has led the evaluation, deal execution and integration for all mergers and acquisitions, and investments at Salesforce. His team has helped bring the company into insane growth areas through acquisitions including Demandware, Exact Target, Radian6, Buddy Media, Heroku, the list goes on and on…. Here’s what we discuss in this episode with John Somorjai EVP at Salesforce and Salesforce Ventures: 1.) How John progressed through his career to eventually lead investments with Salesforce Ventures 2.) How Salesforce investment has helped nurture growth in the ecosystem of enterprise cloud 
companies. 
 3.) Lessons from Salesforce’s expansion into European markets, and how the set themselves apart from 
other Corporate VCs 4.) Why Salesforce embraces corporate philanthropy and the 1/1/1 model 
 5.) Key strategies Corporate VCs for potential investment and maximizing the opportunities they offer 6.) What makes an attractive investment for a Corporate VC Download show notes and transcripts at www.powderkeg.co This episode of Powder Keg is brought to you by DeveloperTown. If you’re a business leader trying to turn a great idea into a product with traction, this is for you. DeveloperTown works with clients ranging from entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 companies who want to build and launch an app or digital product. They’re able to take the process they use with early stage companies to help big companies move like a startup. So if you have an idea for a web or mobile app, or need help identifying the great ideas within your company, go to developertown.com/powderkeg. Thanks again to everyone who has shared an episode of Powderkeg, subscribed to us on iTunes, or left us a review. It’s the only way we’re going to spread this message and reach new people and we could do it without you. We’re coming out with new episodes every Tuesday, so make sure you subscribe on iTunes or at powederkeg.co/itunes

EP058 - Puma VP of E-commerce, Chris Hardisty Chris Hardisty is the VP of E-Commerce for Puma.  We spoke with Chris about the history of Puma, the challenges of being a sales Chanel and the Brand Ambassador, Amazon, Demandware, and their state of the art fulfillment center leveraging the Autostore picking system. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 58 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday November 3, 2016. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

Using Uber for business travel, LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration with Microsoft's top competitors, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce closes DemandWare deal, Chat popups and exit intent popups. Steve's company's site | Sam's company's site

Show Notes Phillip gets grumpy (as per usual) about code shaming and how it harms Magento newcomers, and more broadly the industry itself. Demandware is acquired by Salesforce. Hosts Phillip Jackson – @philwinkle Kalen Jordan...

SugarCon 2016, Microsoft buys LinkedIn & what Facebook should do, Salesforce buys DemandWare, Klipfolio. Recorded at the beautiful Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards in Sonoma, California. Many thanks to Jason for his excellent service and great insights into sparkling wine. Steve's company's site | Sam's company's site 

On this week's show, we’ll cover Salesforce's acquisition  of ecommerce software vendor Demandware. Then we'll discuss the Idea Exchange turning 10. And finally, consuming information in the information age - all the news that's fit to click.   LINKS and ENDORSEMENTS Salesforce acquires Demandware- http://investors.demandware.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=247632&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2173848   The IdeaExchange turns 10- https://admin.salesforce.com/ideas-welcome-ideaexchange-turns-10   Trader Joe's Sales Especial- http://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=1A229E02-639C-11E0-A55F-1231380C180E   TV: Houdini and Doyle- http://www.fox.com/houdinianddoyle    Rain Barrels- https://www.pwd.org/rain-barrels   

Michael Skok (ex-North Bridge Venture Partners) and John Pearce (former CEO of Demandware)join me to talk about their new firm, _Underscore.VC https://underscore.vc/about Follow Underscore: twitter.com/underscoreVC Follow Tech In Boston: twitter.com/techinboston

EP030 - Mary Meeker, Comscore, Demandware and Amazon News Scot & Jason will both be at the IRCE trade show in Chicago this week.  Scot will be leading a pre-conference workshop on Amazon, entitled "Amazon & Me" on Tuesday.  Jason will be in the Razorfish booth #548, Scot will be in the ChannelAdvisor both #803 on Wednesday morning.  Razorfish is hosting a cocktail party Wednesday night June 8th, from 9pm - 12pm at the rooftop LondonHouse on the Chicago river, please pre-register here if you'd like to join us. Mary Meeker gave her annual "Internet Trends" presentation at the recode conference this week. Comscore gave there "State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy in Q1 2016" presentation. Jeff Bezos gave an interview at the code conference. Amazon is also dominating Mobile E-commerce per an article in Business Insider. Salesforce.com bought Demandware for $2.8B. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 30 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, June 2nd, 2016. http://retailgeek.com/podcast Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

In this episode, we discuss asking questions on support forums, Google winning copyright lawsuit filed by Oracle, speculations on how Salesforce.com could utilize AWS, The Information's 2016 rankings of tech events to attend, social media struggling with social commerce, and Salesforce.com's acquisition of Demandware.Stinking BadgesJoomla ForumGoogle Beats Oracle on Copyright, Defeating $9 Billion ClaimMost Valuable Tech Events of 2016Social Commerce Struggles To Drive SalesSalesforce Will Acquire Demandware For $2.8 Billion In Move Into Digital CommerceSalesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Demandware

At GTEC's ninth Open Lecture, German internet billionaire and Demandware founder Stephan Schambach tells his story of how he went from being denied higher education in the fading days of the GDR to building two public companies spanning both sides of the Atlantic.

Episode 3 - The Holiday Edition covers: Comscore State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy Q3 w/ Holiday Forecast Channel Advisor Same Store Sales, 3rd week of November results Adobe Holiday Forecast Other Holiday Benchmarks IBM, Google, Deloitte, Forrester, Custora, Demandware, Monetate Amazon NY times article sales the long game is working, as retail turns profitable Will Amazon becoming a shipping company? News Forrester Analyst Peter Sheldon joins Magento Walgreens Digital Head Sona Chawla joins Kohls Dollar Share Club raises a new round Jet.com raises a new round Links:   Visit http://retailgeek.com/podcast for a complete list of links. Hosts: Scot Wingo, Founder & Executive Chairman Channel Advisor / @ScotWingo Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at Razorfish / @retailgeek

Minter Dialogue Episode #149 — This interview is with Maya Mikhailov, CMO and co-founder of GP Shopper, a mobile integrated platform for retailers and brands. Based out of NY and Chicago, GP Shopper works with companies such as Best Buy, Estee Lauder, Ulta and Nikon. Maya has twice been named “Guru of Mobile” by the DMA and is leading the charge with GP Shopper in helping retailers and brands to interact with the mobile connected customer. In this podcast, we talk about how retailers are approaching the single customer view, how and where retailers are creating value for customers, as well as other topics such as metrics, attribution and creating trust through the mobile. Meanwhile, you can comment and find the show notes on myndset.com where you can also sign up for my weekly newsletter. Or you can follow me on Twitter on @mdial. And, if you liked the podcast, please take a moment of your precious time to go over to iTunes to rate the podcast.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/minterdial)

Der Börsenprospekt von Shopify ist ein guter Anlass, um über das Segment der SaaS-Shopsysteme zu sprechen. Jochen Krisch und Marcel Weiß stellen in den neuesten Exchanges Shopify und Demandware gegenüber und debattieren unter anderem die oft übersehene Nähe zwischen Shopsystemen à la Shopify und Marktplätzen à la Etsy. Links zu den Themen:

Stephan Schambach, CEO of Demandware, provides a host of helpful tips to improve a customer’s experience at your website in a recent interview with Practical Ecommerces Mitch Bettis. Schambach also provides a distinctive opinion of shopping cart abandonment rates, and he discusses the reasons he thinks shoppers leave a site. He also discusses the differences in online shoppers compared to those who shop in a brick-and-mortar store and notes how quickly an ecommerce business can unravel if his software isn’t successfully integrated and helpful to customers.