Podcasts about ebags

Show Highlights:Here are timestamped key points from the podcast conversation:00:04:12 - Favorite AI Tool: Claude00:05:34 - Best Automation: Generative coding, creates applications 17x faster00:07:01 - Favorite Prompts: Ideas for creative marketing campaigns00:09:22 - Resource to Learn AI: Iterate.ai platform and training00:12:01 - AI Marketing Challenges: Adoption and integration00:14:44 - AI Marketing Solutions: Start small, focus on mindset00:16:29 - Future of AI: Rapid acceleration across industries00:19:11 - Advice for Aspiring AI Marketers: Mix marketing and tech skills About Jon Nordmark: Jon Nordmark is co-founder and CEO of Iterate.ai, a low code enterprise AI company with brands like ULTA Beauty, Circle K, and Maaco among its client list.Prior to Iterate.ai, Jon spent a decade as the CEO of eBags.com, guiding it to over $100 million in annual revenues and the ultimate sale to Samsonite. eBags was known for groundbreaking innovations in the retail and direct-to-consumer sectors, setting trends like dropshipping from third-party warehouses, negative cash conversion cycles, and A/B split testing.At Iterate.ai, Jon is rapidly innovating in the AI space with Iterate.ai, powering low code software for large enterprises. Links: www.iterate.aiJon on Linked In

Italy, a mesmerizing country nestled in southern Europe, boasts a rich tapestry of history, culture, and natural beauty that has captivated the world for centuries. Italy is a land of diverse landscapes, from the snow-capped peaks of the Alps in the north to the sun-drenched coasts of the Mediterranean in the south. Renowned for its exquisite cuisine, Italy tantalizes the taste buds with its pasta, pizza, and fine wines. Italy's warm hospitality, passionate people, and timeless allure make it a must-visit destination for travelers seeking a blend of history, art, and natural splendor. So grab your passport, pack a bag and let's journey across the Atlantic to Italy. Some links are affiliate links. See our disclosure. 1. Milan Historic Milan Tour with Skip-the-line Last Supper Ticket We recommend that you stay in Bergamo and spend at least a day there. 2. Cinque Terre Tours to Cinque Terre from the port city of Livorno (if you are on a cruise) 3. Tuscany Tour to Tuscany from Livorno - Wine Tasting & Tuscany Coutryside, San Gimignano & Volterra 4. Rome Walk on the Appian Way Visit the Catacombs Keyhole of the Knights of Malta Trevi Fountain & Spanish Steps (go early in the morning for less crowds) Book a Tour for the Collosseum & Roman Forum - we recommend the Underground One Vatican Early Morning Tour to be one of the first ones in the Sistine Chapel to avoid the crowds Check out the Rome by Golf Cart Tours 5. Pompeii Rick Steves Pompeii Self Guided Audio Tour (all tours in Italy link - Pompeii is at the bottom) Tours of Pompeii 6. Amalfi Coast We hired a driver to take us to the Amalfi Coast from Naples for the day. You can also take the day trip from Sorrento, which is where we would stay and what we would do if we did it again. We would also recommend a Amalfi Coast tour by boat. We would do this next time. 7. Torre Pellice (near Turin) Our recommendation is to find a smaller town (like Torre Pellice) in Italy and stay in a guesthouse or a room in someone's home and spend some time getting to know a family and more about the local culture. You may be able to eat meals in their home or at least find out their favorite local places. What's on our Italy Bucket List: The Dolomites, Venice, Florence, Sicily, Lake Garda & Lake Como, Capri, Sardina, an extended in Tuscany, & spend a few days and nights in Cinque Terre Packing Tips for Italy: Take your camera, Good Walking Shoes for the Cobblestone Streets, Be sure to cover shoulders and knees for going into churches, swimsuit for swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, pack light and use one of our favorite Ebags backpacks (see all our favorite travel things) Read more about this and other travel destinations on our BLOG Follow our travels on Facebook Follow our travels on Instagram here and here Save our travel ideas on Pinterest See our travel videos on You Tube Music Credit Music by OYStudio from Pixabay

Sun, salty air, and delicious foods and wonderful hospitality. Today we are traveling to Greece, but we're going to take you a little off the beaten path as we discover some of our favorite islands you may have never heard of before. We'll travel on planes and ferry boats as we explore places to stay, magnificent food, and gorgeous waters that are calling your name. So pack your swimsuit and maybe a couple of outfits and let's get started on an adventure you will never forget. When people think of Greece, they imagine the Parthenon, the Acropolis or maybe one of the cruise port Islands such as Mykonos or Santorini. Today we want to take you deeper into Greece and explore a few minor islands that are part of the Greek Cyclades in the Aegean sea. Our journey starts on the popular Island of Santorini and we talk to our friend Suzanne who booked an unusual experience and got to see parts of Santorini most tourists don't. We will also tell you where we recommend you stay near Oia that's a bit more hidden. Then we will go further off the beaten path as we island hop over to Milos, Sifnos, Paros, and Antiparos. We'll talk about where we stayed, what we did, and the delicious food we ate. So let's get started. Some links are affiliate links. See our disclosure. See options to book the Santorini Flying Dress experience Suzanne talks about. On Santorini we stayed at Gemini Caves and had a fantastic experience with our host. They took care of our luggage and every need. It is not overlooking the caldera but had a small private pool and you could see the water from it. It was much cheaper to stay off the beaten path here. Other options nearby. We booked all our accommodations in Greece using Booking.com to keep them all in one place. We generally like the cancellation policy and that you usually pay at the property. We used the Sea Sickness Bands but recently Scott purchased a Relief Band and loves it so far. MILOS: See our Milos Blog Post Here for where we stayed, & the beaches we recommend you visit SIFNOS: Klados Studios & Apartments in Cherronisos but we would recommend staying in Apollonia, Kastro or Faros. PAROS: Tarsa Studios and Apartments. Other places to stay in Drios. Other places to stay on Paros. Tips for Greece: Have a Travel Visa card that does not have foreign transaction fees. We found that Amex was not widely accepted. Also have a way easily and regularly get cash out (alert your bank of your travel plans as well). Here is the travel credit card we are loving right now. Plan to rent a car and book ahead of time. Don't overpack (hear our tips here) and we definitely recommend a good travel backpack. We love the Ebags and took it on this trip. Read more about this and other travel destinations on our BLOG Follow our travels on Facebook Follow our travels on Instagram here and here Save our travel ideas on Pinterest See our travel videos on You Tube Music Credit Music by OYStudio from Pixabay

Jon Nordmark founded eBags.com in 1998 as one of the first Internet e-commerce companies and grew it into the largest online retailer of luggage, bags, and travel accessories. Jon was previously a successful corporate executive who led marketing for Samsonite. eBags raised $30 million of VC funding in 1999 and survived the dot-com boom and the 2001 bust era, but the crazy growth expectations of VC investors often felt misaligned with the profitable growth path of the company and the market. eBags was eventually acquired by Samsonite in 2017 after selling $1.65 billion worth of products. Jon's second software company is Iterate.ai, a low-code enterprise innovation platform allowing big companies to integrate, test and scale new technologies quickly and efficiently. The company was initially funded by services revenue and then by software sales. Jon eventually raised $3 million in angel funding and a strategic investment from a large customer. Iterate.ai has grown to over $10 million in revenue with no salesperson and an $82,000 marketing budget. It is now profitable, with no plan to raise outside funding from big VC or PE investors. This company overcame the recent challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and emerged stronger. In this episode, Jon explains: How he started and grew eBags.com into one of the largest and the only profitable online retailers in the early 2000s The brutally frustrating challenges he faced after raising big VC funding when the company was growing but didn't meet investors' extreme expectations How he kept returning as CEO of eBags after retiring, then eventually sold the company Why he is staying away from big VC funding with his second company, Iterate.ai How they approached a strategic investment from their largest customer Why it took them 7 years to get to real, scalable product-market fit Learn more at practicalfounders.com.

This week on The Exit: Jon Nordmark was working at Samsonite in the 90s, for eight years Jon learnt about the bag business from the ground up and managed 21 different marketing and distribution channels. When the internet popped up, he was excited to talk to the CEO about this new distribution channel. But the CEO didn't see the potential of selling bags online, so Jon quit to start eBags. Early on, eBags were focused on conversion, going from $13 to acquire $1 in revenue, to a low of 12c to acquire $1 in revenue in the first year. eBags had a number of acquisition offers but investors weren't happy with the early offers. Seven years after their first offer, they finally exited to Jon's previous employer, Samsonite. At the time of exit the business was generating $165MM in revenue with just 120 employees. Listen to find out about the challenges of working towards an exit for 7 years and why they should have taken the first offer to exit. Jon Nordmark is the Co-founder and CEO of Iterate.ai (2013-now), and was the Co-founder and CEO of eBags. After selling 29 million bags (worth $1.6 billion), eBags was acquired by Samsonite in 2017. Iterate.ai's goal is to speed up Digital Transformation in a modern way, while 90% of Iterate's revenue comes from their patented drag-n-drop, low-code AI app platform called Interplay. Website - https://www.iterate.ai/ Twitter @Jon_Nordmark - https://twitter.com/Jon_Nordmark LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nordmark/ -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You'll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week, Randall connects with Anne-Marije Rook, North American Editor at Cycling Weekly with an exploration of how she got into cycling and from there into cycling journalism, with fun tangents into competitive cycling, exploding e-bikes, and a bit of gear nerdy. Episdoe Sponsor: Athletic Greens  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the broadcast, I'm handing the microphone off over to my co-host Randall Jacobs. Who's got an Mariah Rook on the broadcast. She's the north American editor at cycling weekly randall will take us on an exploration on how she got into cycling. And from there into cycling journalism, with fun tangents, into competitive cycling. Exploring e-bikes and a bit of the gear nerdery that Randall is famous for. Before we jump in and hand that microphone off to Randall. I do need to thank this week. Sponsor athletic greens. Athletic greens and AIG. One is a comprehensive daily nutrition made from simple, powerful ingredients. It's made up of 75 high quality, whole food sourced ingredients. Carefully curated to nourish all the body's systems holistically. As many of you know, I've been an athletic greens user for many, many years, predating the podcast. So I've been super stoked that athletic greens has been a big partner for what I do The key to ag one is that it replaces key health products in one simple scoop. AIG one combines nine health products working together as one, replacing your multivitamin. Multimineral. Pre and probiotics. Immunity support and more, that means ag one does more for your body and saves you time, money and confusion compared to taking multiple unique products. And that is a hundred percent key for me. I do one scoop in the morning, mixed up with a little bit of ice, and I feel like I've got some of my nutritional basis started before I've even begun the day. If you're interested in learning more about athletic greens, go to www.athleticgreens.com/the gravel ride. For podcast listeners, our friends at athletic greens have given us a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. If you ordered today. Simply visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride to get your age. The one on the way today. With that said i'm going to hand over the microphone to my co-host randall jacobs [00:02:35] Randall R. Jacobs: Let's talk about how you got into this particular field. How did you end up as a cycling journalist? [00:02:42] Anne-Marije Rook: Sure. Yeah. So I was actually, uh, a real journalist before, um, not that second journalist aren't real journalists, but, uh, I did a lot heavier topics, um, you know, worked at newspapers, just straight up outta college, became a newspaper journalist, and then, , uh, at some point, I think I was 22, I started racing bikes myself, and when I did, I, I was looking for content and I realized there wasn't a lot of women's seconding content coming out of the us. So I started kind of dabbling with that on the side. And, uh, then started riding for some different publications and eventually seconding tips reached out and were like, Let's do something. So we founded Ella Cycling Tips, which was the, the women's side of Cycling Tips. And then, um, yeah, just stayed in the field. I quit my day job and started doing cycling journalism while still racing, and I've been doing it ever since, going on 10, 11 years now. [00:03:39] Randall R. Jacobs: and was your educational background in writing in journalism specifically? [00:03:44] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I did, uh, journalism, German and French. So interestingly enough I get to use all of that nowadays [00:03:51] Randall R. Jacobs: Are you native in any of those other languages? [00:03:53] Anne-Marije Rook: In Dutch. So I was born and raised in the Nets, the, the biking country, and then, uh, lived in Germany for three years and then ended up in the US uh, when I was almost 16. [00:04:04] Randall R. Jacobs: That's quite a skill to have, and makes me think of a joke about Americans. What do you call someone who's speaks three languages trilingual, two languages bilingual and one language. We have US Americans. [00:04:13] Anne-Marije Rook: I think a lot of people actually do, you know, they dabble in Spanish and some other languages. I think, uh, you shouldn't sell yourself so short. [00:04:22] Randall R. Jacobs: True, maybe I'm projecting a little bit. In my personal case, I studied six years of Spanish in middle school and high school and was able to get by during a month stint in Peru. But, it didn't seem immediately relevant at the time. And so later on in life, I moved to China and learned Mandarin and actually being present and having to use it in day-to-day life just makes such a, a world of difference. And for I think a lot of people who are born in the us and who don't grow up in a household or another, the language is spoken, there's just not. That impetus versus in Europe you have surrounding countries where with different languages or maybe even within one's own country there are different dialects or different languages being spoken. [00:05:04] Anne-Marije Rook: That's really good though. So you're a trilingual. [00:05:06] Randall R. Jacobs: I wouldn't go as far as to say trilingual, other than in the sense of trying , a little bit of Spanish and enough, what I call cab driver Cantonese in order to be able to fool somebody that I speak some Cantonese before switching over to Mandarin. [00:05:21] Anne-Marije Rook: That's, I mean, that's pretty impressive. Those are really difficult languages. I never studied, uh, Cantonese from Mandarin. I, I studied Japanese and just having to learn a whole new way of, of writing, uh, is, is, yeah, it's difficult to do. [00:05:34] Randall R. Jacobs: that's probably the hardest part. I would say that , Mandarin the scripts for sure. It's a very abstracted pictographic script. To be able to read a newspaper, you need, two, 3000 different characters and to have a higher level of sophistication, you need 5,000, 10,000 characters. And, even a native speaker. , especially in this day and age, we'll have difficulty remembering how to write a character. Cuz everything is being tight. [00:06:00] Anne-Marije Rook: Hmm. [00:06:01] Randall R. Jacobs: But on the other hand the grammar is really simple. So in English we say, yesterday I went to the store and we have to go and we conjugate it as went, which actually comes from an entirely different language family than to go. and in Chinese you just say, ah, yesterday, go store. [00:06:20] Anne-Marije Rook: Ah, yeah. [00:06:21] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. English also has way more synonyms because it's such a hodgepodge amalgamation of other languages, whereas Chinese also has external influences, but it's arguably more insular versus English. You have Germanic, you have Latin, you have Greek, you have various forms of cockney and so on that are all in there and the occasional Chinese phrases, very little that comes over for Chinese. Uh, one example being longtime nok, which is a direct translation from the Chinese [00:06:50] Anne-Marije Rook: Really, that's fun. Here's the thing I I discover with my language skills or lack thereof, is that, um, learning all the bike parts, for example, I had, like, I never learned those in my native tongues. So like suddenly I had to learn like, oh shit, what's the railer or what's, what's the railer hanger in Dutch or in German or whatever. And it's been fun learning those terms for the first time, even though, yeah, I grew up with that. [00:07:19] Randall R. Jacobs: that's actually a common phenomenon and one that I definitely resonate in my own experience too. I have friends who were born in China, but largely grew up here or even who came over to go to college. And, they're native speakers. I'm not at that level but I will have terms that I know that they don't because I am in this highly technical context of the bike industry of manufacturing, materials and production processes and so on. Um, and so it's kind of the same, same sort of phenomenon. [00:07:50] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a fun thing where I was like, wow, I never learned any of these terms in those languages. Yeah, [00:07:55] Randall R. Jacobs: So you've been doing cycling journalism for, you said about 10, 11 years now. [00:08:00] Anne-Marije Rook: yeah, yeah. It's been a minute. [00:08:02] Randall R. Jacobs: I'm curious to hear more about the project at Cycling tips. How'd you get brought into that and, and how did that come about? [00:08:09] Anne-Marije Rook: So they, uh, I think they found me on Twitter. Uh, Twitter was really where. , um, women's cycling was, was living for quite a while cuz there was very little streaming and you can watch any of these races live, so you followed them online and Twitter had a really wonderful community of, of women's cycling fans and it still does to a certain extent, but yeah, that's where it used to. Live and I did a lot of, you know, uh, I would watch races and Life tweet and, you know, uh, was pretty active on, on Twitter and um, was writing for Podium Cafe, which is a nation site at the time, and they were looking to start a women's cycling component. Uh, and so they like reached out to various people and, you know, did a job interview and, you know, got going that way. [00:08:54] Randall R. Jacobs: And this was when? Who was there at the time? Kaylee and James and, [00:08:59] Anne-Marije Rook: No, this was before Kaylee. Um, this was, it was just, uh, Matt dif and, and Wade. [00:09:05] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh, okay. [00:09:06] Anne-Marije Rook: Um, Andy was there already, and then it was Jesse Braverman and myself who came on to do the women's cycling. [00:09:12] Randall R. Jacobs: Let's talk about women's cycling for a little bit. what are the areas in women's cycling that you find most interesting, most compelling, and that also you think that are maybe, under discussed underreported. [00:09:23] Anne-Marije Rook: Oh yeah. The nice thing about women's cycling is that it's been growing so much in the last 10 years or so, so that it's uh, people get to see it a bit more and I think what. , uh, intrigue me about women's second from the get-go is just how aggressive the racing is and how, um, while there was a definite period of like modern force dominating, and then we had and then we have anique. The nice thing about women's acting, I think is because it has grown so much is that you never really know who's gonna win. and it makes a racing very exciting. Cause it, it, like I said, it is so aggressive cuz the races are shorter, so you have fewer opportunities to make, you know, a break stick. So there tends to be more attacking and, uh, you, you don't really experience that unless you're watching it. I think the nice thing about. Where we are now, we can actually watch in the Tour de France Femme showed this, like watching women's cycling is actually very entertaining. And you know, in France alone, like millions of people tuned in every single day. So it is, it's different and I think that's, uh, something we should celebrate. rather than point out like, you know, women's cycling is, is men's cycling, but in shorter distances, and that's not at all true. I think women's cycling is a bit of its own sport in, in terms of tactics and the way the races play out. And, uh, in psycho cross especially, that's been very apparent. You know, people have shorter attention spans. So if you can sit down for a, you know, a 45, 50 minute bike race, you'll see basically what women's cycling is like on. On a heightened level, and it's extremely entertaining. You don't know who's gonna win. There's a lot of good candidates and, uh, it's, yeah, it's aggressive from the gun. [00:11:03] Randall R. Jacobs: At least in the us it seems that women's cyclocross racing was most prominent, most early. Mary McConnellogue is one example I remember from my racing days, I don't remember hearing as much reporting about women's road racing at the time. Maybe that was just what I was tuning into, but cyclocross. I remember getting similar billing to men's cyclocross [00:11:24] Anne-Marije Rook: yeah, I think the, the heyday of women's cycling really was the 1980s, early nineties. You know, we had the course classic and we had some, some really great names. Um, and. That has dwindled down. There were a lot of lack of races. Uh, we've had some great road racers in the US you know, with, with uh, Christian Armstrong and, uh, e Evelyn Stevens, and we've had some really Mara Abod and the Jro, like some really great road racers. You just don't hear about 'em as much . I do remember a particular race where I like looked to my right and it was like Kristen Armstrong and I looked to my left and it was Evelyn Stevens and I was like, ah. This is gonna suck today, It's gonna be a fast one. [00:12:04] Randall R. Jacobs: Let's talk about that, let's talk about you're racing background. So you mentioned that you got into cycling in your early twenties. How did that come about and what was that like for you? [00:12:13] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, so I've, uh, coming from the Netherlands, I've been a bike commuter since I was, I don't know, six. Uh, and so I just like grew up on the bike. It's just how I got around. And in college I just rode everywhere. And there were a couple times where people were like, Hey, you should maybe consider. Racing or, or doing like, you know, grand Fonds or something. And I was like, ah, this is just my vehicle. And then, uh, I moved to Seattle and did the Seattle, the Portland, which is uh, like a 220 mile bike ride between the two cities. And there were some teams that were doing it. And, uh, you know, again, people were like, have you considered racing? You're pretty strong. And I'd be like, no. I mean, it's kind of like, Hey, do you like driving? You should do nascar. You know, like it's, it was just such a foreign concept to me. Um, which is funny cuz I grew up in the Netherlands, but like, uh, and my grandpa was super into bike racing, but it wasn't, uh, ever like, exposed to me or con like, wasn't just like, oh, you like riding bikes, you should become a bike race. It just wasn't a thing. It wasn't really a, a sport I was exposed to, uh, in the northern part of the. . And so I was kind of intrigued and, and I had enjoyed training for the 200 mile event, so I, I went to the, the tryout, so to speak, and start racing and. as a Cat four. And I remember my first race weekend was a double header, so Saturday and Sunday and Saturday I, I think I got eighth and I got, I was like, oh, okay, this is cool. Top 10. And I was like, I wonder if I can get better. And the next day I got fifth. And, you know, that's, that's all it took for me to get super into it and trying to see where, where I could take it. And, uh, I think I was racing UCI like the next season. [00:13:54] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh wow. [00:13:55] Anne-Marije Rook: mostly, uh, or at first in cross and then, uh, road and track as well. But um, yeah, it's, it's an interesting place to be in, in, in the US in that you can be racing as a pro. And I use pro here very loosely because it's called pro level, but no one's actually getting paid to race their bikes. Like I would never consider myself a pro. Uh, I just raced in the UCI one, two levels and it's kind of weird that we throw it all. Um, when really, yeah, very few people are actually getting paid to, to race their bikes. [00:14:29] Randall R. Jacobs: I definitely fall on that boat as well. I think my best season, I didn't quite break even as a, as a Pac fodder Cross Country Pro. Mid pack was pretty good at the national level. And then you have a good regional results here and there. [00:14:42] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a good season for me, like, I loved crits, so that's where the money was at for me. You know, if I walked away with three grand at the end of the summer, I, I was pretty stoked. [00:14:51] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh, I never saw that. That sort of money and crits, crits always terrified me. There's a certain attitude that you have to have going into a crit, like a fearlessness that I, I dunno. Mountain biking always felt safer for me. [00:15:03] Anne-Marije Rook: It is, it is. And I, I quit racing after getting injured too many times. Like you can only hit your head so many times and, you know, if, if I list my, my laundry list of injuries, it's, it's definitely evident that, uh, yeah, quit racing is, is rather dangerous and asphalt is hard. And, you know, trees don't jump out on you. Where's Razor Smith? [00:15:23] Randall R. Jacobs: Yep. And pavement is like sandpaper when you're skidding across it in spandex. [00:15:27] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. There's not a lot of protection there. Um, but it was all, it was all good fun. And you know, I, I wish I'd gotten into it earlier in my life, but I had a, a lot of fun during my twenties and early thirties. [00:15:38] Randall R. Jacobs: what'd you love about it? [00:15:40] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, I liked the, the challenge of like the, the personal level, like how fit can I be? How strong can I get? Um, and then there's the direct correlation between what you put in that, that you get out, um, and then. Especially with crit racing. I liked, uh, the team tactics. I liked the aggressiveness. Like I was definitely that area that went like super hard on the front, on the first lap, just trying to get as many people off the back and then like would go for pre after, pre, pre and then in the last two laps found that I had no legs left and someone else had to finish it up. But, um, Yeah, I, I like the aggressiveness. I liked, I, I'm really a team sports person, and I think road racing, uh, doesn't get enough credit for the team sport that it is. And I think, like, personally, not to get on like a, a whole nother side spiel, but in, in [00:16:27] Randall R. Jacobs: No, let's do it. Let's do it. Go there. [00:16:29] Anne-Marije Rook: In Olympic racing, like why does only one person get a gold medal? Like in soccer? The whole team gets a gold medal. And I think, uh, you know, road racing especially is such a steam sport that everyone should be getting a medal. It's only, you know, six or seven medals versus 11. So, [00:16:47] Randall R. Jacobs: I mean, that's one of the, that's one of the things that's nice about the grand tours. There's lots of ways to win. There's the points, there's the stages, there's the gc, there's the most aggressive rider, so something more subjective. there's all these different ways in which to be acknowledged, but I'm definitely with you. It would quite a feat to show up at an Olympic level road race. Solo and [00:17:09] Anne-Marije Rook: went away. Yeah. [00:17:11] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Yeah. No one to defend you, no one to pull you up. You'd have to be very, very lucky. And also be doing a lot of riding on people's wheels the entire time [00:17:20] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. And I think as a racer I enjoyed that. You know, I enjoyed the team aspect. I enjoyed the, the collective effort it took to, to win the race. Sure, one person was the first across the line, but it took all of us to, to get that person there. And like, there's, to me as a, as a racer, there's a few things as as beautiful as, as a well executed, uh, lead out at the end of the race. You know, like where everyone has a role every. You know, executes it perfectly, like a little team train. Like the, those things don't happen very often on the, on the non, you know, world tour level. And it, it's really, it, it feels amazing as a, as a racer to be part of that. [00:17:56] Randall R. Jacobs: I've had limited crit racing experience and you note about the intensity of it. There are a few things more intense because not only do you have the, the digging really deep, not just at the end, but every single time a gap opens up or every ti single time there's a break and it's such a short, tight circuit, and a short duration of an event that you really can't let anything open up. And people can sustain a lot more over 30 minutes to an hour than they can over the course of a four hour road race or a long gravel race . And there are curbs and there are other people and there are bottles and there are people taking shady lines. And that person who just passed you is on a trajectory where there's no way they're gonna be able to come around the corner without hitting the outside curb on the other side. Especially at the early levels like cat four or cat three, where you have strong riders coming over from other disciplines. and just don't have the chops. [00:18:50] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I did a, I did a, a number of, of races in, in the men's field just to get more, uh, racing my legs. And, you know, the, the groups tend to be bigger but also very varied. You know, I'd be running around the course with like 80 dudes and maybe two women in there and be like, terrified of, of the experience. And at the same time, like that, getting that chariot effect, like having that many people around you, you're kind of just like, Kind of going with the flow and, and being dragged around the course, which was kind of fun too. But I think it's a pure adrenaline rush and I feel like I'm too old for that now. trying to hold those kind of efforts. My heart rate doesn't go up that high anymore. I mean, it used to go up pretty easily over 200 and I think now I'd be on the sidelines vomiting if I had 200, [00:19:33] Randall R. Jacobs: that's almost hummingbird level [00:19:36] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, yeah. You know, young and fit. . Yeah, I miss that. I think I miss being that fit. I do not miss having to put in the kind of effort to be that fit. [00:19:45] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and more recently you've been doing a lot with gravel. is most of your riding gravel at this point? [00:19:49] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. And I've always done gravel, like back when we just called it road bikes off road, you know, there wasn't any special gear just riding 20 threes over gravel and, uh, I've always liked gravel and adventuring. I've always liked being underbid. Um, so I've been doing gravel for a long time and I think, uh, I've definitely, since quitting, uh, racing, I've done mostly off-road. I think nowadays if I have like two hours to kill, I'll most definitely ride through the forest rather than go on a road ride. [00:20:19] Randall R. Jacobs: You're based currently in Portland [00:20:21] Anne-Marije Rook: portland, [00:20:22] Randall R. Jacobs: yeah. So you have fantastic outdoors right out your door in the Portland area and decent bike infrastructure as well, at least by, by our US standards. [00:20:31] Anne-Marije Rook: yeah. I mean, I chose, so I live in a, in a neighborhood called St. John's and I, I chose that specifically cause I go over across the bridge and I'm in the, in Forest Park, which is a, uh, a really big, and I think the long shill, there's 30 miles or so. So it's like, it's a, a really big forested area with gravel roads. Yeah, I'm, I'm there all the time. Uh, I also really got into mountain biking after I quit racing. So, you know, like all, all Mountain, uh, I used to do mostly XE and definitely been working on my skills and, uh, since quitting. Uh, just it's nice to be away from cars. I think the gist of that. [00:21:07] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, I think that, in addition to the exploratory element of it, is one of the things that led me to transition to primarily gravel riding . And I do think it's a major reason why gravel cycling has taken off in general. Not only are the bikes really versatile, so if you're only gonna have one bike while you can do all these different things, but then also I remember reading a. Some years ago a university study that was looking at the reasons, that people cite for not riding more. And safety is always number one by. I think that study was maybe eight or nine years ago, so in a few places the infrastructure has gotten a little bit better, but still not enough. And the attitudes of drivers. Have gotten better, but , still you get out of a certain zone of safety and you still have people angry at you for being on the road. [00:21:58] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I mean, like as a lifelong commuter, I, I've been hit quite a few times. I got hit twice during the pandemic alone, uh, while riding around town. And so, uh, It is the sa Yeah, I understand. The safety team. The thing a hundred percent, like you don't, uh, wanna take your life in your own hands when you're out riding. And, uh, it, it's, it's a big problem in the US that the infrastructure is still so lacking. And on one hand you're telling people to, you know, go get on your bike and be more sustainable and healthy. And at the same time, they're not offering a lot of, uh, insurances in terms of, you know, uh, infrastructure and whatnot to, to make that. [00:22:34] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Now I'm, I'm curious as a journalist, what have been some of the areas that you've found most interesting to report on or that, you know, you've been able to dive into as a consequence of having that credential? [00:22:46] Anne-Marije Rook: Hmm. Uh, I'm, I always love people. I, I, I like to know what makes them tick. You know, especially those people on, on like the, the very top end of the sport. Like what makes 'em tick? How, how are they able to do this? And at the same time, uh, this year, one of the things I've been really interested in is, um, ebi. in terms of like the, the regulations around, um, lit I and, uh, batteries and, and the, the fact that there's so many fires and then the legislation around it and wish there is none yet, but that's coming. And so, uh, looking into a bit more of where these bags are coming from and, and what it takes. To control these, these devices a bit more has been very interesting. And it's not something that gets a lot of rates or gets clicks and whatnot, but it's something I find very interesting cuz it'll have a lot of, uh, repercussions I think in, in the next couple years as to which eBags are on the market, which products you can and cannot buy. And, uh, hopefully the safety of it all. [00:23:50] Randall R. Jacobs: What are some of the things that you've uncovered in that exploration? [00:23:54] Anne-Marije Rook: Well, the fact that there is absolutely, at the moment no legislation whatsoever, uh, for the consumer. So you can buy whatever you can find on the internet, and there's, there's no guarantee that it's not gonna set your house on fire. There's no safety around it, and that's, that's changing right now. New York City is currently, uh, considering banning the sale of secondhand or, uh, like. Uh, tested products, which would have massive repercussions cuz there's like 65,000 delivery workers in, uh, New York City alone. And these people are mostly relying on e-bikes to do their jobs, right? It's their livelihood. And so the moment you, you control these products, uh, it'll have a financial impact on these people as well. Well, third party testing and safety device. It costs more on the, on the manufacturers and therefore it'll have a higher price tag, price tag for the consumer as well. Um, but at the same time, you know, they ha are also dealing with 200 fires already this year. Um, specifically [00:24:56] Randall R. Jacobs: just the city of New York. [00:24:58] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, just the city of New York relating to um, e mobility devices like E-Bikes, ESCOs, hoverboards, e Unicycles, that kind of stuff, which is a lot, you know, that's a lot for one city, specifically around these mobility devices. [00:25:12] Randall R. Jacobs: Sure, especially when you have such immense density. So a fire in New York City is not a standalone house that's oftentimes a building with dozens of families and a lot of people get displaced. [00:25:24] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Luckily they've, they've only, I should say that in, in quotation marks, they've had six fatalities and, and over 130, uh, injuries related to those fires. So, relatively speaking, that's not a high number, but it's, it's something that could be prevented with proper legislation. So I think for me, what's interesting is just like, The, the, the concept was that you can just import products that don't get tested and, you know, people will buy 'em because it's popular and it's, it's, uh, affordable and, and there's a reason, you know, items cost as much as, as they do and, you know, as, as someone who, uh, creates consumer goods. So, yeah. Anyway, that's, that's a long wind winded way of saying that's been a very interesting, uh, passion project of mine. [00:26:07] Randall R. Jacobs: well, on that particular topic, I know that there's, there's also kind of a cultural backlash against, say, in New York City, these e-bike, service providers out doing deliveries and if you look at who it is that is taking on those jobs, generally immigrant, , generally it's the first opportunity that they have in order to survive and make a living, getting a foundation here. So it's not as easy as simply, we're gonna band all these things , it's some, it's somebody's livelihood. [00:26:35] Anne-Marije Rook: And like as you said, it's a, it's a culture issue. It's a class issue. It's, it's not, not as simple as like, well, these items are unsafe, so we'll just ban them. [00:26:45] Randall R. Jacobs: And that, kind of speaks to, broader issues , that we could talk about in the bike space. Like we have this concept of a sidewalk bicycle, a more pejorative way of saying it would be a, bicycle shaped object. So these are, bikes that are generally built to a very low standard, generally sold through non, specialty retail , poorly assembled, and even if they were well assembled generally of parts that are of questionable quality. So poor breaking things like this, and they aren't required to. Hold up to the same standards as a bicycle that you buy at a bike shop that is designated for commuter use or other sorts of use. And, in the more premium end of the spectrum, which for a lot of people who aren't cyclists, would be any bike that's more than three, $400. There's detailed, is. International standards organization criteria for testing that. But that's another example of the same thing where, well, you could require that all bikes be built to a certain standard, but then new bikes would be inaccessible to lower income demographics. Though frankly, I think another outcome of that would probably be that you see more refurbishing of better quality. older used bikes and so that could be a net positive, especially given that they're likely to hold up a lot better. [00:28:01] Anne-Marije Rook: Mm-hmm. [00:28:01] Randall R. Jacobs: So, so that's another area [00:28:03] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I mean to that, like, I could ask that a lot and, and we've, we're about to enter another recession. Um, it's, it's apparent in another country already and, and we're headed that way as well. And, and so a big topic becomes budget bikes, like how much do you spend on a bike and new bikes that are. of a certain budget , I always tell people, go, go shop for a, a used bike and, and refurbish it. You're, you're better off than a cheap brand new bike. And there, I think for a long time there was this, this rather like attitude towards buying secondhand. , uh, products, especially, you know, around carbon bikes, like people were worried that they were broken or cracked, and I think there's a huge misconception around carbon, specifically in, in terms of the strength and like a carbon bike, if it doesn't, if it's not cracked, will last you an entire lifetime. Like, they don't deteriorate. Like, you know, metals will cor. And the restin in carbon doesn't necessarily break apart. Like if maintained well, a carbon bike will last you a lifetime, the end, right? You sure it breaks and you have to maybe get it checked over by, uh, an expert. But I think, uh, now that we have been in this carbon age for a bit longer, there's, there's nothing wrong with a used carbon bike [00:29:23] Randall R. Jacobs: I think that that is often true. There's a couple of challenges there though, with a metal bike, if there's something wrong with it, you generally see it unless it's cracking. Uh, and, and even a crack, you'd be able to see, but you'd be able to see that with a carbon bike too. But what you wouldn't be able to see is an impact that causes delamination in a tube but doesn't result in visual cracking or damage. The construction has gotten much, much better, so they are vastly more reliable, but there's been this push for, as light as possible, which means there's not a lot of buffer and there's a lot of higher modus carbons that are not as impact resistant. So I agree with you that the concerns are overblown. but at the same time, actually this is something that, was talking to, Kaylee Fretz about when he was on not too long ago. The merits of metal bikes, and I think that. Especially on the more economical end of the spectrum, it would be great to see more, steel bikes. [00:30:19] Anne-Marije Rook: Oh, for sure. I love, I I myself, steel roadie. I, I think I would love to have a titanium bike for sure. Um, I just think that from a sustainability point of view, for the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years, we've been cranking out one carbon bike after another and they're not being recycled, uh, because. Well, you can, but it's very, very cost prohibit, pro prohibitive to, um, try to get around the re resin and recycle that carbon. And so I think I would rather see some of these older frames be picked up and, and reuse in one way or another. Um, you know, slap a new group set on and it's a good bike. I'm also. , um, privilege in that. In Portland, we have a great company called Ruckus Composites, and they for, for fee, but it's not a significant fee. They will scan your carbon frame to make sure there aren't any, uh, cracks or whatever that, that you can't see, um, simply with your eyeballs. [00:31:17] Randall R. Jacobs: That's a great service and one that if anyone has access to, especially if they're buying secondhand or if they've crashed, absolutely worth it., the cost of not doing it is, potentially nothing or potentially catastrophic [00:31:29] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. And I think I'm, I'm more worried about people buying these really cheaply made. Carbon bikes cuz they're like, it's carbon and it'll be good. And I'm like, there is such a thing as bad carbon and uh, budget bikes that just, um, yeah, they, they don't stand the test of time. Whereas good carbon bikes will, like I said, last your lifetime, uh, obviously. You know, metal is, is, this is the safer bet. But, um, yeah, we, we just have so many carbon frames out there right now, and I just don't, don't see them being used, uh, ending up in landfill. I don't know. I think that's one of the things that if I could ask the industry to do anything, it's to be a bit more, uh, sustainable in, in what they crank out and, and looking for the opportunities to recycle some of the products that they create. [00:32:14] Randall R. Jacobs: There is talk about this within the industry. Craig was at the people for Bike Summit and there was a lot of talk around sustainability. It may have been more around packaging and the like, being discussed there. some of this is, the facilities haven't existed. So carbon recycling, for example, you need specialized facilities. fortunately there's new, ways in which recycled carbon can be utilized cuz it is a degraded material, right? So you're not going to get the long pure fibers that you're getting purely homogenous, resin with and so on. So you need to be able to create forged carbon components and the like, and you're starting to see that, um, That whole recycling infrastructure, like all recycling infrastructure, for the most part in this country, is not keeping up with the sheer amount of stuff that we're creating and discarding. [00:33:04] Anne-Marije Rook: No, absolutely not. And uh, I think especially after. You know, uh, right before, um, gravel got real big, I think the industry was just sitting on, on thousands of, of car, like mid-level carbon bikes with, with 10 speed group sets. And luckily in some ways, luckily the, um, pandemic created, um, this, this delay in, in, in the. Um, in, in getting new components. And I think that that forced people to go back and be like, can we use this nine or 10 speed group set? And there's an interesting amount of, of nine and seven speed groups that's on the market right now that just like got picked up cuz they were laying around. And uh, you see those especially in, in, uh, super adventure bikes or e-bikes where they use older group sets. And I think it's great cuz we, we need to use the, the things that we've produced. [00:33:55] Randall R. Jacobs: you've been following some of the supply chain changes. [00:33:59] Anne-Marije Rook: of course. Yeah. I mean, that's been the story for the last few years for the industry and, uh, it, it is a struggle. I, I can't imagine being one of those businesses that, that relies on. Uh, you know, uh, pretty much anything at the moment. But, uh, seeing, see, I think it's, it's really fun to see some innovations happening around, um, using the stuff that we already have. And, uh, there's a lot of, you know, maybe I'm just a super bike nerd, but a lot of different ways you can get more gears out of a you a seven speed trailer or like, you know, using micro shift and, and using all the different. uh, like innovative, uh, little handy tools out there to, to make what's old, new. [00:34:44] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, a hundred percent with you there. And some of the organizations that we've sought to support, as a company have been around taking old bikes and making them new again. [00:34:53] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. And down to sh shifters, I've been seeing a lot of those and, and just like old friction shifters being used again, which I thought was very fun because, uh, it's a cheap way to build an adventure bike. You know, you just go with, with, uh, , straight up brake levers, no shifting in the, in, in your handlebars, which leaves more room for bags and whatever else. And then, um, little bar end shifters or shifters, which never thought I'd see those come back again. [00:35:18] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, also provides a lot more options in terms of what you can spec, because there's really only three major players in that space currently. STR and Shao being the dominant two. [00:35:28] Anne-Marije Rook: What, uh, what's the coolest thing you've seen done with a, with a thesis? [00:35:32] Randall R. Jacobs: We did have a rider do this really stunning, metallic flake paint job With a painter out of the Boulder, Denver area. So those sorts of customizations have been neat otherwise. we have a lot of people who've done extended bike packing trips. We have a channel in an online community that we help to set up which is dedicated to bike packing. So there've been whole reports on people's setups, and that's been really cool to see. One. Has become normal at this point. But I think that we were relatively early with was dropper posts. So had a dropper post in second wheel sets. So had a hypothesis early on, that people would have a single bike for a lot of things and about 50% of people got two wheel sets and pushing 90% of our riders have gotten dropper posts. [00:36:22] Anne-Marije Rook: Really? That's, that's a, surprises me. That's a, a large percentage of people. Um, do they actually use 'em? Like, do they get shredding enough to where you need a, a drop or post? [00:36:33] Randall R. Jacobs: I've seen several examples of folks that have either discarded the dropper or who were really concerned about weight, and so you're trying to figure out how to swap it easily. But in general, like the typical response was, yeah, game changer. And, from, me personally, especially living in the Bay Area where there's so much fast and steep road descending, I'd used it all the time. The argument that I make is it adds say three quarters of a. [00:37:00] Anne-Marije Rook: Mm-hmm. [00:37:02] Randall R. Jacobs: one, you're, you're faster and more confident, less likely to crash in all of those technical or high speed sorts of situations. But then also, to be able to scoot your butt off the back of the saddle, you need to often compromise your satellite a little bit. . And so that means that you're no longer setting up your bike for pure comfort, pure efficiency, pure performance. And so that three quarters of a pound, I'm 165, so I'm probably pushing, let's say, round up to 200 pounds with gear and so on. Three quarters of a pound is as a percentage, less than half a percent. So am I getting half a percent more efficient, on a climb because I'm in the right position? I think that that's pretty plausible. Never. The rest of the time. So that, that's my pitch for droppers. I know that not everyone is sold on them, but I, I think that it's, uh, it is the thing that makes a bike that is otherwise really good on flat and smooth train, something that you can get really rowdy with. [00:38:00] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I mean, I like to get rowdy on, on gravel bikes very much. It's, it's kind of like my, my favorite thing to do is see how far I can take it, uh, to the end I will say, uh, you know, I've, I've come around, I mentioned this to you in email, but I've come around on six 50 bees finally. That took me a long time, uh, to get, but having that actual rubber does, does allow me to get, uh, a little bit more rowdy than, than on 700. [00:38:27] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. And I, I had shared some thinking about why that might have been, but I'm curious, what did you find different and hard to adjust to switching from 700 to six 50? [00:38:36] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, I think initially it was like, oh, this feels slow, and, um, You know, given my background, I, I, I liked really quick and, and fast responses and lively rides, and it felt like it did the opposite. Like it became a bit more, more twitchy, which makes for a bit more engaging. Right? But it just felt a little slower. Um, and it just, the handling was different than what I was used to on 700 seats, which also had to do with the, the tire width that was running, you know, going from, uh, 700 by. F maybe 40 to, you know, six 50 to 47. That's a huge difference in terms of like your, your rolling surface that you have and, and how that feels around the corners. Um, but then it got real rainy and muddy and I was riding the, this, this rather, uh, you know, Rudy Mound, bikey terrain. And that's when I noticed the difference of like, oh yeah, this really allows me to stay planted a bit better and, and, uh, maneuver these roots. . Um, I also like it, it started off like, oh, I understand this form, like a technical point of view. And then for comfort, it is really darn comfortable to just like crank out the miles on on more rubber. And it just, yeah, it's cushy and uh, I can see now why, you know, randomers and such opt for that, that tire size. But it took me a while. I, I will say maybe I'm just old school, but um, I finally got around to it. [00:40:01] Randall R. Jacobs: I can definitely relate to , at least the sensation of it, potentially feeling a little bit slower rolling. And there's definitely circumstances and this is, , Casing dependent as well, where, you know it very well may be, but at the same time, remember the first time you gave up 20 threes and put on 20 fives or 20 eights or thirties and how different that felt. And it's like, I'm not getting all of that, that road. It just feels slow all of a sudden. But, , data said otherwise, but I mean, six 50 s have their place. There's a reason why a lot of racers in certain types of events run 700 by, I mean, in the case of Belgian waffle Ride in San Diego, I think people are running like 32 slicks, [00:40:44] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, right? Like it's if when you have that much, uh, ground to cover and, uh, a fair bit of road in that as well, I believe, um, you would opt for that. But yeah, I've, I've come around. I'm a hundred percent a six 50 B believer. Now I do think you need two wheel sets. Um, for different, different occasions. But yeah, it was, it was a fun experiment for me. This, uh, this fall. [00:41:10] Randall R. Jacobs: When you say two wheel sets, you mean 2 6 50 wheel sets or, or one seven hundred and one six fifty. [00:41:15] Anne-Marije Rook: The latter. Yeah. 1 700, 1 6 50. Yeah. There's definitely days that, you know, if I know I'm gonna go long, I, I just feel like I'm. covering more ground then, then I'll do that on a, a 700. But yeah, for my, my most, like my lunch rides, that's up in, in, in the trails, that's definitely six 50 now. [00:41:34] Randall R. Jacobs: So what else have you found surprising or delightful in terms of products or insight into the sport or, experiences you've had of late. [00:41:43] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, well, sticking with gravel, I think we're starting to see a, a really broad spectrum. of bikes that are either super capable, have suspension, you know, there's an increasing amount of bikes and suspension. And then on the other side, the ones that are, are really going for speed. , um, where you basically have a road bike, um, that's, that's slightly more capable, you know, so like if you wanna go with specialized, you've got the, the new s C r with the sus, the rear end suspension and front end suspension versus the crux, which is, uh, you know, a very capable cyros bike basically, and feathery light. And I think we're seeing more of that divide happening, which is pretty quick given that gravel as a category hasn't been around for all that long. Um, and it's, it. I think it's a very interesting development just to see what people are gonna go for and how much we're we're differentiating between gravel racing and gravel adventuring and bike packing. And like the difference now, like you can't just say gravel anymore. You have to specify whether you're talking about gravel racing or, or adventuring. Cuz those are two very different. Sides of the industry now, which is, it's interesting and it's really fun to watch. Um, and I, I think personally, I like the adventure side from a tech nerdiness a bit more because we know what a fast road bike look like and what it can do, but like, how capable can you make, um, a drop bar bike and how, like watching people bring back rigid mountain bikes and, and just like drawing on, on, uh, old technology and, and, and seeing things. Redshift and connect with their suspension posts that, you know, remind me of Soft Ride and like it is just from a tech point of view, it's, it's, it's an interesting development and really fun to watch. [00:43:27] Randall R. Jacobs: It's kind of like, um fashion in, in a way, like what's old is new. I mean, it's definitely radically better with, composites and wide and tubeless and disc brakes, in particular. But in a lot of ways we're riding the original mountain bikes again. [00:43:42] Anne-Marije Rook: We totally are, we're just writing, you know, those, those spring loaded , what were they? Canadas the ones with the, the head tube springs. [00:43:51] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh, the head shock. [00:43:52] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. , which I mean future shock is that, you know, connect and Redshift is basically a soft ride. It's just everything is, is new again. And it's really fun to watch. And I think what I geek out a lot more is just seeing what people are coming up with in their own shops and how people perhaps are learning for the first time to be a bit more hands-on and, and, uh, mechanical and. Exploring with their own setups. I mean, how many people don't know how to fix their own tire? Uh, and I think nowadays watching them experiment and building super machines, it's, it's just really fun. [00:44:27] Randall R. Jacobs: So given that we're kind of coming to the end of the., favorite products of 2022 and then in a general sense, products, racing. Otherwise. What are you most excited about in the new year? [00:44:39] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, so my favorite products, uh, some of 'em are things that I bought myself or own, like, uh, my Brompton was one I found on Craigslist, which is super random, but I. I wanted something to travel with, um, that's compact and wouldn't require me having an extra bag or anything like that. And, uh, my Bronson and I have been to the Tour de France fem together. We've been to the Netherlands, to London, to the Sac Cross World Championships. So that bike goes with me everywhere, which was a really fun, uh, crux purchase that I didn't need, but has given me a lot of joy. [00:45:13] Randall R. Jacobs: Are you doing a lot of long rides on that, or is it more getting around and being able to get that 20 miler in? [00:45:18] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. Getting around the, it's not , it's not very comfortable. Talk about like slow rolling, tiny. Like try, try 16 inch wheels, like no. Uh, but [00:45:28] Randall R. Jacobs: seen dispatches from people doing extended tours on a Bronson, which I've always found super impressive. [00:45:34] Anne-Marije Rook: I mean, good on them. I like, I, I, I applaud them. I, I don't, I don't enjoy that very much. Um, but it's been a great bike to travel with and, and it's just a really silly, really fun purchase. Um, I also got a ultra cleaner for the first. Which is great for, uh, you know, the position northwest is really wet, really muddy. Um, our, our gear gets just absolutely destroyed and so keeping it clean, uh, extends the, the lifetime of, of your components. And uh, that's really been a fun way to, um, get like that super shiny clean drive train. [00:46:14] Randall R. Jacobs: mm-hmm. [00:46:15] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, and that was just a birthday present, so it's not something that was sent to me to review. Um, and then the best shoes I had were to live, uh, much shoes. Um, they are bright purple. Uh, they look great. Everyone is always asking me about 'em, and I keep asking them to make 'em into a gravel shoe because I don't spend enough time on my road back anymore to wear them. Um, go ahead. [00:46:42] Randall R. Jacobs: Do you love them for their styling or some other [00:46:44] Anne-Marije Rook: No, they're, they're, they're a pure race shoe, like you're locked in. They're some of the stiffest shoes I've ever worn, but they also are an absolute head turner. [00:46:52] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. [00:46:53] Anne-Marije Rook: so it's a two for one package. Um, and, and the gravel side of things, uh, the SW RS tires were super impressive. Um, they're so fast and, uh, I've yet to flat them, which is pretty incredible given a, my, my history and B uh, just how much I've written. [00:47:11] Randall R. Jacobs: What size are you running them in? [00:47:13] Anne-Marije Rook: I have, uh, 40 twos, I think is when I was running last, and I, I mean, I took 'em with me traveling. Like I, I did the, uh, Finland gravel and I did not know what I was getting myself into. And, and so getting a file, like bringing a file thread, Racy Tire is a bit of a risk. Um, but they did really well and, uh, they're probably the best tires I've had in no while. And I'd say in general, the market, it has gotten so much better. Like the, it's so easy to set up two plus tires now, whereas like even two years ago I, it was quite struggle sometimes getting those seated in your, in your garage. Yeah. [00:47:52] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, absolutely. Though I, I will say, um, and this is a hobby horse I often jump on, um, you know, road, road, tubeless hook, less road tubeless scares me, [00:48:04] Anne-Marije Rook: I tried to, I, I got a few to review this year and I, I tried to see if I could make them explode, but I think I reached my, like, comfort level far before, or the end of my comfort level far before the tires did. So there's that. [00:48:18] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and then going into 2023 and this doesn't have to be gear, it can be events, it can be, personal adventures. What are you excited about coming into the new year? [00:48:29] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, yeah, I'm gonna go even more into gravel and attending some more gravel events. So I'm very excited to return to Unbound and to do s p d Gravel. There's talk about, uh, me and a colleague of mine setting an F K T. So there's some really fun challenges and, um, since stepping away from racing and, uh, you know, getting married, buying a house, I've definitely spent less time on. On the bike as I would like. So getting something to train for, for me personally, is, is uh, it's kind of exciting to get back to it. [00:49:01] Randall R. Jacobs: By the way, congratulations on those milestones. [00:49:04] Anne-Marije Rook: thanks. It was an exciting two years of the pandemic. Yeah. [00:49:07] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Um, well, alright, um, so where can people find you on Twitter? Uh, you're at cycling weekly. How do, how do people get ahold of you or see what you're, what you're writing about? [00:49:18] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, definitely on second weekly.com and then on social media Am Rook is my handle across every platform, including the ones that are popping up now that Twitter is taking a t. [00:49:29] Randall R. Jacobs: All right. Well, Anne-Marie, it's a pleasure to finally sit down and properly chat and very much looking forward to seeing you at Sea Otter and other industry events now that that's a thing again, and we can be out in the wild seeing each other. [00:49:41] Anne-Marije Rook: That's right. [00:49:42] Randall R. Jacobs: All right. [00:49:43] Anne-Marije Rook: for having me. [00:49:44] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Anne Mariah. For having that conversation with Randall, I hope you guys learned a lot and I hope you do follow her on Twitter and follow her work as north American editor at cycling weekly. Huge. Thanks to our friends at athletic greens. Remember head on over to athletic greens.com/the gravel ride to check out ag one. One today. If you're interested in connecting with me or Randall, I encourage you to join the ridership. That's www.theridership.com. If you're able to support the podcast, you can visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Or ratings and reviews are hugely important. In us connecting with other gravel athletes from around the world. Until next time. I hope you're well. And here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.    

Today's guest is Vince Jones, Senior Vice President and Head of E-Commerce at PepsiCo.  Guru and Vince dive deep into Vince's personal story about growing up in the Midwest, how he went from consultant at Accenture to Walmart during the dot-com boom, then to C-suite roles at eBags and Bluestem Brands.  Vince shares lessons from his career and insights he's gained while leading e-commerce for the iconic company, PepsiCo.  Enjoy our first episode of 2022!

Daniel Burstein spoke to Dr. Michael Solomon, Professor of Marketing, Saint Joseph's University (https://www.sju.edu/) in Episode #4.Some lessons that emerged in the discussion: Don't overlook unconventional sources of data. When Dr. Solomon worked with Levi Strauss on the psychology of blue jeans, he learned a lot by poring through letters customers had written to the company over 150 years.  Interact as much as possible with real consumers when you're developing a new product. Dr. Solomon's team observed how users struggled with a popular cleaning product from Black & Decker. By making a simple design change that didn't occur to the engineers, this brand became the market leader in its category. Get frequent reality checks from customers. As an author of several marketing textbooks, Dr. Solomon discovered that his frame of reference is not the same as his readers (typically college students). For example, when he discussed cultural events like 9/11, he had to remind himself that his readers were infants when this occurred.Dr. Solomon also shared lessons he gained from the people he collaborated with in his career: John Greco, Chair and CEO, Marketing IMPACT Council taught him about the strength of weak ties. Networking with associates of a colleague can be very effective. John reinforced the value of maintaining strong networks and partnerships where members possess complementary skills.Dr. Malaika Brengman, Associate Professor of Marketing, Vrije Universiteit Brussel taught him about finding collaborators with complementary skillsets. Collaborating on research about robotic service providers, he has seen how valuable it can be to team up with a colleague who has a different frame of reference and background.Jacqueline Lew, Executive Director / Global Head of Consumer & Brand Health Practice, CI Product Leadership, NielsenIQ taught him to always be vigilant about updating assumptions. Jacqueline's frame of reference is global (she is based in Malaysia) and her perspective has been useful to him as he checks his assumptions about consumer behavior in other parts of the world.Dr. Solomon's parting words of advice: “Always start at least with the assumption that your frame of reference is not the same as your customers”Articles (and a book) mentioned in this episode:The New Chameleons: How to Connect with Consumers Who Defy Categorization (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-new-chameleons-the-new-chameleons-michael-r-solomon/1136940991) – his bookMobile Marketing: 4 takeaways on how to improve your mobile shopping experience beyond just responsive design (https://marketingexperiments.com/conversion-marketing/mobile-marketing-four-takeaways-on-how-to-improve-your-mobile-shopping-experience-beyond-just-responsive-design)– eBags used customer anthropology to discover how customers shop for handbags onlineCustomer Theory: How to leverage empathy in your marketing (with free tool) (https://marketingexperiments.com/conversion-marketing/customer-theory-leverage-empathy-free-tool)Content Marketing: You must overcome The Jackson 5 Effect to find subject matter experts (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/content-marketing-2/content-marketing-jackson-5-effect/)

Boonie is joined by Goody Howard -- a sexologist, educator, and consultant. Goody schools us on how to approach sex and masturbation with your children and teens. She also answers a listener question about herpes and STIs.  Follow Goody here: Instagram & Twitter: @askgoody Website - www.askgoody.com  Support for today's episode comes from  ebags.com -- to create better travel experiences. Receive 10% off your eBags purchase by using the code SAVE10 at https://bit.ly/BoonieEbags The hashtag for the podcast #TheBoonieBreakdown. Share with others using the hashtag #PodIn. Join Boonie over on Patreon for exclusive content and events here: Patreon.com/TheBoonieBreakdown  Have something to say? You can ask your questions, send comments via email to thebooniebreakdown@gmail.com or submit here: www.thebooniebreakdown.com/contact/.   Follow The Boonie Breakdown on Social Media: IG: @TheBoonieBreakdown Twitter: @BoonieBreakdown  Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheBoonieBreakdown

The Future of #Retail is #Phygital, where Digital Retail meets Physical Retail. Will 2023 be Retail's pivot point for #innovation? Are we seeing unusually rare convergence of not just one or two, but several retailer-enabling technologies that are on track for maturity and ubiquity in 2023, and bring about a technological pivot point for the industry? Listen to Jon Nordmark , CEO, Iterate.ai (former CEO of eBags) in talks with our Guest Host Shailja on what #retailers need to focus to gain competitive advantage. #AI: Expected to be $100B market in 2023. Retailers proficient with AI (able to localize intelligence to every kind of product and process that data in real-time) will wield a decisive advantage. #5G: 1B devices by 2023. For retailers, devices and data collection mechanisms positioned throughout their #supplychains, stores, and apps will enable far more granular insights and opportunities for real-time intervention. #AR/VR: Will overcome its relatively slow start because of 5G. Amazon patent activity suggests that eyeglasses with AR connectivity may utilize bone conduction technology, allowing wearers to interact without even needing to speak aloud. Retailers should certainly be prepared to adapt to the new purchase paths paved by these technologies as they arrive. #Blockchain: Will be the cornerstone of online trust, enabling secure digital identities and #DigitalMe technology. As customers protect their privacy, Gartner predicts that brand access to consumer data will decrease by 30%. Consumers in full command of their digital identities will parcel out data depending on their relationship with each brand, transforming loyalty programs. #LowCodeNoCode software development: Will massively speed up retailers' application development by eliminating the need to hard code every change or software test. Industry-wide competition will speed up as well, as retailers of all sizes leverage available platforms and launch new products and features far faster than ever. View Video Podcast Listen to other podcasts at: https://proxima360.com/podcast or https://retailcorner.proxima360.com Subscribe our Podcast: Apple iTunes: https://apple.co/3eoeUdT Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3dvjpDJ Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/3DFHXHw Are you an innovative leader in your industry? Why not chat with us on the podcast, submit request at: https://proxima360.com/contact or email retailcorner@proxima360.com.

Training while traveling presents challenges, whether your a frequent business traveler or someone who only travels to visit family or for vacation. Either way, we have to decide to train or not to train and then how to adjust training before, during, and after to best meet our goals.  If you are someone who rarely travels and NEVER misses a workout and you finally go on a vacation, it's not important to your long term progress to miss a week or even two. Again, though, there aren't a huge number of people in this category. For more people, it will be important to both maintain the habit of training or at least exercise and the training can help destress or at least make you feel better if on a vacation. If you're a frequent business traveler, training while traveling is a must: you cannot progress if you don't train on the road, so you'll have to develop a strategy and habits to train on the road, to include what to pack, gyms to look for, and how you train on the road).  Now, let's discuss some travel hacks for lifters Matt likes to train first thing upon arrival and before departure, as it helps make travels days feel more productive and he knows he accomplished training on those days. These aren't days to hit PRs, but to get some work done. A pro-trip here is if you train at a big gym they often have showers, so you can train and still shower before getting on a plane. This also helps as training the first couple days after travel tends to not feel great, so you will have trained on the last day of travel and not feel behind on your training.  Niki recommends to search for "powerlifting" when you're looking for a gym, as this probably will help you find gyms that will have the equipment you'd like to have.  Both Matt & Niki acknowledge, however, that even big globo gyms tend to have at least 1 squat rack.  Some hacks for travel: have liquid chalk in a travel size so it can go on your carryon bag if you check a bag, use a hard shell case to help protect your gear (and potentially any whiskey you take home pack your A7 shirts, as you'll experience some terrible benches Niki likes to have a small draw string bag that goes in her suitcase with her gym equipment Matt uses his backpack, which is also his carryon consider packing cubes for clothes eBags are great backpacks if you travel frequently, have pre-packed toiletry bags know where you can get higher protein options in the airport, or pack some drink water frequently Lastly, how should you train while you travel? This depends on your goals and preferences, but in general, we can offer some ideas and tips: not a great time for PRs - get some work done & maintain the habit know thyself: will you want more frequent, super short workouts or fewer, longer workouts have flexibility with equipment and difficulty explore the space: try out new equipment and exercises you can't at your home gym or local gym front load stress prior to travel (go for PRs before the trip) communicate with your coach ahead of time so he or she can plan accordingly plan the training around your commitments and, for vacations, tell your family (don't go to the gym when your wife wants to go to a museum) So, there's lots to consider and ways to train during travel better or worse. How do you train while you travel? GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans.  No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial.  https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners:  https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts Matt on Instagram Niki on Instagram Connect with the show Barbell Logic on Instagram The Website Barbell Logic on Facebook podcast@barbell-logic.com   

A proven retail and CPG innovation executive with 30 years’ experience leading teams delivering high-impact products for retailers worldwide, Cheryl Sullivan (President of DemandTec) has spear-headed retail strategy efforts for leading retailers such as Walgreens, PetSmart, Dick's Sporting Goods, Home Depot, Family Dollar, eBags, BJ's, Sally Beauty, Ahold Delhaize, and Douglas. She joins to share how, with a shaky economy and COVID still posing a threat, retailers need to reboot their retail pricing strategies and better understand shoppers’ trust issues with pricing, especially during and post COVID, how to gain a competitive edge with AI-driven pricing strategies and which retailers are “getting it right” during these challenging times, shoppers’ trust issues with pricing explained, leveraging AI-driven competitive pricing for a powerful strategy, and more. With guest host Gary Hawkins. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Take The Leap" is the theme of this podcast, and no one has done that better than Kelly Kowal, Chief Platform Officer at Farfetch. Kelly didn't casually enter into a retail career, she dove into one. With courage and a "can-do" attitude, she began a journey in e-commerce running digital marketing at eBags.com. At the time, e-commerce was new to Kelly, so when she didn't know the acronyms people were using in the weekly status meetings, she showed up to the office at 5 AM before anyone else arrived, did her research, and figured it out. This persistence and determination took her to London and to her current role as Chief Platform Officer of Farfetch. In this podcast, Kelly shares her career story and how she and her team professionally and personally weathered the pandemic, all while refining and expanding the offerings Farfetch plans to bring to market in the coming year. You won't want to miss this interview, and be sure to stay until the end when Anne and Kelly plan their next retail conference concert escapades. Thanks to our sponsor, Parcel Pending. For more information about Parcel pending, visit ParcelPending.com

Give Back Box® was founded in 2012 by Monika Wiela, who at the time was running an online shoe store. The idea was inspired by a homeless man she encountered in Chicago, who was holding up a sign saying he needed a pair of shoes. Wiela returned later that day with shoes for him, but he was gone. She spent that night thinking about what she could do with all the empty boxes in her warehouse and also help people like that man, and a new social enterprise was born. As Wiela researched further, she learned that, an estimated 11 million tons of clothing, footwear, towels, bedding, drapery, and other textiles end up in U.S. landfills every year. In addition, online shopping is now the preferred method for much of the buying public. Corrugated boxes are the dominant packaging method for e-commerce. With this knowledge, Wiela’s mission crystallized. If online retailers would use Give Back Box, shipping boxes and other items could be used a second time prior to being recycled. The impact would be remarkable. Give Back Box® has also teamed up with some of the biggest retailers in the U.S., including Overstock, Amazon, Loft, REI, Levi’s, Asics, Ann Taylor, LEGO, Nordstrom, Viva Terra, Ecru, Bonobos, Scrubs & Beyond, eBags, Lou & Grey and many others. The Give Back Box platform is open for any retailer who joins as a partner. Give Back Box has truly created a new method of waste diversion for retailers because, in addition to creating a secondary use for the shipping box and guaranteeing that it will be recycled, it helps clear closets, create jobs and offer more companies and their customers an opportunity to recycle.

Joining Coach Stone on Coach Stone Podcast is Keith Bristol, Chief Digital Officer of Knack Bags.  Keith has spent over 20 years in the direct-to-consumer ecommerce industries. He has held COO, President, VP of Product and Director roles across a number of ecommerce consumer brands such as eBags, Tumi and UsingMiles. In these roles he has led three startups that became high growth companies or progressed to a successful exit. About Knack: We created Knack to make it easier for multi-tasking, mobile professionals to get from Point A to Point B without lugging a bunch of bags. Our multi-purpose products combine the best features of stylish, daily-use computer backpacks with a patent-pending hidden compartment that you can easily access, expand and pack like a suitcase whenever you need extra space for travel, the gym or anywhere your life takes you. The Knack team brings years of experience from Tumi, North Face, Coach, Samsonite, and eBags to create the ultimate #OneBagLife lifestyle. You can find Knack products exclusively at knackbags.com.   Website: knackbags.com   Social Links: https://twitter.com/KnackBags https://www.facebook.com/knackbags https://www.instagram.com/knackbags https://www.linkedin.com/company/knack-bags

Most people don't think about their luggage when travelling. The goal is to focus on the experiences themselves instead of the product that's carrying your clothes and supplies. Samsonite is a staple in the travel world. As Chief Digital Officer Charlie Cole says, the goal is for customers to talk about the vacation and not about what they're packing. A good suitcase quietly gets the job done without adding headaches to the trip. The growth of the experience economy in recent years has led to more people traveling than ever before. Samsonite has updated its approach to customer experience to reflect a new wave of travelers. The company may be 110 years old, but it has a fresh digital approach. One of the reasons for its current mindset is the fact that Samsonite pays attention to changing trends and technology. Cole says it's important to embrace change instead of resisting it. Samsonite acknowledges things that are changing and then decides how it will attack them, which can either be by reallocating internal resources or adding an outside acquisition to its diverse portfolio. Samsonite is actually an entire portfolio of travel products and websites, including Tumi, American Tourister and Ebags.com. Staying brand-aware and constantly self-assessing helps Samsonite recognize what it needs to do to change and stay ahead of the industry. Samsonite leverages data to provide a strong digital experience.  Cole says the importance of data will continue to evolve. Samsonite aims to use data in a way that helps the organization be more efficient and customer-focused. Staying in tune with what customers are looking for helps the company create the right products and market them to the right people. Another impactful trend for Samsonite has been the growth of D2C businesses. Samsonite has strengthened its own D2C role in recent years to match other D2C companies. It built out its entire D2C capability, from systems to people, to create a powerful way for customers to get exactly what they need straight from the brands. At the same time, Samsonite maintains its wholesale relationships with suppliers like Amazon and Kohls to keep another arm in the industry. Samsonite bridges the gap between a long-lasting company and an innovative startup that is constantly evolving. Leveraging data and creating a strong brand portfolio helps the company be prepared for whatever happens next as it continues to build a strong digital experience.

Give Back Box® was founded in 2012 by Monika Wiela, who at the time was running an online shoe store. The idea was inspired by a homeless man she encountered in Chicago, who was holding up a sign saying he needed a pair of shoes. Wiela returned later that day with shoes for him, but he was gone. She spent that night thinking about what she could do with all the empty boxes in her warehouse and also help people like that man, and a new social enterprise was born. As Wiela researched further, she learned that, an estimated 11 million tons of clothing, footwear, towels, bedding, drapery, and other textiles end up in U.S. landfills every year. In addition, online shopping is now the preferred method for much of the buying public. Corrugated boxes are the dominant packaging method for e-commerce. With this knowledge, Wiela’s mission crystalized. If online retailers would use Give Back Box, shipping boxes and other items could be used a second time prior to being recycled. The impact would be remarkable. Wiela’s first step to bring her dream to reality was to find a nonprofit with a national footprint that could accept donations on a grand scale. The organization would have to be able to not only accept used clothing but other items that people wanted to donate. The nonprofit enterprise also needed to have a program to recycle the boxes that it would receive, further limiting landfill waste. The first major retailer to join Give Back Box was Newegg.com. The retailer placed Give Back Box fliers in all the boxes shipped to its customers. The flier recommended that customers re-use the boxes their purchases came in and fill them with clothes, accessories and household items, then ship them to local charities using pre-paid shipping labels. The local charities developed a system to track the packages, so when they received the boxes and scanned them in, tax receipts were generated for appropriate donors. Give Back Box® has also teamed up with some of the biggest retailers in the U.S., including Overstock, Amazon, Loft, REI, Levi’s, Asics, Ann Taylor, Uncommongoods, Nordstrom, Viva Terra, Ecru, Bonobos, Scrubs & Beyond, eBags, Lou & Grey and many others. The Give Back Box platform is open for any retailer who joins as a partner. It is open for donors as well, with the option to chose charity. The charities stocks their shelves with the donations, and the revenues help fund its mission of helping people in need reach their full potential through learning and the power of work. The charities also recycle every box that arrives at their facilities. Give Back Box has truly created a new method of waste diversion for retailers because, in addition to creating a secondary use for the shipping box and guaranteeing that it will be recycled, it helps clear closets, create jobs and offer more companies and their customers an opportunity to recycle.

Jon Nordmark is responsible for discovering startups, nurturing Retailer relationships, and ensuring our experiments are executed properly for Iterate Studio. Prior to Iterate, Jon was the founding CEO of eBags which grew for 8 years at a 34% CAGR (through early 2008, Jon’s departure). eBags, an innovator, wrote its own software to drop ship from ~400 warehouses (1999), accept ~1.4 million consumer reviews (1999), A/B split test website features (2000) and enter the UK / EU (2003). eBags also built and sold 6pm.com to Zappos, while running CaseLogic.com and TUMI.com in the US, UK, Germany and Japan. Today, Jon serves as eBags Chairman. Between eBags and Iterate, Jon was CEO of UsingMiles (acquired 2013), an aggregator of 400 loyalty programs and meta-search for air-hotel. He’s advised many startups, including Runa (acquired by Staples, 2013). Jon also sits on the following boards: Colorado Innovation Network and Eastern Europe’s premier Tech Accelerator, Happy Farm.

RUTS and BUTSKevonstage - commenting on the beautifully ridiculous with a comedic flare. Instagram - WebMAIN TOPIC - Why not ask Why? Finding God in Our Questions sermon series from Jacob's Well NJAn Introduction to Apologetics by Reid S. MonaghanThe Works of Joseph CampbellSCRIPTUREJohn 14:1-6, John 17, John 8:31, 32REVIEWISHFantastic Carry-ons and other baggage at from AwayTravelThe Professional Slim Jr. Backpack and other bags from EBags

EP084 - Amazon News, Walmart Earnings, RumorsAmazon News Prime day - 30 hours long, sometime the week of July 10t Amazon market cap crossed 2X Walmart 20yr anniversary of Amazon IPO - A $10K investment then would be worth $6,410,000 today 1 click patent expiring Amazon expanding into Pharmacy and Furniture Amazon B2B impacts Grainger (Now predict that 80% of the sales by 2021 will be online) Brands moving ad dollars from Google to Amazon Walmart Strong Q1 earnings- Ecommerce up 63% (40% organic), GMV up 69% Same Store Sales up 1.4% Went from 10m SKUs a year ago to 50m SKUs today (Amazon has 355m) ThisIsStory opens Jet.com Fresh themed story Walmart files IOT Patents Other News As earning season wraps up, discount retailers, dollar stores, and warehouses are up, while department stores are down. Samsonite purchases Ebags  for $105m  Google IO - Google is all in on artificial intelligence Target tried to buy Caspar and settled for an investment Target may be trying to buy Boxed Scot will be hosting "Amazon & Me" an all day workshop on Tuesday June 6th at IRCE, he can be found in the Channel Advisor booth #607 for some of the show. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 84 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on on Friday May 19, 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 - Amazon Automated Transcription of the show: Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 84 being recorded on Friday May 19th 2017 I'm your host recent retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners Jason spend a little over maybe a week week and a half since we have chatted how have things been if you've been how many cities have you had since we last caught up. Jason: [0:55] This may be the first time I've been able to see this all year but I have hit zero City since we last chatted I meant home in Chicago for almost two straight weeks. [1:07] She is she's at she has helpfully packed my suitcase and is eagerly awaiting my departure to the West Coast on Monday morning. Scot: [1:16] Put it right by the door there. Jason: [1:17] Exam. Scot: [1:19] Cool so I guess we can't talk about any trip reports any other things going on you want to highlight before we jump into it. Jason: [1:29] I do you know where you like to talk about the fan mail we get on the show but I got some angry fan mail this week. [1:39] Well it's always the same angry fans Jason Delray of recode. Scot: [1:47] What did we do to engage mr. Del Rey. Jason: [1:52] Yes what's the argument sorry about don't get an argument with people that buy their ink by the Barrel in there. Scot: [1:59] DigiLink. Jason: [2:00] The digital anchor pixels by the barrel. So if you recall last week we had a great conversation about Amazon with Andrea and the. Topic came up of jets and I did mention that the Jason Del Rey. I had written the article that sort of implied that that perhaps jet. Close I'm sorry that the Amazon closed Quincy. Out of spite for Mark Lori you know who's not competing with them at Walmart. So we had a little conversation about that and Jason me actually very kind note to clarify that I had I had soda misrepresented his position and then. He's really doesn't think that, did Amazon close Quincy because of Mark Glory but he does think that some animosity for Mark Lori might have played into, the communication around the closing of Quincy in the fact that they said like what we closed it because it was too difficult or not possible to make it profitable and so so Jason series more of that like the communication may have been a little more of, negative as a result of the of the. The Jeff Mark animosity then then the actual business case then I suspect that he's probably right like that certainly does make a lot more sense. Scot: [3:28] Yes it's almost like you know Amazon kind of crap that if you will. Jason: [3:35] Exact exactly that I quickly showed up on a crap report and they in the shutter shutter down. Scot: [3:43] Google that's said there's been a ton of news in industry and as I always like to say it wouldn't be a Jason and Scott show without some Amazon news. Jason: [4:07] Yeah Scot it feels like there's another interesting stuff going on and Amazon this week I think we finally got the announcement about, Prime day for this year and I'm I'm struggling to even call it Prime day because I think it's now Prime days plural. Scot: [4:27] Prime day is prime day 30. Yeah Dave it's weird because there's several news reports picked up and said they're hearing from Amazon that it's going to be the week of July 10th through 14th, betting person was in 11th that's kind of where I'm going to put my money and then it's going this year it's going to be 30 hours were just kind of interesting which is like kind of random it's a, day in 6 hours so I guess they're trying to pick up another nice 18 hour window and then. The six-hour window when when most folks are asleep and then pick up a morning would be my guess. Jason: [5:09] Yeah you could you not yours you could imagine they're just creeping it ever every year and that eventually it will be like in always on promotion. [5:22] Or cynical person might say that they're making sure that they dramatically beat last year sales numbers. Scot: [5:28] That is now it should by its nature since the six hours longer to see that's going to be one sick so the 18% more juice from hours assuming a linear distribution. Jason: [5:42] Thanks for doing public math on the show that's always impressive to me. Scot: [5:46] Yeah yeah this is why we have to delete the other two shows. Jason: [5:50] I was just going to point out no editing involve folks. [5:54] I think also someone exciting we had talked about the the likelihood that this was going to happen but Amazon had a nice little uptick in their stock in their valuation is now officially twice that of Walmart. Scot: [6:12] Yeah yeah and I haven't seen anyone else who visited the word perilously close to that point that I've calculated again in real time on a show probably around midnight a caveat there, that's a basis would be, close to the number one richest person with over a thousand in the stock is kind of hovering around the 965 970 so we're not too far away from when I think that too so, let's see I think I have some kind of a strong showing in Q2 or some kind of catalyst gets it over $1,000 I think we'll kind of see some articles about the. Jason: [6:50] Yeah that that is going to be fun to watch regardless that's a really high tax income tax neighborhood with with Jeff and a Bill Gates end up there. [7:04] And I will one doesn't even that same neighborhood does I meant within a mile and a half you got two guys paying a lot of income tax. Scot: [7:11] I thought you meant the neighborhood of the top five on The Fortune 500 not the physical neighborhood. Jason: [7:14] No I'm just saying that that police force in Seattle is well-funded is what I'm. Scot: [7:21] Absolutely. Jason: [7:22] The PTA is is the coppers are overflowing. Scot: [7:27] Yet another nursing one is this week was the 20th year anniversary of Amazon's IPO and you know when that happens with these accessories is he always interesting data points and if you put a dollar in your every dollar you invested in the IPO 20 years ago it would, each of those dollars would be worth a $641 today so if you done a thousand that would have been worth 641000 and if you done, you can continue the math 10,000 will get you up to 6 million and that's why Jeff Bezos is at the heading towards the top of that list because he owns a lot of Amazon. Jason: [8:05] He invested about $2 in in that original IPO. I think that's mostly true but when you say when you invested or you might get that I would point out that back then you probably get a paper stock certificate and I would have lost the certificate so I wouldn't of came the money but. Scot: [8:24] Even 20 years ago the paper was really just about sibo and you're registered and it's okay if you lose the pay. Jason: [8:30] Oh thank God I was losing a lot of sleep over that. Scot: [8:33] So you should actually check there's every state has a place to go look to see if there are someone looking for you to deliver that lost share of Amazon stock. Jason: [8:44] Luckily right after the Libyan Prince they're usually calling me so I don't I don't have to look it up. [8:50] It's odd anniversary year for Amazon it is also the the. Anniversary of the Amazon one-click patent and the reason that's interesting is it's the the final year of the Amazon one-click patent so that expires this year. Scot: [9:09] Who do you think will see a rush of people kind of coming out with one click now that they can't. Jason: [9:17] I suspect that we will like I feel like you'd only on Amazon like. [9:24] Exercise the pageant really aggressively and I think that you know they got a licensing fee from eBay if I'm. If I'm remembering right but I feel like people had been skirting the line on that patent more and more in recent years and so you know maybe it won't be a, a watershed moment but I think it in certain sites it's certainly going to make sense and so I do think we'll see more of that. Scot: [9:47] Nothing eBay doesn't license that's why I have this weird kind of two-phase commit it's kind of like you know, buy and then you can go to the PayPal flu and even unit they try to integrate those things are there still a two-faced but apple is one of the biggest licensees of one click. Jason: [10:05] Okay so I may have remembered it wrong I thought eBay was the company that the Apple actually prosecuted the pastor that Amazon prosecuted the Pats and again and there was some settlement or something but I'm a. Scot: [10:17] This will be a fun thing for Lester's to help us research Sean I definitely do Apple license is a very large licensee I don't know who Amazon tutor. Jason: [10:27] Answer those guys I'm certain are looking forward to that patent expiring if nothing else. [10:33] And then there was also some news that it looks like Amazon is getting more serious about a couple new categories, Furniture in potentially most interesting the the Pharma industry the Pharmaceuticals. Scot: [10:48] Yeah. You know what's what's fasting about these rumors are Amazon announcements I think they a lot of them come out of job postings so the two I read kind of hit read between the lines of job posting this and then talk to me Amazon source, but each of these days so CVS was down pretty materially the day the farm and news came out and then Wayfair and a couple other Furniture companies for down pretty substantially the days the furniture. Sucking out so. Yeah it's kinda it's really interesting your last 20 years to see this work like 20 years ago I run laughed at Amazon and if they announced we're going to come out for my run be like or if they even if they acquire drugstore.com NC, I care too much about it oh no sorry the other guys did but they weren't investor drugstore.com and. We're playing in that area and everyone scoffed and now when they're just so with that they're getting there they put a job putting out stocks go down to 20% so pretty amazing. How much to move the needle here in the last 20 years. Jason: [11:48] That alone is a very powerful in both these categories are interesting cuz to your point. Superficial like there'd be a reason that both of these categories are. Difficult and obviously there's a reason that neither one was the first category that Amazon went after and there you know there's only going to be reasons that the Legacy in that the incumbents in those two segments, are saying here's why we don't think Amazon will be as successful in our segment as they have been in all these other segments and and that of course, you know I gets the hashtag Famous Last Words Furniture is interesting because it's not likely that the. The enormous of fulfillment center infrastructure that Amazon has is very well suited to Furniture in so that you know there are some third parties that have built these these Furniture distribution Networks. And they often require like white glove deliveries and you know very regular size stuff and even though. Amazon has built a couple of distribution centers or Phillips centers for a regular sized items but the really design for things like big screen TV's not necessary sofas. Inside of Amazon where to get really serious about furniture. It would be interesting to see if they would build a new fulfillment center infrastructure or how they would it would handle that that whole part of the thing because it doesn't seem that could leverage all the existing FC's. Scot: [13:16] Yeah and that's that's one of the keys they report so some of the job postings are 444 falmont centers that are going to be designated specifically furniture and Appliance so so but they never been contact with that. Name an end to point and never to my knowledge I know they got a pair of them at centers that have kind of steaming and ironing and kind of some very apparel they have a grocery footprint, they have a small item that return footprint that have a large item that's largely is for large Electronics this is the first time I've kind of seen, any Donuts Center tag with furniture and Appliance in and then certainly it sounds like they're building for sale that's. Pretty interesting and going to be a whole new new them footprint to see what they're doing. Jason: [14:04] Yep and that that is a category that you look at and say has not been very digitally mature a lot of the the. The traditional Furniture retailers would say like oh gosh people aren't going to be able to aren't going to buy furniture they can't come in and see it and so they hid them under invested in. In digital in e-commerce there's certainly some exceptions out there so that's an interesting category and then potentially even more interesting is Pharmacy again bunch of unique challenges about. The distribution Network for that and in that case particularly the delivery and dispensing has a lot of regulations attached to it. But you talk about disruptions you know you have three very large chains in in the u.s. Walgreens Rite Aid CVS. And the something like 60% of the revenue from all three of those chains is Pharmacy. I said that literally is their reason for being that drives all the trips to the stores and then they hope to sell all that all that stuff on the Shelf as a, serendipitous Discovery when you're coming in the store to fill your prescription so so it won't have Amazon was able to disrupt. Pharmacy in and you know really really own direct-to-consumer. Fulfillment for pharmacy that that would be those those chains could not survive without walk-in Pharmacy. Scot: [15:31] Yeah do you think the whole prescription thing in management of that is insurmountable or you think there's actually a better customer experience to be had in there. Jason: [15:40] Yeah I know I think it's exactly the opposite I think it's inevitable that the majority of prescriptions that people are going to want home delivery like it just is a better experience it's a chore to have to go. Pick that stuff up like there's a subset of that industry that you need kind of on-demand fulfillment so you just had a medical procedure and you need to stop on your way home and. And get some pain meds or something like that but the overwhelming majority of Pharmacy are these. The stuff that the majority of Americans now take for for chronic conditions and so you're just. Virginia if your whole life and it's a heck of a lot easier to have that stuff, show up at your door there's some really Innovative companies that are tackling individual markets like I think of capsule and in New York for example and you know Amazon certainly has the resources to. To go after that and saw that on the national basis and you know if and when they do that that's going to be a scary moment for other traditional drugstores. Scot: [16:44] Another category that's interesting we talked a lot about on the show and I know it's kind of a hobby for both of us to follow this one and it's kind of the B2B industrial category, and I'm just kind of the brief history here on this a deep dive cuz this is definitely out, that we should go deep run but that the Amazon piece of this is what she back in. April I think it was April of 2015 Amazon launch time. [17:14] Amazon business they used to have the thing that preceded it was Amazon Supply and it really signaled. [17:21] That Amazon is getting pretty serious about B2B and you know it's funny a lot of the B2B players really kind of laughed and said you know we have this network of. A thousand stores we have same day delivery there's no way you'll be able to counteract that and I would maybe think of this is Granger I was just one of the big players in this kind of B2B category and Industrial. Lovegood's has had a really rough first quarter so it started out they they. The mr. numbers worse than they ever have and then it took awhile for them to kind of come out and explain what was going on and they really just a simply said they've seen a seismic shift over Ecommerce and dinner. They called out specifically but reading between the lines it sounds like Amazon strategy is really taken root and it is causing them a world of hurt, one of the things I thought was interesting is when they came out and said kind of readjusted expectations they said they now predict that. Over 80% of sales by 2021 will be online and that cause analyst to take because they're so. Built out in the stores and all their margin is kind of. The accounts on people coming in the store analyst came out and cut their whole long-term margin Outlook by more than half. [18:36] So there's definitely see changes going on in that part of the market we haven't had a ton of time to talk about it and I think it warrants a deep dive. Jason: [18:45] That we should talk I've been to that one either, Factor there that seems really scary for Granger a lot of these B2B companies have contract pricing or negotiated pricing with each individual customer so there's, their tents and not be a public price and, you know they rely on price application you not knowing how much anyone else is paying for the goods and so Granger's had an e-commerce site for a while, but they they charge like the highest possible price on that e-commerce site so today, you know that the customers are buying online we're paying the highest price and one of the other things that they announces that they've had to dramatically. At as all shoppers are shifting the purchasing online they're their price sensitive online and so you know how to say Amazon, has the exact opposite pricing philosophy so they had to dramatically lower their prices and so it's a double whammy you say like wait a minute all your stores are so your sales are shifting online away from this huge investment in brick-and-mortar that you have, and you're having good to dramatically reduce the margins you get for online sales you know that doesn't give us a lot of confidence in your future. Scot: [19:53] Yep that's when I want to talk about it really news but it's kind of trend I just wanted to bounce off you and see if you're seeing the same thing so so it's my talk to. Brands all the time. And yeah I don't really causality but because I think we talked a lot about Amazon comes up for really interesting conversations over the years used to be. [20:19] What should I trade you be in that kind of thing, now what I'm finding is in Pride like the last 10 to 15 conversations I've had with Brands there they're really getting very serious about advertising on Amazon and I don't really see this out in the press three much but no. I now hear that stat come a come back to me that that I use all the time and that you no more searches are done on Amazon then for products than other sites like Google and it for she was the first service this like for five years ago and now there's several sources for the data, so Answer the conversation goes you know what we're doing is restarting it's been a lot more on Amazon ad Platforms Night if I have to that AMS Nama and we can go into that on. If I do Deep dive on this too and certainly you know it had gas like Andrea and most break talk about it on the periphery. What you interesting is what I'm seeing is this very quick lifecycle where brands are starting to the test and then it is a brand that you know. There their name brand so they have a lot of marketing dollars already in all kinds of different buckets, and at least we're starting to see them slash those at dollars it towards Amazon rapidly, also some folks have moved north of 30-40 50% of their previously mostly Google ad dollars over to Amazon and it's because of that so they can measure very. [21:50] Easily how it is moving the needle on Amazon itself but they're also seeing a very powerful spillover effect off Amazon. [22:00] It's hard to quantify that and I've talked to some of the other doing and its proprietary nothing. I don't want to go into it now cuz though I think it would reveal who they are but it's really fascinating to see this and I would not have guessed this would happen this quickly and I just kind of wondering are you are using the same thing in the hearing the same discussions. Jason: [22:19] Yeah absolutely. In it it it feels like for a couple reasons like certainly one is there is this like shift 2 more miserable, forms of media and more more sort of green eyeshade evaluations of marketing spend and your point when you advertise on Amazon you can it's Noah believe that that had resulted in the cell whereas a lot of other advertising Vehicles it's not been so the KP eyes have to be more, more wishy-washy and frankly like there's a lot of ugliness in the whole digital advertising space about like when you measure things like impressions. How accurate those measurements even are and is it about that sing that are person as that below the, the the full the never invisible to the human eye on all these sorts of things come into play into the the ads on the Retailer's site, you know certainly have an advantage and measurability but I actually think it's it's two other factors that are really driving it like that. The top on when you mention like hey if Google is been a traditionally effective way for me to advertise in particular. I've been really effective and then you start to hear that weight 55% of all. Search traffic starts on Amazon not Google you say man my portfolio of of pieles should. In 55% of those dollars should be going to Amazon not to Google in so you're starting to see Brands want to make that shift. [23:51] And then you have this third problem for the account teams that are particularly responsible for selling their own products on Amazon. There's a Amazon has this great virtuous cycle for Amazon which is when you launch a new product on Amazon the only way to find it is inserts right like unlike a lot of other e-commerce sites where. We're about 90% of the users are using the nav and maybe 10% are using search Amazon is almost exclusively a search based. Experience and the only way to show up in search is to have a high velocity of quick through on your product. And when you're a new product you don't have a high velocity of quick through so. You literally have to see the system by buying ads to improve your visibility so people could through to your product detail page so that you can get some volume so that you can start organically showing up in search. [24:44] So it almost necessitates that you make that that investment and what's what's been interesting to me is. [24:52] You know a brand of spending money on marketing like these tennis spend money out of a couple budgets and so usually. The first thing you see is that there's a sales team at you know Procter & Gamble or if you know you pick any brand. And they're responsible for selling the family care products through Amazon and they have a sales budget to invest in promotions on amateur Amazon that help himself just like that. Promotion budget to invest in in-store Shopper marketing at Walmart tell them so. And into those are the guys that originally are investing in these these AMS services to have their products show up so that they can start getting that search visibility. But there's a much bigger marketing budget that's owned by the CMO and that's the sort of brand building General awareness budget, I'm in that usually the budget that's invested digitally and things like like Google and so the interesting trim we're seeing is a lot of brands have always had a presence on AMS, MN other retailers advertising platforms. From those account teams but now it's becoming much more common that you're seeing the CMO allocate part of the brand building budget to showing up on these retail or sites and well. Amazon's the by far the largest Network in the US the Walmart advertising that work W an ex is very big target has a meeting full of network, Best Buy has a meaningful Network like almost every big sight there there's a separate team that's called the site monetization team and they're focused on on selling these marketing products brands that that died. [26:31] You don't want visibility on the sites. Scot: [26:33] Young I'm kind of curious if this going to start to show up in a lot of the ad tectonic companies. Results on specially Google because it does seem to be this, the kind of destroyed the Google milkshake so it'll be interesting to see if if we start to see him it back or maybe you could just big and diversified enough it doesn't it's not Material or something that we should if you're interested in this maybe, Too Deep dive ideas maybe we could get some Worcester feedback on you know which one of these is most interesting so we've got a Amazon marketing platforms and entrance and then we've got the B2B DS2 topics there. Jason: [27:15] Yeah good stuff and I guess one of the thing I would say there, one thing holding Amazon back a little bit at the moment is there ad platforms are not nearly as advertiser-friendly as, since somebody that their Core Business Like Google right so there's lots of friendly api's that all the Aztec guys can build products that talk to on things like like Google and the. Technology you can use to interface and execute your ads on on Amazon and and you don't even greater or stand on all the other retailers sites his is. Relative William in church so that feels like with the one area that needs to change for it really to catch fire. Scot: [27:53] Yeah and we've had several guests on the show say that they're pretty big kind of aspirations there so I think they'll get there. Jason: [28:00] There's their zero doubt that they could solve that problem and likely will. Scot: [28:04] Cool exit on Amazon you think anyone's going to slow those guys down. Jason: [28:13] Well I guess it depends on what you mean by slow them down III I certainly think that they're going to continue to grow and capture more market share in so if you're if you're picking a winner it's it's clearly got to be there, but I don't think it is a one-horse race and so I do think there's some other retailers that you know of, in a position to carve a pretty big pies for themselves and the one you think of the most in the one that you know frankly at the moment has a much bigger than Amazon is our friends at Walmart. Scot: [28:46] Yes yes oh Walmart had their first quarter earnings out and I think. Most of the reaction I've seen has been really positive some some folks are saying you're out of the woods and others are calling and green shoot so kind of, yeah different levels enthusiasm but mostly enthusiasm the one metric everyone's really excited about and I thought was. Pretty awesome is Ecommerce was up 63% year-over-year to you as a reminder e-commerce cornichons going about 15% maybe at 2 gets 14 desktop in two or three said that night maybe. Natural north of that but called 15 to surrounding and, Amazon consistently as a company grows in the mid-twenties and then if you take out a bunch of pieces the egm part of Amazon instead of the marketplace are growing, to clear around 30% so twice the rate of e-commerce so here you have something growing for X rated eCommerce witches witches great now Walmart hasn't been consistently doing that they've been all over the map here, so you're one skeptic one skeptical think people could say as well. The last year they didn't have a jet so is this all inorganic growth into the Wall Street analysts have taken some of Walmart's comments but I gave him enough data to back into it and, no the ones I've said have estimated that the organic growth was 40% your beer so still a really good showing ahead of Amazon's growth rate and then when you later in the jet would she have the Dell 23% or you get took up. [30:21] Pretty significant growth number so you have it too early to call that the strategy is working but there is definitely this is better than - 5%. Jason: [30:30] Absolutely and you know it, a huge warning sign for everyone else in the industry Let's Pretend analysts are for sure right in his 40% organic growth so the whole e-commerce Industries growing at 15%. By far the largest player in the Commerce industry that alone is is like 30 or 40% of the industry, is growing at 30%, and this and like most likely the second largest player in the Commerce industry is growing right now at 40% so that actually does not leave a heck of a lot of growth, for everyone else to get to that 15%. Scot: [31:10] Yeah there's there's two kind of outcomes if if the industry keeps going at 15 then. Online people to share will what I actually thinks going to happen if I grinning kind of a golden HD Connor Square I think if you don't just ties into the mall again theme I think we're going to actually see the, Tire e-commerce sea rise and we're ghosts are too. Bump up from that 15% we've had for years and start to get up towards the 20% that that's kind of yeah I think that's what's going to happen because and then the, and what that'll do is the percentage of sales that are online is going to start accelerating it's been kind of if you look at the comscore data in the Census Bureau data, it's in the sky like straight line for a while and it. I feels like the elbow the curve so I think this between q1 and Q4 I think it be a attic will start to see the really interesting inflection point there. Jason: [32:01] I think that's totally possible I like to think of it is, the really isn't an e-commerce industry like they're a bunch of product categories that are each a different places in there, certain maturity or adoption curve in in general across all the segments we see you once they get about 20% of their their Sales Online like it becomes a major disruption for the the incumbent model in so I think they're just, a heck of a lot more retail segments that are that are rapidly approaching that that 20% threshold in so like I do think that you can, that you could imagine a bunch of those crossing over that threshold then driving up the overall industry average. Scot: [32:46] Coupler just two bits of so if the first time they just close the DMV number in that was up 69% so when, when Revenue grows slower than gmv that mean to take rate is going down at I don't think that's enough of a Delta to be concerned it usually that can be explained and mix so all these marketplaces have. No a different mix a different take rate for electronics let's say is usually some 10% and then some of that jewelry is north of 15%, what is a nursing kind of trend watch over time which could indicate that there's some price pressure there or something like that, I'm Sims 4 sales improved 1.4% in the physical stores so that's good and. Jason: [33:29] And that beat analyst estimates. Scot: [33:32] Yes that was an improvement and you know it. [33:37] Walmart's been on about a year Journey may be teaching months where they've been investing in stores in hiring people and raising their, wages and cleaning up the stores really focusing on you have the day today blocking and tackling at the store level and that's an indication that that seems to be working and as we know later than other same-store sales numbers out there and 1.4% is, printable right now it's going to got a plus sign in front of it which I think many retailers would, really like to have on their teams for sales the quality of earnings growth improves which is good and then what the guys always measure on the sun and this is I've been being this drum for. Pearl every 15 years is at this point in time Amazon has you know, over 3 and 55 million skews so when it comes to selection no one comes close to Amazon it's that marriage of the one p and 3p model that does it Walmart seems I've got religion around this and it's widely reported, that they went from 10 million skis a year ago to now that 50 months can still drop in the bucket kind of 1/7 of Amazon but you have to go up 5x in a years is pretty impressive when for you know. What was yes 15 years and be a Walmart has been kind of in single-digit millions in here the last couple years they've they've really started to get very serious about adding selection. Jason: [34:59] Yeah absolutely in it it seems to me I mean when Amazon or when Walmart first wants to Marketplace like you know they didn't get immediate Traction in there you know they were kind of, judicious about who they let on to the marketplace and I know the sellers like really complained about. The platform in the the the tools and how many schools you can on more than all these sorts of things when you see that jump from 10 million to 50 million my section is that they fix the bunch of those problems in the third, they're much more seller friendly than they then they were originally. [35:39] Couple other little things in the Walmart world there's a great store concept that I can't remember we never talked about on the show, call the story or or formal name this is story which is a retail space in New York City and it's kind of an interesting concept they they. Are a great mix of Commerce and content, they come up with a theme every month or two and they redesigned the retail space. Based on that thing so the theme could be. A category product like health or you know measured self or innovation or something like that, and you know they design a complete retail space around that theme in so, when you go there from month to month you you wouldn't expect to find the same product you'd expect a completely different sort of Rich immersive experience, from the original concept they have been able to sponsor a number these stories so they had Brands come in and say hey we want you to develop a whole store concept around, are our particular brand and this month's story debuted a new A New Concept in the space and it's it's jet.com fresh. Scot: [36:58] You and I have been to several shopping at work meetings at at that store it's really cool it's kind of. Antiques curation to the the Instagram think because the store is the simply just wipe and replace every wish you do every 2 or 3 months is it courtly. Every month with what's that site. Jason: [37:17] I think it tends to be about every 2 months but I don't think it did so I got to fix schedule. Scot: [37:20] Come on Sia yeah yeah so are you going to go I think you're going to be in York City going to go stop by. Jason: [37:28] Yeah I haven't been to this concept yet it just open I think my next trip to New York is maybe end of next week or two weeks from now and so I will, definitely look forward to checking it out and hopefully we'll be able to tell our non New York westerners about it after that. [37:45] And then no one other piece of interesting new Walmart news this week is that Walmart's I filed for a number of Internet of Things past tense, in the, space so like everyone's really familiar with Dash buttons and dash Auto replenishment Walmart has patented and number of sensors. Detect when a consumer is likely in need of replenishment so it sort of, implicit is a replenishment instead of explicit so you don't maybe it's a toothpaste holder that can tell you when you're out of toothpaste, but other interesting play with some of these sensors are designed to tell you when the product you bought the perishable product you bought is about to expire so I could warn you that your. Your milk is expired or your cheese or something like that I don't know she's never expires now that I think about it but you get the. Scot: [38:44] Cheese expire this green stuff on it. Jason: [38:48] That green stuff in cheese I'm just getting I think it's penicillin no that would be bred never mind. But in any case interesting that the Walmart is investing in that in that ipspace we talked about. The internet of things and Auto replenishment on the show a couple times and it is very likely that five or ten years down the road sort of 40% of the goods that you. You buy in the grocery store today are likely items that magically show up at your door because your house knows you needed him so, I think that the retailers that are investing in returns and brands that are investing in that technology now are are wise to do so. Scot: [39:32] Yeah yeah one news item to kind of break out of the Walmart side that we were remiss and covering and so we had this flurry of activity there were Walmart bottom of Oaks in between shows of one of our gas company was acquired so Samsonite acquire D-backs was cofounders Peter Cobb is good on your end we've also had John Norma, two of the three or four Sounders on on the show. Jason: [39:59] Acquire. Scot: [40:01] Yeah yeah I'd say so. I don't think it's a huge stretch to say that we basically put this deal together but anyway so it was acquired 405 million, that's great outcome for everyone in and you know this trend of, brands of accelerating their digital footprint by buying e-commerce players is as fascinating in its. A shout-out to our friends at ebags and congratulations on that one. Jason: [40:27] Yeah absolutely it's going to be interesting to see I got his bags has a lot of that digital expertise Samsonite now also owns to me so it'll be interesting to see how they're able to leverage all those those new digital chops, across like you know both of the stores brands. Scot: [40:47] And then I'm also in news so we're, Walmart usually one of the last folks reports or kind of heading towards the end of the q1 reporting cycle and I saw a really cool chart where well one of our joint Twitter friends Ryan Craver has been tracking the sand, what is he shows kind of graphically same-store sales Trends and you know this was fast about this chart is. Yeah he has what he has kind of groups without call value-oriented retailers or their counterparts so things like Burlington Coat Factory which is a discount on Nordstrom Rack. The Nordstrom Rack piece of Nordstrom Rack shoes TJ Maxx, Dollar Generals in the dollar stores then there's a grouping for department stores and there's a grouping for wholesale clubs and it is a tale of three cities so wholesale clubs in generally the discount guys are doing well with positive same-store sales results and. Department stores are doing really really poorly with with severely negative same-store sales. So we'll put this in the show notes or check either my handle or Jason's on Twitter and by the way both retweeted this so you can see it there but it's really, interesting graphical display out of this where consumers are spending their money is actually an end the feast and famine that's going on and offline retail right now. Jason: [42:15] For sure I mean it plays perfectly into the, the retail Armageddon that we talked about that but you know protect those department stores are super distressed as consumers are making different decisions about where to shop been increasingly it's at those those more value-oriented retailers. Scot: [42:33] Yeah and one of the young, no one of the folks that did not make it out here in the last week or so as a retailer or rented towards team some all based retailer oriented towards teams called rue21 the file for bankruptcy so remains to be seen if they'll be closing all their stores or what's going to happen to the bankruptcy but usually it does mean store closures. Jason: [42:57] Yeah in it. I mean then we talked about the number the earlier bankruptcies a doing some interesting buzz on Twitter one of the bankruptcies was Gander Mountain and what kind of interesting, that Gaynor was bought out of bankruptcy by Camping World in the reason Camping World might be interesting to some listeners is the CEO of camping world is the star of retail Park a profit show on CNBC if you ever watch this. Scot: [43:30] Leon's Marcus Leon saskia. Jason: [43:35] Exactly and so Marcus has been Super Active on Twitter and he's been super transparent a gander had a. If memory serves like 60 stores and campers world is going to reopen like, 20 of those stores in so you know he's been like sharing real-time data on Twitter as they make the decision as to which stores they can reopen versus which ones they they. Scot: [44:02] So that is really confusing because, the stores all say the stores closing and we're liquidating everything then he is saying no no no no the store yes or selling all the stuff but the stores going to stay open so I guess they're going to, no they have their own supplier relationships and Logo replenish the stores and then they're also rebranding them the brand is like. Cinnamon Big Gander Mountain it's just Gander outdoor but he wanted to create a bunch of distance between the brand but it's like the same essential name side, Nas represent tracking. Jason: [44:36] No I think you got it, exactly right I think he did not buy the inventory the distressed inventory in the stores so the Liquidator the did has the right to sell all the stuff out of all of those stores and then the stories he reopens he's going to have to replenish your point prison while using the campers world supply chain that he already has. Scot: [44:56] Yeah that's commuter Sting If you can make that work because it's certainly very confusing consumers I forgot it's pretty in the weeds try to explain that to him. Jason: [45:05] Not for sure I just found the thing interesting you know if this had this this kind of thing plays out all the time when returns go bankrupt and I'm played out you know 15 years ago or 10 years ago when when Circuit City closed. They give you work in a Circuit City store you have no idea if you had any potential for a new job or what was going to happen and you know you'd be waiting until you read something in the newspaper and now you've got like. All this this real-time information you jump on Twitter and the you know Marcus is out there tweeting list of stores and saying like Hey we're going to hire people in that store so I did. I think that's another interesting ramification of the of digital disruption. Scot: [45:47] Yeah that's good point I think it is super helpful for the employees to have some some in real-time information what's going on. Jason: [45:53] Absolutely So speaking of digital disruption another big guy digital event this year or this week is Google IO. Scot: [46:05] You would what you think about that I was not able to watch it real time I read several the summaries and, yeah it sounds like Google went from in the early days being kind of search for Sony search to than mobile first and now everyone's saying there AI first so the AI Buzz was a Google IO and you have to get excited you're going to be in it's like, you know, this thing you can hold up your camera and it'll decode something in the real world and Google's had several iterations of this and they've all been kind of you know nice demos but not like, game-changing cell I don't know I felt like a real use cases so interesting to see if something was like changing for you. Jason: [46:50] Yeah we'll see nothing I would call life-changing but I do think it's interesting, why is one of these double-edged swords and we we for sure need to do a deep dive in there if you turn on on AI for Commerce because it is over hyped Buzz thing right in and so you know all the big, Big Rita a big big guy technology companies are talking about becoming a I first in and innocently that was the big play from from Google in, you know my argument is no one should be excited or buy something because it is or isn't it, bike was not an outcome and you don't people like I need some of that good at so so we'll we'll talk about that a little bit on the Deep dive, but I do think it is true that the AI is enabling a bunch of, much more interesting user experiences and much broader a digital user experiences then have been possible here to for so so I do think that is on the cusp of enabling, huge of systemic changes to how we shop across a bunch of categories and I am excited about that and you know that, but I would, I would encourage people to get much more excited about this specific use cases that are likely to affect them and why they're going to be a better experience than that it has the AI label or doesn't have the a highway. [48:21] So I think it be fun to do a show where we talked about what some of those near tournament fart termed use cases are but I know one person that's in my camp on this is our our number one listener Jeff Bezos. Scot: [48:33] So she possible Deep dive so if you want to let us know your thoughts, tweet at us or I'm Scott Wingo Scot Wingo in Jason his retailgeek. [48:49] Or go on her Facebook page and let us know which of these deep-dive topics is most interesting for you so to recap we have business kind of with an flavor of Amazon business what's going on we have. [49:03] Artificial intelligence and then we have Amazon advertising and and that platform so let us know what's interesting to you. Jason one big retailer that's been pretty active here in the last week's news that we haven't talked about his Target have you been tracking all the I don't know it's news I think it's more like, gossip at this point now have you been tracking what's coming out at Target and interesting macro things going on there I'd love to hear your take on. Jason: [49:32] Yeah so I think there's some gossip and some news I think they also did have their earnings call this week, and I did not write it down in the note so we're going from memory so don't hold me to these numbers I think they basically beat the analyst expectations but they definitely had negative same-store sales so, in my head I want to say that that the animals were pretty thing that be down like 3.7% and they would only down like 3.4% or something like that so. Definitely not the you guys want to beat analyst expectations but definitely not the kind of thing you claim victory on and and pound your chest about. When you're just just the shrinking a little more slowly than an analyst. Yes. They also did an ounce pretty good e-commerce growth I think also above that average so again from memory I want to say. Then I was like 20% eCommerce growth. [50:33] But it's interesting like all of those things at Target are in this backdrop of news we talked about in the last several months that the target is really curtail the lot of there. Forward-looking initiatives in program so they. You know they have these stores of the future that we're half built then they they announced that they were closing they had this big goldfish initiative. And now this this Innovation officer westering feel that you know they're working on all these Innovative things and they hired a bunch of people to build them. And they they abruptly pulled the plug on all those things and parted ways with Wes. Their Chief digital officer you know they left the company. Maybe 4-5 months ago they're cheap Innovation officer Casey car of the company this month so it really feels like. Target is investing all of their chips in their near-term fundamentals like they're they're trying to improve the guest experience in the stores, and they're all in on the winning in these five signature categories that they're focused on in store. At the expense of a lot of these these other initiatives then like obviously there. Their results or to belittle why that you know they don't have an unlimited amount of money to invest in all these initiatives. [51:56] So it's going to be interesting to see how that played out but in that context we we got some some rumors from her friend Jason Del Rey that he wrote an article about today. And that was all that they announced that they are selling Casper inside of Target stores, and that's that's not rumor that that's news they're not actually they're selling the mattresses on the line but they're selling a lot of the accessories in the store so so the Casper have a footprint in the store, and if you want to buy a mattress you can buy it direct from Casper but you can also now buy it from target.com and the ship it direct to your home, for people that aren't for my red Casper you know that that is clever combination spring foam mattress that they're able to. Compressed down enough that they can actually ship it in a UPS box in so this, this is kind of in line with a lot of other moves we seen Target they like to surprise and Delight their guests by having these popular brands that you wouldn't necessarily expect, Cabot Target in so regionally that was like designers that were too high in for that you might have thought were too high in for Target but more recently it's been some of these digitally native brands that are showing up in Target so it was Harry's razors and now Casper. And what Jason's article says is the target tried to go a lot further than just caring that they actually tried to acquire Casper and then when that was unsuccessful that they've taken some sort of investment and Casper. [53:33] So that's interesting. Scot: [53:34] Yeah and I think the number that was been thrown around as a billion do you have you heard what Casper is revenue run rate is how I remember when they crossed like a hundred million me was 2 years ago I heard an update on that. Jason: [53:48] Yeah I don't have a number in my head. Like for sure that they got to like a hundred million in like their second year of existence so I know there's a lot of talk about that but I don't know. Where they're at right now and it's interesting for Target to take an investment in them right so. If if I don't know that makes Target a majority shareholder or a minority shareholder or what sort of you know board seats and all those sorts of issues but you could imagine. Why does Casper sell on Amazon today and will they continue to sell on Amazon with with Target as a majority board member, would any other retailer B12 Kay Casper with Target as a board member and might see, sales velocity on those on those in those other retailer stuff like that like it can get messy for a retailer to have an investment in a brand that they're not exclusive to. Scot: [54:51] Channel X the thinking goes if I'm going to make these guys are Rockstar. And I can't own it then I want to participate in that Rockstar creation cycle that's probably what's going on from Target side. And they probably wouldn't do the deal without investment and then there's also stuff the offense part of it in their defense that kind of says. And so you things can come with your pretty real needy right of first refusal kind of things so that you keeps one else from buying it are you have at least two by two that so I wouldn't be surprised some of that was in there and in, Casper. Must have really wanted the distribution or her felt like it was worth it to accept the investment in any kind of other entanglements that came along with it. Jason: [55:35] Yeah and that does it mirrors Casper's a prototypical did you need a brand. You think about someone like both of those right like very similar, they cut a deal to get distribution although their primary Channel distribution is direct they cut a deal to get distribution in Nordstrom and they'll at Nordstrom to take an investment in them and so, in that way this this deal doesn't look so different from that and of course none of us as a sort of aggressively open guide shops at showrooms Casper has some some guide shops or not shops Casper has some showrooms. So it feels like it's falling on a pretty common playbook for these kinds of companies at this point. Scot: [56:20] Yeah and I don't say it feels like I'm outside I don't have any inside information on this it feels like a game of Music chairs is accelerating so, now we saw Walmart scoop up a couple of these really quickly and the Rumor persistent rumor is bonobos is going to Walmart so then if your target your kind of like. You know why I need to get in the chair here and we also have heard rumors that they were going to pick up boxed up which is more that Amazon Pantry style kind of competitor so so I think what you're seeing is you know you start to look at the digital I need a vertical brands that are out there at scale, your dollar shave club's been picked up so now you have Harry's in the Casper, there's it does to the three largest wins mod causes a lot of times mention of that discussion and bonobos those two are off the table so you're really left with. Pretty small number of scale over hundred-million-dollar companies there and I am I leaving any off. Which puts two chicks in there I don't know if that counts. Jason: [57:23] Yeah they're slightly different animal but they're like even you know probably larger in scale at this point I think there was some they publicly announced and you know we we have I can only take their word for it at this point but they clean a satellite. 760 or 780 million in annual sales so that's that's a pretty good size company of that church. Scot: [57:45] Yeah feels like a four five billion kind of a swing it back there so it's pretty serious to me. Jason: [57:52] Exactly some of these might be a little more digestible then than Stitch fix at this point I do think you're right like there's no. Diminishing number of these I think there is another interesting play where these guys are playing some defense. Another piece of innovation is so fast now that all these companies that have disrupted Industries, are not getting very long honeymoon before they themselves are getting disrupted so you think of Dollar Shave Club as disrupting Gillette and Shake. And you know you could talk about the cool video in the subscription service in all that the real reason Dollar Shave Club disrupted. Gillette is because you at sell $7 razor blades in Dollar Shave Club sells one dollar razor blades but now you've got dorco who's the. Razor blade supplier to Dollar Shave Club launching their own subscription service and selling $0.20 razor blades. You're like hey wait a minute like I was that young fun disrupter with the shockingly low priced and now I've got guys below me in the same thing as happened Warby Parker they're a bunch of direct-to-consumer, frame manufacturers that are even coming in and even let you lower price points than Warby Parker and the this mattress industry is, particular competitive so either at the Casper wasn't even the first they were really I would argue the first one to get sort of mainstream awareness. [59:24] But there are five or six a significant players in this new digital direct-to-consumer mattress space and if you're you're Casper you know you would have had a big incentive to get, eat a dick the kind of visibility in distribution you get through through Target to differentiate themselves from that competition. Scot: [59:45] Yeah there is a, an interesting data source CB insights had shown when the rumors about Casper came out that there's three or four other mattress companies that are actually in the neighborhood of sales is caspersen Target must be really enamored with Brandon and think that there's some absurd you there with their there. Fire door password. Jason: [1:00:07] Yeah yeah absolutely so it's a it's a fun spectator sport to watch all the stuff planned out right now. So Scot we're coming close to time but I know you have a pretty cool event coming up do you want to remind the listeners about it. Scot: [1:00:24] You know one of the biggest shows the year for e-commerce, internet retailer Conference & exhibition which is commonly abbreviated IRC and last five years I've been doing a Amazon Workshop they're called Amazon and meet so I'll be at internet retailer love to meet up with any letters that happened to be there Channel have a booth and I'll try to spend some time there, I'm a bad founder and don't know the booth number but I'm sure it will be in the guide there so I'll be at the booth and look for to see you there and then I'm also speaking at a venture capital friends about, what's going on in Destin DC and that's June 7th so look forward to seeing everyone as I'm starting to hit the road here in the early summer. Jason: [1:01:12] Graco I love it that you are potentially traveling more than me. Scot: [1:01:16] Yes I may have to I may be able to a trip report so it's going to be pretty darn exciting. Jason: [1:01:21] I tried to be a cool and find the booth number for you while you were talking and I sent you exhibited in too many hours to eat. Scot: [1:01:28] Yeah her for quite a while. Jason: [1:01:31] Exact, I still have to put that on the show notes and with that it has happened again we've wasted a perfectly good hour of our listeners time so we certainly want to thank everyone for listening and encourage you to write us a review on iTunes of you enjoyed the show and we would love it if you'd come to our Facebook page and give us some feedback about which of those deep guys would be interesting to you. [1:01:58] Until next time happy commercing.  

This week, Siri & “OK Google” get new AI company from Samsung, Uber management crumbles, the US bans electronics from incoming flights, Resistbot, genetic discrimination, Amazon's Mecha-CEO, a dartboard you'll never miss... and much much more. What We're Playing With Andy: Anova sous vide Corned Beef Dwayne: eBags Professional Slim Laptop Backpack Tosin: Think Tank Photo Perception Pro Backpack, Peak Design CapturePRO Camera Clip Headlines Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Downs Samsung unveils its context-aware ‘Bixby' AI assistant Spammy Google Home spouts audio ads without warning – now throw yours in the trash A.I. Is Doing Legal Work. But It Won't Replace Lawyers, Yet. Audible Book of the Week Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter Sign up at AudibleTrial.com/TheDrillDown Music Break: Cars by Gary Neumann Hot Topic: Transportation Tech Uber president Jeff Jones is quitting, citing differences over ‘beliefs and approach to leadership' Intel Joins Silicon Valley's Race to Make Best ‘Server on Wheels' With Mobileye Deal US authorities ban electronics larger than a phone from flights from 13 countries Hyperloop Transportation Technologies starts building its first full-size passenger pod Music Break: Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar Final Word Resistbot turns your text messages into daily letters to Congress Why We Should All Be Worried About Congress Eroding Protections Against Genetic Discrimination The Drill Down Videos of the Week Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos piloted a 13-foot high robot Automatic Bullseye MOVING Dartboard Subscribe! The Drill Down on iTunes (Subscribe now!) Add us on Stitcher! The Drill Down on Facebook The Drill Down on Twitter Geeks Of Doom's The Drill Down is a roundtable-style audio podcast where we discuss the most important issues of the week, in tech and on the web and how they affect us all. Hosts are Geeks of Doom contributor Andrew Sorcini (Mr. BabyMan), marketing research analyst Dwayne De Freitas, and Box product manager Tosin Onafowokan.

Jon Nordmark was the 10-year CEO of eBags.com, where he was also a co-founder. Today, Jon is CEO and co-founder of Iterate.ai which helps large corporations leverage the global startup ecosystem for digital innovation.

EP027 - Guest Jon Nordmark, Co-Founder of Iterate Studios We have a new facebook page! Jon Nordmark is one of the pioneers of the e-commerce industry.  A former marketer at Samsonite Luggage, Jon left when his boss told him "no one will ever buy bags on the internet."  Jon proved him wrong by founding eBags, one of the oldest pure play retailers.  While at eBags, Jon launched 6pm.com (later purchased by Zappos).  Most recently Jon is one of the co-founders of iterate.ai an innovation lab that helps match retailers up with innovative start-ups, which currently tracks over 130,000 startups. Links: Book Jon mentioned:  Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy by Stan Davis Episode 27 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, May 17th, 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.

Topics This week we introduce or solo travel “expert” Rebecca! She shares her unique travel experiences, one of which included a machete! Rebecca also gives advice and suggestions on how to prepare for a solo trip and things to consider when traveling alone. For your first or next solo trip be spontaneous but also do some planning for specific activities or sites that you want to see. Carry On Rebecca’s go-to carry on item is a simple extension cord. This simple and inexpensive item comes in handy and gives you a reason to chat up that cutie hogging the outlet. Renee mentions the eBags “steals of the day” for new luggage. Kim suggests downloading a few awesome podcasts including the excellent lineup provided by Rogue Intel. 

EP015 - eBags co-founder Peter Cobb, Google SERPs and Amazon Peter Cobb, co-founder of eBags and e-commerce pioneer shares his insight and learnings from 17 years of growing a profitable pure-play e-commerce site Our discussion includes, the founding of ebags, shop.org, the future of pure-plays e-commerce sites, brands going direct, private label and the evolution of mobile. Google has made changes to it's SERPs which will effect many e-commerce sites. Amazon opened it's 11 fulfillment center in the UK / Amazon increased FBA prices Amazon raises shipping threshold for non-prime to $49 Amazon private label apparel is already live (Franklin & Freeman, Franklin Tailored, James & Erin, Lark & Ro, North Eleven, Scout + Ro and Society New York) 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. Full Transcript: Announcer: Welcome to the Jason and Scot Show, your source for the latest news and trends in the ecommerce industry, featuring host Jason Retail Geek Goldberg, SVP of Commerce at Razorfish, and Scot Wingo, founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor.     Here is Jason and Scot.   Jason Goldberg: Welcome to the Jason and Scot Show! This is episode 15, being recorded on February 23rd, 2016. I'm your host, Jason Retail Geek Goldberg, and as always, I'm here with your cohost, Scot Wingo.   Scot Wingo: Hey Jason, how are you doing?   Jason Goldberg: I am doing terrific. I am out here in beautiful Palm Desert for the eTail West trade show.   Scot Wingo: Awesome! I could not make it. We have a lot of folks at Channel Advisor out there. Give me some highlights.   Jason Goldberg: Yeah. A bunch of interesting speakers. The CEO from Barnes and Noble, CEO from US Auto, there's a great presentation from Lane Bryant. One trend that we've talked about a little bit on this show that kind of rubbed me the wrong way is always the case in these shows. There's a lot of conversation about Amazon as the great enemy and how folks can compete with Amazon. There's guys up on stage suggesting that we all move off of AWS, because that's somehow going to make them less competitive with us.     Frankly, I felt like I heard from multiple CEOs at this show that tried to put Amazon in this pigeonhole of primarily being a dominant price competitor and their only competitive advantage is price. Therefore, their solution to competing with Amazon is to compete on customer experience or customer satisfaction or curation, or all these other things. As I'm hearing those things, I want to throw something at the stage because I feel like that's way oversimplifying how significant a competitor Amazon is. I feel like they're excellent at a lot of categories of business that the CEOs are taking for granted.   Scot Wingo: Yeah. Yeah, I run into that a lot. A lot of people feel like, sure, Amazon does compete on price, but what about the shipping infrastructure? The other one I don't think people bring up enough is selection. Amazon has over 400 million items available. I would challenge any of those CEOs to kind of think about that, and how do you deal with that level of selection, because if you want it, pretty much Amazon's going to have it.   Jason Goldberg: Yep. Frankly, I don't think they do exclusively compete on price. I think they're very strategic about price, and they compete on price when it's in their economic interest to do so. They recapture margin when the opportunity presents itself, and I think we have a couple news items this week that sort of highlight that.   Scot Wingo: Yeah, absolutely. What else is new at eTail?   Jason Goldberg: One thing I did want to mention, not necessarily eTail news, getting a bunch of buzz this week is that Google has made some pretty fundamental changes to the search results. This will probably not come as a surprise to any of our listeners, but Google is still a very significant source of traffic to most ecommerce sites. Most ecommerce sites are getting in the ... Mid-20% of all their revenue is coming from organic search results in Google.     This week, they announced that they would stop showing ads on the right hand side of the search results. Superficially, you'd read that and go, "Oh, they're decluttering the page, they already didn't have ads on their mobile page. That's not necessarily a bad thing." By the way, we're also going to add a fourth ad on top of the search results for highly commercial terms. Traditionally, they would put up to three ads on top, and then they'd put a few ads beside. Now what they're saying is, they'll have three or four ads on top, they'll have no traditional pay-per-click ads on the side, but they will still have the Google product listing ads, which we've talked about on the show are kind of the fundamental ads unit of ecommerce.     You add all that up, and essentially what they're saying is, "We're adding more ads and we're making them more prominent on the page," and on many popular browser resolutions, four ads on top means you actually won't see an organic result above the fold. This is potentially alarming news for some folks that rely on organic traffic. I'm not sure it's an earth-changing thing in and of itself, but it's definitely something to be aware of.     The one-two punch is that Google also gave us a hint last week that they really don't like cluttering up the search results with too many what we call "rich snippets." Rich snippets are another super important feature to ecommerce sites. That's the visual stars that you might see on a product result that shows you what your rating is or pricing information or inventory information. Some of these extra pieces of information that you can embed in your product detail pages and then Google shows in the search results, when those extra bits of information show up, the click-through rate on that search result is much higher, so ecommerce sites are really careful to take advantage of all those rich snip features. Google has always decided how frequently to show it. It seems like they're turning down the amount of rich snippets they show quite a bit.     Most alarmingly, the review, the number of stars, has disappeared off a very significant number of organic search results in Google. Some people are frankly speculating that it's a mistake or a bug, and that Google didn't intend to be so drastic, because it is so prominent, but at the moment, the organic search results are getting pushed further down the page and the rich snippets are coming off of the page, which means that a lot of ecommerce sites are going to see a meaningful decrease in their organic search traffic.   Scot Wingo: Just so listeners understand, how much do you think this really kind of is going to impact? Because we've kind of crossed over the 50% mobile. Mobile didn't already have, doesn't do four ads to the right. Is it more just the snippets will be on mobile?   Jason Goldberg: Yep. The snippets absolutely fit both. The rating snippets are huge. Traditionally, you'd see, like, 70% of all the click-through are going to be on that first organic result, and then it exponentially goes down after each additional result. If the second result has rich snippets and the first result doesn't, the second result can actually get more click-through than the first. That's a significant driver of click-through, and if they're going to permanently turn off those stars, that's going to be a game changer, especially for sites that really rely on organic traffic. The site you immediately think of that this would have a prominent derogatory effect on is someone like an eBay.   Scot Wingo: Yeah. Yeah, they've been in this kind of battle with eBay for a while, so it would not surprise me.     I know you always love to hear Amazon news, so I have a couple things there to share. If you're Retail Geek, I'm the Amazon Fulfillment Center Geek, and they slipped in a little announcement this week that they're building a smallish, only a million square foot fulfillment center in the UK. It's in Colville and Leicestershire. Along this lines where they're talking about job creations around fulfillment centers, they announced they're going to have 500 jobs over three years there. A fun fact, this is the 11th fulfillment center in the UK, which is about the same number of fulfillment centers that Walmart has in the US. They're very dense in the UK with fulfillment centers.     What's interesting is most of the things they've done in the UK recently have been kind of for deploying into London. Some of its Prime Now type stuff, or same-day delivery. This is a big new footprint for the UK.     Also in fulfillment center news, and this didn't get a lot of press, so I don't know how well this is known out there. The only area I am aware of where Amazon raises prices, everything else Amazon does lowers prices, especially if you do Amazon web services and that kind of thing, is Fulfillment by Amazon. Even in the marketplace, they haven't really changed the prices since the beginning of time, I think. With FBA, what they constantly do is kind of tweak the economics. There's a couple pieces in there. One of them is the per-package fee that they charge for FBA. It's going to have an increase from, I think it's $0.30 to $1.07, and on average, it looks like, from a model I've seen, it'll be about $0.45 an item increase.     That's one of the fees. The other one is called a storage fee. If you have inventory at FBA, it doesn't sell after x days, I think it's 30, then you get kind of the stump where they take the dimension of the volume of what they're storing for you and have a fee. That's going up. It's pennies, it's like $0.02 to $0.04, but that's kind of times the volume that you have. That's another one where they're constantly working the economic model to incent sellers to have the right behavior of focusing on faster-moving items that are in FBA. That's interesting.     As a result of that and some comments that have kind of come out in management meetings, what I've seen a couple Wall Street analysts do is raise their fulfillment center buildout this year from kind of middle single digits like seven to kind of mid-double digits like 15. It's going to be interesting to see how that comes out. We already have ... This UK one, I believe, is the first one that's been announced this year, so it'll be interesting to see what that looks like.     Another thing I'm sure you probably saw is, for those people that aren't on Prime, you can still get the free shipping. It's not two-day shipping, but the free Super Saver five-day shipping. They raised that from $39 to $99, now. Then, the last-   Jason Goldberg: You mean $49?   Scot Wingo: Yeah, sorry. $49.     The last piece was, we had talked about this last week, actually. This is kind of how fast Amazon moves, where there was news that Amazon may be considering doing private label in fashion. It turns out they are actually out with it. They have some fashion private label brands out there, and they're kind of a mouthful. Let me see if I can do this without stumbling through it. Franklin and Freeman, Franklin Tailored, James & Erin, Lark & Ro, North Eleven, Scout + Row, and Society New York. What is that? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven different private label brands. Some of these are men's apparel, some women's apparel. Very interesting that there was rumors they were going to do this, and now it's actually out there. You can search, we'll put it in the tidbits on the website. You can actually go search these brands and see what's available there, which I thought was pretty interesting.   Jason Goldberg: Yeah. I think that was a pretty big revelation to a lot of folks that were following the rumors that they might do it, and then, you know, bam, surprise, there's already a ton of skews on the site a lot. I look across all that Amazon news, and my two big takeaways are number one, raising the shipping threshold is interesting. Amazon shipping costs are a very meaningful portion of their business, they're like 12% of their revenue, and so it certainly looks like they're trying to make a profitability move by recovering a little more shipping fees. The big thing is, this just seems like another very overt effort to push more people to Prime, and I suspect it's going to be effective in doing that.     Raising the rates on the FBA is interesting. To me, that's inevitable, that as Amazon grows its business and has more strain on those fulfillment centers, that shelf space becomes more valuable. They just need to charge more to maximize it. I think if you're a seller, you probably shouldn't expect this to be the last increase that you see there.   Scot Wingo: Yet when I talk to customers, it's still very, very competitive to any other 3PL. Even when you kind of look at a multi-year model, you have to kind of look at it over two or three years because of the accounting. It ends up being relatively cheap compared to having your own fulfillment center.   Jason Goldberg: Yep, and you get the huge kiss of being Amazon Prime-eligible.   Scot Wingo: Yeah, and as they do Prime now and whatever else they're going to do around all these things, you ride along with all that investment, which is ... I don't know how you quantify that, but it's a pretty good value.   Jason Goldberg: Yeah. I think the one exception I've heard there is if you're in a category that's predominantly oversized or unusual-sized items, that the economics get a little more challenging on FBA because they've really optimized the pricing model for their typical package size.   Scot Wingo: Yeah, that drayage fee, because it's volumetric, really hits you hard with oversized items. Yeah, absolutely.   Jason Goldberg: Did Etsy have their earnings call this week?   Scot Wingo: They did. It was actually today. A couple highlights out of the call ... Etsy went public and had a great public offering, and then has really struggled since then. A lot of it was mobile. They had a huge challenge when mobile kind of accelerated right around their IPO. It was kind of like Facebook had the same problem, but Facebook recovered pretty quickly. It looks like Etsy is seeing the light in the tunnel. They had pretty strong results. They exceeded expectations. Then they actually came out and said, "For the next three years, we're going to have 20-25% growth," so kind of pounding their chest, feeling pretty good about the future. I think a lot of it is around ... I think they feel like they've solved some of their mobile challenges.     A couple of other interesting metrics: 1.6 million sellers. I think that's interesting, because Amazon reports 2 million sellers. Etsy definitely has more seller density than in Amazon, but because it's handmade, you would need that, right, because you can only handmake so many things. I thought that was interesting. 24 million active buyers. The Amazon question did come up on the call, and the CEO said that, "We" ... By this, I mean Amazon has launched a competing category and seems to have Etsy in their crosshairs. The CEO at Etsy said, "We have no reason to believe that any of the competitors are having an impact on us." For the 4th quarter, Etsy had $750 million in GMV, which, when you look at the run rate, that was a Q4, so it's not pretty fair to really do this, it's not going to be their run rate forever, but it's interesting to think that they're at about a $3 billion run rate.     I remember in the early days of Etsy, everyone in ecommerce was kind of like, "God, what a niche. This handmade stuff, maybe that gets to be $50 million." It really kind of shows ... I think what's interesting about Etsy is, some of these things that seem like niches and they're going to be really small, when you look at them on a global basis, they can be pretty big. $3 billion in homemade items, that blows me away, and they're anticipating it growing 20-25% for the next three years. They see a path to $4 billion or $5 billion, which I think's pretty fascinating.   Jason Goldberg: It's almost like pure play is not really in fact dead.   Scot Wingo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good little kind of teaser for what's coming next.   Jason Goldberg: Well, let's get to the really exciting news. We have a guest today.   Scot Wingo: That is true. It's episode 15, we're really settled in here at the Jason and Scot Show, so we thought we'd do something you and I had talked about way before episode 1, which was have a special guest. I think it's going to be a new tradition here on the Jason and Scot Show if it goes well, and I'm sure it will. I'm thinking every third show or so, we'll have a special guest to kind of help mix it up.     Today, we're really excited to have as our first guest ... I don't want to put it out there yet, I'm going to build some suspense. This is someone I've known probably for at least 12 if not 14 years. He's one of the founding fathers of ecommerce. If there was a Thomas Jefferson or maybe Alexander Hamilton of ecommerce, that's who we have on the show today. It's kind of a privilege to have someone that has been in the industry for so long but is still right on the cutting edge. He started a company back in '98 that is one of the successful pure plays that's out there.     If you haven't guessed yet, it is Peter Cobb from eBags. Welcome, Peter.   Peter Cobb: Hey Scot, hey Jason. Thanks for inviting me. You guys are doing a great job.   Scot Wingo: Thanks. We're super excited to have you here. I tried to keep your intro kind of brief. To start out with, maybe tell us a little bit about how you got into ecommerce. You're at eBags still and you've had an interesting journey there, so maybe a little highlight of that. Let's just start with that, just to orient everyone that hasn't known you for 15 years, on how you got into the industry and what you do on a daily basis.   Peter Cobb: Yeah. Back in 1998, well, prior to that, there were a couple of us that worked at Samsonite. I led the marketing for Samsonite, and a couple of us execs at Samsonite saw what was going on with people buying books online, music, gardening equipment, toys, etc. We just said somebody is going to own and pioneer the category that we knew so much and love, and that's luggage and handbags and backpacks, business cases, etc. We peeled off from Samsonite in 1998.     Actually, kind of took the idea of my cofounder, John Nordmark. John took the idea to the president of Samsonite and said, "Hey, why don't we buy some domains, discountluggage.com, and so forth?" Back then, you could just make up a domain and you could buy it. We owned about 25, actually. The president of Samsonite said, "I get email, I can't imagine anybody buying luggage from an email. Go back to your cubicle." John called me up and said, "Let's do this. I think it's ripe," and both of us were into the internet and watching what was going on. That was in 1998.     We pulled it together. It was our own money for the first six months or so, and then we actually went the traditional route with angels and to friends and family, and raised some money from Silicon Valley and raised $30 million in 1999. That's the last time that we've raised money. We haven't had any down rounds since then. It's been cashflow positive, really, since 2002.   Scot Wingo: Cool. That's around the time when Amazon did their IPO. They were in '97, if I recall. Was that kind of an impetus for you? Was that kind of the wake-up where you said, "Hey, we need to do something. There's this bookstore going public. This is kind of going to be a thing."   Peter Cobb: Well, you know, I was just explaining to somebody at eBags today about the early days. There was cooking.com, garden.com, mothernature.com, and Amazon was there. Amazon's really the only one that's alive today. eToys. Really just kind of across the board, we just looked at it. Back then, Amazon was just books. We felt like in our space, right out of the gate ... Our model is somewhat unique from a lot of these guys in that we don't want to own product. Our model is drop ship. We knew at Samsonite, who's the global luggage leader, at Samsonite, 75% of our orders out the door were three pieces or less. Somebody owns a piece of luggage at Aspen Luggage, they sell a garment bag. We were selling them one piece at a time from Samsonite.     We convinced Samsonite and many other brands to ship directly to our customers. Took a little bit of time and some arm-twisting, but here we are today with 70,000 different bags and accessory items from 700 brands. Obviously, from a cashflow model, and that's primary to why we're alive today, is somebody buys on eBags.com, we get the cash immediately from the credit card, and pay our brands. It could be 45 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever's negotiated. You get positive flow versus having a warehouse, and you imagine a warehouse with 70,000 individual units, but then you need to go 105, 100,000 deep on each. It would be $100 million of inventory we'd have to keep, and we wouldn't be alive today. That was really one of the key decisions early on. We were one of the first to drop ship, and actually, it isn't that common. You have marketplaces today which accomplish the same thing.   Scot Wingo: You guys start a company, you raise money, it's all exciting, you're driving into the future, and then the dotcom bubble burst. What was that like? I lived through it, and it was quite painful. I can only imagine what it was like for you guys. What I recall is people are going out of business left and right. Pets.com and all these other things were just flaming out. You guys not only survived but thrived. What was that like, getting through that nuclear winter?   Peter Cobb: It was brutal. It was really tough, because one side of you is saying we're homesteading, we need to claim our territory. Back then, portals were so big, and somebody like AOL could commit $1 million for something the size of a postage stamp, but you would own luggage or handbags on AOL and you just had to occupy that space because so many people came through some of those old portals. You did burn through cash.     Not only was it dotbomb, but for us, what really hurt, I think even more than dotbomb or as much, was the 9/11 tragedy. Just didn't have a lot of people traveling after that. We all were cocooning. Of course, they shut down airlines, and people just said, "You know what? I'm just going to stay home for a while." That really hurt our sales. From a positive standpoint, it really highlighted the fact that we need to diversify. We cannot survive by just being a luggage or even travel goods company. That got us into backpacks for school, women's handbags, fashion accessories, and watches is a big category for us now ... Branch out in business cases and business accessories.     In a way, it kind of poked us a little bit to say, "Okay, you're thinking too narrowly here." It's been an amazing 17 years, and in fact, just last week, we announced we passed 25 million bags sold, which is really a nice accomplishment. We're really proud of that, because if that was a chain of stores, it'd be hundreds of stores nationwide that do that kind of business.   Scot Wingo: For our listeners, can you give us a little idea of the scale of eBags? I don't want you to divulge any confidential information, but maybe your IR rank or whatever you're comfortable letting us know. How big is the scale of eBags at this point?   Peter Cobb: Yeah. We're 110 people, and as I said, 25 million bags. I mean, something that I'm just as proud of is that we have 3.2 million customer reviews, so it's a big part of the DNA of eBags.com, of leaving that virtual Post-It note. From the IR, we're in that kind of 100-150 range, kind of depending on the year, but we are a pure play, which is a critical part of this. We don't have stores to get that PR and help offset some of the expenses. We don't get traffic in the door, we don't eat. It's a constant survival for us.     We just had a meeting today with our executive team, and the primary message was, "We need to stay hungry, we need to be paranoid." This thing can change. You mentioned it, Scot, early. There are things that can happen that are out of our control that can pop up. Cash for us, cash is king. We have no debt. We don't plan on raising any more money. We've got to really live within our means. There's a lot of people out there doing some crazy things from a marketing standpoint, or willing to lose tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. That's an area where we're just ... I actually love it, and we bring people on that accept that challenge and relish it. It's pretty competitive right now.     Like you mentioned, I could have said that in any of the past 18 years.   Jason Goldberg: Peter, I wanted to ask you a question. You mentioned that you're a pure play, and you've been a pure play for more than 15 years. It's interesting, because a lot of the talk today is pretty negative on pure plays. I mean, you've got Scott Gallaway at L2, and he's got a whole campaign around "Rest in Peace, Pure Play," and you've got a bunch of these buzzy new companies like Warby Parker or Bonobos or Nasty Gal or, even I think Blue Nile now is opening some stores. It's a big trend that these pure plays are now shifting to stores. Then, of course, you have a couple of huge pure plays that flamed out. You have the fab.com and Gilt just sold for a disappointing valuation.     I think there's this buzz that, "Hey, pure play isn't a long term sustainable model, or maybe it used to be, and its time has come." It always drives me nuts when I hear that, because I feel like you're the best example, but there's a bunch of people in your class that are long time pure plays that have been able to grow based on their own revenues. I'm just curious, what's your take on the whole viability of the pure play model?   Peter Cobb: Well, obviously with what we do, it depends ... Honestly, it depends on the category, it depends on products, it depends on factors such as ... We're fortunate in that for the most part, people don't need to try it on. It's a piece of luggage, it's a kid's backpack, it's a soccer bag, on and on and on. Our return rate is very low. Really, I think it lays out well for us to be a pure play in that we really feel like we want to be ... I mean, to have 70,000 bags and accessories on our site, and we'll probably pass 100,000 products in the next 120 days, and venture out into even doubling that in the next year or two. We really feel like we want to be a house of brands, as well as something ... For us, it's travel and fashion. If you want a bag or something related to travel and the travel experience, go to eBags.     No store can have the assortment and selection that we have. Picking a brand, one of our better brands is Tumi. It's a premium luggage and business case line. We'll carry 500-plus pieces of Tumi, and a typical store, because a physical space in luggage or business cases, they may carry ten pieces of Tumi, maybe 15, if they're lucky, and we have over 500. That's where we love where we are in the space. It lines up quite well, I think, for long-term viability. There's really no store out there ... I mean, obviously you've got the bookseller in Seattle that does a great job. They've got a broad and vast assortment, but for what we do in our category, there's a lot of brands, actually, that don't want to go down that path, let's just say the marketplace path. We demonstrate to them that we're a specialty store interested in travel and fashion, and that really resonates, especially with brick and mortar having some challenging times right now.     The last thing I'll say is, within our space, retail is still around 10% online, so 90% brick and mortar, and yet, you have stores closing every month in our category. I think it's only going to accelerate. We really love where we're positioned, and I think a lot of categories can say the same thing. To your point, Jason, on a brick and mortar, it just isn't ... You have to really focus on something, and focus on something that you're excellent at. I don't think brick and mortar is an area for us today that we should be venturing into. I think there's so many other opportunities out there within the ecosystem of what we're already working on.   Scot Wingo: Cool. One follow-up on the pure play thing. Amazon's invested hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, in their fulfillment center, and you guys don't have a fulfillment center. Does it ever feel like doing the drop ship thing, that you don't have control over that customer experience, and that's a negative?   Peter Cobb: You know, I think it gets down to are you getting products to people in a timely manner. With our, we have 700 brands, as I mentioned, the average product leaves that door in 0.7 days. Within a day, our goods are out the door. We actually spent some time ... One of our board members did a tour of Zappos, and came back ... At the time, it was 17 football fields, 800 employees, and came back and said, "It's unbelievable what they have. We should move to that model." I remember in the board meeting saying, "What would we gain? It already goes out the door in six hours. Okay, so, we would gain maybe two hours, if we're really, really good."     For us, that part of it ... I think that's the primary part of this. The other part of it is, a lot of our products, they actually are shipped from Asia in the boxes that gets delivered to the customer. In a lot of cases, just thinking in a piece of luggage, we just put a label on it, our brands do, and then ship it to the customer. It's in a box that may say Tumi, Samsonite, or Delsey. That experience is ... It probably could be better to your point, Scot, but I think we just have to make some choices and go that route.     Now, that being said, I will say our number one brand on our site is actually our own private label brand at eBags. It's 24% of units and 20% of revenue. It's unbelievable. I mean, we're product guys when we started eBags. That's what we did at Samsonite, and we just love product and we just have really told the team, "Make product that you would want to carry." Actually, right as we started the business, we got into it, so it's not like it's the last couple years. In a lot of ways, it's really built out this competitive mode. That's a big reason why we're as profitable as we are and that we have some kind of staying power within the space.   Scot Wingo: That's good to hear, because Jason and I both get asked by a lot of what I would call multi-brand retailers, in other words, like a Macy's or something that doesn't really have their own brands, what one of the best strategies they can do. I always go back to private label. Earlier in the show, in the news segment, we talked about some of the stuff Amazon's doing there. It's interesting to hear that that's such a large part of what you guys are doing.     Unsponsored ad here. I love the cubes, the packing cubes you guys do. My wife loves to organize, and she's a huge fan of the eBags packing system there.     One other thing I just wanted to kind of introduce. You introduced me to shop.org. I had been going to the summit, and really enjoying the summit. When I was earlier in ecommerce, though, I didn't really kind of understand that there's an organization behind the summit that we all go to in the fall. You introduced me to that, and you were one of the early folks there. All three of us are on the board there. We'd love to hear how you got involved with shop.org, and how you describe it to folks.   Peter Cobb: Yeah. It's ... You know, this industry that we're in, online retail and digital retail and so forth, it is made up of some amazing people, of some amazingly bright people. It's also, we're undergoing so many challenges, and it's changing so fast. You were talking about chat commerce and even now with what's going on with Facebook Messenger and Snapchat and so forth. Sometimes you need a network of people that you can reach out to to compare notes and share stories and really pick their brain. We're really good at drop shipping, so I'll field some calls from people interested in getting into drop shipping. Other people maybe have more expertise in social media marketing or some other areas.     The thing about shop.org, it's really a trade association made up of a community of people within the digital retail space that gets together several times a year, but also shop.org provides thought leadership pieces, whether it's a think tank, white papers, research, several conferences ... Also works on behalf of retail as part of National Retail Federation, NRF, as a team in Washington DC, working on issues important to all of retail, not only digital, with things like trying to promote legislation to limit patent trolls and things like that.     The big part of it is providing a space where you can learn from others but also network, and, as always happens, you end up developing pretty strong friendships as well, which makes it even more enjoyable.   Jason Goldberg: I'm the new guy amongst the three of us, I think, at shop.org, but I would just absolutely echo that one of my favorite parts is the camaraderie and the opportunity to network and share in an adult beverage with folks that face a lot of the same challenges and opportunities every day that we do. Inevitably, when you get together with other ecommerce folks and you start having conversations, the topics pretty quickly turn to the things that are keeping you up at night or the new trends that you're most excited about in terms of upcoming opportunities. I wanted to ask what was kind of front and foremost in your mind right now, in terms of new trends or new challenges in the ecommerce space?   Peter Cobb: Well, I think a challenge that all of us are facing, and I know we're all getting our arms around it, but it is a challenge, and that's the move towards mobile and smartphones. It's not a surprise. We all use them in our personal life. I think retail, frankly, was caught flatfooted. You have OpenTable and Uber and so many other apps that were built for the smartphone, and I think with retail ... I mean, two years ago, our traffic would have been single digits coming in on smartphones. You knew it was coming, the wave was coming, but there's just so many other things popping that you need to put your resources towards. We're really actually really happy with our mobile experience, but it's kind of one of those ... You just need to continue to invest and spend the resources, and when you think you've got it figured out, something else comes along.     Right now, a great example is, the big obstacle in mobile is payments. Credit card and so forth. Obviously, Paypal is a great provider helping with mobile. It's a big part of our mobile efforts, but there's other wallets popping up, Chase Pay and Masterpass and Visa, etc. I know you guys have talked about that in the past. That's a big challenge, of, okay, who do you partner with, where do you play on a mobile device, how does that all work when you only have so much space and so much real estate?     I think with mobile is, I know in the past, you guys have talked about average conversion rates, and if you just said a PC is 3% or 4%, and tablets 2.5-3%, and mobile is 1%, if not 1.5% ... You know, as your traffic continues to grow towards mobile, and it could be up 50%, 60% year over year, well, that means your weighted average conversion rates are under some pressure. A lot of times, you think about 100 people come into your site and only one or two purchasing. Well, with whether that's Google or Facebook or whatever affiliate partner you have, that's pretty expensive traffic, if you're only getting a 2% conversion. That's a huge challenge that I think a lot of people are facing.     The other part of that that people don't talk about is that usually, you know, on a PC, we'll get 1.5 units per order, and on mobile, it's really kind of one and done. It's about 1.1. You have your average basket size lower, so conversion rate's lower, basket size lower. You really need to just kind of think through how to optimize mobile. I think we're all slowly figuring it out. Our mobile sales ... Actually, our traffic last month up 40%, but our mobile sales are up 70%, so we're going in the right direction, really feel good about it. We always are thinking if we're redesigning parts of the site, it's mobile first, because then PC will all fall behind.     Then, I think another trend that I think is interesting is, you've got brick and mortar as well as brands developing websites, and those are obviously competitors, but I'm going to focus just on the brands. I think an interesting trend is that the brands are realizing, hey, building and maintaining and keeping a website up to speed is not for the faint of heart. It's super-expensive. You need expensive personnel. The whole resource requirements of a brand. I mean, it's one thing for a retailer, they're kind of familiar with the direct marketing model, but for brands that went into it maybe two, three, five, eight years ago, and now are realizing what I was just talking about with mobile and all the resources required, it's really a challenge. Then, they're under pressure for their own brick and mortar stores that many brands bid off. Now they're looking at us and, "Gosh, I got my website, should I update that? Should I send people into my stores? Should I have returns into stores?" I think a lot of retailers as well as brands are really being challenged right now. Those are some key challenges and opportunities I think we all face.   Jason Goldberg: Yeah. Peter, the brands going direct is really interesting, because frankly, a lot of my clients are those brands that either already went direct, or maybe they're in a category of retail that's kind of a digital laggard, and they're just now talking or thinking about going direct.     It's funny, because my opening line is usually, "Hey, you're always going to be the worst place to buy your product. You're not going to have any of the third party accessories or add-on sales that consumers want. You're going to be the only retailer on the planet that perfectly complies with [MAP 00:43:33]. In general, there's a small subset of users that want to buy direct from you, and it certainly makes sense to capitalize on those users, but that you're not going to materially hurt your wholesale partners' business." I'm just curious, from your perspective, is that how you feel? When Tumi goes live and starts selling bags from their own site, which I think they did a couple years ago, did you look at that as, "Oh, a cute effort from Tumi," and maybe it taught Tumi to be a little more sensitive to some of the content issues that make them a better partner for you, or did you feel like that was a material threat to your business?   Peter Cobb: Well, we actually ran Tumi's website for them globally, US, UK, Germany, and Japan, between 2002 and 2010. We had a great eight-year run with Tumi, and then they said, you know, as it was growing, they said, "You know what? It's time for us to take it on our own." I think even ... it's been a challenge. It really has been a challenge, like a lot of brands. They have to decide, does the website exhibit the brand essence, or are we in this to have ecommerce and generate revenue? There's that continuum they have to decide, and I think for a long time, Tumi kind of came out of the chute and said, "We need to promote the brand Tumi. This is part of going public," and so forth, but then realized, "Gosh, our sales are not nearly as strong as we thought they could be." Plus, building out a global ecommerce effort, multiple countries, and then you've got changing marketing messages in 15 or ten or 20 different sites, languages, marketing messages, all the same night, it's pretty challenging to do that for somebody like a brand like Tumi.     To your original question, we just think of that as, "Hey. Tumi's going to get into it," or Samsonite, or so forth. Sure enough, I know they're great partners of ours, and we actually talked to them about some of the challenges. I know they're scratching their heads just like some others say. By the way, this was something, especially when you're talking about global websites, it's something that's pretty challenging for them. I think in a lot of cases, they end up, somebody at the top ends up saying, "You know what? We need to go back to making great product and not pretend we're a technology company." Then they call you, Jason.   Jason Goldberg: We're more than happy to pretend to be a technology company on their behalf!   Peter Cobb: Exactly.   Scot Wingo: Cool. We're up against time, but I have two kind of lightning round questions to ask you. One of the things that's fun about ecommerce is there's always some weird thing that you would have never guessed. For example, when we look at our data, we always see these weird correlations between people buying things that you would never think those would go together. Any insights like that, like from your time at eBags, of strange insights that you've found of consumer behavior?   Peter Cobb: You know, I think ... There's something happening now which is, I think, pretty interesting, in that the power brands are not doing as well as one might think. What I mean by that is, think about anchor store brands, brands you would find in a Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, etc., are really, I think, undergoing some pressure. You've seen it in the designer handbag category with Michael Kors and Coach posting some numbers which were pretty challenging over the last three to five years. What happens, then, is you've got ... The thing that I love about it is, you've got kind of these small brands that, given the light of day, actually do really well. On our site, it could be Osprey backpacks, Fall Raven backpacks. Very cool products that now then we can show to the world of, "Hey, you probably wouldn't know where to find this in Chicago or LA or San Francisco, but you can click a button and have this sent directly to you."   Scot Wingo: Cool. We call it, on the Jason and Scot Show, we call it "the hoverboard effect," kind of the disimportanting of brands. One last one, and I know this is hard to answer quickly. You don't survive 17 years in business without really investing a lot in the culture of your business. I've been to eBags and seen ... You invest personally a lot of your time as a founder into the culture of the company. If there's listeners out there, and maybe they're an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur, any quick tips on how you keep that culture and calcify it and all that kind of thing?   Peter Cobb: Well, I think it starts with once you lock into a solid business model, then you hire great people, don't skimp on people. It's all about getting people that have a history of success, and then letting them run with, of course, guidelines. I think on our end, we were super transparent, we reveal all P and L, we reveal cash on a monthly basis and say, "Look, we're all in this together." Every employee gets stock ownership in the company, so we're all owners, and we think in terms of, "Treat the customer as you would want to be treated." You know, we just have things, too, I mean, a lot of people do, with dogs in the office and things like that, but just really making it a great place to work and making it fun. We're there for ten, 12 hours a day in a lot of cases, and just having it be ... Have it be a place that is fun. Not so serious, but people that are willing to work hard and have fantastic teamwork. You just have to make it fun for people, otherwise there's a lot of other options out there in the world.   Jason Goldberg: Very cool, Peter. I know you're based in Denver, Colorado. Is it safe to say you're always on the lookout for great ecommerce talent?   Peter Cobb: Absolutely. It's really challenging, I think, finding over-the-top talent. I think it's one of the biggest challenges. It is not necessarily somebody that gets straight A's in school. It's why I even talked about a history of success, of doing things that maybe are not right down the fairway all the time. It's okay to be a little bit quirky, because we're doing things that people have never done before in this space. You need people willing to take risks. You can't slap the wrists if they fail. They fail a second, third, fourth time, yeah, absolutely you need to sit people down, but you want people that are willing to get out there and make a calculated risk.   Jason Goldberg: That makes perfect sense, Peter. Listen, that is all the time we have for today, but I want to remind everyone that our guest today has been Peter Cobb, who is one of the co-founders of eBags. You can follow him on Twitter. I think your Twitter handle is @PeterCobb, C-O-B-B.     With that, I will say until next week, happy shopping and thanks very much to all our listeners.   Scot Wingo: Thanks Peter. Thanks, everyone.   Announcer: You've been listening to the Jason and Scot Show. For all the latest news and trends on ecommerce and shopper marketing, subscribe to us in iTunes and please leave a review.  

One of the neatest things about RVing is how it complements so many other hobbies like hiking, kayaking, photography and.... amateur radio. Yes, amateur radio, or ham radio is it is often called. There's a huge resurgence in the hobby these days with more people participating in the hobby that ever before. Joining me on this week's episode of the podcast are Sean Kutzko and Norm Fusaro from the American Radio Relay League. Both love camping and the outdoors and say it's the one sure way to have reliable communications no matter how far off the beaten path the RVer happens to be. But more than that, it is a hobby so rewarding and enjoyable that there should be a spot for it in every RV. [spp-player] Complete shownotes for Episode 71 of the Roadtreking RV Travel Podcast: I've been a ham operator since I was a teenager (K8ZRH) and now use it all the time in my RV travels. You can hear the full interview with Sean and Norm at [spp-timestamp time="24:55"] into the podcast. In it they discuss: What is amateur radio? How easy is it to get licensed? What can you do with amateur radio in an RV? What equipment do you need and how expensive is it? Relevant Links about amateur radio mentioned in the interview: The American Radio Relay League What is Ham Radio Report National Parks on the Air The Family Motorcoach Association Amateur Radio Chapter Before the interview, we reported on many more topics in this week's episode. Jennifer's Tip of the Week - The Best Way to Pack Your Clothing In an RV, space is at a premium. And few things take up more room that suitcases packed with clothes [spp-timestamp time="5:52"] That's where eBags Packing Cubes come in so handy. We heard about them from fellow RVers who sang the praises of this very affordable way to pack and carry clothes on an RV trip. Some RVers are so hooked on eBags that they even put them in a suitcase when they do traditional and  airplane travel. But in an RV, they're the hands-down best way we've found to pack. I've done a video that shows how much you can get into an eBag. A three piece set of the packing cubes costs $19 from Amazon. They come in different colors. Mike uses blue, I use raspberry red (the closest they come to pink). They have a mesh top panel for easy identification of contents, and ventilation We store them in the overhead bins above the bed in the Roadtrek. It keeps everything wrinkle free and compact. They let you “unpack without unpacking” –that is, you can remove the cubes to get at your stuff, but still keep things neat and tidy. Watch the video we'll link to in the shownotes fopr this episode to see how much you can get in one. Trust me, in an RV, or on a boat, or if you want to make your suitcase neat, these are what you need. [spp-player] Listener Questions: Heating an RV – Is carbon monoxide an issue? Carbon Monoxide is an invisible, odorless, and deadly gas, produced by the partial combustion of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. Carbon monoxide is the number one cause of poisoning deaths each year. [spp-timestamp time="7:53"] Almost all of today's RVs come with carbon monoxide monitors. But they can, and do malfunction. Thus,  as a matter of routine, you should test the carbon monoxide detector every time you use the RV If they have batteries, replace them at least once a year, twice if the unit is exposed to extreme cold. A good tip is to change the batteries when when you change clocks for daylight savings time. Here's a complete report I did for the blog on RVing and Carbon Monoxide - https://rvlifestyle.com/rvers-biggest-danger-carbon-monoxide-poisoning/ What is the difference between a Class B RV and a B+? B+ is a made up category. There really is only Class A, Class C & Class B sometimes they are referred to Type A, Type C & Type B. [spp-timestamp time="10:26"] Basically, if the RV base vehicle is a van then it is a Class B. If the RV base vehicle is a cutaway chassis then it is a Class C.

This week on the podcast we meet an RVing couple that travels from Paradise to Paradise. And in this week's episode, they share how they maximize their RV travels and fight back against the aging process. We offer lessons learned from Carl and Bobbi Braun,  who wanted to do more in retirement than just grow old, plus we have a full plate of RV News, cool RV destination information, hot traveling tech and what RV events should be on your calendar. Besides the interview with the Brauns, we have so much to cover in this episode: - How to take your DirectTV satellite programming on the road in your RV - A simple but very effective  high tech way to keep your RV or your home safe when you are not in it - Three cool apps to help plan those RV meals - An off the beaten path report about a fascinating museum in a small Georgia town [spp-player] Here are the complete shownotes from Episode 51, released Sept. 2, 2015 We recorded this episode on the Emerald Coast of Florida, where we are still exploring various beachfront communities and attractions. As we began, we announced a major milestone for the podcast. We just reached the 1 million download mark. That means these podcasts have been downloaded over 1 million times since we began in October 2014. [spp-timestamp time="2:30"] Very few podcasts reach that download number. For those that do, it usually takes years to accomplish. That we did it in a little over 10 months is simply amazing. Than you all so much! JENNIFER'S TIP OF THE WEEK - eBags In an RV, space is at a premium. And few things take up more room that suitcases packed with clothes. That's why we use eBags to pack our clothes. [spp-timestamp time="5:30"] Jennifer explains how we heard about them when we were just starting out RVing from a fellow RVers who sang the praises of this very affordable way to pack and carry clothes on an RV trip. Some RVers are so hooked on eBags that they even put them in a suitcase when they do traditional and airplane travel. But in an RV, they're the hands-down best way we've found to pack. A three piece set of the packing cubes costs $23.99 from Amazon. They come in different colors. Jennifer uses raspberry red (the closest they come to pink). Mike uses blue, They have a mesh top panel for easy identification of contents, and ventilation, We store them in the overhead bins above the bed in the Roadtrek. They keep everything wrinkle free and compact. They let you “unpack without unpacking” –that is, you can remove the cubes to get at your stuff, but still keep things neat and tidy. Trust me, in an RV, or on a boat, or if you want to make your suitcase neat, these are what you need. You can watch me pack one by clicking the video below: LISTENER QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK: Question 1: Satellite TV options Listener Frank asks about taking Direct TV on the road in his RV, what's involved, the cost and where and how he gets it. [spp-timestamp time="7:36"] Since he is already a DirectTV customer, Mike explains he can take his favorite shows with him with the DirectTV Choice Mobile package. He needs a mobile receiver and programming. There are three distributors - King Controls, KVH Industries and Winegard. Many are  familiar with Winegard because they specialize in RV over-the-air TV antennas. But Winegard also makes satellite dishes. Frank's first step will be to decide what kind of dish he wants. Then whether he will roof mount it or use a tripod. Dishes start at about $650 or so for Winegatd's Carryout G2 model that has the ability to be portable or roof mounted. It's automatic, meaning it automatically acquires all the satellites you will be getting programming from…and it works with not just DirectTV but also other satellite TV providers like DISH and BellTV. This is what Mike recommends. It looks like an upside down bell instead of the traditional dish. More elaborate dishes can cost as much as $1,800. These expensive dishes let you view all satellites at the same time f...

Have you ever looked back and wondered about the origins of online retail and media? Do you want to know more about the early innovators behind some of your favorite businesses? Starting your own business online can be intimidating, but hearing firsthand experiences of those who succeeded in this goal can help you know what […] The post Episode #35 – The New Era of Retail and Media Innovation with the Founder of Iterate and eBags.com appeared first on SmarterChaos.