Podcasts about Goods

In this episode, Rivers travels down to Long Beach to chat it up with comedians Keith Carey and Tom Goss about a desert ninja's recent attack on the U.S. military base and a man who fell asleep on a pile of chicken and meth during a burglary. We're also taste testing a very confusing Muammar Gaddafi-themed soda that, for some reason, is called "Cream My People". "Story of My Life" by Social Distortion is our "Jam of the Week". Get into it and then come see us LIVE in Auburn, AL on October 19th.  Be sure to follow Keith on all forms of social media @KeithTellsJokes and Tom @GossGoss6.  Follow the show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod.  Rivers is @RiversLangley  Sam is @SlamHarter  Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and growing ALL THE TIME! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

It's a crossover spectacular with Rivers Langley of The Goods From The Woods! We sample upsetting energy drinks, talk about southern ghosts, and lose all faith in the US military's superiority over ninjas. Plus, tour date announcement! PHILLY HOUSE SHOW RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/189898801427 PITTSBURGH TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/170330349661 JACKSONVILLE TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/176637486477 PATREON: patreon.com/thisisnotashow SOCIAL MEDIA: @keithtellsjokes @gossgoss6 @RiversLangley @NotAShowPod @TheGoodsPod

Live from the no panic zone—I'm Steve Gruber—I am America's Voice— I am Fierce and Fearless— I am here to tell the truth—I mean lets be honest—somebody has to—And—I'm the guy—   Here are three big Things you need to know right now—   Three— TESLA is out of California—well at least the company's headquarters are moving—to Austin Texas—but the richest man in the world—Elon Musk—says don't worry all is well—   Two— In the back channels of communications—there are disturbing reports—that dozens of U-S undercover agents are being captured and executed—and its happening all over the world—   One— And here at home—we are starting to run out of everything—and I mean it—with prices skyrocketing and ships jamming up in the ports with no way to get goods in or out—we are heading into a very tough situation—and it appears the Biden Administration is not up for the challenge—   Gas—food—cars—appliances—even diapers—are going through the roof with out of control costs—   So lets talk about that—  

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Westfield has launched a click and collect service that removes the need for shoppers to buy items through individual stores.   Coles is ending its in-store butcher service this weekend, and from Monday will only offer pre-packaged meat.   Google and Aussie shopping centre giant Vicinity Centres have partnered to deliver goods to homes and businesses via drone.   ---   Flux Daily Quiz - Win prizes: https://quiz.flux.finance/ October = Credit Score Restore Month: https://bit.ly/2Yuxu1F Save money and win cash prizes up to $250k weekly: https://www.flux.finance/win-the-week Get your credit score for free: https://bit.ly/fluxcreditscore Download the free app (App Store): http://bit.ly/FluxAppStore Download the free app (Google Play Store): http://bit.ly/FluxappGooglePlay Daily newsletter: https://bit.ly/fluxnewsletter Instagram: http://bit.ly/fluxinsta TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@flux.finance   ---   The content in this podcast reflects the views and opinions of the hosts, and is intended for personal and not commercial use. We do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, statement or other information provided or distributed in these episodes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Not only has Melanie rescued the Goods from some design challenges, but she also helps rescue women & men from trafficking. Melanie is an avid traveler & provides us with an exclusive list of her favorite spots in the Midwest!// Design InfoWallpaper: use it - it adds a visual point of interest. Search "peel and stick wallpaper" with the color/design you want.Paint: The new neutrals are creamy whites & variations of greige. No yellow undertones!Lighting: try ultra-daylight bulbs and your rooms will go from yellow to white!Design "no no" for Farmhouse Décor: the "X" symbol in the barn doors, tables, etc... keep at a minimum! Update your look with straight lines & minimal detail.// Human Trafficking InfoPursuit 3416:  A ministry that will bring awareness & prevention to schools and organizations.  Contact pursuit3416@gmail.com Hotline: 1-888-373-7888. Save to contacts. Call if you see ANYTHING suspicious or your intuition is causing a question.Sex trafficking: when a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion.Labor Trafficking: when individuals perform labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for little or no money.Common forms of recruitment into Sex Trafficking:Runaways (1 in 7 teens lured into prostitution within 48 hrs of leaving)Manipulation on Social Media/in person Family/Relational sellingPornography/prostitution, small % kidnappingHow to spot a trafficker and/or victim:“Parents” with children: child uncomfortable, fear, no eye contact, abuse/somethings wrong, child hypersexualizedSomeone “fake” shopping, girls sent around to troll/provocative dressCouples: something is off/no eye contact-abuse-controlTruck Stop: watch for young women/men entering trucker cabs.Branded tattoos: bar codes, daddy's girl, my bi***Teens: suddenly have clothes they can't afford, acting out, nervous, shamed,overly confident, drug useMany short videos on YouTube do a great job explaining trafficking//Recommended Midwest FindsNashville:  Poindexter Coffee, Anzie Blue, White Limozeen, Hampton SocialSt. Louis:  Hygge, Rise Coffee House, Hello Juice and SmoothieKansas City:  Made in KC, Outta the Blue, McLain's MarketDiscover more about our guests:Melanie's Travel, Fashion, and Faith on InstagramFun things from the episode:The Covering HouseDaylight LEDsTips for getting high end furniture “dupes:” Search bar type: “modern organic side chair” and click shopping tab for alternativesHeaven by Randy AlcornNow That's Something Good Podcast by Sarah Good is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Show notes may contain affiliate links. Thank you for your kind support.

In this episode, the Goods from the Woods Boys are celebrating 300 episodes of the pod and this week they're so pleased to be joined by comedian Dalia Malek for a buffet of hilarity. We start off with a taste test of some hot sauce, sodas, and snack foods sent into Disgraceland Studios by Y'ALL, our beloved listeners! We also cover a Facebook wizard seeking accommodations, British murder shows, and the subtle art of "muddin'" in a pick-up truck! "Casey Jones" by the Grateful Dead is our "Jam of the Week". Give us a listen and experience the Goods difference!  Be sure to follow Dalia Malek on all forms of social media @Dalia.  Follow the show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod.  Rivers is @RiversLangley  Sam is @SlamHarter  Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and growing ALL THE TIME! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

This week we're returning to an old favorite, the nightmarish business model of Tesla and the lack of any meaningful regulation to curtail it. We also remember the rallying cry of kids in cages as President Biden allows Border Patrol to play cowboy/slave driver on Haitians seeking asylum. Oath Keepers communications have been hacked, and the documents are riddled with cops and military types. Britney is finally getting free, which turns out to redound to all our benefit, and these global cities have found one easy tip for reducing emissions and moving people around.    Beta Cuck Tesla Testers: https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ezxq/how-teslas-self-driving-beta-testers-protect-the-company-from-critics    Tesla runs over cops: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/28/22698388/tesla-texas-lawsuit-cops-autopilot-crash-injury   Joe Biden's immigration policy is as bad as Trumps: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/immigration-biden-stephen-miller/    Electric Transit Gets the Goods: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/climate/cities-public-transit-electric-tram-ferry-bus-cable-car.html?referringSource=articleShare    Karl Hansen interview pt 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-41-karl-hansen-part-one/id1491394342?i=1000489592836   Karl Hansen Interview pt 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-42-karl-hansen-part-two/id1491394342?i=1000489593227   Comrade Grimes: https://nypost.com/2021/10/02/grimes-reads-karl-marx-after-split-with-worlds-richest-man-elon-musk/amp/   Oath Keepers Hack: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/oath-keepers-hack/   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/02/oath-keepers-hack-exposes-law-enforcement-officers-across-us/5949281001/   https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/Oath_Keepers What's that in the sky? It's Britney, bitch: https://pagesix.com/2021/09/29/britney-spears-on-cloud-9-after-conservatorship-win/

EP277- Holiday 2021 Preview Holiday 2021 will be one of the most uncertain holiday events in modern retail history. Major disruptions to the supply chain, the last mille, and to consumer behavior as a result of covid, will make this year extremely hard to predict and manage for brands and retailers. Will shipageddon 2.0 play out again this year? Will the supply chain become the supply pain? With Amazon and Target starting holiday deals early in October, and consumer still looking for scarce inventory late into January or even February, Holiday 2021 is likely to be 5 months long. In this episode we break down all the potential issues, and make some prediction about how it might all play out. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Episode 277 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday October 3rd, 2021. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 277 being recorded on Sunday October third 2021 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason and Scot show listeners, Jason this is a really good time for listeners to pause because we're going to do a deep dive here so that means it can be a little bit of a longer episode. And leave us that five-star review this episode is going to be so good you can go ahead and pre leave us the five star review so we'll wait for second for you to come back. All right thanks for doing that that really helps us out as we get the word out about the show, Jason last year at and I went back and had a one of our many interns look at this and it was exactly this time last year I think was actually October 2nd recording this in October 3rd so it's a pretty darn close. We coined and we were doing our annual holiday preview and we both coined and predicted ship again and that is where we saw pretty early on I think before a lot of the rest of the folks in the industry that there was going to be both a surge in digital adoption due to covid plus the normal holiday increase from e-commerce and that that was going to more than absorb all of the available last-mile demand and that's the why we coined ship again and it happened and it was bad but we all survived and made it through and hopefully the folks listening to this show got in front of that both on their business and personal side. [1:58] Well this year we want to use this episode and do a deep dive into what that's going to look like this year and it's a more complex situation last year was pretty easy to lie to read those tea leaves because you know we were already pretty close to capacity before covid and it was kind of pretty easy prediction to say that we're going to far exceed the ability to deliver the packages. This year we have a lot to unpack for you spoiler alert it's going to be worse than last year much worse because not only is it that last little piece of the whole digital retail chain of events The Last Mile that's going to be a problem but it's all the other pieces leading into it that are going to be a problem something we call the supply chain but this year we are going to call it the supply pain so we're going to peel the onion on this and first we're going to look at the economic setup heading into holiday 21 then we're going to look at the global state of supply chain then we're going to look at some of the holiday trims that are kind of factors we think that are going to tie into this last some of the pontificate errs are out with their forecasts and we're going to go through those and kind of see what we think about those. Jason want it could suck kick it off with the economic setup coming into holiday 21. Jason: [3:15] Yeah awesome Scott so first of all let me start by saying on the macroeconomic picture most of the professional analysts that look at this. Are pretty uniform in feeling like the consumer is generally in a good place that the economy is in a pretty good place and they are all very bullish on the consumers ability to spend this holiday. And I say that because my own personal feeling is that there's a little more uncertainty cooked in there there certainly are some encouraging favorable things. And there's a few worrisome things and I think. What's going to become the theme for all of these sections we talked about today is there's a significant amount of uncertainty there's a lot of things that could swing either way and have a dramatic impact on holiday so. It is what it is but. Sort of giving you how I look at the macroeconomic situation the first thing we'll talk about is inflation and there's a bunch of ways to look at inflation but a simple one is there's this thing called the Consumer Price Index which kind of. Factors in how much of each good consumers purchase and how much prices are raising for that, and the the CPI is it about 5.25% right now so that's pretty significant we more expensive Goods that consumers are having to pay. And ordinarily that inflation can be problematic for the economy a couple of things to know though. [4:43] If you kind of look at the shape of that CPI it actually is going down a little bit from a peak in July and so possible we've seen the. Peak of inflation and it's starting to come back down. Inflation is a mixed bag for retailers and holiday because they get more money for everything they sell they tend to sell less stuff but make more on each in certain circumstances it can be more profitable. Um but you know the goods are costing more we've got this 5.25 percent inflation. We also though have a pretty significant increase in wages so people are getting paid more for their work, particularly low-income people, are getting paid more for work retailers and warehouses and all kinds of companies are having to raise their wages to compete for the for this labor force that's been hard to find right now and so, wages are going up and in general the analysts would call those two things Awash that that consumers. Are getting bigger paychecks and they're having to spend more on their necessities and that at the moment that's about Break Even so two interesting things to know. [5:52] A kind of predictor of future spending is this this huge survey that University of Michigan does every month the consumer confidence index. And when when we were kind of in the peak of recovery from the first wave of covid-19, that index was a leading indicator that said consumers were starting to feel good about the economy and it hit like it's this index it over a hundred today it's sitting at 71, which is the lowest point since January of 2019 it's not, like a historic low or anything like that that you know you go like oh it's way below normal, but it does appear that consumers are in general feeling less good about the economy than they were, um you know just a month or two ago now there's a bunch of political news out right now and there was fear of government shutdown that we've already averted and those kinds of things have a big impact on the consumer index oh. [6:49] Um I that consumer index doesn't have a perfect correlation with spending so I don't spend too much time thinking about it but just to know, that's a number that had been favorable and is kind of shrinking down. A big one we talk about is unemployment because people don't have jobs it's hard for them to spend on Goods obviously at the beginning of the pandemic we had a huge spike in unemployment, unemployment is actually pretty good right now we're at five point two percent. The kind of pre-pandemic average was about four so we're not all the way back to pre-pandemic average but that pre-pandemic. [7:22] Point was a historic low so historically 5.2 percent is pretty decent for unemployment. Um so like most most analysts would say that's a favorable indicator the two things to know there is, that's based on the people that are seeking jobs and not getting it there actually is a ton of people that kind of took themselves out of the workforce we. Fully understand where all those people went but a big chunk of those people were second incomes for household so like a lot of women. That like maybe don't have as good a help childcare as they had before or more school challenges or things and so they haven't gone back to the workforce and many of them are seeking work so they don't show up in the unemployment number so. Just be aware like household incomes are somewhat stressed because of that factor and then as we've talked about before on this show like as of July. People that make over $60,000 a year the unemployment is actually ten percent better than it was before the pandemic so they're doing great. And the low-income people that are making less than $30,000 a year their unemployment is still 21 percent lower than it was. The beginning of the pandemic so so a little bit of a bifurcated recovery on the jobs thing. [8:38] One of the reasons that we historically have that we had high unemployment was because there's all these rich benefits this enhanced unemployment benefits that people got that all expired last week. So if people were staying at home because they could make more and unemployment that that justification probably ended. The bad news is that ended in 26 States over two months ago and in general the data shows that people did not rush back to work when it ended. So there's not necessarily a reason to think a ton more people are going to rush back to work now that that it's ended everywhere but we'll have to see. Um the other macroeconomic things all these natural disasters are negative to the economy so you know when hurricane Ida takes a hundred billion dollars out of the economy that's a bummer. Um [9:25] Another hugely favorable one in the one that most of us are hanging our hats on that are looking for a good holiday is the savings rate and this is the most unprecedented recession of all times. Unemployment you know went way up at the peak of the pandemic but so did savings which has never happened before, and part of that was because we had all this stimulus money we were pouring into the economy but the savings rate normally hovers around 8% it shot up to 32 percent during the peak of the pandemic, it's way off of that Peak it's a nine point six which is still a little higher than it was before the pandemic and that. All that extra money that a lot of household socked away because they got the stimulus and they spent less during the the peak of the pandemic. [10:18] Arguably puts consumers in a good place to spend for this holiday the counter-argument would be all that stimulus. Is mostly over there still are you know very lumpy employment situation and a lot of that savings has dwindled, um so we'll see how it goes, um but then the last fact I'm going to throw up before I go at Scott get a word in edgewise is that the stock market has done phenomenally right and, we're way up from the pre-pandemic level and so the investor class and people that have you know as a meaningful portion of their wealth. Tied to the market. Did terrific right and so if there is economic uncertainty and instability in this economy it's bifurcated and it's the lower-income people that like do not have equity in the stock market. Um there were her but roll all that up and the the professional analysts feel like. Macroeconomic situation all to all in is pretty good and of course when rich people do well that help certain sectors of the economy quite a bit right and at the moment luxury and jewelry are doing phenomenally well for example so. That's kind of my snapshot of the macroeconomy Scott anything you'd violently disagree with or anything you pay particular attention to. Scot: [11:45] I think I think that's right I think you know there's a lot of folks that feel the inflation the CPI isn't the right inflation number it's kind of this old metric. This basket of goods and doesn't capture a lot of things you know there's, I follow a lot of the crypto people and, so there's been a huge wealth creation through crypto and that whole world which is kind of interesting and then you know there's there's a feeling that the FED has pumped so much cash into the system that is just sloshing around and kind of crazy ways which is why you saw that savings rate kind of go up as high as it did and you know they're they're talk track goes that that's why we're not seeing as much employment where folks have taken so those free free dollars and and you know. Done something with it so that they don't need a job now or they're going to be less likely to enter the workforce but I think at all. Yeah I would say I agree with the analysts on that it's going to be a pretty good holiday. [12:51] But I think the problem we'll get into that as I just don't think there's going to be a thing to buy so I don't not sure if it matters. Jason: [12:56] So step one American families probably have some money to spend okay so now as we've already alluded to the next challenges what is the supply chain look like and what could they spend it on and Scott what's your kind of read there. Scot: [13:13] Yes Supply chains from those things we always talk about but then you know in in your mind you have this kind of linkage these things linked together I remember as a kid when you would cut out the little construction paper strips and make the little chain to go around. The holiday tree there II reminds me of that and we kind of vaguely talk about it as this big, big thing and we want to really unpack it on this episode so as a summary you know there's when you make a product let's say it's one time in a million familiar with right now is a vehicle that which is one of the more complex products or even a. You're relatively simple product like an electronic toy or an apparel item or almost anything it's going to have first of all it. It's going to have component parts right so there's going to be some form of pieces that go into that I kind of mentally think of them as the Lego blocks that make up that item so if it's a cool trendy trench coat there's going to be obviously fabric buttons may be a variety of fabrics and things like that so there's generally it's hard to make any product without there being at least 10 inputs and then many times, thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands as you get into like iPhones and vehicles and stuff like that. [14:33] So that's important to remember is each one of those component parts has a supply chain right and you can't make a widget until its component pieces are all there so what happens is we're seeing this really interesting and it's hard to know the root cause or theirs some of the economic stuff you talked about is part of it we're we're just having labor shortages that cause things but then you know we'll talk about some of this there's we import a lot of our goods from China and they're having all kinds of issues of their own there's covid related things non-covered related things but generally let's think about the supply chain and kind of the broad sense of you have typically the bulk of goods are made offshore some of them are are made on Shore but let's kind of assume in this example A lot of these products are coming from offshore or at least income the many of the components maybe there's some assembly in the US but at least the the components for a any widget are made offshore so that's number one so that has to be made in a factory somewhere and then shipped here so there's the port of origin so it leaves a port in a foreign land and then needs to come on its way to the United States for a consumer to buy it. That Journey can go a variety of different ways will to it can go by boat or air, the standard way that products are moved is through containers so you by everyone seemed these containers there's all these cool. [15:57] We just opened up here a restaurant container Village kind of a thing so you have those containers their specialized boats that carry these and and or you can put them on airplanes. So then they get on a boat let's say the bulk of products do go by boat there is some by are then they have to go over the sea and then they get to a destination port so there's you know there's two ports involved with every product that comes across in a container then it has to be unloaded from that boat you've probably seen these giant cranes somewhere. [16:29] Fun Star Wars fact those are the that's where George Lucas got the idea for at-ats he saw some of the cranes and one of the ports on the west coast and thought of what if you had a giant walking robots that look like that so those have to be unloaded and then typically you're going to put them on either so then when they get to the United States in one of the ports they're going to be offloaded onto either a truck and then part of the truck that's really critical in this is called a chassis so if you've ever seen you've probably driven by a million of these container trucks but if you take the container off that's the chassis part as you've got the front part of the truck, then you've got the chassis which holds the container and then the container sits squarely on there it's pretty clever if you think about how it's all been designed or that same container can be put over on rail so there are specialized railroad cars for carrying containers and then and then the product goes on its way then it makes it to a warehouse and then it goes to from that fulfillment center it gets distributed many times do a couple maybe from a big kind of inbound fulfillment center to some regionals to some locals and maybe even one step closer to kind of hyper local and then it gets into the last mile delivery part of the world so it gets onto the virtual shelves and then is sold and goes into that last month so [17:52] There's there's a lot that has to happen right in there and we're going to go through some of the things that are not working right now and you know like any any chain any. There's at least common denominator problem so all that can work great and if you don't have Last Mile Vehicles then you've got a problem or, the factories aren't making things fast enough then the whole chain is compressed and you've got this other set of problems and you know where we are now is almost every single part of that chain I just walked through is is kind of you know sport or in a bad situation right now and we'll take you through some examples. Jason let's start with factories what's going on there. Jason: [18:34] Yeah well a couple challenges with factories so obviously the we have the most factories in China and the good news with China is. Covid is mostly under control they definitely have had a. A spike from from Delta they almost had had down a zero before Delta. [18:55] Because of their their concerns about the the virus they have China has what's called the zero covid policy and what that means is. If they have a single case of covid they will they will shut down an entire business or. Even a sector of business so while there's not huge outbreaks of covid and factories right now. There have been a bunch of examples where only a few cases of covid showed up and that caused a factory to be closed for two weeks so there there have been some disruptions with the Chinese factories. But the bigger problem has been that it, from before and in the very beginning of covid a lot of manufacturing got Diversified and moved out of China right and so the second biggest manufacturer of apparel behind China right now is Vietnam. Vietnam has had a lot of trouble with Delta and about a third of the factories in Vietnam are shut down right now so a lot of the factories that make goods are not making as many Goods either because. [19:56] They don't have very good access to vaccines and they're having covid problems or they have really rigid government policies like China. And then forecasting a future problem that's a huge Debbie Downer, is China is actually experiencing a real energy crisis right now and China always has to kind of, ration electricity and they give quotas at the beginning of every year to these factories and factories often have to shut down because they exceed their quotas. Well this year like they have less. [20:31] Energy capacity in China for a variety of reasons in the cost of coal has gone way up. Um there's there's fixed pricing for for energy in China and said the producers can't charge you more even though the cold cost more and so they have less incentive to make it which means there's less energy and so there's a lot of fear that there's going to be a ton more slowdowns of Chinese factories because of this looming energy crisis so all of those things. Our kind of conspiring to make like the amount of product available from the factories like. Significantly inconsistent and hard to. Scot: [21:12] And then say the call thing and because I have read a couple articles on this and I haven't under Center so they're in an attempt to be green they've lowered the price of coal so cold manufacturers have stopped making goals that. Jason: [21:26] So I think that's what the the green thing has a significant impact here but the the communist country they set the the. It's a. [21:37] The energy industry is a tightly regulated industry and so the prices are fixed so that so the government decides the beginning of the year what the price of electricity is going to be. [21:47] So then these factories are only allowed to charge that price or plus or minus 10% of that price, and coal is four hundred percent more expensive so a lot of factories don't want a lot of power plants don't want to make energy electricity from coal right now because they can't do it profitably, they don't have permission from the government to charge for hundred percent for their electricity but they're having to pay 400 percent for their coal so. There is less production because of that it is also absolutely true that China has some, zero emissions by wants a 2060 things and they have concrete milestones in place every year and so even before cover that constrain how much electricity they were going to be able to make this year with current production means. And it meant that factories had a quota, um and and often that means Factories do periodically shut down when they use up their quota factories are rushing to get more efficient so they're all its, it's like everything it creates all these Downstream effects whatever equipment you use to make your stuff there's probably a more energy efficient version of that equipment that you now want to buy. But it's hard to get your hands on so all the factories are competing for the more energy-efficient versions of all this this materials, but the it's likely that more factories are going to be shut down for longer this year than ever before because of energy shortages. Scot: [23:14] And I saw an interesting graphic I forget I think is there Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal where the government then said well if you're going to shut down energy they created these zones and they put like a lot of that Apple manufacturing plants in The Greener zones that we get more power but then they neglected a lot of the input parts so. But the factories that can make the iPhone 13 or operating but they're sitting there idle because the the red zones that aren't getting a lot of power or only able to run like half a shift are. Jason: [23:44] Per your point like even if the Lego factories allowed to make Lego castles if they're not allowed to make red blocks. It's tough to make a lot of weight so castles so that that is yeah. It's a mess and then to give you an idea how cute it is normally they only shut down the the industrial areas there's so much constrained energy now that they're starting to shut down residential areas so people are. Are like having their power in their residences turned off as well. Scot: [24:14] Interesting and then I've been tracking ports here in the US very closely but what are you seeing at ports of origin in other countries. Jason: [24:24] Well this is one we're very publicly this zero covid policy that China has instituted has come into play. So that that all the biggest ports in the world are in China the third largest port in the world is divided into four terminals one of the four terminals was just shut down for two weeks because of a single. Positive test of covid and so that again to the extent that the factories are making stuff and they need to load up all those containers, um if they have to stop loading for 2 weeks that that creates a real lumpiness in the in the supply chain and that is a particularly hard thing to predict right like if you're just saying like oh man of. Factory you know has a bunch of sick workers it's going to shut down you can kind of watch that and see it coming but what you can't see coming is, you know a very small number of cases having a very material impact on the supply chain like these these ports that are shutting down and so the. The those impacts are sort of outsized on the supply chain at the moment. Scot: [25:34] Yeah and then so so now we've got our products you know, if they can make it through this Gauntlet that we've already laid out they're going to get on a boat and they are going to go get packed into a container and there's a fun if you're a business you're trying to get as much of this product into a container as possible because it's pretty much all you can eat once you once you buy a container there's fractional containers whatnot and because of there's a shortage in containers and then the cost to send these containers has gone way up so right now as we record this the cost there's actually an index you can look at this so if you were will put a link to show notes but if you Google Freight Fredo's fre IG HT o s index there's an index that tracks this and we have hit a record of 20500 86 average dollars to send a container and that's twice what it was in July of this year and that was twice of what it was in January so we effectively you know in July it was about ten thousand dollars and in January as about five thousand dollars now another interesting Factor here is depending on how many units you put in a container you divide that that unit cost right so if you're putting I'll keep the math easy a thousand units in one of these containers which would be something relatively big you're going to you know you just added effectively another. Yeah. [26:57] Let's see I should have smelled your $15 to the product just in kind of Landing cost with this with this increase so whatever your cost is on a per unit it's gone up effectively 4X since January so that's a factor to consider. [27:15] And what I'm what I'm hearing from people on the ground is you'll go bid and you kind of get get in front of this number right now so you're actually out there bidding today 30,000 to get a container and then you think you'll have one and then they'll say oh you know we need to re-evaluate that because they can the shipping company I'm talking to is now saying is 33,000 so there's this like running auction to get. Space on these boats that are coming over because of some of the rest of the supply chain that will talk about so. [27:46] So how about are so that's that's what it looks like by boat what are you seeing on the air side. Jason: [27:51] Yeah and obviously the most cost-effective way to get all this stuff here is via boat so you'd prefer to do that but when the boats aren't available or if you you need stuff considerably faster like a, in Good Times it takes about about 40 days to move a container from China to the west coast of the US so. Some Goods do come via air and little known fact 50% of Air Freight that comes into the u.s. comes on the bottom of, passenger airplanes right so it's not it's not FedEx and UPS planes flying from China to the US cargo planes it's, it's the bottom of these passenger planes and guess what is not happening right now is. International so there's just way less flights and said there's way less capacity for this Air Freight and so both, because there's more demand for Air Freight because of all the problems with the ocean Freight and because there's less Supply that the air option has you know been dramatically diminished from where it would normally be. Scot: [28:56] Yep so then so then you decide okay well I've got to put on a boat you do that you wait your 40 days and then what you find out is your delayed for a very long time because the heart problem is the u.s. ports are all pretty much maxed out so we've kind of done this very big under-investing in our ports so one of our our biggest one is in Los Angeles at Long Beach and then we have Savannah New York New Jersey and then there's a lot of secondary and tertiary ports but those are the big ones and there's another index that Bloomberg, puts out which is effectively the number of boats that are anchored offshore and you know what you want to you never want to Anchor these things because effectively they're just sitting there all that product just sitting there you know. Doing nothing waiting and the reason the reason why they're sitting there is the ports are they can't unload the products fast enough. [29:55] There's a million reasons why we'll talk about that in a second but this just actually ticked up over there's over 40 boats, and this is interesting I've read a data point this has 74 Los Angeles and 40 I think there's 40 anchored in 30 actively kind of being done there's these Maps if you look at my Twitter feed I just tweeted one to just show you know the port and the congestion there's just all these boats just sitting there waiting to come on shore I have a friend that lives in LA and they can just as they drive around they can just see the boats out there just fact it's very unusual time frame. Jason: [30:30] One of the supply chain guys I work with suggested that we should start a new company Uber barge where we deliver like In and Out Burgers to all these boats that are stuck offshore. Scot: [30:39] Someone someone tried to actually get a helicopter to go out one to get their container often. You can't do that because if you've ever seen these things are stacked like 50 deeper someone is crazy you can't just say I really need that one right there so this this index just ticked over 70 for the first time ever since has been created which is just just crazy. [31:00] And so why is it taking so long to offload the boats well we have under invested in these things and then we have this discontinued problem with the supply chain. Number one there's not enough people to I think it's longshoreman there's a lot of these Union type jobs that you hear about that do this so there's a longshoreman or the ones that offload products for a long time due to covid they were only running like half the number of shifts that used to so they have actually spun that up, they're running more shifts but now there's a shortage of chassis and then because of that. [31:37] You know if you don't have chassis you can still off load the boat but now you have to put it into kind of medium term or short term storage and then all that is full so there's not enough chassis there's not enough truck drivers if there is chassis and then if there's not chassis all the storage is full and then, the one when a product comes off the boat at the Port it can either go by truck or rail the whole rail system is all jammed up as well the this is interesting I read this one article that. Near you in the Joliet train yard which is one of the biggest ones in middle of the country they're so jammed up they have over 8,000 containers stacked there waiting for more training capacity and then some some days the trains are backed up for 25 miles waiting as they're loading these containers on there to try to do this, normal turnaround for a chassis to go at a port to deliver something to where it's going and come back is three and a half days due to all these various shortages that is extended out to 17 days so that's pretty crazy. A big factor in this port jam up is also the shortage of drivers and I call them CDL Drivers which is a commercial driver's license. [32:49] To drive one of these 18-wheelers that's going to carry a container you have to have a you know a certification for a certain type of vehicle there's It's relatively, no time-consuming to go get the certification and the number of drivers that have this is actually decreasing over time as they age out and enough people are coming into the profession so I read one article and this was by one of the one of the professional groups of CDL drivers that there's about 240,000 shortfall of CDL Drivers compared, kind of where the demand is there's about you call it to and 50,000 fewer drivers than they need so we're seeing you know I think I can remember was you or someone but Amazon and Walmart are ineffectively gunfighter these people where they're charged their they're paying crazy signing bonuses and hourly rates and salaries for any kind of truck drivers and so because they're the biggest. Employers of these things they tend to have the better economics and its really starving out other parts of the market as they absorb all the available CDL drivers. Jason: [33:57] Yeah that Walmart's paying a hundred and for a new driver $160,000 a year and eight thousand dollar signing bonus. Scot: [34:04] Yeah yes it's not uncommon uncommon thing to see out there it's pretty crazy, so that's what's going on at the ports it is a hot mess on this side as well so even if you are fortunate enough to get your product here to the US then you know you're looking at probably an extra 40 days I think is kind of you know what everyone's saying right now and that's average it can take a lot longer the LA Port is so jammed up that people are are they're rerouting you know rerouting boats across the sand getting them to other other ports but there are no like there's one in Georgia and it's the Savannah one and it's getting backed up I just saw they authorized building this this kind of effectively opening up a big giant parking area to put containers and that's going to give them some more storage capacity but you know where if you add up those, here we are you know in October and you start adding these things together the the holidays pretty much baked at this point right there's you maybe have 15 to 20 days of window here for stuff you already ordered. 80 days ago to kind of get here but none of this stuff is going to get fixed fast that's going to be part of the problem. Jason: [35:17] Yeah yeah if you follow the earning calls like Nike for example like dramatically lowered their guidance and they said Hey look it's it's cost four times as much to get a container of shoes here and the container takes twice as long to get here, and so we're just not going to have the supply to hit our original guidance and and Nikes better this than a lot of other people so it's a. [35:41] Pretty prominent problem and then there's all these secondary impacts right so you mentioned the math of the container right like you'd like to fill up that 40-foot container with Goods if your goods only take up 90%. Ordinarily you'd put someone else's Goods in the last 10% to try to make it more. Cost effective and efficient and share those costs but when the unloading is so gummed up what you don't want to do is have a secondary process where that container comes off the boat has to get re packed your stuff goes One Way their stuff goes another way, so people are actually shipping containers less full than they normally would which is entirely counterintuitive for what you would expect. The boats are all slowing down because they can use less gas to come here and 80 days then to come here in 40 days because there's no place to unload them. Um and the the supply chain guys I'm like we've been helping a lot of retailers hire truckers lately and they kind of summarize it real simply like the average commercial truck driver was 55 years old with multiple comorbidities a bunch of them. Retired and all the trucking schools that can teach people to get these licenses shut down for covid so there were no new licenses being issued for like. [36:54] Year and so there's just this this huge acute problem. And then you know without those truck drivers with the train problems and Barge problems of your on the Mississippi there's just like no place to move all those goods. You mentioned people are moving the boats from from some ports to secondary ports. That helps somewhat but the biggest cargo ships can't even fit in these ports right so I Long Beach the one of the most advanced Sports we have certainly the most advanced on the West Coast, um [37:27] Can't take the two biggest class of ships it can only take the third biggest class of ships and then as soon as you divert that ship to Portland instead of Long Beach. The the that class of ships won't won't fit there and so like there's there's a limited option to just move the stuff around so we're just we're gummed up like never before and most scary of all Gap and their earnings call kind of said like Hey we're loading our guidance and we're going to very lumpy inventory and we don't see any alleviation of these inventory challenges until at least 2020 3. Scot: [38:06] Yeah in the Auto World we're having a huge problem here where there's a chip shortage and then. [38:14] Another problem is you spend down these factories they don't just get spun back up because all the component parts are you know they stop ordering them and then those factories and everything so so even as chips are starting to come in a lot of vehicles can't be made because there's some other component that now is stuck in one of these containers that that were talking about I read this other interesting article where Coca-Cola has several of their bottling facilities that are down waiting on replacement parts so they went and basically least 20 or 40 bulk ships they didn't even worry about getting containers and they just jumped onto those ships the pieces they need to make their factories work and and are bring him over in this kind of crazy never done before way for a big company. Jason: [38:58] Yeah and I guess that that's one last point on this supply chain thing. It definitely is favoring the biggest players in every industry right so if you're the you know the biggest receivers of goods in the US. You're still being impacted by all of this but you're first in line for what capacity does exist and you you mentioned the games that the Brokers are playing with the price of containers that's going to happen a lot more to the independent shipper than it is the you know number one or number two shipper for that port and so. Well this this is a pain for every retailer in America it's going to be less painful to Walmart and Amazon then it's going to be to the, the medium-sized specialty retailer for. [39:49] And I was just going to point out I think you saw this as well as got but like Salesforce kind of put together a holiday forecast and they looked at all these supply chain problems and they're estimating, that this is going to add about 233 billion dollars in extra supply chain cost to holiday sales for the US so that's. Going to come like straight out of margins basically or or drive more inflation. Scot: [40:13] Yeah that's for the products to get here there's this another side of that equation where which is the opportunity cost right because you know. There's not gonna be a lot of exciting merchandise on the Shelf so we're what's opportunity cost of that we'll have to kind of. We'll get to that I guess we talked about forecast so what what holiday behaviors are feeding into this. Jason: [40:34] Yeah so tricky this one is there wild swings both ways right so you think if you remember at the beginning of covid there. Fundamental changes that happen people spend a lot less on travel they spend a lot less on restaurants they spend a lot more on their homes and they spent a lot more grocery stores right and so then as, people got more comfortable as people start getting vaccinated as infection rates are going down we started seeing all those things swing back right and you started seeing, a lot more bookings that are being be you saw a lot more Airline reservations you saw a lot more traffic coming to stores and you certainly saw a lot more people going back to restaurants. Then Delta hit. And we saw a dip again and people started returning to the the the kind of earlier covid behaviors not as dramatically as the first wave. [41:25] You kind of had a second wave and so predicting which of those, behaviors are going to be at the at the peak for holiday is really hard right now so retailers are looking at consumer sentiment and Doug mcmillon in his investor call he's like hey. Our consumer has told a strongly they want to have a normal holiday that they want to sit down with their family and have a meal, they want to travel they want to do the normal things and there's a strong desire and that if it is remotely safe they will do it and Doug's I kind of under his breath comment was. [42:05] Even if it's not safe they're probably going to do it right so, his viewing is there's there's so much fatigue in all of these like covid change behaviors that were going to see a significant return, you know closer to pre covid behaviors but you know we are we are seeing some signs go the other way, in the u.s. store traffic never fully recovered we are still down about ten percent versus pretty covid levels in China store traffic totally recovered and then Delta hit and store traffic drop back down, 30% below pre-pandemic levels and so since China has historically been about 4 months ahead of us. That that would predict that we're going to see another drop in. Um store traffic which again doesn't mean people won't spend it means they're going to buy more online instead of in store and that exacerbates all of The Last Mile problems that we talked about last year and we're going to talk about it. [43:09] Again this year so it's really risky to predict. What's going to happen with the coded behaviors people were starting to buy a lot of clothes again after having not buying clothes in here and now the closed sales are slowing down and then we talked about. Apparel is one of the categories most impacted by all these supply chain issues so there just may not be close to buy and so really hard to predict that stuff. Um but what I can tell you is retailers now have a couple of reasons to desperately get you to shop earlier right one reason is they're not going to have very much stuff and they don't want to be the Grinch that caused you to miss Christmas so they desperately want you to come in early, and give yourself the best chance to get the stuff you want so, the every retailer is more loudly than ever before trying to incentivise and entice customers to shop early. [44:03] Also if this ends up being another digital Christmas where people shop a lot more online than they do in stores, we have a huge problem with the last mile we don't have enough capacity in FedEx ups and u.s. post office to deliver twice as many packages over holiday, and so we need to spread that those those orders out over more days and so for all of those reasons we're seeing retailers start their sales earlier than ever so. To kind of paint you a promotional picture Amazon Prime day normally is in summer it historically celebrated Amazon's birthday which is in July. So then the pandemic kids they can't have a July sale so they have an October sale and it went really well. So this year they went back to Summer but they went to earlier summer they had the sale in June and a lot of us think they did it earlier in June for one of two reasons either they hate their own C fo and wanted him to have to talk. On earnings calls about the sale being in a different quarter every year for the last three years or. They were having a sale earlier to make room for a second big sale they intend to have this year during holiday to kind of repeat the success of. [45:11] Of holiday Prime Day last year and we haven't seen any all the announcements yet but Amazon has already announced a 30 day. Beauty and personal care sale starting in October of this year Target match that and said hey we're going to start our deal days in October, and we're price-matching for the whole holiday so if if you don't believe us and you think we're just making a joke about these early sales and you think there's going to be better sales waiter know if you buy it early will guarantee you, that will match any lower prices that you see anywhere for the rest of holiday so targets leaning heavily into that. And we think most retailers are going to launch their sales. Earlier than ever before to try to pull in these these early Shoppers because of all the supply chain and inflation issues. The sales aren't going to be as good as they usually are like that what used to be 40 percent off is going to be 25% off but what deals they do have are going to be earlier in the year to try to drive those, those sales earlier. [46:21] And people aren't going to get everything they want they're going to be limited inventory and so what's going to happen people are going to get more gift cards people are going to celebrate the holiday later and we're going to sell more stuff in January January is always a good holiday month anyway but January is going to be disproportionately large this year because of the lumpy supply chain think so, if you think of holiday as generally like being a strong peak in October between that that the kind of turkey five, this holiday more than ever before that spending starting in October and is going to last all the way through January. Scot: [46:58] And then as we get to the last mile we're definitely have another ship again so we've got we haven't increased our capacity hardly any because you can't really buy Vans and the everyone's renting Vans and there's just this fixed number of biliary vehicles and if we're going to have this Less store traffic even more e-commerce than last year even if you throw you know maybe. [47:23] Low middle digit low single digits on there like five or 7% or something well we effectively had 98, we can only deliver like 97% of the packages last year so it's going to make it a now will only be a little deliver maybe 90% of the packages so it's going to be really tough delivery, set up coming into the holiday. Jason: [47:46] I think the like some data points I saw the that are alarming like so number one. All the Fulfillment centers have an average turnover rate of like four hundred percent a year right so they're having a hard time hiring people and keeping people. FedEx in their earnings call said that like we just can't staff some of our distribution hubs so we're having to reroute packages in a less efficient manner, because for example we only have sixty percent of our labor force in our Portland Hub right so ordinarily they would try to, be at a hundred and twenty percent of their labor in these hubs for holiday with all this seasonal labor and this year. [48:24] They can't even fulfill all the permanent jobs they have so there's not going to be a seasonal Flex. For the main carriers you know the Retailer's do a lot of seasonal hiring for stores but they're prioritizing the seasonal hiring for their fulfillment centers over the stores because they're so. Worried about enough labor to fulfill all these packages and then you know when when FedEx and UPS have less capacity. What do they do they smartly charge more for it so we've seen gas surcharges we've seen holiday surcharges and and they're now announcing their rate hikes for January and FedEx announced the largest rate hike they've had in the last ten years so on average, it's almost six percent as 5.9 percent rate hike it varies wildly depending on the class of service so some kinds of shippers are going to get hit much harder. Um and just like last year all of the the big shippers have a quota and they're not going to be allowed to ship more more packages. The maybe one silver lining in this is that. Because readers are likely to be more successful in spreading the demand out this year than last year that's going to help a little bit and. [49:37] As a as challenges everyone's going to be with the capacity last year there were political challenges that that particularly got the US Post Office sideways which is a big part of this whole chain. And they don't anticipate that that will be as bad this year and so there is absolutely going to be ship again in 2.0 this year with the, the The Last Mile but the most of the analysts I'm talking to are saying the first mile is going to be so disrupted this year that the last mile is going to seem. Less severe in comparison whereas last year the the holiday challenges were all about the last mile. Scot: [50:16] Yeah and you know the double-edged sword of there not being enough product is maybe there just won't be enough product and it won't you should be getting but if whatever there is is going to get jammed up I think. Jason: [50:29] Yeah so that's a great transition to so like that's a lot of Doom and Gloom what's going to happen for Holiday should we all be shorting the retail stocks like what's. What's going to happen. And spoiler alert I don't know well we'll talk a little bit about our educated guesses but maybe before we do we can walk through some of the the forecast from the the brave souls that have been willing to share their holiday forecast. Scot: [50:56] Yeah the one the one I saw was from Salesforce and they, they say that e-commerce is going to be up 7% versus kind of that huge surge last year which was like you know fifty percent so they're coming in kind of with a moderate 7% growth which which is done yeah I think that would be the probably the slowest e-commerce growth since 2008-2009 yeah. Jason: [51:24] 2008. Scot: [51:26] Yeah that's that's the one I was tracking and you know when I read through the bullet points it made sense they're definitely putting a pretty wet blanket on things due to the this kind of quote-unquote Supply pain. Jason: [51:38] Yeah and it is tricky so they were the only one I've seen that's done an e-commerce forecast right and I would say that's the most uncertain because. Of we just don't know whether people are going to go back to stores or whether they're going to be worried about health and ordering online when they start having constrained. Um supplies is that gonna. Push them to online more because they can hunt more places or is that going to entice them to go to the store because they can use their eyes to see the inventory for themselves like there's, there's a lot of variability in that e-commerce number but I would remind people even as low as 7 percent sounds its. 7% on top of the huge bases from last year right so it's it's that's not a decline in e-commerce by any means that's a slowing of the increase just as a reminder for. People. But then I did see several like of the other the kind of traditional Consultants put together an overall holiday forecast right so beIN predicted that they were going to they thought holiday was going to be up seven percent from last year. [52:45] Deloitte said that they thought holiday was going to be up between seven and nine percent from last year. And MasterCard said they think holidays going to be up 7.4 percent from last year so. To put all three of those numbers in context those are all huge numbers. Um last year was the best holiday year in 10 years and sales were up 10% but the average is about 6% so saying we're going to grow if. You know these three things kind of all averaged out to about seven percent growth if we're here we go. If all holiday store an e-commerce gross 7% on top of the ten percent from last year, that's a phenomenal holiday and so that says, that these guys are pretty confident that the consumer is going to spend even if they can't find exactly what they want right that the supply chain is going to be painful but that the all the macroeconomic stuff we talked about at the beginning is going to win out and consumers are going to spend a lot of money this holiday I. [53:49] I want to believe this I'm going to be pleasantly surprised if it plays out like that right and my um, the the one caveat I'll say is that us retail is incredibly Diversified right and so for every category that's going to get shellacked by the supply chain or by changes in covid behaviors. Some other category is going to benefit right and so. It is true that the holiday could absolutely hit these numbers like I'll remind people that cars are 25 percent of retail sales gas is another huge chunk of retail sales. Some of these forecasts have those things in some don't some of these forecasts are for November and December some are for November December and January like everybody has a different definition of retail and a different definition of holiday so, you can't really apples-to-apples any of these but I pulled all the US Department of Commerce data and again last year November through January 10 percent growth, average of the last ten 10 years is about 6% growth so 7% growth is a. A terrific number and. I don't know I could see it happening if it happens it's going to be because there was a we had the most Monster January ever because I just don't think there's going to be enough Goods on the Shelf in November and December to do. Scot: [55:17] Yeah I'll take a so I think the winners are going to be the companies that have the most power and smartest supply chain operators so I think Walmart and Amazon. Maybe Target I don't know them as well do they have a you think they feel like they have a pretty dialed in. Jason: [55:33] They Walmart and Target both in their earnings said like look our inventory isn't going to be isn't where we want it it's not going to be where we want it but we we in general are feeling good and neither one lowered its guidance for holiday in their last earnings call so they both felt that they were going to weather the storm but you know below that you go look at like a Bed Bath and Beyond and they're like look there's no way we can hit our numbers with the supply we're gonna get. Scot: [56:00] Will they miss this quarter and if you miss this quarter you're just going to get worse the next quarter Seth. Jason: [56:04] Exactly exactly. Scot: [56:06] It's a poop storm now and it's gonna be a bloodbath and in 90 days yes I think I think if I kind of do the calculus on that I think those three guys win I think everyone else is net negative and. You know I don't think those three are big enough let's say they represent Amazon's kind of half of e-commerce only think about e-commerce the rest of retail is. That's your bailiwick yeah Amazon's half, yeah I could see it being flat to down five percent because. Amazon Walmart and Target doing decent isn't it be enough for to make up for the whole that it's created there so yeah so that's kind of, where I see it it's going to be the big get bigger and stronger and because they you know they have Prime, they have more technologies that this has been on their radar longer they have more containers they have more trucks they have more dollars to spend on solving these problems they're going to be the winners so that's going to be you know it is going to be I think a bad year for the small medium sized business the incumbent brands that are just getting their legs under them and you know having to kind of have a Miss effectively miss a holiday because you couldn't get a bunch of product it's going to be be a rough rough year for everybody. Jason: [57:25] Yeah no I in a way it's going to be the exact opposite of last year when covid first hit nobody obviously had Advance warning or was prepared for this and so a secondary impact was a bunch of eCommerce sites that didn't traditionally get a lot of consumer visits, got a lot of Trials because Amazon constrained FBA in Amazon head supply chain problems right and so suddenly you were looking to get your instant pot from Bed Bath & Beyond suddenly a bunch of people are looking to see what eBay had, that hasn't shopped eBay in five or ten years right so a lot of those kind of second-tier eCommerce sites got extra visits as people were. Trying new address the supply chain shortages this year I think we're going to have exactly the opposite there's going to be a ton of supply chain shortages there's going to be a lot of, news stories every day about supply chain shortages and the big players with the best infrastructure in the most advanced supply chain planning, like the Amazons and Walmarts of the world and and targets, are going to be the winners and it's going to be a lot harder for those specialty retailers and Regional retailers to compete unfortunately. Scot: [58:41] Yeah I think that that is the setup and we will continue so that hopefully that gives everyone an idea of the big talk in the industry and you were just at an industry event is this what everyone was talking about Jason. Jason: [58:55] Yeah yeah slightly less than I would have expected I mean it was a huge topic everyone understands the supply chain thing. I do think it was the first conversation a lot of you know customer experience folks and people that you know we're kind of had their head down in their own in their own Silo you know we're suddenly getting their eyes open to the fact that like. Yeah your customer experience is going to stink at there's no products on the. Scot: [59:20] Mix the CX person's job a lot easier they just you know just take the holiday off. Jason: [59:26] Yeah and so you know it is interesting though again like. [59:31] You know we may we may hit the top line numbers and it may be from a lot less items that sold more expensively. The you know category there's going to be winning and losing categories by far and again because of the consumer health and the supply chain issues, the supply chain for diamonds is looking a lot better than the supply chain for Budget shoes and so you know you just may see what jury where you know you say you sell a few things for a while, do better you know where there's extra scarcity then you know some of these low-margin high-volume consumer goods and so I think. [1:00:08] My key takeaways for everyone is it's going to be a very lumpy like the averages will be interesting we should all follow them but but every. Um retailer and every category is going to experience a very different holiday and there just is more uncertainty than there has been in the last 30 years of retail so like for anyone, to definitively say this is how it is going to play out I think is super risky because there's so many things that could go either way at this point, will consumers you know by another toy when they can't get their first choice will consumers go to a restaurant you know or not will consumers take a vacation or not. You know all of these these will they pay 5% more for something or not like there's just so much uncertainty that you know this is going to be. Holiday that really rewards people that do good scenario planning and are prepared for any eventuality. Scot: [1:01:06] Absolutely and we will keep you posted here on the Jason Scott show but hopefully this gives everyone kind of a framework to work within and we'll be updating various components of the supply pain as we get closer to Holiday. Jason: [1:01:22] And until next week happy commercing!

This episode we excited to have our buddy Rivers Langley back on to talk about Reign of Fire. We had so much fun on this one. We talked trivia, played a new game called "dragons dragons everywhere" and we speculated why none of us really ever watched this movie, and a bunch more. There was a small audio hiccup near the end of the episode but it didn't really effect the show too much. Thanks for being cool!Go follow Rivers on all the socials @RiversLangley, listen to the Goods from the woods podcast, check out Wrestling Pro Wrestling if you're in LA, and if you're in or around Auburn Alabama area Oct. 19 go see the comedy show Rivers is hosting!If you're enjoying the show we would love your support. Here are a few ways you can help!-Check out our merch store and get yourself or someone else a little something.   https://teespring.com/stores/apocalypse-in-review-Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/apocalypseinreview)-Make a one time donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/apocalypseir-Leave us a nice review on your podcast platform of choice. it only takes a few minutes, it makes us look legitimate, it makes us feel good, and it's completely free. -Follow us @apocpod on Twitter and Instagram and talk to us we love hearing from y'all.  -Find all of our links by going to https://linktr.ee/apocalypseinreviewThanks for listening!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/apocalypseinreview)

No bare feet in the studio this week because there is broken glass ceiling everywhere because Dr. Jen Walter is in the building. JSB and Dr. Welter get into the goods about the state of the NFL and her incredible career to date. Stream for free on Hisense Smart TVs, LG Channels, Sports on Tubi, Plex, Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, Vizio Channels fubosportsnetwork.com, and XUMO or as part of fuboTV's subscription packages of 100+ sports, news and entertainment channels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, the Goods from the Woods Boys are joined by the HILARIOUS comedian Katrina Davis for a discussion of, amongst other things, Rolling Stone Magazine's recently released list of the "Top 500 Songs of All Time". Needless to say, we've all got strong opinions. We also chat about a jobless, statue-humping Brit and taste test the branded energy drinks of Bobs Ross and Marley. This is such a fun episode. We can't wait for y'all to hear it. Be sure to follow Katrina on all forms of social media @KatrinaSivad. Follow the show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod.  Rivers is @RiversLangley  Sam is @SlamHarter  Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and growing ALL THE TIME! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

Just checkin' in with ya. Giving you the update on the past, present, and future of the show. A bookmark from the old to the new. See you all soon! :D -------- disinformed.ca dan@disinformed.ca Twit/Insta: @DisinformedDan

The social function of economic science consists precisely in developing sound economic theories and in exploding the fallacies of vicious reasoning. In the pursuit of this task the economist incurs the deadly enmity of all mountebanks and charlatans whose shortcuts to an early paradise he debunks. - Ludwig von Mises That's a pretty lofty view of economics and economists. As such it is far, far away from any view that most people have, especially of economists. Anyone who is even the slightest bit informed as to the track record of economists and their pronouncements will at best see them as something like a weatherman. In this view, the economist tries to make honest predictions based on the available data but gets it wrong more often than not. At worst, people see the economist as exactly the kind of charlatan Mises decries in the above quote. Economics as a discipline has lost a lot of respect. In short, economics is in trouble.  A big part of the problem is that too many economists don't actually start with data. Not that they don't use data. What they do is start with a theory that they prefer and then find the data to support their theory, ignoring or explaining away everything else. And that is on a good day. On a bad day (which seems to happen more and more) the economist is just providing quasi-intellectual cover to justify the policies of whichever government or corporation that they are working for. You can definitely see this if you pay attention to politics. Each party has its favorite economists to trot out to justify what they are doing, or to attack what the other team is doing, regardless of what the policy is. I first noticed this when way back in the Clinton administration, there was a Democrat move to do away with the “marriage tax” and the Republicans opposed it. Once Bush was in office, the positions flipped. Not that I believe either party really cared about the tax. It was simply another political football.  This is also apparent in the varying attitudes towards deficit spending. Both parties love it when they are in charge. They just spend it on slightly different things. If you pay too much attention to it, you just might drive yourself bonkers.  Another issue is that modern economists are too focused on tinkering around with policy, hoping to manipulate the market to get the outcome they want. This leads to extremely shallow thinking as all they wind up doing is at best looking at surface data and then trying to manipulate that so it fits better with their vision. What they neglect is everything below the surface, everything that is actually driving the data they are responding to.  Let's get back to economists and their theories for a minute. Economists are often professors, teaching others about economics and how they work. One might be inclined to ask if they really know so much about economics, why aren't they rich? Don't they know how the systems work and how to make use of their knowledge to their own benefit? Perhaps it's because there is more going on than their equations can account for. That is one of the central aspects of Mises and his Austrian School of Economics, there is just too much data to actually absorb it all. With any economy, there are any number of variables that simply cannot be accounted for. That's why Mises considered the idea of central planning and that one can control the market to be absurd. It is simply impossible to plan without knowing all the variables. Things will just happen whether you know the cause or not. Not only that, Mises understood that many if not most of the variables are not directly related to money, which is why he advocated for economists studying the social sciences. Instead, perhaps we should be more humble and realize we can't know everything and instead, observe the data as it is without imposing theories on it. Then perhaps we can move towards Mises' goal of understanding the world a little better.  What's your economy worth? www.tartle.co   Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.   The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.   What's your data worth?   Find out at: https://tartle.co/   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial   Spread the word!

A new development that will replace a trailer park was announced; Four men are charged with selling fake merchandise at local malls; And no one was injured after an empty school bus crashed.  #CobbCounty #Georgia #LocalNews      -            -            -            -            -            The Marietta Daily Journal Podcast is local news for Marietta, Kennesaw, Smyrna, and all of Cobb County.              Subscribe today, so you don't miss an episode! MDJOnline             Register Here for your essential digital news.             Find additional episodes of the MDJ Podcast here.              This Podcast was produced and published for the Marietta Daily Journal and MDJ Online by BG Ad Group on 9-22-2021.           For advertising inquiries, please email j.southerland@bgadgroup.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You have a possession in heaven that is better, and lasts longer, than anything this world can offer.

In this episode Sarah, Will, and Lillian give an update on their recent family week and college visit road trip.  Send us your advice on making the most of a high school senior year! Following a family update the Goods play “Rapid Fire Something Good.” You'll hear about their personal favorites in lots of categories. What are your “something good” items? Share your favorites with us at podcast@sarahgood.com or on social media!// Fun things from the episode //Favorite films:The Matrix Resurrections TrailerWill recommended the website What is the Matrix. Click the pills multiple times.  The original Matrix TrilogyGilmore GirlsDear John, Ferris Bueller's Day OffFavorite influencers:Will's: James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) Lillian's: Ally YaridSarah's: Christy BoulwareFavorite books:Outcomes over OutputsA True Call to Worship - Vernon M WaleyFresh Wind Fresh FireFavorite episodes:Ron & Debi Cathcart https://www.buzzsprout.com/1175135/7915660Mike Papa “B” Boulware https://www.buzzsprout.com/1175135/5445415Maria Granados https://www.buzzsprout.com/1175135/5969362Favorite food:Liberty University Food CourtMillie's Living Cafe https://www.instagram.com/millieslivingcafe/?hl=enNutribullet https://amzn.to/3ztWOBEOn the Playlist:Natalie Grant, Lady A, Brett EldridgeHillsong United As You Find Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0eXYR65Z2wMaverick City Worship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3TYG7Q_fj4Chris McClarney - speak to the Mountains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhxSJlwzrwsBenn Platt's Reverie https://amzn.to/3kwjrRINewsies https://amzn.to/3CyTiaPSanta Clause, IN https://santaclausind.org/Williams Narrows http://www.williamsnarrows.com/Lynchburg, VA https://www.lynchburgva.gov/Disney World https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/Now That's Something Good Podcast by Sarah Good is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Show notes may contain affiliate links. This is at no extra cost to you but does help support telling more stories that bring more good. Now that is something good! Thank you for your kind support.

In this episode, we continue our deep dive into the year 1997! This is part two of two. In this one, we're covering July through December of 1997; Evander Holyfield will lose an ear, the world will lose a princess, and James Cameron will hold sway over all. So, bust out cig-a-cigar from Cuba-Q-Bah (it's for the look, don't light it) and enjoy this episode! Part one with January through June is availble now.  Listen to Kyle's album 'Absolute Terror', read his comic book 'Tales from an Analog Future', and follow him on Twitter and stuff @KyleClarkIsRad. Follow the show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod. Rivers is @RiversLangley  Sam is @SlamHarter  Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and growing ALL THE TIME! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

Doug Shipman, a political newcomer and former CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, discusses why he's running to be the next president of the Atlanta City Council.Plus, John Haber, the founder and CEO of Spend Management Experts, discusses the latest supply chain news and the state of the shipping industry amid the pandemic and rise of the Delta variant. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Katelyn and Sophie discuss the robbery of Alexander T. Stewart's grave and vampire burials. For a limited time only, get our T-Shirts here!For links to the sources used for this episode and more, please visit Our Website.Find us on Instagram and Facebook!Check out our fellow podcasts on PodMoth Network!

Amanda Ratliffe, Lecturer Retail Marketing Strategic Retail Management, TUD

Welcome to my new monthly GIRL CHAT! I brought 3 of my favorite gals together for a roundtable chat. I've been wanting to do this for some time and it's finally time! Jessica Burgio, Jeanieva Faith, Lesley Logan, and I all chat about how our businesses look differently from before 2020 and how they're looking different in 2021.  Listen into our conscious conversation about business, creating and possibilities. How does it get any better than this? XO,Joanna  ABOUT JESSICA BURGIO: Jessica Burgio, known as “THE BEAUTY MENTOR” is a Confidence Coach for Beauty Industry Professionals. She is also a former Salon owner with over 20 years “behind the chair” experience and Founder of the Beauty Inspires Beauty Podcast.Jess has been a successful entrepreneur since 2001 and is so grateful for all the experiences the beauty industry has taught her! During her 20 years in the industry, she has Coached and Mentored Stylists to have their own successful businesses and has now made this her priority to help Beauty Professionals achieve their dreams! With a strong background in fitness and self-care, not only does Jess inspire Beauty Pro's to grow their Business Confidently, but to do so in a way that focuses on their health and well-being! Being successful in the Beauty Industry is 100% possible with education, confidence, proper strategies and having a set of non-negotiables.Beauty Industry Professionals can absolutely create the life they desire and as “The Beauty Mentor” it is Jess's true passion to help them do so!FOLLOW JESSICA BURGIO:INSTAGRAMFACEBOOKWEBSITE ABOUT JEANIEVA FAITH: Jeanieva Faith is an unconventional Reiki Master who specializes in spiritual healing, heart mending & relatable inspiration via many facets. Her practices include reiki sessions, break up coaching & a memoir based podcast.FOLLOW JEANIEVA FAITH:INSTAGRAMFACEBOOKWEBSITE ABOUT LESLEY: Lesley Logan is a certified Pilates teacher and mindset coach. She is the founder of Online Pilates Classes (OPC), the first free online catalogue of Pilates exercise tutorials, where you can also find weekly Pilates classes and workshops. She's been teaching Pilates since 2008. Lesley has run multiple studios and trained hundreds of people to become teachers themselves and has taught thousands of students.When not teaching from her studio in Las Vegas, Lesley can be found offering fitness business coaching to studio owners and other instructors through her private mastermind Profitable Pilates or traveling the world leading Pilates retreats.FOLLOW LESLEY LOGAN:INSTAGRAMFACEBOOKWEBSITE If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating  and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser and Castbox.Let's Connect:The Get Up GirlInstagramFacebookMonthly online fitness academy

Your business model is your company's core strategy for profitable business. Some companies spend billions of dollars enticing people to buy their goods and services - it's calculated and perfectly timed. Some would even say it borders on conspiracy. In this week's episode, Jeff Kahler takes a look at this business model and explains how it compels you to spend money over and over again - as if you've entered the twilight zone. Intrigued? Take a listen and then send us your thoughts. We want to hear from you! Visit us at cultureofconvenience.com and send us an email or comment.

In this episode, the Goods from the Woods Boys are joined once again by friend of the show and host of "This is Rad!", Kyle Clark, for the first installment of a GIGANTIC two-part episode all about the year 1997. Sit back, relax, and reminisce about the year we all got our lives Spiced up to the point where we got knocked down and then got back up again. This was an absolutely crazy year for news and pop culture and we hope y'all have as much fun listening to it as we did recording it. This episode covers January through June of 1997. Part two with July through December will air next week!  Listen to Kyle's album 'Absolute Terror', read his comic book 'Tales from an Analog Future', and follow him on Twitter and stuff @KyleClarkIsRad. Oh! And we got BRAND NEW THEME MUSIC by Jonas the Space Cowboy! Follow the show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod.  Rivers is @RiversLangley  Sam is @SlamHarter  Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and growing ALL THE TIME!  http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at:  http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

We go a little modern this week to recap last week's Playstation Showcase from Sony before diving into a heated (more of a simmer) discussion about the value of new consoles from familiar companies in video game history. The Retro Gamers: http://facebook.com/retrogamerspodcast http://instagram.com/retrogamerspodcast http://tinyurl.com/retrogamersyoutube Anthony @matsusu28 Larry @mohr365   Open/Close Music: “Home at Last“ off of “Lesser than Three” by Ozzed http://ozzed.net

What a showcase held by PlayStation this past week, we break it down. Also, NexGen scalpers are becoming less and less, we finally have an Apple Vs. Epic rulings, and the What If... Fan Riff. All that plus way more, this week on the Game Fix Show. Follow us @GameFixShow

“Waves of commerce are far more rare, important, and beautiful in this universe than waves of water mindlessly battering the rocks…There are no worlds containing sentience that exist without commerce. I promise you that. Trade? Goods and logistics? Regardless of the world or the race, that shit right there is universal and magnificent.”   –Yale Boliver In...

Phill brings up the obvious problem with American chocolates. Micah and K Sera has opinions about this and also on so many other things. In this discussion we cover the joys of a Minnesota funeral supper, Venison foods, Macdonalds Meat Shop, Cukes are cute cucumbers, Christmas gifts and deadweight capitalism, K Sera's burial plans, teenagers and compusilivity, German cars, Semi Truck Drivers, Amtrak, Megabus experiences, and uncontrollable flatulence.   Shownotes: Macdonalds Meats   K Sera's after thoughts: - I don't think Micah ever shared that venison sausage with me. :( … but it's okay, I've got a better source of deer and am trying my hand at a slow cooker venison roast as I type. - And listen, there's NOTHING WRONG WITH MY CUKES. - Did this start with chocolate? - As for German engineering… Micah's car needed work at the time of this recording and just this past month he is putting another $2,000 of fixes into it. I feel like I've never had so many problems with my Japanese car. My little Mazda lasted me 17 years and the biggest bill I had was maybe around $700 in one go for broken shocks after hitting a pothole. Ah Minnesota roads in the spring. All I'm saying is… Japan makes better cars. - What even IS this episode?   Phill's after thoughts: -I love this episode. -Also, this is perhaps our weirdest episode so far. -Japanese cars are really good except for Mitsubishi. Don't get a Mitsubishi, those are terrible.

My favorite Goods of Fortune are a bottle of wine, a cigar, and good friends...I think in that order actually. What are yours? I knew it, your favorite good of fortune is being able to hang out on the locals platform! www.colorofthought.locals.com

We're going to make this goodbye short and sweet: Vox Quick Hits is ending.  All of us from the Vox Culture Desk and the team at The Goods want to thank you for following our work and tuning in to Tell Me More, Ask a Book Critic, The Best Money I Ever Spent and What to Watch. You can still keep up with us on vox.com. Vox Quick Hits was made by... Hosts: Constance Grady Meredith Haggerty Rebecca Jennings Alanna Okun Emily Stewart Emily VanDerWerff Alissa Wilkinson Producers: Sofi Lalonde and Schuyler Swenson Senior Producer: Taylor Maycan Engineers: Paul Robert Mounsey Editors: Julia Rubin and Jen Trolio Executive Producer: Liz Kelly Nelson Thanks so much for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

EP275 - Mickey Drexler on DTC Mickey Drexler is the former CEO of Ann Taylor, The Gap, J. Crew, and is a former board member of Apple and Warby Parker. He is currently the CEO of Alex Mill, a digitally native vertical brand, founded by his son Alex Drexler. He has been dubbed the “Merchant Prince” for his successful turn around of Ann Taylor, and his dramatic transformation of The Gap. In this broad ranging interview, we cover his distinguished career, his opinion about the recent direct to consumer trends, and much more. The interview is full of juicy tidbits including: Getting kicked out of a Levi's meeting after turning The Gap into a vertical integrated brand with its' own label. His efforts to sell J. Crew to Amazon. He turned down Steve Jobs first request to serve on the Apple Board of Directors, and how he later helped Steve and Ron design the Apple retail store. Steve Jobs desire to be a direct to consumer brand. The pros and cons of intuition versus data to select merchandise. His cameo on Breaking Bad. How Old Navy was partially inspired by Targets early private label efforts. And much more Episode 275 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday September 8th, 2021. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 275 being recorded on Wednesday September 8th 2021 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason and Scot show listeners. Jason last week we did a deep dive into the Warby Parker and all boobs s-1 filings which was a lot of fun and we got a lot of really good conversation out there with listeners talking about digitally native vertical Brands and we thought you know who could we bring on that keep this conversation going who has experience with wholesale Brands retailers in a vertically integrated d2c brand I'm pretty sure there's only one person in our industry that checks all those boxes and it is industry luminary Mickey Drexler we are very excited to have Mickey on the show Welcome Mickey. Mickey: [1:19] Thank you for having me and I'm excited to be here. Jason: [1:23] Oh my gosh Mickey we are we are thrilled to chat with you I'm eager to get into all the juicy topics going on in the industry and kind of cover your background but we have to start with the most important thing first and you may not know this Mickey but Scott as very successful in the e-commerce industry and he's invested a lot of his earnings from that industry into the car wash industry and. The reason I bring this up is because you you have famously been on the TV Show Breaking Bad. And I think that Scott is basically the plot for Breaking Bad is that. Scot: [2:05] Yeah I'm sitting on pallets of cash right now. Mickey: [2:08] One of the highlights of my life nine takes but it was really a lot of fun and I love that show. Scot: [2:17] It is a it is a great one. Jason: [2:19] One of the best shows on TV. Yeah so yeah we could probably do a whole show about breaking bad which I'm going to resist the temptation so, Mickey normally we start up the show by letting the guest kind of tell us a little bit about their background that could be tricky in your case because a lot of us orders probably know some of the highlights of your background and your backgrounds amazing but like when you meet someone that doesn't know you like how do you describe your career. Mickey: [2:50] Well I say I'm a retailer and I leave it at that, no reason to go further sometimes people after the fact say gee I didn't know you are who you are and cetera but if they want to know then maybe answer some specific questions, but I don't give them my resume. Jason: [3:16] Nice well for the sake of our listeners I am going to break it down a little bit although I appreciate the the humility of it and you you tell me if I have a ride but like you grew up in the Northeast and and started your career in the apparel industry so you work for a bunch of storied apparel retailers Abrams and Strauss Macy's Bloomingdale's and if I ever write your first big job that I don't think that many people remember is you were the CEO at Ann Taylor. Mickey: [3:51] Yes by the way the Northeast means the Bronx to move is that was very special in my life so that's who I grew up. And my first after the three I had joined say Bloomingdale's then briefly Macy's, Then I then I decided I did not want to work in the department store business anymore and I was fortunate enough to, become CEO banjo which is a tiny company losing a lot of money owned by a larger company that happened on Brooks Brothers and probably never heard of the other companies who spoke to March around anymore, and I did that for four years and we were then taken over by big bureaucratic department store, and I decided I was never more disappointed at that point in my life I was a pretty young guy, and I wanted to leave because they didn't appreciate the business we were in it was all about bureaucracy was Alex Stewart. Who then eventually like to play towards I'm not sure who they bought but so I left I left a mess a mess I left it in Taylor. And moved to Gap in San Francisco. Jason: [5:14] Yep and then for other young kids listening to the podcast Gap is going to sound like this famous iconic brand but when you joined in the late 80s um they haven't may be achieved all of their success yet and so like, frankly you you are traded in for being that the CEO that led this, enormous expansion and growth both financially and in terms of popular awareness of the Gap and I want to say you, you watched a couple of the Gap Brands like Old Navy and Gap Kids and somewhat relevant to the conversations we have on this show a lot I think you made a pretty significant decision to take Gap from being a wholesaler that sold a fair amount of other people's Goods to a vertically integrated brand that primarily focused on making your own goods and selling them direct to Consumers through your stores do I have that right. Mickey: [6:09] Yeah yeah correct I joined Gap you don't mind if I correct details I join Gap, at the end of 1983, which is then it started as a hundred percent Levi's company they only bought from Levi's and then when I got there was about one-third of their business was Levi's, and long story short, I learned in my retail life than especially having worked alongside Brooks Brothers which was at the beginning of the decline Franklin, in the mid-80s but they were they own their label and they didn't sell wholesale them, and they did not have to worry about competitors etc etc and going on sale. [7:05] They also with the highest profit company in a relatively small conglomerate of retailers and the reason was their margins were very high. Because again they weren't dealing with competitive sales my department store experience was the opposite, if you're in buying wholesale someone else will put the goods on sale and of course today you know 30 years later plus it's the standard. [7:35] And so I decided when I got to Ann Taylor. [7:39] To own our own label over time I didn't want to deal with competitors who have the same Goods as we did and we did, to consumer or whatever you call it today and that was in 1980 1980, 1970 actually 74 5 trans legally 1980 exactly I joined them in 1980 so when I hear about direct-to-consumer today being the new heart area, it's been there has been a number of your few of us who did it, and through a profit point of view it was the only way I wanted to go not want to buy wholesale we, leave ours ironically after nearer to kick this out because they said we were copying them I'll never forget the lunch was a long boring lunch in San Francisco, and I said after I said they should have told us that right at the beginning so we didn't have to go through this long boring lunch when they when they then said would not sell you anymore well frankly I didn't really care and when you have news like that, you figure it out better than you don't have these like, so we stopped being buying wholesale from Levi's and great brand virus they were no hugely monstrous plan, and we did it on their own but that was fine and that's how it began. Jason: [9:08] That's amazing and I'm totally with you it's I talked to all these young entrepreneurs that just started a new direct to Consumer brand and many of them are under the misguided impression that it's a new business model that they just invented. Mickey: [9:21] I know well there's a few of us then and now there are many many of us, but it is what it was it was not where you could build a business and wake up in the morning and control, your inventory and your prices when I joined the apple board in, I think years later in 1999 Steve Jobs basically felt that's what he wanted to do with apple that was his first year there. And he wanted to go direct and of course she did continue doing business with Walmart and Target and all that but he became. Direct, probably the greatest retailer ever and but you know it's a standard today and there's nothing new about it in fact it's old and it is what it is. Jason: [10:18] Yeah no I tease people that the very first merchants of all times I you know made their own rugs and sold them direct to Consumer so that's that was the first Model like wholesale is the newer the newer model. And so I do so then the next chapter is going to be J.Crew and we're going to go back and talk about some of the interesting issues that you confronted in some of these places but I do want to just highlight, I assume you still follow the Gap the, I would check out because it seems like you took them predominantly Direct in a lot of their news lately I don't know you fought it but they have a partnership with Walmart for their home goods and I just saw something today that they announced that they're going to distribute Athleta which is there they're their work out a pair of brand on this doing really well through REI so it's almost like they're it's interesting that they're now adding some wholesale back to their mix. Mickey: [11:13] Yep well each company is entitled to you know they all have a point of view they have a vision and I think that's what there is is can argue with it. Jason: [11:24] Yeah no and obviously pros and cons to all of these so then you left the Gap was it around 2000 2002 something like that. Mickey: [11:33] Yes I think I left in I think 2001 yeah yeah they say I think I left in 2001, in fact September 26 to be exact. 2001 and I started at J.Crew who's counting January I think 25th or something in 2002. Jason: [11:58] Awesome and what was the circumstances that J.Crew when you started. Mickey: [12:03] Well it was a mess a complete mess by the way I know you mentioned this but I started Old Navy I do it you probably know that story right. Jason: [12:16] No no tell us. Mickey: [12:18] Well it's an interesting story there's an article in the New York Times page 4 5. In terms of some some things I never forgot that like that and I read about Target Corporation then known as they Hudson starting a company to copy the gap. And what do you do when someone wants to copy you get emotional you get crazy and then you fly to Minneapolis to the Mall of America and say okay I want to see what it looks like. And I walked in on you say probably four minutes and I said this is way way off so I was relieved, because to me everyone would sewing machine is your competitor potential, I walked out and said you know is a big research company you know they I know they do a lot of research very successful and today more than ever, stopping Chicago on the way back to San Francisco I visited. Two stores demographics would be a price point below where Gap trailer very few me we were very much. [13:29] Not expecting, and I spoke to the store managers which you have to do in this world today you speak to who deals with customers it's like I've always done that it's my rule in any case they taught me a lot of lessons, Gap was too expensive for this area things are always on sale and I knew that I pick those tubes that low-margin stores, long story short got flew to San Francisco thinking about that, check the jeans Business 80 percent of genes in America than was sold 25 years ago sold below $30 a hundred percent of our genes are above 30 dollars, so I say this is not this is not a stupid idea, for them because we are considered a little more expensive I gave 10 of our Associates, then two hundred dollars each I assign. Them to shop certain categories: Target Walmart then you came on versions and come back. [14:39] Let's discuss it in one week they all came back bottom line is, they care about product they carry about price they couldn't care less if it ended 99 Cents 87 cents as Walmart used to do, etcetera and and right after that meeting I just said we're going to do it we're going to open up, our version of it was called everyday hero, and a few people from Jenny mean who worked at Marvin's was running for the gap, Jeff Eiffel we moved over we started with a small group to do what was then had no name. [15:23] And Don Fisher was always you know he was always pretty open about entrepreneurial stuff and I said was starting his company we didn't have a name long story short, I couldn't come up with the name I was in Paris going to the airport and I see a bar on Rue Saint Germain called Old Navy. And I said to Maggie who was with me marketing I think what a great name for a company, registered the next day in America no one had it and that was the name now of course my board didn't really like name you know but to me your name your kids you're not going to have a negotiation over what you name them, we have a negotiation I hard to naming companies that have with horrible names and later on I'll tell you how we got the Old Navy from olden days, and that was the beginning first store open whole Gap Warehouse only had three names and I said, we do this and we have no gaps in five years so then the next door is called Old Navy and that's how we started today it's about probably 80 and 90% of the earnings of the Gap Corporation I'm guessing. But tremendously successful. Jason: [16:38] Yeah that has been the tide that has lifted all the the Gap boats for a while. And yeah that that is amazing you raise something that I have to ask though because it comes up a lot I work with a lot of Brands and these days I spend a lot of time cautioning them about how good the retailers are becoming it inventing their own Brands and and their first reaction is always the same is your trip to Minneapolis like you know targets not very good at this I'm not very worried right, and I think that was absolutely true back then and in many categories it still is true but I would argue that in some categories, and Target more so than most is getting darn good at this and you look today at like cat and Jack and they're very successfully competing with with Baby Gap and and you know sort of traditional brands. Mickey: [17:30] Hundred hundred percent I totally agree but you know what you're good at and the products right. And I think their inspiration I was told was the crew cuts I don't know if that's true or not I'm not the kids business anymore and I don't pay attention, but absolutely true look if it's a vision, and and the product is right and I always say the product has to be right and in their case you know the price is right well the past its product, quality of product value and that's by the way we did oh maybe that's the story in any business right product right value. Right marketing and emotional connection to it and then we had operated retail. And the style and taste is all for us it's very important. Jason: [18:23] So then we mentioned that you you started that that January a J.Crew which was a mess at the time, and I want to say one of the things you did for J.Crew kind of mirroring the Old Navy story is launched the Madewell brand there. Mickey: [18:41] Well I did that before I join J.Crew. I bought the name Madewell from a fellow named David Mullen who was it really nice company, hear that David used to work with me in wash it was a wash consult very talented guy showed me the name before I went to J.Crew, I love the longer it's very hard to name a company and the name immediately resonated with me, and I should Wanted You by Sly can't afford it, and so I paid $125,000 for the name which you know once you finish with those naming companies which I wouldn't want to do they'll charge you a million dollars will come up and bad names no offense the main companies. But but I thought the name 1937 already it had history it had a feeling it had emotion so I bought the name and tucked it away, and when we went public when we turn Jake you around, see I was there to about three or four years to you actually turn around always starts a year and a half later and that's three years later or whenever I thought it was time to start me. [20:04] So that's what we start the username and that was unlike every day unlike the everyday hero. Target this was a this was more complicated because the Old Navy was price point or two or three below gas. [20:25] This one and I might say was the first company to get to a billion dollars in sales as fast as they did until Apple get there. So it took off like a rocket at Old Navy like a rock it was really a very nice toy and maybe well was much more difficult, we took it we had a number of different people leading it, and we just couldn't get it going the right way I made a number of mistakes in opening up. Bedroom state which knows things it was real estate wasn't on Vine and that didn't work, we just didn't get our act together for at least four years in five years, and I was really upset because I said you know this is taking away from the value of our public company so we must 15 and 20 million dollars a year which I think we were maybe 15 million a year, you know you take the multiple of the stock and all the sudden you know the company's worth three hundred million dollars less because we're starting made well, so that kind of aggravated me couldn't get rid of that aggravation way things are but then some set. [21:43] I came back to the corporation he left for you or two and he was putting to be in charge of. Male and he did an incredible job and so he and I work very closely together. And I always merchandising Missouri involved. [22:06] And he did the design and he had a vision for design I had a vision well the storefront, it was kind of a I was always inspired by I think they're still around but I'm not sure a bread bread store in the village called the suvi oh maybe, I don't know if it's still there to be the bakery yes I always loved the way the storm was so we designed a store. I kind of felt like a see it was the studio I'm just actually look at a picture again we fun and we built a really I was really pleased with the store but I was not pleased with how the business was going, and some sack pinion looking at the storefront now online beautiful store and it's beautiful store goal, and emotion, and then when he came in the rest then this is starting to take off like a rocket plus woman named Mary. Who was jeans made merry new Mary knew more veggies. [23:19] And she joined us from Jay Vernon and Mary came in. Thanks Gary Pierson and she and some set and it takes people to do it we put together we became a major genes, that was our vision the best kind of jeans that not crazy designer prices and the company took off also at some point like a lock. And that was the story of Nemo. And you know all the retail to be all the over companies to Fashion they hit a wall at times and then they come back or they don't come back, and hitting a wall is part of what goes on every company I've been involved as hit a wall at some point it's a wall in any me to save it and bring it back or it or it continues to have a hard time. Jason: [24:17] For sure the side note another company hit a wall sadly was Vesuvio which is a hundred year old Bakery in SoHo I have some good news bad news they had a Hiatus and they reopened in like 20/20 so the last and I was is in SoHo they were they were open I had not heard what has happened since the pandemic and I can imagine it wasn't a great time for them so I hope they're doing well. Mickey: [24:43] We'll check it out and we'll let you know that's cool. Jason: [24:47] Awesome so then I do want to kind of just wrap up the clear stuff and then we're going to dive in a little deeper on a few of the things that we've already talked about but so today you are Alex Mill and do you want to tell us a little bit about Alex. Mickey: [25:01] Yeah sure Alex my son or Alex. Jason: [25:03] We're both I was waiting for you to tell that yes. Mickey: [25:08] Well my son started the business in 2005 13, and he just started I was very involved and I pretty much had nothing to do with it at all which he reminded me when I started here, he says you know you don't even wear our t-shirts which were famous for. And he was right I just didn't pay any attention and I probably should have but he didn't ask me really and he was a wholesale come. And we do business it was kind of cool we had a little bit of a cult following and and I'm allergic to high prices which really gets translated as too bad value, you know I don't mind high prices in certain categories or where you get what you pay for for a you know the prices are ridiculous but you might learn from his luggage or whatever from a mess, but we designer clothes in general so he went along I went along he. [26:18] When I left J.Crew I didn't think anything about his business but when some stack. Who is he quit he had a non-compete and I was his age. So we need help I hope to get jobs in the industry part-time jobs freelance because he walked away from a very very big job, and so the day his non-compete was up, I that was the day he was a beginning of a new Alex will be in some segments and do each other, and Alex was very happy that he would find some partner and some seconds considered the founder of the company he's a major shareholder long of Alex and myself, and he joined us. [27:16] And then I was very happy kind of had a job again because I was doing stuff but not doing what I love to do which is be involved in building a company Vision etcetera, so I joined I think it was about two and a half years ago I'm not even sure the day. And we had a little tiny office which I'm now we doubled the space instead, that we start to build a business and we had a vision and a woman's and Alex and I at the beginning or I would say it wasn't a marriage made in heaven, it's the it's the come one since when and it took a lot of work and a lot of a lot of help. And we finally listening I'm going to say that he's going to listening to his mother my wife about making certain that he and I get along and I did that with him, it was like another else conversation and it's been really really nice over the last number of months but it's hard. To be with your dad and I was trying to figure out is he. Someone I work with or is he my son and it's extremely difficult and he kept dealing with me as whatever I done. [28:40] And so now he's you know he's a partner along with some set and and Hussein. And we hired a team and it's very hard to start a company I had the bank of Gap in the Bank of J.Crew in my other two startups now I didn't have their back. And so we funded us elves which in a way is really good I also do want to have for the first time in my life. Too many opinions that weren't right and that was a blessing even though you know I'm doing this for a million years, if we're right we're right if we're wrong way wrong but my best board members were always people I knew anyway not necessarily on the board. But when you have a money partner which I certainly did they think about profits they think which is nothing wrong with it but, take its long-term to build a profitable company, and when you have hit a wall you succeed if you're good at it I always had a kind of ability to. Knock down and I just get right back up and I don't stop. [30:00] But some cases that doesn't happen but here we are independent Leo and not negotiating colors or Styles or what someone else thinks we should do. We're expanding in the business is starting to really kind of take off now so I'm really excited I've always been excited. It's about the taste quality I look at the landscape out there. And I think this is not a lot of things going on that I feel or what I would say are incredibly impressive there are those winners, and you all know who they are so what I'm hearing so I think we're all excited but small you know. But that's small anymore 20 people work there and we all have like multiple jobs which is good I've say snorts growing pretty rapidly, so and you know that's our mission. Jason: [31:03] My I have a some great empathy for your son Alex I'm a fourth-generation retailer and I think I can imagine poor Alex just wanted his famous dad to wear his t-shirts and he got an activist investor instead. Mickey: [31:15] What your fourth generation retailer. Jason: [31:19] Yeah yeah my family sort of started out in the in the grocery and then later jewelry business, I did want to highlight you've referenced it a couple times that you're also you had a long stint on the board at Apple and I want to say I've been, worked with Ron Johnson the number of times and I've seen some interviews with Steve Jobs and in both cases they reference you as the the retail Savvy board member and Apple. Mickey: [31:46] I met Steve in I loved Steve idolized ski and I still love him to this day, he was extraordinary and I give very slowly thinking about the way he died went through, and to excuse me per. Steve we met what he wants he gets when he doesn't stop at anything the most seductive human being I've ever met in my life, we met at a mutual friend's birthday party in Napa Valley came up to me and we start the shoes and, you don't say what's the job so long Steve you know a niche wasn't and we're talking and he. [32:32] Got in touch with me after that asked if I would join this board, and I said no I don't like public companies now I took my schmuck anti schmuck pills after the okay, because hello is that a bad word to say she's no and I realized holy shit, and I just you know I was yeah I was on a board you know bless them family board, in other words and items on a number of other boards and I get bored very quickly on boards because that's the way I am and I need to be action busy, and I'm not a technologist I don't know much about it but. So a year later he came to me after becoming come to me and said you join my board I will join Apples by Gap store, well Steve hate Sports also, but he and I said deal why because God will he be amazing on the board, just as a factor of not going along with everything already. [33:50] And he became a pain in the ass to the number of people who isn't always on Tiny going and what's up this kind of but he privately we had a really nice strong relationship. And she joined the board I would say made a few enemies on the board because he whatever he thinks he says that's it he says. And and sometimes he says it doesn't make people happy so so that's essentially what happened so in any case I join these board. And first thing he wanted me to do was to design a store. [34:31] And we had a really bad looking store and that he designed and then we got a warehouse which we used to do with my old company, and we got a warehouse you designed a brand new store in the warehouse p.m. for 5,000 square feet and. The store was really good-looking that's basically what happens students are today simple it showed off the price. And it wasn't a story that was czechia where the product was competing with the design and that was our first Apple Store, and then after that I just you know he asked me about color of iPods he always want to review the colors Etc. You know it's like you're 16 years and lives through extraordinary success and you know appreciate it I don't know you and appreciate it well he was alive and well. But just I just always you know he went to the meetings he started every single meeting for it spent most of his time on the. [35:46] And you don't find that many people and many companies they spend most of their time necessary not on product that was steamed on product, things tough he was titled in an infant in a good way in my mind you know Obama didn't call him back, one morning he wanted to President Obama to launch the first iPhone he was Furious Obama didn't get that I'll never forget that, he says how do you not call me back like this light in four hours Al Gore was on the boy houses Steve I'll get him to call you back whatever. [36:24] You know Obama told and back when you had a minute came back and says he's going to launch the iPhone pushing never did but that's what Steve wanted to believe anyway amazing amazing run, an amazing person he and Johnny I everyday had lunch and every day was you know what's the future going to hold. For apple and he the other thing he did, is he kind of made me for sure and numbers feel stupid at the end of a board meeting I wasn't in technology guys sometimes I'd say something that you look the righteousness gee how can I say that, and then you can bury yourself and say oh I don't want to disappoint Steve yeah but he was to me was a special unique gift to the world. And I miss him and I think the world misses in today. Scot: [37:18] Absolutely, because I'm the entrepreneur on the program Jason has a fancy corporate job and a title that has more words that I can keep track of the so you've been a successful entrepreneur for decades what advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur listening to the show like what are, distill down some of the things you've learned through there. Mickey: [37:36] I was explaining to him that every single day this we haven't really nice marketing business we do well but every day I come to work. And I reach for the sky. [37:52] And I'm trying to explain that no matter what we're doing oh he also time says I'm too critical of things or people or whatever and I said you know Alex everyday. I come to work I said every day you come to work I come to work and I look for what. Could be better not for what you write and I think a lot of people have a hard time with that vision is, where you going how you get there with the unknowns is critical, so people say well how do you do this that and the other thing and I said I had a photograph of what Gap should be I didn't in Maine. I didn't J.Crew and I actually I did yet in J.Crew and I didn't Old Navy and I didn't so I had a photograph in my mind we get sale in one Business book. Because it was actually misses you by I had to do with those. [38:56] That didn't work but yet not them to get up into the skill set whose huge toes. What you need to do and I can't speak about Instinct in other areas but I think Instinct judgment. Seeing around corners where they say skate to where the puck is going. Is extremely important in the fashion business and knowing when to go knowing when to stop when things slow down extremely. [39:30] Picking the right team is something rules that rules but got to pick the right partners and when you make a mistake in a partnership and so many of us don't do this for cleanup face up to you but. [39:46] And do something of that. You know and the bigger companies are no longer into the smaller company like this. About your all living together and it doesn't take long and when you're writing your own checks, that's a big difference when you're writing your own checks which I know most people probably don't have the ability to do, it's very different than the private Equity the joint venture etc etc but he country each business, as if you own it it's your money in and that's part of it and then you know we will passion, I say leadership curiosity I think anyone was not curious in my mind can't do well running a company, they have to be curious unless it's look like you speak about technology I just assumed the same rules. But building a retail company it's kind of like painting a very beautiful picture as to what we'll stick together you know I once went twice went to visit Ford motor. Design. [41:01] Headquarters and the first time I got was because Anna meaning with Jeff Sons yeah. Surrender they show the new Mustang this is probably seven. The co-host and I said he says what do you think of the car in front of all these people I said it's a very cool looking car. [41:26] The wheels are really big and I would never want to Market or sell a car for have one myself with a wheels are bad, I know it's kind of silly ish but it's not it's putting together a painting and there's nothing worse, there are worse things in wheels that stand out like a sore thumb so he invited me to, Detroit with designer factors Co didn't go with me which I thought says. He's no one not because of Nations and it was seven people designing the one car. Now you understand why the cars a lot of cases look like they look. Steve always wanted to talk he would have done now they were to get when I he was he was fascinated with Tesla very impressed night, from his point of view it wasn't I said I know if you remember the to see your test sports car. Scot: [42:28] Register yeah. Mickey: [42:29] I said Steve it's such an ugly looking Paris looks to me like you are pathetic it's not about the course looks you can always design a beautiful car it's about what's inside. Mechanics engineering but anyway I think. You know as for me I'm accused of being a micromanager you really better be, you better care about the wheels better care about this hear about that Medicare by recalling about he just you know we have a few new bad colors in Arabic in Arabic. The color is of opinion L and if you buy three good colors and then two bad ones you don't morejon out on the product because you have bad colors which I don't think people pay enough attention to. And I could know what I'm trying to think what else to go on. Scot: [43:23] You know I know we're running up on time but just quickly quickly so you you kind of were very early on what this kind of direct to Consumer now there's this whole digitally native vertical brand what what do you think's driving that Trend and where do you think it goes. Mickey: [43:39] Yeah I think it continues to go because if you're buying wholesale you know the pricing is all off. And I saw that when I was you know young guy you know like when I was at Bloomingdales I was 23. Alexander's department store maybe Fourth Generation member states they I was a swimsuit sweater and t-shirt. And everything else I wasn't I didn't do that for terribly wrong but for the year I was in there you are Alexander's cut their prices. In the middle of June and I'll never forget I had a couple my prices we had a policy to meet price. Young kid in the business and I was Furious Alexander's just here and now my my profits and margins. Then what to help. Because I hadn't worked out on my bathing suits that was a stupid rule but it wasn't a bad I kind of like the idea of Crisis competitors that was the beginning, what's happened to the last 30 or 40 years T.J.Maxx the most important department store. [44:58] And you know the word stimuli, we have all the discounts that and you go online and you we had a big discussion here yesterday you said well we sell this to Nordstrom Rack and he said well if it was an existing item, we want think if it isn't bad covers and they said you can't miss anything going to go online, given a look for this island yes my little bit Nordstrom Rack will whoever Valance T.J.Maxx before you see Alex Mill so the pricing. Is critical so white and a lot of what I did was also because who I always admired Ralph Lauren Bailey – pricing and I know all these things cost and so I said we can put together. A design team that will hopefully be as good as a design team ourselves if we do that I say I don't I don't want to have another problem. [45:59] So the prophets were always all the retailers are inflated in America in Goods that are wholesale purchases, because it is plant safety and cost, and here we might sell 250 you spend fifty yourself Bloomingdale's 425 and hundred twenty-five goes to 275 or $300 is the difference. In pricing so TJ Max knows that really long Ross stores. Everyone knows it and and I think that's why I don't think there's a future to be in that business. And I sit to the parks to excited family with a lot and probably not have to hear this but. Jason: [46:46] Yeah no department stores listen to our show I promise I'm. Mickey: [46:52] So I said I really don't want to see I said where you going to be in five years or ten years if everything you bought. Is available at a discount and that's the truth. So and I have friends in the business they do hello mrs. with teaching marks they do with most of the partner stories and what does that leave you and Caroline Woods is a great coach. And really smart nice person but what is forty fifty sixty billion dollars huge profits so, and really big believer must now this is where I'm standing in the luxury business is not. We have they probably can do it now via makes does. They do with brilliantly I guess the other one you know they have they can probably do it who's those customers probably like it exclusivity they like paying more money and so on and so forth but it works through that I think it does, so so I know if I knew the answer to that question with that pricing thing is huge. Jason: [48:06] No it's a it's a big issue for the industry to figure out and people that don't are going to. Have it have a challenging future I think as you've highlighted I did want to ask you a question so, if anyone Google's Mickey Drexler your you're gonna find all these business articles with your picture on the cover and some variation of this title that we've all given you the merchant Prince um and that the kind of just I hope you're okay with it seems like you get that title whether you want it or not. The gist of all those is that man, Mickey had a really good run of picking a lot more winners than losers of therefore it having the the products that that consumers wanted and you know they're there for achieving a bunch of financial success for your various businesses and I've always wanted to ask you, is in your mind is that success as a merchant is that we're you better than other people at, identifying the trends that were emerging in what people wanted or were you better at getting people to want what what you liked. Mickey: [49:19] I think it's a little box I think our industry is lacking. Merchants today as much as I've seen over the last many many decades. I don't know what it is but I think you have a sense of seeing around corners you must see around the corners, I believe except if you're a seller if you're a Discounter and you're good at it you don't have to see around the corners just have to Source right, and I have the right price and have a great way to view or but those businesses are out there I don't really know them well. But that's important in most business not enough you know, worthy I think mostly eyeglasses they sell what's true of all of us most of what we sell, are what we would call her oh it items iconic but you have to feel it you have to see it. You have to have an inch and in the instinct is incredibly. [50:39] I think I was talking to a friend yesterday and he said in his 15 year old is now color rather than know what need p is. The expanse was something I said you know it's interesting I said to Henry I said do, is there anyone in your family who is musical I always ask someone that question whoever I interview, and sure enough Henry's wife plays very good these though and Henry was a musician. [51:13] Growing up. And now here's their son they are very talented musician artist creative there's always some kind of. DNA is connection is fine and it always also depends on who works I was very lucky, I started working for a woman named King Marcin I didn't work for she's the best Fortune taste Isle and when I got to Bloomingdale's like this young. [51:42] And I was after the first day in the house was checking on what they gave me a department to run, Stand start that's it you're the buyer one department and Katie Mercy was my mentors go off to Europe together factories and I guess I learned from her, and she the best merchants in the company if she wasn't a woman she's Co she was fantastic but there is something you get. Fun styling taste that you were born with and I think that's true in stinking with anything in the world. Tonight and it's not a scientific illusion but I everyone I interview I kind of want to know what their parents did. [52:30] For what this family that might have been a grandfather and a lot of especially creative it. So so I think that's really important the other part of the question is mostly was what you're going with and then creating your maker, well there's a lot of things under the radar and if you go after it you create demand for the people just don't expose it so we have recording a items we bring in, old mr. white we doing that way of doing this and they take off like crazy because someone wanted. And understanding what someone might want and Steve Jobs has tasks. [53:17] Is all part of the skill set with meeting. I'm not too bad Commodities during this price I thought would worry Parker bids was absolutely brilliant at figuring. What's out there with the stylish kind of cool pumping where people are going to pay $95 for their eyeglasses the only thing I say that Neil and Davis I think we need to at times. Balance or if you read Tales they could probably leave me come to my newest company of record I said I think you can have one more fun and I prices and however Orange. But the most important so then just like friends but no I think you you kind of born I see, I see him every time you sit down and look at it woman and she gets it it's in her blood why she has. And she's had a chief Merchant and see something and feels it and knows it and you know and then you have to be go to the message you're not quitting. [54:23] You have to know numbers you have to get Four Kings you have to figure out how long it'll be around you know has has everything. To the end of the numbers of databases we've been doing data since with 23 years old, whatever you always needed you need to know how much to buy anything happens to the forecast and you need to know how many sizes you do but now they have another fancy name for it. Act like merchandising second you're not going to succeed in affection. Jason: [54:58] I think you just answered my next question but that's like so obviously the traditional merchandising you have this science part which is the math and the forecasting and open a by and all that good stuff and you have the intuition which like to a certain extent seems like a god-given talent the, what's interesting to me is lately some of these new companies that have been born and Amazon being a great example like they used to hire a lot of merchants in every category so that have a, pet food buyer and you know and apparel buyer and a battery by or whatever they've kind of gotten rid of the merchant title and they've gone all-in on the data so they call it hands off the wheel and they let the computer decide what to buy, instead of a merchant and I've told lesser extent I think Katrina it Stitch fix, has that model a little where she uses data to inform her product a lot more and then you think of like she in and the Uber fast fashion space is, is that a future Trend like do you see that mostly working for these discount categories is that. Mickey: [56:03] Well I think you can argue Amazon but you know I thought when when I was I thought Amazon should have purchased J.Crew. I thought it would be really smart purchase they get a culture fashion and style. I think they'd be dangerous if they could figure that out. [56:30] And so we had someone approached them and of course it was done yeah not the personally I won't be there. I think that. If you look you can't even Stitch fix success but you cannot argue with kind of goods they sell if you. I like what I do I love I love what I do and it's about taste and style and if you do that for. Many have a point of view you'll probably do well so I need you to it is really good at the Bronx Science I couldn't get arrested enhanced you G I was always really good, I think you have to be good so I guess I do all the stuff they do I do. We're just hiring people do single stitch. We haven't been there but then again we are you know my choices to be the style formation with fun and emotion I give credit to any company. Whatever they do is stand financially successful of your poems but I don't know enough about Stitch fix lots of opportunities and Stitch fix. Jason: [57:50] Chien have you follow them at all. Mickey: [57:52] Like they're wildly successful I don't follow them when it's but you know. Jason: [58:00] It seems like they're a lot more about like plugging into all the social media you know like picking up the latest trends on on Instagram and Tick-Tock and things like that and then like you know super fast supply chain 2, didn't get those Trends in. Mickey: [58:16] Yeah and then again I care about quality and I care about all the stuff maybe bit different but if they're really from Julia. Jason: [58:25] It is it's a Chinese company they don't love for people to know that. Mickey: [58:29] Yeah well you know I wanted but sourcing their secretary like giveaway Price is Right. Jason: [58:36] Yeah it's super inexpensive like some people call it disposable fashion which is probably a. Mickey: [58:41] Yeah this is not what we want to do it's a kid's business on young business. I don't know we'll see how I like you know my company's that well so we'll see. [59:01] But but no I think the maths we really need a good mind and and for me I'm a huge micro. I'm looking at. Right now jumpsuit made dead which is brand-new and we're going to sell a lot of it is you know we just put it it's kind of comes naturally if you have the big jumps in the cellar. And and so you know you always create but you're not creating months Salem I just looked at. [59:36] I'm just really upset I looked at it I see why did me five men were 87 and it's $295 I said that's important just came in yesterday to the bad mark. And usually they can get away with doing that as a rebuttal so when you got it. And right now syllables troops crossed because it's not being self so you kind of get something you kind of knowing side and sort of okay. It's just bad news and it's not us. And you have to have a sense like covers the same thing most of them look alike so that the finger it comes. I think it's an offender brand new bottle and it's made by making sure it's a really good looking car and. I looked at it I said I don't want to renew pop color something that's you know not everyone's driving it's a very good looking car and you can see it's going to be a big guy. Because it's really designed well you know part talking about it over. Jason: [1:00:48] No I'm trying to switch. Mickey: [1:00:50] It's called The Defender I like your car like this. Not to me but you work committee should whatever but you could see the second Network, Tina news needles and I think it is I see a lot of them and cars used to be a lot more interesting design, then they are too maybe it's because is definitely people decide on here maybe it's the vision see it's hard to find cars and is Towing it. You know you all have an interest in cars. No we talked to what good looking car and not a lot of them are right so and I used to collect isn't nice. But but I kind of collecting child fantasize you've been having some cool cars but they are all kind of well design. They were uniquely designed and today you know it's a different world. Marker 06 Jason: [1:01:52] Yeah no for sure and it's it, interesting there sort of both out there there's you know people that you know still go for that unique distinctive looking care about the Aesthetics and there's people that you know just want to take an Uber for, for transportation so seems like a parallel is going in the same direction as that there's you know strong stuff with a strong point of view and that's that's quality and unique and then you know there's some people that you know just want, affordable inexpensive sweatshirt. Mickey: [1:02:23] Sure was were those for sure but you know I like the integrity. And not expensive I personally don't like expensive too expensive you know I mean I know maybe this is for sure. Jason: [1:02:43] Yeah well is it Mickey we could go on for hours but it has happened again we have used up all of our allotted time and I actually think. Mickey: [1:02:53] I'm having so much fun here guys. Jason: [1:02:55] I know I know why we will record the Extended Cut and you and I can just keep chatting. Mickey: [1:03:02] Anytime seriously. Jason: [1:03:04] You're our new guest host you're in. Mickey: [1:03:08] All right listen thanks a lot I appreciate the time and the questions and the schmoozing you know I do like two shoes so this is a great shoes. [1:03:26] Never ever I was on that I was on Instagram for about a minute and I came off like I don't want to forget. Scot: [1:03:36] Okay well you if people want more you exclusively come to the Jason Scott show that's where you'll be going. Mickey: [1:03:41] Anytime. Jason: [1:03:42] We really appreciated the time and enjoyed chatting with you and until next time happy commercing.

Wall Street Journal U.S. Manufacturing Reporter Austen Hufford joins John Williams to describe the process from ordering a product to its delivery to your home. Those details explain why it’s taking so long for those goods to arrive. He begins by using the example of a hot tub and how that’s manufactured.

In this episode we (Alexandra and Astrid) discuss dating a single mom in 2021. After reading a Kevin Samuels fan personal statement—dating a single mom should only be optional if she gives full custody of her child(ren) to her baby daddy. Now, this is not new. Single mother's have been accused of many frowns throughout history. Alex and Astrid understand the dating scene can be quite cruel towards single moms.As if being a single parent isn't hard enough, we add shame and judgement making single parents (mostly single moms) feel hopeless in the love department. Listen as these two sisters discuss the importance of  re-considering how to date in 2021. Women are becoming more independent while men, well…are still expecting submission.It's a tug of war and love doesn't seem to be winning. Kevin Samuels fans believe in his ideology that prestige and image is what everyone must aspire to have or relinquish to mediocrity. Mediocrity includes being a single mom who should settle for whatever because she is considered perished goods.Don't forget to follow us on our social media accounts:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cys_podcast Facebook: Call Your Sister PodcastTwitter: @CYS_PodEmail: cysnation@gmail.comSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/cyspodcast)

Billy Gene offends Sci-Fi fans.

In this episode, Rivers and Carter are joined by TWO amazing guests: Our old buddy comedian Joe Raines as well as comedian/podcaster/history professor Dr. Benjamin Sawyer! This episode is all about history and Dr. Ben shares some INCREDIBLE old newspaper articles from the 19th and 20th century that involve seaborne baboon hunts, very understandable hunchback attacks, and curious horse-related injuries. We follow that up with a discussion of the importance of teaching history and doing it the right way. This episode is so incredibly funny and we can't wait for y'all to hear it! Follow Joe on Twitter and Instagram @JoeMFRaines. Follow Ben on Twitter and Instagram @SawyerComedy and listen to his INCREDIBLE podcast, The Road to Now.  Follow the show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod.  Rivers is @RiversLangley  Sam is @SlamHarter  Carter is @Carter_Glascock  Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and growing ALL THE TIME! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

William Kidd found himself in London, more and more under the sway of two influential men, who were maneuvering him into a less than ideal commission. Again and again they altered the deal. Pray they do not alter it any further.

Lazarus Artisan Goods is on a mission, literally, to bring the best-crafted leather accessories to the marketplace while providing artisans in rural Haiti and Honduras with vocational opportunities to use their talented skills to live abundant lives now and in the future. Partnering with Mission Lazarus, the feel-good brand cherishes its relationship with local artisans and is passionate about their heirloom pieces that only get more beautiful as they age. With a wide range of offerings from genuine leather tech solutions, belts, wallets, and even leather-bound bibles, the gift-giving possibilities are endless, cultivated with dignity and purpose. Check out the people behind their product names by visiting their blog to meet the artisans. People matter and so do their stories. The brand has named many of its pieces after pillars in the communities they directly serve. Web: https://lazarusartisangoods.com Follow: @lazarusartisangoods About the show: ► Website: http://www.ashsaidit.com ► Need Goli Gummies? https://go.goli.com/1loveash5 ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH584216 ► Want the ‘coldest' water? https://thecoldestwater.com/?ref=ashleybrown12 ► Become A Podcast Legend: http://ashsaidit.podcastersmastery.zaxaa.com/s/6543767021305 ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ash-said-it/id1144197789 ► SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSaidItSuwanee ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1loveash ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog ► Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/1LoveAsh/ ► Newsletter: manage1.com/subscribe?u=2a2ca3b799467f125b53863http://ashsaidit.us11.list-c8&id=a6f43cd472 #atlanta #ashsaidit #ashsaidthat #ashblogsit #ashsaidit® Ash Brown is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, media personality and event emcee. The blog on AshSaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews and so much more. Her motivational podcast "Ash Said It Daily" is available on major media platforms such as iTunes, iHeart Radio & Google Play. This program has over half a million streams worldwide. She uses these mediums to motivate & encourage her audience in the most powerful way. She keeps it real!

New data shows prospective employees either getting more interested in returning to work, or never coming back at all. We'll explore what it means for both workers and employers ahead tomorrow's crucial jobs report. Plus, ChargePoint shares are surging on a strong quarter, but are still well off their 52-week high. So why is the CEO so bullish? We'll ask him. And, in a consumer-focused edition of Rapid Fire: how inflation and supply chain issues are weighing on earnings across nearly every sector today.

Max Kellerman, Sam Acho and Dan Orlovsky discuss quarterbacks in the NFL.

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's work After Virtue It focuses upon chapter 14, specifically on his discussion of the interconnections between what he calls "practices", standards for excellence, rules which need to be followed, and goods or ends of those practices. All of these are integral to the relationship between virtues and practices as well. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 1500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get MacIntyre's After Virtue here - https://amzn.to/2RiplGT

In this episode, Rivers Langley and comedians Matt McCarthy and John Hastings sit down to chat some more about the fantastic world of pro wrestling in Memphis, Tennessee. This week it's all about the golden era of the late 1970s and 1980s when names like Jerry "The King" Lawler, Terry Funk, and Austin Idol were ruling the roost over at the Mid-South Coliseum. We also OBVIOUSLY talk about the legendary feud between Lawler and comedian Andy Kaufman. This is Part 2 of a two part series on Memphis Wrestling. If you've not checked out Part 1 on Sputnik Monroe and the early days of Memphis Wrestling, check out Episode #294 available in the archives.  Follow Matt on all forms of social media @McCarthyRedhead and listen to his podcast "We Watch Wrestling". You should also follow John on all forms of social media @TheJohnHastings and check out his podcast "The Wrestler Review".  Follow our show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod.  Rivers is @RiversLangley  Carter is @Carter_Glascock   Sam is @SlamHarter  Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and being added to all the time! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod  Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

The Joy of Drinking Podcast returns, as Joy sits down with Carrie from Greater Goods! If you've ever tasted their delicious CBD chocolates, you know that everything they create is of superior quality and is absolutely delicious. Carrie and Jody share with Joy details about a new line of products: 100% vegan CBD gummies. Right at the Fork podcasts are supported by: Zupan's Markets: www.zupans.com RingSide Steakhouse: www.RingSideSteakhouse.com

EP273 - Amazon FBA Roll-ups with Alex Kopco of Forum Brands  Alex Kopco is the Founder and COO of Forum Brands, a roll-up of digitally-native consumer brands selling via Amazon. In this interview we discuss Alex's experiences at Target and Amazon prior to founding Forum Brands. We talk about Forum Brands specific business model and their unique tools and expertise for Amazon sellers, the Amazon FBA Roll-up trend in general, and the future of commerce. Episode 273 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday August 19, 2021. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 273 being recorded on Thursday august 19 20 21 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott showed listeners Jason as you and mr. snow two of my favorite topics are Amazon and Entrepreneurship lately there's been a lot of exciting intersections in that area as different companies have been started to kind of quote-unquote roll-up Amazon FBA Sellers and explore a. House of Brands kind of concept leveraging Amazon so we're going to dig into that topic tonight and joining us on the podcast to help us explore that is Alex kopco he is the CEO and founder of form brands Alex welcome to the show. Alex: [1:18] Thank you so much super excited to be here guys. Jason: [1:21] Alex we're thrilled to have you and Scott, that Scott wasn't just giving you lip service these are his two favorite topics so he's going to be super annoying to talk to, but before we jump into form Brands which we are excited to get to we always like to give listeners a little bit of a taste about our guest, backgrounds and how you came in your role and if I have it right I think you have kind of a perfect background for your current role. Alex: [1:48] I do yeah it's true I have spent, really the last decade in e-commerce I got my start working for Target specifically for target.com at the time when target.com was actually still being powered by Amazon Target, little known fact was the largest seller on Amazon's Marketplace back when I was there and I was part of the team, that was rolling target.com off of the Amazon platform, which was a great first experience in my career to see what this whole e-commerce thing was about working for especially a big box retailer and one is well respected as Target and is good at merchandising and all the great things that Target does it really did feel like the wild west despite it being a 50 year old company and then I transitioned was looking for just a change in life a change in scenery and you know the winters in Minneapolis can be pretty brutal and so I actually had the opportunity to go work for Amazon and Seattle where I over a number of years had basically every retail job that you can imagine at the company also did a stint at Amazon as a product manager where I was working on Amazon's physical retail stores team. [3:08] The non grocery version which was super super interesting a ton of Technology went into powering the Amazon stores as well and so I oversaw some of the technology aspects there and really, over my course of my career at Amazon fell in love with the power of data the power of. [3:26] You know under understanding customers based on what they do as well as what they say and being able to provide you know surprise and Delight moments for them regardless of whether they were online or in stores and for me you know my passion for entrepreneurship since these are Scott's two favorite things Amazon entrepreneurship. [3:45] Sort of nurtured at a very young age and happy to delve into my memory Palace there but, the the impetus for really leaving Amazon to strike out on my own was predicated on they just ongoing shift to e-commerce and the adoption and of course you know the covid-19 pandemic has, greatly sped that up but it was always a fascinating space for me and so really just had that itch and decided that the time was right at my career to make that leap. Jason: [4:15] That is awesome and so just just so I'm being perfectly clear that our listeners you loved Amazon so much that when Target stopped working with them you quit and joined Amazon. Alex: [4:25] In as many words yeah sure let's go with that hahaha. Scot: [4:32] Jason you are the chief digital officer of Target right do I have that right. Jason: [4:35] Yes one of yes. Alex: [4:37] Wrong Jason Goldberg goldberger. Scot: [4:39] Oh gosh I get that confused. Alex: [4:41] I have to confess Jason I did a double take when I first saw your name and was like this can't possibly be goldberger and then realized that I was adding an ER to your name. Jason: [4:50] Alex to make matters more confusing a you should know that the day that Jason joined Target I got three 800 LinkedIn invites from from target employees. Alex: [5:01] One of those might have been me Jason. When Jason joined he and I I forget how this happened but he and I was basically in the first meeting he ever had it Target and. Then I was in a number of subsequent meetings and so we just sort of kept running into each other and it became a running joke over the rest of my time at Target which was not that much longer that every time you ran into each other it was just you know one of those moments so it's been fun to watch Jason's career evolve. Jason: [5:33] Yeah yeah. Nobody cares but like the overlaps are are super complicated I've actually worked with Target for an awfully long time in fact I was in a conference room in Minneapolis on 9/11 with Jeff Bezos. Doing the Amazon contract the the day that the Twin Towers was hit and did a lot of work with Steve Eastman and Michael Francis and although. Alex: [5:59] Yeah yeah. Jason: [6:00] So I do have a sort of a Target history and then of course I'm at publicist which owns Sapient which was the big team that helped stand up target.com when you guys moved off of them. Alex: [6:12] That's right project Everest. Jason: [6:14] Exactly so lots of overlaps but, as per usual I just talk about all this stuff well you actually did it so so we're excited to hear about it from you but I think Scott is undoubtedly going to ask you some Amazon trivia questions first. Scot: [6:33] Yeah yes so it must have been interesting you know I haven't been as deep as you guys have at Target but I have spent a lot of time at Amazon seems like a big culture difference there what was that like. Alex: [6:46] Yeah it was a big culture difference I think the biggest difference in my experience was I was. [6:56] Well there's two two components to this first and foremost I felt like I had a tremendous amount of responsibility from the very very first day at Amazon Amazon having built much of its own technology internally you know there were there were safeguards there were checks and balances you couldn't really screw anything up but I had a lot of control over, Mi Piel which you know when I would interview people or when people would join the team I would sort of like in my business too and I was a better manager and video games for a number of years and I would liken it to my little video games or my little comic book shop on the street corner and you know we would talk about what is our window front look like today we've got to walk our store and make sure that you know some kid didn't spit gum on our floor and so it was it was very much that feel and I had the power to keep things clean and sort of do what I thought was in the best interest of customers. [7:54] Target on the other hand it is a company that has one of the most iconic brands on the planet you see that Bullseye and you just instantaneously know even if you're not, from America we pretty much know what Target is and so with that you know with, with great power comes great responsibility with great branding comes great responsibility and so my experience at Target was a little bit different in that, a we were big you're really big when I joined Amazon we weren't that big at the time and I work for Amazon Canada so we were really not that big. [8:27] Target was big and so the the conversations with vendors the responsibility that we had two guests You know despite being, working for the e-commerce arm of Target we took. Sort of the brand very very very seriously and everything was in the spirit of ensuring that people when they, interacted with that Bulls I had the best possible experience and so it was it was just a different ethos right it was a different mindset, and one worked great for one company for the last five decades the other was kind of making it up as they went along and now have become one of Earth's largest companies and there were no guarantees either way but it certainly was a very interesting, mindshift and I learned a lot of both to be totally honest with you and a lot of my reasoning for going to work for Amazon was not because Target rolled off Amazon and then I went to work for Amazon but it was because I felt like I actually wanted both sides of that coin I wanted to both have the big box retail how do you how do you take. A legacy brand and bring it into the digital world and, what about that disruption what what about that company that is leading that disruption leading the efforts of bringing retail into the digital world and so. It was a little bit selfishly I just wanted to be as well as well-balanced as I possibly could be. Scot: [9:55] So did you work for Amazon Canada the whole time are you kind of bounce between the u.s. and Canada. Alex: [10:00] So I work for Amazon Canada when I was in retail eCommerce retail for the whole time I did work very closely with my US based counterparts I worked on the initiative which is now known as narf but internally was known as Naf n which was the unification of the North American supply chain I supported the launch of Amazon Mexico and so you know one of the benefits of working for a smaller, arm within a big company as you have a lot of resources at your disposal but you also have a lot of latitude to try things I launched which prime in Canada when we bought which I brought virtual bundling technology to Canada's a twenty-five-year-old no nothing in the tech space which was incredibly interesting and again really started to give me that feel for the power of Technology, and and and Building Technology that can enable anybody in the company to be successful not just the people who know how to wield the technology. Scot: [11:03] A lot of people that have worked at Amazon that start companies they bring a lot of the management principles over is that something you plan on doing or you're just like starting with the clean white board. Alex: [11:15] Man yeah Amazon's culture is it is definitive and we certainly have borrowed, in many cases inadvertently a lot of the principles you know one of our our core leadership principles is bias for Action we have one that is called act like an owner we have one called the best ideas when which is you know, hybrid of is write a lot and invented simplify and we did this sort of inadvertently but you have to admit the principles are pretty darn good. And you know Dave Glick and I saves over at Flex we often and he does a lot of post on LinkedIn talking about the impact that Amazon's culture had on him and how he brings that to flex and I a lot of what he talks about resonates very deeply and we kind of joke about you know once an Amazonian always an Amazonian it always comes back up in some in some fashion. Scot: [12:09] Yeah someone that's an outsider and having interacted with all the different tech companies the other ones have these like little Pro way things like, yep what does it do no evil or be don't be evil or something where's the Amazons when you know and they end up being mocked by all the employees at the end of the Amazon ones they just seem so much more solid and and you know I've seen the document where they give case studies and then what not to do and what you know Jeff Bezos little stories around the principle so it it just has so much better thought out than any of the anything else I've ever seen. Alex: [12:46] Yeah yeah you know we. Even the most resistant employees I think drink at least a little bit of the Kool-Aid when you get there because it's impossible to avoid you can't not be in a meeting. Especially when tensions are high and this is the whole purpose of having strong leadership principles is so that when you can't be in every meeting and every discussion, you want people working for you to behave and make decisions in a way that are consistent with how you would do it that is the Hallmark of that of strong leadership principles and like you can read the everything store which I did when I was interviewing with Amazon and they say you know. Jeff has this thing about like oh the customer's always in the room leave the empty chair like we talked about customers as if they're actually in a room that's not that's not a lie that's not like a thing that you know has been spawned at like we literally do that we say, like what would the customer think about this how's that going to impact the CX like we care very very deeply and that's just one of the principles and so people use them in their vernacular and actually my wife still works for Amazon, and our friends sometimes get a little bit annoyed because occasionally she and I will be talking about a hard thing at work and we'll just default to, sort of the Amazon lingo and they're like you guys have to know how you sound to outside people which is. Not great. Scot: [14:14] Amazon Romance. Jason: [14:15] I do think the Amazon leadership principles are legit and you know have certainly contributed to their their culture surviving even as its scale, but just just a counter-argument to Scotts point they did add two new leadership principles this year and one of them basically is don't be evil. In parentheses it says two employees. Alex: [14:37] Yeah I mean. Scot: [14:40] That's just an overreaction to crying at the dust particle. Alex: [14:43] That was yeah I was there during during the infamous New York Times article it got some things right I got some things wrong. Scot: [14:55] Were you crying at your desk. Alex: [14:56] I was not personally crying at my desk no and I don't know anyone who did but I also would not say that I knew every single person at Amazon either. [15:13] Um It's fun fun for me not that much fun for probably listeners but I'll just give you the anecdote, Jeff is like a rare unicorn around Seattle and anytime you see him it is a Jeff sighting, and people will like stop what they're doing and immediately run back to their desks to tell everybody that they had a Jeff sighting and my only judge sightings really came from from the stage, at the All Hands meetings I was fortunate enough to work on some projects that one just do it Awards which is one of the awards where Jeff gives out a Nike shoe and there's a whole story behind that and so my interaction was limited to the. Jeff announcing a thing on the stage in my face being up on a on a wall that was those are my only sightings. Scot: [16:12] Nice to get picture of you and Jeff. Alex: [16:14] I did not yeah yeah yeah. Scot: [16:15] We can Photoshop at Jason's of Photoshop Drupal will create one for. Alex: [16:21] Yeah you can you can put my face on. Jason: [16:22] I'll put all three of us. Alex: [16:24] There you go yeah with chassis so when I was at Amazon actually co-founded an internal employee network called connected Amazon. And it really sort of started actually it started from Target honestly because one thing that Target does exceptionally well is they have all of these sort of like. [16:46] Affinity groups isn't there like employee networks and there's like an acapella group and there's you know the women who ride motorcycles group, and so I was a member of all these different sort of Target networks and I got to meet the global VP of Lego and I got to meet you know higher-ups at LinkedIn and it just was always really fascinating to me and sort of. [17:09] Made me feel really happy that I work for Target and when I started at Amazon they had a finity networks but they didn't do a lot. I mean they were they were sort of identity based and it was not. The programming just wasn't as robust as what you got from the Grassroots Target organizations and so a friend of mine and. A couple of other people got together I must have been there for months at the time, and started this group connected Amazon to try to provide some some amount of programming for that and Andy Jesse was actually kind enough to be one of our fireside chat speakers, and we booked the biggest room that they had on campus at the time I think it could fit about 400 people. And we had 400 people like an hour and a half before the fireside chat even started and so we had all these people live streaming and all the like conference rooms and one of the buildings there and from there you know it kind of took on a life of its own so I credit Andy for you know really making connected Amazon as big of a deal as it has become which I think now they've got 30 40 thousand amazonians are like registered members of connected Amazon and they've got a nice big budget and full-time people doing programming and that all came out of the grass roots. Jason: [18:28] Very cool so truth be told we could probably do Amazon stories all night and be perfectly happy but I do want to talk about foreign Brands obviously so before we jump into that into much detail Scott kind of alluded to the business model but can you kind of give us the foreign Brands elevator pitch. Alex: [18:48] Yeah so you know Scott is right in that there are a number of groups really around the world now who are looking to acquire Amazon FBA businesses do a sort of brand of Brands roll them together we fall into that but we think about ourselves a little bit differently I think the moniker that gets thrown around a lot is is aggregator. We don't see ourselves as that and you'll. Probably based on my background understand why you know our model is not to do a high volume of deals it's too it's to be principled and disciplined. In the deals that we do do and we are much more focused on building, a concentrated portfolio and specific categories that we believe we can turn into like household Staples and so actually as much as I love Amazon and again you're right we could probably spend you know two hours just swapping stories about that. Our goal is to. [19:52] Take fledgling brands that we believe have a lot of potential and put them wherever the customers who want to shop for those products are shopping and that maybe on Amazon and we hope that it is but even if it's not, we'll find ways to make sure that our products are available for the customers who want to buy them and so, what that means is we might review a thousand deals a year and will acquire a handful of them rather than you know. Does it meet our basic minimum criteria if yes then we'll proceed and so it's just a little bit of a different a different mindset for us and it causes our employees to make decisions differently which is. And literally the document that we have when we due diligence is called the what you have to believe document it's do we actually believe in this brand can it actually become a consumer household staple. If yes then there's a whole bunch of other criteria that we review if no we're okay passing on a deal and it's nothing against the brand owner it's nothing against the seller we're just very disciplined for what we're looking for. Scot: [20:58] And then so it is a busy space so how would you help help me kind of have a mental map of how you guys fit in so there's there's thrashy oh there's like one out of Austin whose name I can't remember there's a couple others, how would you kind of feel that you guys differentiate from from the pack. Alex: [21:20] Yeah we're we differentiate in two ways first and foremost like I was describing where operators first. Right we my two co-founders both come from the investing World they run a very efficient Ma, process the other kind of oversees the holding company in the structure within I oversee all things related to Brand growth and I have a team of probably fifty percent X amazonians who have have a similar mindset as me which is again we build we believe in the power of a brand and we believe in, brand Equity we believe in the direct-to-consumer space as a way of making sure that were able to reach customers who get genuine value out of our products, and so that's us was the most exciting thing so we're again very selective in our deals secondarily is our Tech and Scott we were kind of, bantering about this you know before we started recording but we are, highly highly highly focused on building and integrated omni-channel system, internal to form Brands and this is not this is not meant to be a knock to any of the software out in the world but my belief is that. [22:39] Is that there is value to Building Technology that suits the company that we are trying to build rather than having to build a company that suits the technology that's available to us today. And again it sounds like a semantic difference but it's a big mindset shift, from my team where every single employee regardless of whether you're in Mna Corporate Finance or marketing you're all product managers every single person is tasked with finding ways to automate the automatable use data to make decisions ask for systems that we either don't have or that are underdeveloped so that we can build something that works for form Brands and makes each and every one of our employees more efficient. Scot: [23:23] Give us an idea of the scale like where are you guys maybe Capital raised or number of Brands kind of in your your pack if you will anything you can share but obviously don't want anything super confidential. Alex: [23:35] Sure sure so we're not disclosing the number of brands that we have right now but we did recently announced a 27 million dollar series a equity raise led by Norwest Venture partners are seed was done by and FX at a Palo Alto and so you know that that 27 million that we recently raised is is being put two purposes one hiring hiring like crazy building out the team of world-class operators first and foremost and then secondarily is to a focus on technology and that is you know scaling up our Tech stack hiring a high-performing you know World Class Tech Team, we've got a number of data scientists and we're already finding ways to optimize our businesses that we do owned by way of machine learning it's also we actually use machine learning to help identify high quality Brands to potentially reach out to as well and so again it sort of tech underpins everything that we do and we're investing very heavily in that space. Jason: [24:43] Awesome and you kind of mentioned that you were being selective on Acquisitions like do you have. Any specific criteria like are most your criteria around Financial metrics to other particular product categories or particular. Go to market models are things that like sort of play into your your preferred portfolio companies. Alex: [25:06] Yeah so we are focused on certain categories categories that we refer to sort of colloquially as. I thought I was going to put your that word and I totally got it colloquially as consumer durables so we steer clear from food and beverage, we steer clear from you know fad related items we I mean you could really like an us to sort of, New Age Procter & Gamble where we're focused on you no pets and home and kitchen, patio lawn and garden we have you know we play in the fitness space the outdoor space and so these are really things that are like, you know you would go, to your cousin's house and open up their cabinets or look in their closet and you would find a bunch of our products there that's what we're really focused on so we will stay away from like clothing we don't do fashion brands, um and from there you know we have what we call the four pillars because as a good Amazonian I love my Frameworks, but you know it's are sort of M A decision-making framework which you know we're very transparent about when we get, into the conversation with Sellers and it's something that you know our approaches to be very seller friendly we. [26:32] Over index in the hand-holding because we want to make the deal as comfortable as possible. My co-founder Reuben who leads all the MMA efforts he still personally gets on all the calls with Sellers and so Financial profile matters category matters but again a lot there are a lot of other considerations that go into that what you have to believe what we have to believe collectively as a team as an investment committee as operators as brand builders, and so were we are. We view these deals as puzzle pieces that we look to fit together. Scot: [27:13] Is part of your strategy to so you acquire these Brands you get them you know I think there's probably some consolidation where you know what we've seen with other players is a review of the packaging bringing them over into a Consolidated marketing team usually some consolidation around sourcing and fulfillment, and then you get your technology platform let me play pause there is that is that you guys do all those things. Alex: [27:41] Yep absolutely I mean I think a lot of that is you know and most of the players us included are what at most two two and a half years old so these are like there's still a lot of table Stakes stuff. To be done with these with these Brands as we're fitting them into our process and our portfolio for sure. Scot: [28:00] Gonna think I know the answer this one but I'll ask anyway so then you know one strategy and I'm obviously a big proponent of this is if you can do acts on Amazon you can do you kind of typically do you know the same amount call it you know X again over on other channels is part of your your plan to then go across different online channels with the brands or do you really want to just kind of focus on Amazon for a while and DoubleDown based on on the platform Super Bowl. Alex: [28:31] My Amazonian this is about to show here so we have what we have the concept of Amazon's day one we have we have play books which we called a0 and A1, and the day Zero playbooks are sort of that table Stakes stuff can we consolidate at ports, can we you know is are there opportunities for us to redo the packaging, will get deep into the reviews and apply NLP to reviews to make sure that we have a good understanding of what customers like and equally important what they don't like about the products that were acquiring and so we'll do all that day 0 stuff, to sort of get our house in order and that is predominantly Amazon focused right most of these businesses, do the vast majority of their sales on Amazon and so. [29:20] For us to be world-class operators like we must be world-class at Amazon that that is core to the strategy. From there we move into day one because at Amazon it's always day one, so really it's day forever but we call a day one and those are the things that a our technology Powers right and Scott you know the power of optimization of being able to have an integrated platform where, data from one part of the business marketing. Informs actions in another part of the business product development and design packaging pricing right and so our ability to tie these things together these sort of disparate data points actually build a mental model and I, I'm sure that my team is so tired of the phrase mental model because I preach it constantly but that's really what it's about for us as building that mental model so. [30:10] That was a long-winded way of answering your question which is yes we will be opportunistic brand by brand, um in channels off Amazon and you know we're operating in eight countries right now we are operating across five or six channels and so our footprint is already, diverse and you know were a year old at this point. Jason: [30:37] Awesome side note you can always tell a tech first company when they start counting at day 0 instead of day one. Alex: [30:45] Exactly I'm so glad Jason that you picked up on that. Jason: [30:49] I'm tracking and so that reminds me I do want to kind of. Cook down into your Tech stack for a second but before we do I'm just always curious like it seems obvious like one of the big. I'm sort of investment theories here would be you acquire these companies and you have. Unique expertise capabilities and Tech that then causes those companies to be more valuable. You help them become more efficient on Amazon more successful etc etc and that that accelerates the value of your investment. Each of those companies probably had some unique skill sets like I'm always curious. Like does it work out that those companies are able to help each other very much and are using like. Are you providing most of the value-add or are you acquiring a lot of value-add from these individual companies that then benefits the rest of the portfolio. Alex: [31:48] Yeah yeah you know currently it has been. The former we are providing most of the value-add. So where we are actually seeing things move is as the space becomes. More well-known I mean there are so many sellers right so many many many of them do still do not know that an exit. Is an option for them many still are under the misconception that e-commerce. I don't want to do this anymore I guess I'll just shut my store down I'll go on Permanent Vacation mode and that is tragic to me. Because they have loyal customers they're generating real cash and so it's a shame for companies to shut it down what we're seeing more and more in the conversations that we're having with. [32:42] Perspective Cellars is. [32:45] This desire to remain plugged into the brand and frankly this is how we win deals. In a lot of cases is because we care very deeply you know Simon sinek has one of the most viewed, TED Talks ever right we should start with why and that is how we start we start with why did the entrepreneur start this business, and sometimes it was like I don't know I was in college and needed some extra beer money or I had to pay rent or whatever other times it was you know my mother had this malady that caused her not to be able to do a certain thing and so I found this product and decided that maybe it could help other people right and every single story is different and so we learn a lot in the stories but we also do learn a lot from the sellers and we're super flexible with our pricing structure we don't have sort of a. We don't really have like a take-it-or-leave-it style we want a suit. [33:44] Sellers in the ways that that works the best for them and so some are willing to take a little less up front but they want to benefit and participate in the upside over the next year we're happy to do that and the extent that they want to be plugged in and. Launch more products and use our Tech and you know get support from our team, we're happy to do that as well and so it really is a case-by-case basis there's no sort of one sweeping, you know this is how we do it forever flexibility is kind of the name of the game for us in a lot of ways. Jason: [34:16] Got it and so let's talk about that that Tech stack for a second I'm always curious what people. Decided to build and find the most value and building like are you mostly building tools around. Catalog management and digital shelf for you doing like magic pricing logic are you doing like ad. Buying and placement and all that like what what sort of problems are you trying to solve with the tax debt with your Tech stack for to the sellers. Alex: [34:46] I'd be curious to hear what your next two items would be Jason because everything you just said and more actually where we started was we started with an engine that I alluded to earlier that helps us identify high quality assets that meet our criteria that's where we began, and so we you know started plugging into a variety of datasets from a variety of companies, tying it together you know applying our own modeling on top of it and now use that to identify brands, the tertiary benefit from that is when you have a lot of data at a category level. [35:30] You can start to also Benchmark yourself, and so we've been able to you know build benchmarks and say what should what should this company be doing what could this company look like what what if scenario A through Z happened where would we fall, in this space and from there it's kind of grown organically and so catalog management I mean you can't run a direct-to-consumer business. On one channel let alone many channels let alone in multiple GEOS if you don't have a strong sort of item master so we certainly, started their focused very heavily there in the early days to make sure that we had, a sound way of tying all of these data points together across customers across orders across products and brands. [36:17] And from there yeah I mean there are natural extensions in all facets right pricing drives forecast, and our forecast drives our inventory Buys in our inventory buys Drive how much warehousing space we need or our consolidation at various ports are ordering Cadence and. Guys let me know if you want to talk about the state of the supply chain right now around the world but that is a huge problem in and of itself and so we've invested heavily in, Tech in Building Technology that gives our people visibility to every single step of the supply chain so that we know, day by day minute by minute where goods are. Because as I'm sure you guys know if you fall out of stock like falling out of stock especially on Amazon as a really really really really big deal, because not only is there the Miss sales from that but you also have to then reinvest to you know get your advertising spun back up and to reclaim potentially your spot in Search and that's really expensive to do and so, The Economic Opportunity there is not just well we have you know Air Freight. For extra holding costs or Miss sales but it's also advertising its also customer experience it's also, bundles which also fall out of stock if a component is out of stock and so the blast radius is wider but we have a way to tie that all together and be able to make smarter economic decisions based on that. Jason: [37:46] Yeah that's a super important point and I'm still shocked how many people don't don't get that but if you're out of stock for three days out of a month at Target and you was three days worth of sales. Um but you're out of stock at Amazon and what happens is you fall to what's called page 2 of search which is equivalent to being delisted. And then you've got to earn your way back and so that's funny like my, question about your text deck I'm always curious how people answer because well in the old world those were all separate tools and you could kind of buy best-in-class tools from all these different vendors and each one did a point thing but my hypothesis in like, Dynamic digital shelf world is. All those tools have to be integrated because they're all totally dependent on each other like you like I'm shocked how many Amazon sellers are buying ads on out of stock. Alex: [38:43] Oh my gosh. Jason: [38:44] And like you know I mean it like just all these things are so so interrelated in a in a way that, that is a very different model than traditional brick-and-mortar retail. Alex: [38:56] That's right you know we were opening up our office and one of the. Super lame ideas that I had for a decoration was to build a physical value chain of paper chain and. I thought it'd be really fun to you know first and foremost has have everybody's names on it because Dan the day you don't have a company if you're only as good as the people that work for you that is. That is true without exception. Over the long run at least but but you're absolutely right right like the interrelationship between every single. [39:33] Touchpoint of a company whether you're again MMA marketing for and growth supply chain. Every single decision that you make has a ripple effect on every other person and so you know when we think about our organizational structure we try to be as flat as we can be we purposefully encourage people to meet, their counterparts in other organizations so that they're not just sitting in a silo and saying well I'm on the marketing team, and that is a supply chain problem not my problem actually it is because you're about to blow your budget getting that thing back on page 1 off the page of Doom because this thing went out of stock so you need to be in lockstep so you can pull back on the spend so that you're not buying spending 40 percent of your budget on out-of-stock, right especially if it had a sin God forbid falls out of stock it's a big deal and people need to be talking about it but my biggest thing and I beat this drum constantly is the problem with having. You know 25 Point Solutions is then you have 25 dashboards you have to look at you have 25 systems you have to log into and you have to make the connections yourself and sorry but like human brain it gets tired people have a bad night people have a bad day and you make mistakes but by being able to pull it all together visualize it in one space. [40:55] And see. How pulling lever a effects object Z like that that is what we constantly push ourselves for and constantly drive toward. Jason: [41:07] Yeah yeah and so you kind of answered you ask me like what would the next things on my list be for your road map and you kind of the name them right its supply chain and analytics for those, for those very reasons you just covered sidenote are you hosting your Tech stack on Azure did you did you go Google Cloud platform or azure. Alex: [41:26] Wow I think you're kidding but no Amazon Amazon web services all the way. Jason: [41:33] I'm shocked that makes a lot of sense now but as soon as you try to expand off of Amazon to those other platforms your that's going to become a. Alex: [41:41] Yeah I know we use some gcp products we use looker we use five Tran for some API connection so we're you know we started on AWS because frankly. They gave us free credits and so why are they sticky with that. Jason: [41:57] Yeah yeah that I hear that's a decent business. Um the you open the door to a super interesting topic right now which is like supply chain and product liability particularly around holiday this point. Um earlier this week Target and Walmart both had earnings calls and they both assured investors that they were well positioned for holiday but why. You hear from any of the suppliers and it sounds a little dicey no one can hire anyone everybody's Factory workers are on strike. Um tons of disruptions in Asia right now going the wrong way I'm on pandemic stuff like what what your POV for Holiday are we are we in for some pain or is it overblown. Alex: [42:44] I mean by your gifts now is my POV you know it I think it's going to be tough I think it's going to be tough I don't think, well I don't know covid is the big. The big asterisk to everything I'm about to say because we've already seen in Ningbo for example the poor shut down for a couple of days because of a couple of covid cases they're one of our factories got completely flooded by the typhoon I mean, there are already so many issues beyond the fact that there are at any given time 50 boats trying to get into the port of LA and. Some of those containers belong to us some of those containers belong to Target and Walmart and so we're kind of all collectively in. This for lack of a better term we're in this boat together the difference is. [43:40] The Big Box retailers and a lot of the big players have you know a much much larger physical Warehouse footprint where presumably. They have seen these potential issues coming and have you know, bought Goods in advance of meeting to get them on store shelves you know we certainly have but as early as we thought we were, we probably could have even been a month or two earlier because we're still seeing delays really across the board. Um and it's and a lot of it is international a lot of it is domestic right like will get bumped from you know delivery from point A to point B and you know Kentucky to New Jersey and you know UPS won't show up. And that's not a knock on UPS like maybe their truck driver got covid right I mean there's so many small things that compound the delays. I think it's going to be tough. And I hope I'm wrong like I'm saying this but I really hope I'm wrong I hope we all get to sleep very happily at night because we had, great holiday season kids are happy and we're all happy I really hope that's the case but we're preparing for the worst. Jason: [44:53] I know that it's possible for both to be true right like Target and Walmart could have enough leverage that they do believe they're going to be okay from a supply chain and it could be the rest of the world that. Um struggles but right side note on the demand I think Home Depot also had an earnings call this this week and they mentioned that they got there first. It's mid-august they got their first shipment of Halloween goods and they're already out. Alex: [45:22] Oh man oh man. Jason: [45:25] Yeah so / your shop early comment I think yet not only is availability a problem but also. As you know everything's just getting more expensive because the cost of those containers and shipping and everything just keeps, keeps going up and that that leads me to part 2 of why I'm not going to sleep this holiday period last holiday Scott coin This this term that got a lot of Attraction ship a get in, and we talked about you know the fact that like obviously covid drove everyone online and so there was this you know. [45:58] Outsized demand for for e-commerce fulfillment and you know UPS and FedEx have a finite ability to flex to meet that. The I'm curious like it seems like it's going to be an equal or bigger problem, this year and I'm chuckling because the United States Postal Service just announced that they discovered this new business practice, the FedEx and UPS have been doing called surcharges so now even even US Postal Service is looking to do holiday surcharges and they're you know all the quotas for Holiday are already out, and of course your friends and Amazon are you know largely the one and only, retailer add scale that owns their own a lot of their own Last Mile so I do you is is that an advantage for being on the Amazon platform are they likely to run out of capacity and constrain fbas like do you. Worried about fulfillment this year and how that's going to impact holiday at all. Alex: [47:02] I am less worried about outbound fulfillment as I am inbound because of what you just said which is capacity constraints. And you know any listener who has an Amazon business knows that. [47:16] There was a change this year we're while because last year Amazon started imposing, skew level caps right and so even if you had a portfolio that was concentrated around one or two top selling products that do 85 percent of your sales you know at least you could probably be okay on those even if you hit caps on sort of your tail selection they moved to a model which is, it is at the account level now a cat and we were all super happy about that because we said well we have all these new products that we're launching and because they have no sales history we can only Trickle, 20 units in at a time we followed a stock another 20 units we fall out of stock in the problem with the domestic delays is we could be out of stock for three weeks. On that right even if our warehouse is next door to the Fulfillment center, we could still not have our products sellable again for 3 weeks and there is nothing that will kill your cold start product launch faster thinking out of stock, right and so that that has been an issue throughout the year and they kept saying you know July 1st the Caps will be lifted and they were and some cases and they weren't and other cases and so my big concern is just that we won't have the capacity, available to us at FBA to get all of the goods in that we need to get in and so even if we are have a dozen two dozen. [48:40] You know, thousand shipments waiting there's nothing that you can really do there's no one that you can pick up and call and say hey can you like you know nudge nudge wink wink get my stuff in faster you just can't do it and so you just wait. [48:52] And that's a really uncomfortable spot to be in so you know and then and so we operate in Canada right we have seen on Amazon Canada where, the whole fulfillment centers have shut down due to covid and you see promised dates go from 2 days for Prime shipping to seven days for Prime shipping no matter which zip code you put in no matter where you say you are in Canada we've had some of our products that. [49:17] The prime delivery date is a Six-Day window and that has been the case for months. And so outbound from that perspective it does depressed demand that's why I'm saying by stuff sooner because you might get a Six-Day promise, but yeah I'm more concerned about the inbound and being able to keep Goods on the digital shelves through the through the entirety of the holiday season, because you can't you can't remanufacture that demand and if we come out super super heavy like, maybe it helps us through Lunar New Year which was also pretty tough last year but yeah it's going to be really interesting and so again we're doing everything that we can to try to. You know make sure that all of our ducks are in a row all of our goods are Stateside everything's ready to go. On the chance that we can actually get you know Goods moved in but it'll be a struggle. Jason: [50:14] Yeah yeah and as you alluded to the Canadian Supply chains even more fragile because one of those sled dog teams get sick and a whole Province gets cut off namjoo. Alex: [50:24] I had I had Xboxes the year Xbox One released idexx boxes on a train. In the middle in the dead center of the country and we literally sent a helicopter to pick the Xboxes up, the train and fly them to Toronto so that we could actually meet because we took pre-orders right and we had to meet release date delivery on those Xboxes so we've done some crazy stuff to make it work in Canada. Jason: [50:52] Yeah that's a whole new new definition of air air freight geez. The the drones will hopefully sell help with that I did want to you mentioned that you were seeing kind of the the caps and quotas moving from from skews two categories, one interesting hypothesis I've heard from a bunch of like reasonably high volume Amazon sellers at the moment is. As the catalog has gotten so huge and there's like some counts like 800 million skus in the catalog now, um there's a hypothesis that Amazon is strongly preferencing new skus and so a lot of people have said that they feel like. The the caps and quotas that they're getting on, mature skews that in the old days like your quota would have just gotten bigger every year based on your sales history that they're now running into this new problem, Amazon is reserving a fair amount of space for new stuff instead of the old stuff and I can imagine, that's scary and or problematic in in your business model have you seen that at all is that viable. Alex: [52:03] I have seen shatter about it that is we have empirically not seen that to be the case for our brands. We also don't operate in every category you know I'm sure there are plenty of higher-volume you know on a brand by brand. Basis sellers out there who are seeing crazy stuff, for us like I said we're launching a whole host of new products and it's 20 units at a time and then you sell out but now your cap is 60, you're like awesome I have three times the cap but it's still 60 it's not 6,000 which is what we would need to actually you know generate the volume that's going to get us on page one and so. While our you know top-selling products we are running up against caps there as well it has not been. [52:56] The issue really comes from when you have a brand level cap your best selling products are inevitably going to take up most of the calf. And in order for us to hold a rational level of Safety stock it doesn't leave a whole lot of extra space for the new products and so you know again we're not really seeing that that. You know thought bear out in our businesses doesn't mean that they aren't. But yeah it just we don't we don't pun intended we don't put a lot of stock in that right now. Scot: [53:35] The, one question we've been following this kind of Amazon versus Shopify debate and we've had some folks on talking about headless Commerce, have you guys thought about you know another big strategy for anyone selling on Amazon is it open up your own website have you guys chosen a platform there or do you have any opinions about kind of where the e-commerce platform Wars are going. Alex: [53:59] I have a lot of opinions we are so the direct to Consumer space, is is what we firmly believe is like very core to our ability as a company to build long-term value. To have a website that customers interact with engage with our loyal to no no to find products from we believe that score for some Brands more than others right, we have inherited. By way of acquisition most people just spin up a Shopify account and then fulfill the FBA and so we have predominantly leaned into Shopify as a platform for now I think. [54:51] We are still so focused. At this time especially at this time in making sure that we're in stock on Amazon and that we have sort of that nuts and bolts Day Zero operational excellence with Amazon which is core to our portfolio that we haven't, we haven't we haven't dedicated a tremendous amount of resources and fully kicking the tires on all of the Headless options all of the other platform options we've had conversations with all of them we haven't actually, made a concerted effort to say we are 100% doing away with Shopify in favor of X for these reasons we haven't seen the need quite frankly. Scot: [55:35] And then so you've been in the retail game for quite a while one of our kind of favorite ending questions is if you kind of think forward let's say 3 or 5 years kind of take you out of the, the current where do you where do you see e-commerce? Alex: [55:52] Wow I asked a flavor of this question when I interview people. Scot: [55:56] We're turning it on you. Alex: [55:58] So What this is bringing up is feelings reactions to a lot of the changes around consumer privacy you know iOS 14 and all of their for the platforms, that were. You know I'll say hoovering up data and applying it and sometimes great ways and in other times may be less great ways I. [56:29] It hurts me a little bit inside because what I believe is that actually. [56:36] The the ability for us to build like to use data to build products that Delight customers. That is core to again building long-term value and I also believe in this is getting back to the question that the ability. To reach customers where they want to shop with the products that they're most interested or that that suit them the best I think we've taken a step back from that. And my hope is that we will continue to evolve responsibly. As a society and as companies as Leaders of sort of this new wave of retail in a way that can still surprising Delight customers that can deliver product innovations that are meaningful and they're not just you know we, wiggle a little here we do a little dongle there and today it's a new product because it's actually fundamentally not like I love you. The next 3 to 5 years as an evolution toward getting even smarter about the products that were building even better at, reaching consumers who are actually interested in what we're, selling so that you're not just on your endless Scroll of social media and you're getting hit with ads that are is completely irrelevant and it sort of degrades your experience on that platform and the degrades the brand experience and that's what we care about we care about the brand experience. Jason: [58:02] That would be awesome if it plays out we'll have to see ox. Alex: [58:05] We will see. Jason: [58:06] Exactly well hopefully you'll be like retired and fabulously wealthy so you'll just be be watching it from Jeff Bezos jot but that's gonna have to be where we leave it because it's happening again we've used up an hour of our listeners time. I know it goes fast we've certainly enjoyed chatting with you if listeners have any comments or questions they're encouraged to, hit us up on Twitter or leave us a note on our Facebook page and as always if you enjoyed this episode we sure would be grateful if you jump on iTunes and give us that five-star review. Scot: [58:41] Alex we really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule dominating the Amazon aggregation world and if folks want to find you online what's kind of the best place to you are you on the the Twitter box are my spacer where do you hang out online. Alex: [58:58] Oh my gosh do I still have a MySpace account that's kind of scary. Jason: [59:02] He has a Twitch account he's he's twitch he's a twitch streamer. Alex: [59:06] That's right yeah no you can find me on Twitch no I am predominantly on LinkedIn you can connect this me follow me on LinkedIn shoot me a message there feel free to drop me a line Alex at foreign Brands.com otherwise I am on the Twitter box but I am. Sadly not as much of a contributor as I wish that I that I wish that I could be I'm just not that funny. Scot: [59:28] Well I think you did pretty good here on the show you were funnier than Jason which is what's actually kind of a low bar but. Jason: [59:33] Yeah don't I don't let that stop me for god sakes. Scot: [59:35] Do you think is the most activity out of his grumpy old man tweets. But that's a topic for another show but thanks we really appreciate the time and. Jason: [59:49] Until next time happy commerceing.

In this episode, Rivers Langley and comedian John Hastings sit down to chat about pro wrestling legend and unsung hero of the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee: Sputnik Monroe! This is Part 1 of a two part series on Memphis Wrestling and we're so please to bring you this little-known story. Follow John on all forms of social media @TheJohnHastings and check out his AWESOME podcast "The Wrestler Review".  Follow our show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod.  Rivers is @RiversLangley  Carter is @Carter_Glascock   Sam is @SlamHarter  Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content and being added to all the time! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod  Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod

When you have Christ, you are not in a crisis. As children of God, we have authority here on this earth. Too often, Christians struggle unnecessarily because they are not operating as Jesus would. Join Carolyn live from the studio as she teaches on having a Jesus ministry inside of you- fully operating in authority, carrying the power to heal, provision, and a righteous anger. Do you have the goods? Will you walk out your God-given authority on this earth?  Sow a seed and help us change this generation before it's too late: http://bit.ly/2B81pjY Give by PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/miracleword Give by CashApp or Venmo: $MWgive Get exclusive emails and our free magazine here: http://bit.ly/2WlgS6N Get text messages from me: http://bit.ly/2XoOapG I want to highly recommend our online training courses found at https://www.miraclewordu.com/ Each course is designed to equip you with biblical knowledge that will give you the fuel to overcome in every area of life. Our brand new course "Divine Prosperity" is now available in Miracle Word University! For more great content, follow me on Instagram: @tedshuttlesworth and Facebook: @MiracleWordMinistries

Today I sit down with another San Francisco Bay Area legend Mr Fee Waybill of The Tubes. Growing up in the 70's in the Bay Area I was lucky to see some incredible live music. 1 band that really blew my young mind was The Tubes. The first time I saw them I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. White Punks on Dope was a San Francisco Anthem and I was on board. Over the years I would go on to see this band many times and I was always fascinated with the lead singer Fee Waybill. He is such an electric frontman and I feel like this band is massively underrated. Do yourself a favor and dive into their music. Start with my favorite record Remote Control. Go see The Tubes live this summer. This episode is brought to you by https://www.manscaped.com use the code delray20 for 20% off and free shipping. Your one stop shop for all your Man trimming Goods. Candles Lit DDR