Podcasts about neighborhood goods

Emily Li Mandri, founder and design behind MLE, joins Amanda to talk about all things accessories and jewelry, includingWhat is costume jewelry? And why is metal content important?The drawbacks of "fast jewelry"What are the challenges of running a small, ethical accessories brand?How are knockoffs and copycats a big part of the jewelry/accessories industry?What happens when bigger brands don't pay their invoices?And so much more! Read more about what is happening with Neighborhood Goods and unpaid brands here: "Neighborhood Goods Has Closed--Vendors Want their Money."Amanda gets things started with thoughts about the "Loneliness Economy," capitalism, and community. It turns out that one of the most revolutionary things we can do is...be active and supportive members of our community!Find Emily and MLE here: @madebyMLE on InstagrammadebyMLE.com (use code CLOTHESHORSE to get 10% off your order)Additional reading:"The Loneliness Economy: How Capitalism Thrives on Isolation," Piyush Patel, Medium."Capitalism starves us of love — we don't have to stand by," Alexandra Kauffman, The Emory Wheel."Capitalism Subverts Community," Robert Neuwirth, Noema."Capitalism has warped our understanding of community — and it's making us vulnerable to manipulation," Valerie Vande Panne, Salon.Register for the February Clotheshorse Webinar/Hang Out Session: Why new clothes are kind a garbage...February 29, 8pm EST.  Free (but please support Clotheshorse via Ko-fi if you enjoy yourself)!Limited to 100 attendees, so register now here.If you want to share your opinion/additional thoughts on the subjects we cover in each episode, feel free to email, whether it's a typed out message or an audio recording:  amanda@clotheshorse.worldOr call the Clotheshorse hotline: 717.925.7417Did you enjoy this episode? Consider "buying me a coffee" via Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/clotheshorseFind this episode's transcript (and so much more) at clotheshorsepodcast.comClotheshorse is brought to you with support from the following sustainable small businesses:​High Energy Vintage is a fun and funky vintage shop located in Somerville, MA, just a few minutes away from downtown Boston. They offer a highly curated selection of bright and colorful clothing and accessories from the 1940s-1990s for people of all genders. Husband-and-wife duo Wiley & Jessamy handpick each piece for quality and style, with a focus on pieces that transcend trends and will find a home in your closet for many years to come! In addition to clothing, the shop also features a large selection of vintage vinyl and old school video games. Find them on instagram @ highenergyvintage, online at highenergyvintage.com, and at markets in and around Boston.The Pewter Thimble Is there a little bit of Italy in your soul? Are you an enthusiast of pre-loved decor and accessories? Bring vintage Italian style — and history — into your space with The Pewter Thimble (@thepewterthimble). We source useful and beautiful things, and mend them where needed. We also find gorgeous illustrations, and make them print-worthy. Tarot cards, tea towels and handpicked treasures, available to you from the comfort of your own home. Responsibly sourced from across Rome, lovingly renewed by fairly paid artists and artisans, with something for every budget. Discover more at thepewterthimble.comSt. Evens is an NYC-based vintage shop that is dedicated to bringing you those special pieces you'll reach for again and again. More than just a store, St. Evens is dedicated to sharing the stories and history behind the garments. 10% of all sales are donated to a different charitable organization each month.  New vintage is released every Thursday at wearStEvens.com, with previews of new pieces and more brought to you on Instagram at @wear_st.evens.Deco Denim is a startup based out of San Francisco, selling clothing and accessories that are sustainable, gender fluid, size inclusive and high quality--made to last for years to come. Deco Denim is trying to change the way you think about buying clothes. Founder Sarah Mattes wants to empower people to ask important questions like, “Where was this made? Was this garment made ethically? Is this fabric made of plastic? Can this garment be upcycled and if not, can it be recycled?” Signup at decodenim.com to receive $20 off your first purchase. They promise not to spam you and send out no more than 3 emails a month, with 2 of them surrounding education or a personal note from the Founder. Find them on Instagram as @deco.denim.Gabriela Antonas is a visual artist, an upcycler, and a fashion designer, but Gabriela Antonas is also a feminist micro business with radical ideals. She's the one woman band, trying to help you understand, why slow fashion is what the earth needs. If you find your self in New Orleans, LA, you may buy her ready-to-wear upcycled garments in person at the store “Slow Down” (2855 Magazine St). Slow Down Nola only sells vintage and slow fashion from local designers. Gabriela's garments are guaranteed to be in stock in person, but they also have a website so you may support this women owned and run business from wherever you are! If you are interested in Gabriela making a one of a kind garment for you DM her on Instagram at @slowfashiongabriela to book a consultation.Vagabond Vintage DTLV is a vintage clothing, accessories & decor reselling business based in Downtown Las Vegas. Not only do we sell in Las Vegas, but we are also located throughout resale markets in San Francisco as well as at a curated boutique called Lux and Ivy located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jessica, the founder & owner of Vagabond Vintage DTLV, recently opened the first IRL location located in the Arts District of Downtown Las Vegas on August 5th. The shop has a strong emphasis on 60s & 70s garments, single stitch tee shirts & dreamy loungewear. Follow them on instagram, @vagabondvintage.dtlv and keep an eye out for their website coming fall of 2022....

On the Glossy Week in Review podcast, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi and international correspondent Zofia Zwieglinska break down some of the biggest fashion news of the week. This week, we discuss the backlash brands are facing for the use of generative AI, the shuttering of Neighborhood Goods and what it means for DTC brands, and the ongoing trouble facing Saks Fifth Avenue and its parent company HBC as it struggles with liquidity.

We're back with Season 8 and kick it off with one of the industry's leading thought leaders--Carrie Tharp, VP Strategic Industries at Google Cloud. With her past experience in senior leadership at Fossil Group, Neiman Marcus, and Travelocity, and current board roles at the National Retail Federation, Vera Bradley, and Rue Gilt Groupe, Carrie brings tremendous perspective on where retail is headed and the challenges and opportunities brands face.In a wide ranging discussion we delve into the current state of cloud technology, where generative AI is headed (including the results of Google's new industry survey), and how retailers can accelerate their pace of transformation--including tips on how to deploy "test and learn" strategies. We also discuss specific use cases, including a recently launched partnership with Victoria's Secret to close the digital divide, expand conversational commerce, and a whole lot more.Before we dive into our typical opening segment we engage in a bit of humble-bragging sharing our own news that the pod won the top "Retail Voice" award at this year's VIP Awards show.We also announce some special pre-order bonuses for Steve's forthcomign book (see below).Then we jump into our hot takes on the week in retail news, including whether the holiday season delivered the goods or not. Then its on to good news as Lululemon, Abercrombie & Fitch, and American Eagle take their sales guidance up. We follow it with bad news, however, as "new department store" concept Showfield's shuts down and competitor Neighborhood Goods retrenches. We can't miss the opportunity to talk about the success of the ludicrously capacious Stanley Quencher. We wrap up with the shocking news that physical retail is still not dead. Presented by Celonis.My new book--"Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption"--will be released March 12th. And for a limited time pre-order it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop,org, or any other retailer worldwide, and get some very special FREE bonuses.Buy 1 Copy and receive:- An exclusive PDF book excerpt- An invitation to a private pre-launch virtual event.Buy 5 Copies and receive:- All the above, plus access to a small group virtual Q&A session.Buy 25 copies or more and receive:- All the above, plus a private one-on-one 20 minute Zoom consulting or executive leadership coaching session with me.Simply email your receipt to leadersleap@sageberryconsullting.com and we will handle the rest! About CarrieInnovative Chief Digital Officer/Chief Marketing Officer with experience driving growth and business transformation in retail, consumer products and eCommerce based businesses. Creating data driven, customer centric strategies that drive growth through new customer experiences, digital innovation, and business model expansion. Currently focused on evolving retail capabilities for the new digital age - dedicated to building teams and experiences to serve customers in new and compelling ways.About UsSteve Dennis is a strategic advisor, board member, and keynote speaker focused on strategic growth and transformation and the impact of digital disruption. He is the author of the bestselling book Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption and the forthcoming Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption , which will be published in March 2024 and is now available for pre-order at book retailers everywhere. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior contributor and on social media..Steve will be back on stage at Shoptalk in Las Vegas and we've got a special offer for our podcast listeners to save an additional 10% on registration. Retailer & Brands use Code: RBREMAR225 by going here.General Attendee: use code: GAREMAR360 here.Don't forget to join Steve's new Linked Group for his new book.Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice, a keynote speaker around the world and consumer growth consultant.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada's top retail industry podcast,   The Voice of Retail, plus  Global eCommerce Leaders podcast, and The Food Professor , Canada's top food industry podcasts and one of the top management podcasts in the nation according to Apple, with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.    You can learn more about Michael  on  LinkedIn. Be sure and check out Michael's Last Request Barbecue,  his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!

The Interview: Neighborhood Goods: In this episode of The Interview Series, host Karl McKeever is joined by by Matt Alexander, Co-Founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods, as well as the brand's President, Ashley Shelton Conger.Named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, Neighborhood Goods is a new take on the department store, featuring an ever-changing landscape of the world's most thoughtful, progressive, and exciting brands.Central to its business philosophy is providing a place for community, to foster a new culture around shopping and the type of experience you can expect from it.It opened its first outpost in Plano in 2018 and now has locations in New York and Austin, with two more stores planned for 2023.We sit down together to discuss the brand's story, the future of department stores, and the shift towards community-focused retailing.Presented by Peak Technologies

Our guest this week is Matt Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods, recorded live at GroceryShop in Las Vegas. In a wide-ranging and thought-provoking interview, we first learn about the inspiration and evolution of Neighborhood Goods from a big picture vision to three physical locations (Dallas, New York and Austin, with more on the way). We then explore Matt's creative and unique take on concept development, merchandising, story-telling, and more, before moving into his fascinating thoughts on leadership, innovation, and more broadly, how culture affects retail. We wrap up with what's next for Neighborhood Goods (with a bit of existentialist philosophy thrown in for good measure).But first we take on the week in retail news, kicking off with a big picture overview of monthly sales and lots of retail earnings reports. We ponder what it all might mean for the near future, particularly as several retailers "pull their guidance." We then offer up quick hits on the decent (Walmart, Home Depot), the bad (Target), and the ugly (Kohl's), while considering whether Macy's "Polaris Strategy" is actually working. We conclude with our thoughts on the coming lay-offs and potential strategic shake-ups at Amazon.Steve's Forbes article on Macy's Turnaround StrategyCatch Steve and Michael at NRF's Big ShowPast Episodes MentionedLori Stillman, from the National Association of Convenience StoresTarget SVP Nancy KingThe Citizenry's Rachel Bentley and Carly Nance About MattMatt is the co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods.In his spare time, amongst other things, Matt is co-founder of not-for-profit, Unbranded, co-host of Bonanza! on Relay FM, a member of SMU's Dedman Executive Board, and advisor to a number of startups and accelerators.Matt has been fortunate to be named as one of Monocle's Top 25 Entrepreneurs, D CEO's Most Influential Leaders, FGI's Rising Stars, and more. Meanwhile, Neighborhood Goods has been named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, Chain Store Age's Breakout Retailers, and more.About UsSteve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his       website.    The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book  Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at  Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a      Forbes senior contributor and on       Twitter and       LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel      here.Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada's top retail industry podcast,       The Voice of Retail, plus  Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  ,      The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and now in its second season, Conversations with CommerceNext!  You can learn more about Michael   here  or on     LinkedIn. Be sure and check out Michael's latest venture for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue,  his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!

In today's episode we interview Founder and CEO of Literie Candles, Erica Werber. Literie was originally launched as a pandemic hobby and love letter to NYC. With help sampling scent profiles with her kids as they were learning remotely and with an order of 2000 candles, founder Erica Werber thought she would just sell the candles mostly to friends, and then return to her normal career. Cut to the end of 2021 and Literie sold over 10,000 candles in just the nine months after launching and is stocked in retailers like Macy's, Neighborhood Goods, and more.In this episode we chat with Erica about topics such as the importance of hiring a great PR team for product launches, building lean teams when first launching a brand, as well as how Erica grew her brand with various partnership opportunities. Literie has had some iconic partnerships with different brands such as Juniors Cheesecake and Sivan Remedies. Her most recent collaboration was just announced with Bravo's The Real Housewives featuring scents such as "go to sleep" and "flipping tables".

Things got scary for Neighborhood Goods in 2020. "We went through layoffs and furloughs -- all sorts of challenging things," said co-founder and CEO Matt Alexander. "And we had just come into the year on a real tear, and it was just really gut-wrenching to suddenly be in that moment." But business has returned, and his updated department store model -- which has retail space in city centers like Manhattan, Austin and Plano and hosts a variety of brands in exchange for a revenue share -- is doing numbers once again. "Sales continue to grow and we continue to add more brands," Alexander said on the Modern Retail Podcast. Alexander joined Modern Retail for a live podcast recording at his New York City store in Chelsea Market during Digiday Media's Commerce Week. There, he spoke about changes to the business and how he's preparing for the future. While sales obviously dropped during the pandemic -- and the company had to close all of its stores for an extended period of time -- Neighborhood Goods was able to see some glimmers of light via its digital services. "Our stores are ostensibly their own warehouses. Local delivery, same-day deliveries, in-store pickup, things of that nature, we were able to offer that for products that were otherwise going to take weeks -- if not months -- to arrive with customers," he said. "And so that actually became a real driver for us." But now, digital is no longer the focus -- it's all about the store. Traffic, Alexander said, has picked back up to pre-pandemic levels and stores are more productive than ever before. In fact, he said the real issue he faces is too much traffic. "We're just getting an absurd amount of people to the point that it creates like a lot of challenges as to how you operate with it," Alexander said. Still, it's a good problem to have. Now, the focus is on growth. That could mean more stores, though Alexander he's still trying to figure out where that may be. It could be California, Atlanta, Nashville or even a smaller suburb, he said. But he's optimistic about the future of his business -- as well as the state of physical retail itself. "At the end of the day, the fundamental picture continues to improve," he said.

What is different about selling your brand in a multi-brand, brick and mortar store? Is this a good idea for a direct-to-consumer brand that wants to add a brick and mortar option for customers? How does it work? Today's guest is Matt Alexander, the co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods, a department store that sells […]

On this episode of Brand Anatomy, where we get exclusive looks inside leading brands, Briefing director Jeremy Goldman sits down with Matt Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods, to discuss 2021 growth metrics, how sampling and discovery come to life in a retail environment, and Neighborhood Goods' expansion plans for 2022.   For sponsorship opportunities contact us:   advertising@insiderintelligence.com.   For more information visit:   https://www.insiderintelligence.com/contact/advertise/ Have questions or just want to say hi? Drop us a line at podcast@emarketer.com   © 2021 Insider Intelligence   

Welcome to the Retail Rundown, your go-to weekly podcast where RETHINK Retail teams up with industry experts to discuss the news, trends, and big ideas that are redefining commerce. In this special episode, we rundown the year with clips from episodes past as we say goodbye to 2021. Featuring commentary from Neighborhood Goods' Matt Alexander, Starbucks' John Boline, CAMP's Nikki Kaufman, and Gap's Dan Goldman. - - - - - - Hosted by Julia Raymond Hare Produced by Gabriella Bock Edited by Trenton Waller

Cameron Gawley is the Co-Founder and CEO of BuzzShift, a digital growth agency for early-stage startups and industry-leading brands such as USAA, Verizon, Neighborhood Goods, Four Corners Brewing Co., Mooala, Everlane, Jack Black Skincare, and Twilio. BuzzShift works with both high-growth startups and mature industry leaders to deliver the strategic planning resources and digital marketing services essential to growth.In addition to leading BuzzShift, Cameron is the founder of a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Luxury CBD Wellness brand, LevelOrganics, and investor in a stealth Men's Skincare brand. He also serves as an investor and advisor to a number of tech startups, teaches Digital Marketing Analytics at Southern Methodist University, and mentors a number of passionate entrepreneurs on their own journey to Brand Success.In this episode, we talk about why most agency owners struggle to create profitability for their companies, and it's mostly because they do not know how to create a holistic, long-term strategy for their agency and their clients. Cameron also gives advice for those agency owners thinking of being acquired someday or in the near future.  This Cast Covers:Why Cameron and Buzzshift decided to hyperfocus on serving direct to consumer brands space (02:04) One of the biggest contributors to a high win rate when it comes to getting in front of clients - building a proforma (06:00)Making strategic decisions by following a decision tree starting from looking at the outcomes then looking at quantitative data (09:53)Strategy oftentimes creates profitability for your company (13:10)Why most agencies should focus on creating a holistic strategy and having a “measure twice, cut once mentality” (15:41)Having both builders and drivers to establish trust and a really good benchmark with your clients (20:01)The journey Buzzshift went on to be acquired twice (24:52)How to get more specialized and more focused if you want to be acquired as an agency (31:31)Cameron's advice for agency owners who want to exit someday (32:27)Why you need an exit planning strategy as early as now (32:52)Design your life first, and then design your business around that life (37:15)Why agency owners need to spend time just sitting back and reflecting about their lives now more than ever (40:24)Additional Resources:The Sales Driven AgencyThe Best Damn Agency MastermindBuzzshiftCameron GawleyWho Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork

今回は、同時期にそれぞれNYに行ってきたRieと、京都に行ってきたNagisaが現地で見てきたものや場所、印象深かったことについてお話しました。コロナ渦を経てみられた街の変化とは？ 【今回のトピックでピックアップした場所など】 KYOTOGRAPHIE 2021（会期終了）https://www.kyotographie.jp →来年の会期は2022年4月9日から5月8日になるそうです 四代田辺竹雲斎　ECHO of 2011─2011年から今へエコーする5つの展示「STAND」 https://www.kyotographie.jp/exhibitions/chikuunsai-iv-tanabe/ HOSOO Gallery https://www.hosoogallery.jp/ HOSOO https://www.hosoo.co.jp/ ALTERNATIVE KYOTO https://alternative-kyoto.jp →こちらの会期は11月7日まで Shopify NYC https://ny.shopify.com/ Neighborhood Goods https://neighborhoodgoods.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- The Potluckへのリクエスト、感想などはハッシュタグ #ThePotluck または匿名メッセージサービス「マシュマロ」からも受け付け中です。下記URLからどうぞ。https://marshmallow-qa.com/thepotluckus また、PayPal.meでサポートも募集中です！頂いたご支援は配信機材への投資やコンテンツの拡充に活用させていただきます！ https://paypal.me/thepotluckus ---------------------------------------------------------------- Twitter：@thepotluckus Instagram：@thepotluckus

CEREAL TALKのニュースレターはこちら https://cerealtalk.jp/ Glossierの新店舗 / @glossierboyfriends / 自然のライティングを気にしてる / エクスペリアンスルーム / ローカルな場所を体験できる / ライティングをコントールするために窓がないらしい / 店舗開拓の方法 / 施工会社もGlossierファミリー / 移動型ポップアップCuyana / 作って壊すのはもったない / ケンタッキーのホテル？ / プーさん x airbnb / Legoの新店舗も気になる / Recess提案のコロナ後のデーティングガイド / PARADEのポップアップ場所選びがうまい / ラグジュアリーブランドの地方店舗拡大 / クッキーブランド / Neighborhoods goods / Warbyも上場したね ＜参照リンク＞ ・Glossier Seattle store features mossy mushroom-covered mound https://www.dezeen.com/2021/08/25/glossier-seattle-store-mossy-mushroom-covered-mound/ ・Boyfriends at Glossier (@glossierboyfriends) • Instagram photos and videos https://www.instagram.com/glossierboyfriends/?hl=en ・Cuyana https://www.cuyana.com/ ・TOYOTAがサポートする移動式のポップアップショップ（CEREAL TALKニュースレター） https://cerealtalk.jp/p/vol-24 ・Inside Recess's first in-person marketing event since the pandemic https://www.morningbrew.com/marketing/stories/2021/06/23/inside-recesss-first-inperson-marketing-event-since-pandemic?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_yfQltuUMhO5yGRC3Be8QZffuma7QLejdEMNwpdDbrgg-1633300109-0-gqNtZGzNAnujcnBszQw9 ・Photos: KFC Pop-up Hotel With Free Chicken Button, $154 a Night https://www.businessinsider.com/kfc-hotel-london-chicken-house-of-harland-free-food-2021-8 ・PARADE https://yourparade.com/ ・Neighborhood Goods / https://neighborhoodgoods.com/ ＜メンバー＞ 沼田 雄二朗 https://twitter.com/Numauer 宮武 徹郎 https://twitter.com/tmiyatake1 草野美木 https://twitter.com/mikikusano OP Music: Epidemic Sound

For many consumers, a well-curated Amazon homepage -- complete with a fall shoe edit and ‘customers' most loved' products, from toaster ovens to tote bags -- has replaced the need for the local department store. But the benefits of a brick-and-mortar store for brands and customers alike were not lost on Matt Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods, a department store for the new age. Unlike the traditional -- and dying -- breed of department stores, Neighborhood Goods, which launched in 2017, caters to the modern consumer with a selection of rotating brands and innovative restaurants.  For some brands, having a presence at Neighborhood Goods resembles “a pop-up,” while for others, it resembles “wholesale,” “testing real estate” or “a marketing channel,” said Alexander on the latest Glossy Podcast. “It creates this opportunity in this landscape and ecosystem where they can show up in a physical and digital way, [and] leverage the restaurants and different bits and pieces. [And they can] inexpensively get in front of a great consumer and accomplish all sorts of different goals.” Since the first Neighborhood Goods location opened in Plano, Texas, the company has continued to expand its physical footprint, with stores in Austin and Chelsea, as well as its digital presence. “With the [onset] of the pandemic, [all products] went online,” leading to a 1,000% year-over-year sales growth on digital last year, said Alexander.  “The more we can [translate] the ‘why' and the storytelling that we do well in the stores to the digital realm, the better,” he said. “[Our website] can augment and create something special to exist alongside a lot of existing channels for the brands [and] consumers.”

EP271 - Amazon Q2 2021 Earnings Recap  Jason is back on the road and has some retail store visit reports: Bed Bath & Beyond Flagship in Chelsea Harry Potter Store New York Google New York Neighborhood Goods Starbucks Reserve New York Amazon Q2 2021 Earnings Recap Episode 271 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday July 30, 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 271 being recorded on Thursday July 29th 2021, I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-hosts Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners, Jason is one of my favorite days of the year and what's exciting is it happens four times a year yep you guessed it Amazon earnings but before we jump into some pretty dramatic earnings this quarter you are coming to us live live live from New York city so it's good that you're out there on the road again and word has it you have some trip reports these are their first trip reports you've been able to give our listeners for last 18 months. Jason: [1:14] Yeah they like this feels like a little bit of normalcy for me is talking to you from a hotel room like I used to do this all the time and I think the first show in 18 months we recorded from a hotel. Scot: [1:28] Nice what's jump into I know you've been on many many store visits let's what's what what are you been seeing. Jason: [1:35] Yeah it was fun I mostly want to focus on stores that had opened for the first time during the pandemic and surprisingly. There are several of those in New York City so I'll start with the one that is closest to my hotel and therefore the first one I went to this morning there's a new flagship Bed Bath & Beyond store that opened in Chelsea. [1:59] And ordinarily folks might say why do we care about a Bed Bath & Beyond store that doesn't sound very interesting and I get it but. The reason it's a little interesting to me is because twofold, they've had a major management and Leadership change at Bed Bath & Beyond they the new CEO is a guy Mark Triton we've talked about a little bit he was responsible for a lot of the new product development at Target before he joined Bed Bath & Beyond, and he announced that he was. [2:31] Doing a dramatic story design and so this Chelsea store is that store and I wanted to check out how he's changed it from what we traditionally think of as a bit Bath and Beyond and it is. Pretty substantial change. Bed Bath & Beyond traditionally is a pretty chaotic treasure hunt so very hard to find your way around people complain that they get lost and can't find an exit the, the lines of sight in a Bed Bath & Beyond or horrific so they stack product to the roof so you can't see very far in any direction in the store. Um and you know it's usually a cluttered mess and so this store. From a visual merchandising standpoint is a much more organized attractive store they it's dramatically more open it has clear lines of sight it has, um like a nice wayfinding system in a visual hierarchy you know it doesn't feel as much like everything's about to fall on top of you or you do it you when you walk in the store so it. [3:36] Visually is more impressive and it's more important it's a more pleasant environment to stand in. Um and so I'll be curious from a pure retail design standpoint I would say it's way better. [3:49] It's pretty off-brand for bed but for what we traditionally have thought of as Bed Bath and Beyond and and because of all those, those sort of clean cleanliness approaches it actually has a fairly significant SKU rationalization so there's fewer skus in the store. And there's probably some Bed Bath & Beyond loyalists that are like you know looking for some of those old products that they no longer have so I'll be curious how the, if they successfully attracts a new Shopper that didn't used to shop Bed Bath and Beyond and whether alienates any of the traditional Bed Bath & Beyond shoppers. Part two of that store is that as he did it Target Mark has launched the first. [4:35] Owned brands for Bed Bath and Beyond and those brands have sort of significant. Prominence in this new store design so so there's I individual vignettes for every one of the Bed Bath and Beyond Brands they're all like, very prominently signed as exclusive to Bed Bath and Beyond and their well executed with attractive. Packaging and visual merchandising that makes them easy to recognize and differentiate so. A bunch of sort of traditional things right that you kind of you know things that are that targets well known for doing well like you're now seeing and Bed Bath & Beyond, um a fear is that people could walk in the store and say wait this is starting to feel like a Target store. Um so we'll see if how that all plays out but I would say if I had one knock on the store. It seems like they've changed the design team but they haven't really changed the store operations team and so, the thing I noticed as well the store was quite well designed and in the product layouts all made sense the store was still starting to feel a bit like a cluttered mess because of the same employees that used to work at the old store are working in this store and their parking shopping carts full of product that they mean to restock on shelves like out in front of things and blocking things and. It just it doesn't seem like they've. [6:00] Um Extended the the new visual merchandising approach to to the Staffing and store operations yet so maybe a work in progress. Scot: [6:10] Well how did they decide from the shopping carts Niles big decluttered it you mentioned they have less cues but did they go to kind of more of like a kiosk kind of a much more clear, kind of Department kind of orientation or how. Jason: [6:26] It's very it's segmented by department and it may not be a fair representation because well, this is a huge store so it made it easier to kind of reconfigure things it's a two-story store so you know you have a home section you have a bedding section you have organization section, um And you know there aren't all these like random nooks and crannies amongst other things I'll bet you shrink as way better in this store than Bed Bath and Beyond because it's super easy for shoplifters to hide and a Bed Bath & Beyond. The end and what they tended to have is like a featured. [7:06] Product display for every department so you know the there's a. Um a sparkling water Cafe sponsored by SodaStream for example. And you know SodaStream was a fast turn product and in bed bath and beyond that here they have a woman working behind a counter, pouring samples of Sodastream and they've launched all these SodaStream launch this new product at Bed Bath & Beyond all these. Branded flavors you can add to the water so IQ can get the bubbly branded flavors and so she's she's sampling different flavors for people they have a coffee bar where they're making you know Keurig copies. Um the other owned products again had their own like featured display where they you know set up a bedroom or a kitchen display that, was was featuring those Bed Bath & Beyond products one of the Bed Bath and bringing Beyond Brands is about green cleanliness and so they you know they have like a cleaning display and stuff like that. [8:14] I would also say they leaned into Mobile in the store and qr-codes more than they have in the past so I all of these feature displays had a big QR code you can scan that took you to a. Sort of a product specific landing page on in their mobile app. In-store pickup was was much more prominent with like a dedicated area for for Bo piss pickups in the front of the store you could do self checkout with scan and go using the mobile app and there was a lot of. Merchandising promoting you to download the mobile app and scan things with your your scan QR codes with your phone. Scot: [8:54] Very cool indeed I know you love QR codes and I think you love more is digital fact tags any exciting digital fact eggs. Jason: [9:01] They did not have any digital fact tags again they are using a lot more QR codes then Bed Bath and Beyond has ever used before and it kind of makes sense because you know, all the restaurants taught everyone how to use qr-codes. During the pandemic and side note I've been getting a lot of complaints from people that the restaurants are not. Give going back to paper menus and I've certainly noticed that here in New York City is that like things are open up they're not requiring people wearing a mask but they still don't have menus and they expect you to order your own food from that app. Um in a QR code on the table so I wonder if that's going to be a permanent thing I've talked to several people that kind of miss the. Paper menus and ordering from a waitress. Scot: [9:47] Cool what a where'd you go after Triple B. Jason: [9:51] So that's in Chelsea and around the corner from this store is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, in this store opened during the pandemic as well about six weeks ago I actually had a chance to visit the store before it open but this is the first time I got to visit it with people in it. Um And you know this is a super well done themed store we've talked a little bit about it but you know it's the same. Sort of team that that did The Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park experience so it's. You know they use they use the actual like tools and dies for props for the movie to make everything they have a. [10:38] A bunch of cool experiences that there's a bunch of personalized products you can get your name engraved on a bunch of stuff you know you can get your own admission letter to Hogwarts, um they have exclusive products like there's a particular version of the the Juan that golden finch one that you can only get from this store so if you're a collector of the ones. There's some product scarcity they have they have food they have a bar essentially for sailing it's selling the. The butterbeer which is from the the movie and is a horrible sweetened alcoholic beverage. There's a non-alcoholic version as well they're in the movies there's a there's a magic candy store so they have a magic candy store. And then in so the merchandising and stuff is really good what's interesting about this store is, that you have to get in a virtual line to get in the store so you you scan a QR code on your phone and that reserve your place in line and then you get texted when you're allowed to come back to the store and go into the store and so I showed up at like. 10:30 scan the qr-code and it said that I was 231 first in line to walk into the store. [12:02] I had to wait for about 45 minutes so that's you know two or three Starbucks for me and then I got to go in the store and. In the store are two virtual reality theme park rides, and sadly I have not gotten an opportunity to try either of those you buy tickets for those online separately from entering the store and, the the tickets sold out for the entire window that they're selling tickets for like the first week that the store opens so so it'll be a few months before you you can get a ticket and do one of these virtual reality rides. Scot: [12:39] So you just there's no motion the Motions all VR or there's like a combo your. Jason: [12:44] My so I don't know my understanding is one of them is a is like a sit-in VR so I do think it has motion but it's like. It's not forward motion it's like the jerkiness I don't know what the right word for that is but it moves a few inches in every direction is my. Understanding and you're looking through a VR headset the other experience you're walking and you wear like a backpack and a VR headset and I'm people say it's amazing I'm curious how that works because. From previous VR experiences you know first time people are not super. Comfortable in the VR environment and like people tend to like fall and stumble and do all kinds of things so I'm. I'm not exactly envisioning how this works so I'll be curious to try it one day. Scot: [13:36] Yeah yeah a lot you'll get nauseous from this viewer thinks do so I'll have to wonder how toned down it'll be. Jason: [13:43] Yeah yeah and I wonder what what cleaning protocol issues. Scot: [13:48] What well since it's magic that can just flick the wand and they're good to go did what house did you get sorted into. Jason: [13:55] Yeah so I didn't visit the Sorting Hat I did you know get my picture taken in Hagrid shoes and in the. It's quite a bit taller than me I'm about as wide as him but that's a separate issue, the the I got my picture taken in the phone booth and I got Steven a griffin door, Jersey and some unlimited Flavor jelly beans. Scot: [14:27] Nice very cool Bertie Botts. Jason: [14:31] Yeah exactly. Scot: [14:33] So you left their half drunk off butterbeer and where'd you go. Jason: [14:39] Exactly so then I went to the Meatpacking District which is just a little south of Chelsea. And my main destination there was that there is a new Google Store for the first time so Google has had pop-up stores and temporary stores in the past but this is their first, permanently open store, and it's open in what still is a Google office but was formerly the Google headquarters in in New York and so it just took like the ground floor of that and turned it into a retail experience. Scot: [15:16] So it's all the just mostly the Google what do they call it the Google home or Google Talk stuff. Jason: [15:22] Yeah it's so mobile so all the the Androids and pixels it's Google home so nest and and the. Google version of Alexa which is I think called Google home and then some some. Like miscellaneous stuff like there some gaming products and some things like that. Scot: [15:47] Cool are they still making Nexus phones haven't seen those in a long time. Jason: [15:52] Yes and I don't I don't think Nexus is them their version is called the pixel so the Google pixel is a Google branded Android phone. Scot: [16:01] They went from Nexus to pixel urgent. Jason: [16:03] Yeah and they might have a tablet that still branded Nexus but I'm not super current on the Google Hardware ecosystem, I would I would say I was a little underwhelmed by the store like it's a perfectly reasonably executed store it frankly doesn't feel any different than their pop-up stores it seems like it has a very consistent, um merchandising approach that doesn't feel like they invent anything new there's no digital fact eggs there's no qr-codes there's very limited product information and it feels more like a showroom than a store so like. There's you know one of everything kind of locked down and you have to talk to a person to get help you can't like. Pick up your own products and pay for them and I bought a few things from the store and they struggled to take my money like they. They all have mobile point-of-sale all the sales associates have mobile point-of-sale systems but like. Didn't seem like they mostly knew how to work them and this is a story that's been open for five weeks and none of them were logged into their point-of-sale terminals so they had to like take it out of their belt and go through like a five-minute like authentication process before they could take my money which, kind of tells you that they're not doing a high volume of selling stuff out of the store. Scot: [17:18] Did you try to pay with Apple pay. Jason: [17:20] I did in fact I didn't try I succeed. Scot: [17:23] Whoa really. Jason: [17:24] Yeah the in so I literally like looked at and then I might can I pay with Apple pay and then he like looked at me and said you mean NFC payment sure. [17:39] Yeah so that did work eventually once I found someone that had was logged into their point-of-sale terminal I would say the best part of this store, was that they had several vignettes in separate little rooms that were kind of great retail theater that was kind of telling the story of a particular genre of Google products so like I said down on a couch. In a in a little room that's you know kind of designed to look like a small house. And they teach you about all the Google Home Products so so they have like a projector that projects text down on the coffee table in front of you and they come up with all these scenarios like in the window, you see the silhouette of a UPS delivery driver come up and you hear someone knock on the door and then the table says you know teaches you how to use Google home to look at the front door camera. And so you can see the UPS driver and an approved the package and then, a woman in the background answer of your cooking lunch and the table teaches you how to use Google home to find a recipe to cook and you know the table teaches you how to pick some music to listen to and how to turn up the lights and run a good night routine to get ready for bed stuff like that so it was nice retail theater you know I can only serve one group group at a time and so again it feels like. [19:00] You know exactly what it is the stores you know mostly focus on sort of being a. In education showroom for for these Google Technologies more than like a high-volume retail. Scot: [19:14] Colts after being quote unquote that guy that had to pay with Apple pay at the Goodwill store where where did you go next. Jason: [19:21] I think they were just thrilled I was bad guy that paid for something, but yeah so then to other stores that are kind of kitty corner from the the Google store that I had been to before but like I really only opened just before the pandemic so I wanted to check them out again while I was there. The there's a neighborhood good store so we've talked about neighborhoods this is like one of these um d2c department store Concepts where it's like a shared retail space and Brands rent rent. Space primarily like DDC Challenger Brands rent space inside of this this department store so there's a bunch of vignettes in the store we visited one in Texas I think you were with me. And so this is a the Manhattan one and you know as I've discussed before like this it's reasonably well executed I actually think neighborhood Goods does. The best job amongst the companies that do this but I'm I'm not super bullish on the concept. Because it's the big problem is it's kind of a chaotic hodgepodge of Assortment like there isn't a merchant saying customers are coming to our store to solve problem X and so I'm going to have these products that solve that problem, so it's kind of a. [20:42] You have to go to the store you know willing to be completely surprised by what they have in the store right and it might be beauty products it might be a parallel in might be Beach where you know you couldn't go there with any specific need and have any confidence that, that there was going to be a product that match that need their but I would say. Neighborhood Goods feels a little more curated and a little more focused than with a point of view than some of these others. [21:10] And then I visited the the most important retailer in Manhattan which is the Starbucks Reserve store so, they're this is there's a small Fleet of Starbucks stores that are called the Starbucks Reserve stores they all have working, Coffee Roasters in them and have you buy the premium beings from any Starbucks anywhere in the world that come in the black bags they're getting roasted on premises in the stores, these doors all have like alcohol and unique coffee bars, in a bunch of drinks that you can't get in a regular store and they usually have some like third-party restaurants in the stores and their huge extravagant beautiful architecture. Um stores so the largest coffee shop in the world is a Starbucks Roastery in mine in my city in Chicago the first one of these was in Seattle which is home of Starbucks, the only other one in the u.s. is this Manhattan one in flat iron which is. Um well we execution but I would say nothing that I haven't seen in one of the other. Starbucks reserves and then there now is like a Starbucks Reserve in Shanghai and a Starbucks Reserve most controversial of all in one of the cities in Italy. [22:28] And I say controversially because the Italians like their coffee and don't necessarily appreciate the American coffee brand so it was kind of a bold move on Starbucks part to open this. Ginormous Coffee Emporium in in Italy. Scot: [22:42] Read teach them how real coffee is made. Jason: [22:45] Exactly my favorite feature of the Starbucks Reserve stores is I mentioned they wrote their own beans in the store and then they have these fancy coffee bars. So what they've done is they they have a Willy Wonka style vacuum tube or a series of tubes, so to me it's a metaphor for the internet that runs from the the Roasterie to the coffee bar and so the you literally like if you're there when they're roasting can watch beans. Flow through these tubes straight from where they've been roasted to the bar where they get ground into coffee drinks. Yeah yeah it's very very Willy wonka-esque and again the startx folks do a great job of visual merchandising, this kind of reminds me of the first time I walked into a Nike Town and it was kind of this like. Temple to the Nike brand and they did all these things that back then were not common like they you know design the door handles of the store to be swooshes and all these cool little touches, and in many ways this these Starbucks stores feel like the modern successor to that. Scot: [23:58] I noticed you didn't mention one of our favorite stores beta and that made me think about one of the big buzzes before the pandemic was that Hudson yards event is that right yeah is that what's going on with with those guys. Jason: [24:12] Um well so I don't have super first-hand information Hudson yard is still open a giant floor of Hudson yard was a Neiman Marcus the fanciest Neiman Marcus and that is out of business. Um I don't think they have another tenant for that yet but I didn't go to Hudson yard and this visit it's actually in this area so it would have been. [24:34] Possible to walk too but I just didn't have time and that Hudson yard does have a beta. You know I think beta struggled a little bit in the pandemic they kind of were optimized to be pandemic unfriendly like most of their stores are in malls like heads in yard that had. Significant decline in trout in traffic, and they're kind of the opposite of Essentials right like so there they have a very curated point of view their Consumer Electronic gadgets but again you wouldn't go there because you need a Bluetooth headset like you'd go there to find some new. [25:10] New Gadget that you didn't know existed that you wanted and I think that kind of shopping you know was particularly impacted by the pandemic like you tended only go to the store when you really needed something so, um you know I think some of the founders of beta including bib who's been on our show I think at least once, we're kind of public during the pandemic about some of the the challenges they were having trying to take care of their employees and you know stay open and generate Revenue, and I would say you know one thing that I've been a little critical of beta I think they do a bunch of things very well they've always been slow to embrace omni-channel in the web so they really focus on the in-store experience and I've been kind of critical that they don't have a, equivalent online experience and I have a feeling that that that deficiency probably you know was extra painful during the pandemic so hopefully they're starting to recover now. Scot: [26:05] Yeah yeah hope they make it too because this one of my favorite favorite gadgety places to go. Jason: [26:09] Yeah I have to be honest because I also I didn't even mention it because they're so boring but I bounced into the Flatiron Apple Store, and it like it dawned on me how fun I used to think it was to walk into a text or or a computer store or even a Best Buy because you would always discover something you didn't know existed that you wanted. And that doesn't happen anymore like there's there's very few sores that surprise and Delight you with their product assortment like you know because of the. The you know all the digital pre-shopping like you're way more likely to know about all the cool products from from the web before ever before you'd ever you know stumbled across it in the store and in the case of Apple. There you know rationalizing their inventory to exclusively Apple products so they just have less interesting accessories and you know lesser-known things than they've ever had before. Scot: [27:06] That sounds like a busy day you're missed. Jason: [27:10] Yeah yeah I'm a little tired and then of course I had to spend about eight hours deep diving into the Amazon earnings. Scot: [27:17] Yeah that's a good set of well thanks for doing those trip reports for so no enjoy hearing hearing your exploits as you're out there and hopefully you can keep exploring this Delta variant won't shut you down so let's jump into the Amazon quarter. [27:45] So Amazon released calendar Q2 results and I'd say it was the toughest Amazon quarter and quite a while so, you know the headline here is in Wall Street vernacular companies put out their own projections and then Wall Street Khan does their own math and which is called consensus a lot of times based on the history of how the company does Wall Street will either go above kind of what the company says or below it or whatnot and I would qualify and when you when you exceed wall Street's expectations that's called a beat and then when you then Wall Street always looking out it's a what have you done for me lately or in the future coming so then they're always thinking about you know what's going on in Q3 and they already have consensus for that so you either beat or miss the current quarter and then raise neutral or lower than forward quarter or the years Viewpoint and this is this is kind of the the worst scenario here is it was a myth so they missed wall Street's Revenue expectations and then they lowered Revenue expectations going forward so so that's no good and we'll dig into what happened there and then the Silver Lining here though is the in this part is really isolated to the on What's called the segment called online store which is effectively the e-commerce part of the business which was Amazon obviously is pretty big and important. [29:13] But they actually exceeded expectations on the high margin parts of the business that everyone really values even more than when you see the sum of the parts kind of things so things like the advertising piece we talked about AWS and some of the other the third party Marketplace they actually exceeded expectations on those side so if there's a silver lining it's that they kind of you know the e-commerce year-over-year comparisons were really tough and we'll go into why but then the other non e-commerce parts of the business did really well also as a reminder this is the first quarter where Jeff Jesse is taking over to the new CEOs taking over so the timing. [29:56] Yeah sorry yes I do Andy Andy Jesse is taking her so, you know the timing is tough for him because he gets to kind of reside over you know what feels like a long time since the company has missed a quarter but in a way, you know it's a chance it's kind of what a lot of Wall Street people are also called kitchen sink quarter so you kind of like if you're going to have a little bit of a rough quarter you might as well sweep everything into this quarter lower expectations and that resets the bar hopefully so that you can then start to get back to exceeding that those expectations so a lot of folks were kind of saying yeah. Projection didn't felt pretty aggressively low compared to the quarter so a lot of people were kind of framing it as maybe that's what's going on there. Jason: [30:44] Yeah it's interesting I listen to the the webcast. Where you know reporters and analysts get to call in and ask questions and you know one of the questions was kind of critical asking like what they what they missed in terms of pandemic trends that that adversely affected in this quarter and and I don't remember who the Amazon employee was that answered but he's like we've been pretty consistently bad at predicting the impact of the pandemic he's like you know in the in the good quarters we wildly underestimated what would happen and you know this quarter we over it we underestimated the the counter Trends and so you know he's like. At least we've been consistent in being being wrong. Scot: [31:33] Yeah it is hard to predict even now you know it's hard to predict what the second half of this year is going to look like right you can you know the data the immediate data is telling you everything is like on fire in but then you know this Delta variant you know there's always talk so shutdowns and stuff again so the cone of uncertainty is quite large right now for everybody. Jason: [31:55] Yeah and go ahead I was just going to say I had I almost wonder if. Amazon like is taking a little extra hit for being one of the earlier Q2 earnings calls. Because I feel like everyone is going to have a kitchen sink quarter it's going to be super complicated and they're going to be ups and downs. You know for a for a lot of retailers and I think you know the analysts are kind of learning about the factors through these first couple earnings calls but you know the, the Amazon quarter may not look as bad you know once once we get through the whole learning seen each season and see how everyone shook out. Scot: [32:35] Yeah I think what we'll do is we'll kind of track this through the next couple weeks and and maybe it actually won't look bad in hindsight but kind of been one of the first ones to report the only one that I saw that came out earlier was Shopify and they had a pretty rip-roarin quarter they exceeded that was a beat and exceed so so you know it's kind of kind of weird of the mix of what's going on here and, I can't hundred percent parse out like why would Shopify do better than Amazon and you know why would smbs do better than big old Amazon so maybe maybe it's just a comp thing you ever your butt will dig into that for listeners. Jason: [33:15] Sad no my hypothesis on Shopify would be that the pandemic taught a lot of small businesses that they needed a website and, ideally if they were in one of these categories where they were Outsourcing digital to Door – or instacart or you know my web grocer or someone else, that they started thinking about needing their own website and if they were you know mainly selling through marketplaces and then you know Amazon throttled FBA, like they suddenly realized they needed their own direct sales and so I do think. There are a bunch of the pandemic trends that would particularly cause small business this is to invest in their own website for the first time and so that that could have could mean that a bunch of, customers on boarded onto Shopify which kind of helped Goose their number. Scot: [34:08] Yeah they don't break out new net new. Jason: [34:11] No no I wish they did because that again like they had a huge GMB growth but the problem is we never know if that's because the stores that have been using Shopify for a while doubled in size or because they doubled the amount of stores they host. Scot: [34:25] Let's dig into the Amazon numbers to kind of give the context is kind of one of the early results here and then then we'll follow up with some more details so overall sales increased 24% taking out the effect of currency and variations for the quarter 213 billion for the second quarter that is the slowest growth since 2019 and that's when I stopped looking back so you know Amazon's been growing much much faster than 24% for quite a while here so this was a very slow quarter which is kind of funny because pre-pandemic e-commerce is growing 15% so so it's all relative I guess but slow for Amazon. [35:08] Actually above Baseline for normal e-commerce I would say this cause them to miss the consensus so the number they came out with his 113 consensus was 115 and change and then Amazon they did kind of come within their own guidance but at kind of the midpoint and whereas for the last six plus quarters they've come in at the higher beat their own guidance and then another thing you know if as you think about these moving parts Q 221 had prime day and last year it was in Q4 of 20 so we should have had the benefit of prime day but then you know obviously, Q 220 covid-19 at its peak in Amazon was was going to be benefiting from that Surge and all the PPE stuff they were pushing out and Essentials and all that and then obviously we don't have that this year so lots of moving Parts going on and then Amazon does peel the onion a little bit with the segments and want you walk us through that. Jason: [36:13] Yeah happy to so the big segments that the Amazon discloses are North America international and AWS, so North America in Q2 of, 20/20 had grown 43 percent. Tends to be growing a little slower than International it's the biggest piece of the business I want to say it so I 62 percent of the business, and so this this Q2 it only grew by 22 percent so the rate of growth substantially slowed down. Um The you know a couple of the things we try to zero in on in that are the online sales and the brick-and-mortar sales so the online stores grew by 13 percent which again is, the slowest rate of growth for North America online stores in at Amazon that I can find in history. [37:19] So so that that's a pretty significant deceleration and you know pre-pandemic we used to talk about e-commerce growing about 12% a year, and Amazon was typically their store their online store sales North American Sales were growing in though I Thirty to forty percent a year so, um it we won't know yet the Department of Commerce data on e-commerce won't come out for Q2 until August, but it's very possible that this will be the first time in a very long time that Amazon's growth in e-commerce was slower than the industry average I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that that's not going to be true. The industry average is going to slow down as well but like you know they're those numbers are flirting with each other and usually Amazon as well above the the industry average. [38:10] Um and then also interesting and quite complicated is physical stores So Physical stores had a rebound they were up 10% Q2 of this year versus Q2 of last year, and you know. Previous quarters had been going down quite a bit so Q2 of last year was down 13 percent from the previous year so. [38:35] The the thing then think about here is physical stores that Amazon mostly means Whole Foods so that they have about 15 on Hall food stores or maybe 70 now, but most of the revenue is Whole Food stores and there's a quirk where when someone buys an online delivery order from Whole Foods. Amazon online sales gets the credit instead of Whole Foods so so for a long time the stores their number has been declining and and the hypothesis has been that's because. [39:10] More people are learning how to shop online and that makes the, the people that are buying from the cash registers at Whole Foods look smaller and so this was the first quarter in a long time that Whole Foods had a net growth, which is interesting because that's grocery is not necessarily one of the categories that you would you know. Grocery had a huge quarter during the pandemic and so you would you would expect not to see real Healthy Growth in grocery stores this year comping against the pandemic quarter from last year so, I found that interesting so then the next category is international it was a little more, robust versus usual it was up 26%. Which I guess I misspoke because that's that's actually a lot slower than usual. [40:09] So so that also was kind of a downer and then AWS, um what what Drew quite robust so it was up 37 percent versus for example being up 29% the same quarter last year. So so the rate of growth of AWS accelerated and you know the funny thing is how this plays out because of these diverse businesses Amazon has and the fact that, you know a WS and some of the other businesses are so margin favorable when, you know retail is the biggest piece of their gross sales so so when retailgeek us down there grow sales go down but their profitability goes up basically. And conversely if retail has a gang Buster quarter likely is going to have a negative impact on their on their margins so. So you know there's always happy and unhappy news and in a company as complex's Amazon these days. Scot: [41:07] Yeah the International Center success scanning the results on a psycho 36 percent that's good but then it was like X FX was 26 percent so 10 points you know which is a pretty material chunk of that growth was due to currency so that was interesting the dollar must have been strong a year ago and then quite weak now to have moved ten percent against the basket of currencies they're measuring against. Jason: [41:32] Yeah in the press conference the CFO called out that this is like one of the, most complicated highest fluctuations of the international currencies and so he was he you know he was trying to exclusively talk about, the the normalized numbers because he's like you know this was a very unusual quarter from the currency standpoint. Scot: [41:53] Yes I've done this having operated. On the international side it's super frustrating because you're like oh man we had a great quarter and then you get the results of the taking out the currency then like knocks like half of the work in there and you're kind of like that's not fair I'd have no control over that but it is what it is. Jason: [42:12] Indeed and it is part of the cost of doing business on that scale unfortunately so a couple of things kind of Sub sub numbers within those numbers that were interesting. You know increasingly Amazon makes a lot of money selling services to the third-party Sellers and so the 3rd party seller Services number grew quite robustly that group 34 percent, that's a nice high margin business and I think the third-party Sellers as a percentage of total sales hit a new high mark, 422 they were 56 percent of all sales so I that's the highest number I remember because I want to say was 54% last quarter which was at the time the highest number. Scot: [42:57] Yeah that's interesting it's been for longest time it was just a fifty percent for years and years and then it seems to be on a bit of a take off right now just which is interesting I wonder if it's. Conspiracy theorists would say hmm I wonder if this is a way of further insulating themselves from scrutiny from from any Trust. Jason: [43:18] Yeah and then when number that I was curious to get your take on so subscription Services were up for 28%. And the thing that's interesting to me about that is I have always assumed that the bulk of subscription Services is prime. Um and I actually think there's some data points from outside of the earnings call that point to the. The growth rate of Prime members slowing substantially for Amazon so I think you know there were a bunch of forecast that that, you know they may have only added to % Nu Prime members on Prime Day last year which. You know the there over half of all the households in America are prime numbers so they're kind of is the law of large numbers kicking in here but you know they used to get. Very robust double-digit growth in Prime members just from Prime day and it felt like those things are slowing down so I was surprised to see subscription services so high do you have a. A take on why that might have been. Scot: [44:19] Yeah so let's see so we had to Prime days in the last under a year so we had October and then June, most people would be in there free window isn't there free window of prime still we get 30 days free. Yes I don't think June would have really moved the number so it must be residual from. Q4 now that does show up they'll kind of start in q1 I don't know that that's interesting I do I have read reports that there you know some of the international Prime was kind of slow to take off and they've tweaked the offerings in some of the countries like the UK has been popular but other parts of Europe like maybe Italy and Spain has been a little sluggish and then I think they've tweaked the offering and then India I think they've been doing a big push there if I recall so so maybe again it's kind of it'll break unfortunately don't break down that that piece by North American International like the other pieces we can kind of see my bet would be us as slow and maybe a lot of it came from. Jason: [45:24] No that's a great point I wasn't I wasn't thinking about that but you're probably exactly right in a reminder for listeners the prime offering in a lot of other countries is, significantly different than the North American offering the North American offerings the most robust so there's a lot of things, that you get in that North American offering that they're they you know they're not doing same-day delivery and every Market they're not doing Prime Video in all 22 markets where they offer Prime so. It said that the the offering is more compelling some places than others. [45:56] Um and then the most important number of all Scott you know the number I always focus on is the super descriptive other Revenue, and so as a reminder other Revenue we think in Amazon's case is mostly their advertising Revenue in this this has been a rapidly growing number of for them every quarter and it was rapidly growing again, it had 83 percent growth to you know just under eight billion dollars for the quarter I did some quick math and I think my math ended up being slightly different than you so I wonder if I did. Not trying to see adjusted and you did currency adjusted or something like that, but I think the Run rate at the last four quarters for other is now 28 billion. So that they are they are like the clear number three advertising Network in the US and they are they're rapidly gaining on Google and Facebook. Scot: [46:56] I think the trailing 12 would be that number and then I think the Run rate would be about eight times four which would be 32 would be the run right yeah. Jason: [47:05] Fair enough yes yeah although I don't think that's completely even so yeah. Scot: [47:10] Yeah that assumes that they're going to at least do that as well as they did this quarter 24 now this this is one of the things that would have had a in the quarter bump from Prime day yeah and I I heard anecdotally you probably have a better kind of quantitative data on this that this Prime day people get like really Knives Out fighting for customers and spinning out a ton on ad dollars as did you hear, some similar stuff. Jason: [47:36] Yeah and I think like every other advertising platform out of the world in the world like that Amazon is getting better and better about optimizing, the pricing for Prime which means that it is less profitable for the advertisers right because they're getting as much as they possibly can so the kind of the the return on ad spend is going down as the revenue to Amazon is is going up, um and increasingly like there is no visibility for your deals on Prime day like unless you support them with ads. So in the same way like no one's going to see your organic content on Facebook if you don't buy an ad you know nobody is going to see your product listings on on Amazon without add support. Scot: [48:26] Yep pretty amazing how fast they made that go from a hey if you want a little bit extra traffic do this now it's like hey if you want to sell anything you better run some ads. Jason: [48:36] Yeah it's the bane of my existence because every retailer is trying to recreate that you know on a smaller scale and. It creates all kinds of complications as a brand it's really hard right now because you're getting extorted for retail advertising dollars from all these retailers there are many cases don't have the reach to justify the money they're asking for but in some cases you can't say no because they're your wholesale partner is going to kick you out of the store if you don't give him the money so it's interesting. Scot: [49:06] Of course those were the segments and then so I would say well she was kind of looking at that like kind of a mixed bag you know we wish they had at least meet expectations there but it's nice that the high-margin things kind of beat our expectations and then the guidance came out and that's kind of like where it was like a this is this does not look good so what happened here is a guided to 106 to a hundred and twelve billion so at the midpoint it's 109 that is 13 percent year-over-year growth consensus was at 119 so they're off by kind of 10 billion there they, lowered the expectation by 10 billion and then during the Q2 results we didn't go into it in super detail but the they missed the Top Line because those high margin businesses exceeded the overall profitability of the business was decent right so it wasn't wasn't terrible. [49:58] But here they've now lowered the bottom line to pretty considerably below expectations and then that brings down the whole year so you know I looked after hours the stock was down 8% I think it'll be a little bit of a bloodbath tomorrow as everyone kind of like real lions towards you know this well what is it is a 13% grower I don't think anyone had modeled out 13 percent growth for Amazon this year so so that will be a little bit of a blood bath and a resetting them expectations which I think again if I'm the new CEO this is might as well go ahead and do it now and and then hopefully he can kind of like use that Foundation to start beating exceeding expectations but that was that was kind of the ugliest part I think that really kind of you know everyone's kind of mix quarter you know hopefully the guidance will be kind of you know not really impacted and it was kind of like a little bit of a shock at the end there about how low they did Diamond Stone. Jason: [50:58] Yeah yeah and again Amazon was one of the very first retailers to report their Q2 numbers and so I think it is going to be super interesting to follow the rest of the earnings. And see where the rest of retail lands. You know and whether they're adjusting their guidance for the end of the year because pretty good point that this fear of uncertainty is huge. And you know nobody knows like are we going to be back in the pandemic behaviors in Q3 and Q4 as variance get worse are, you know is they're going to be spending their money on weddings and vacations that you know had been deferred and instead of in retail like how does the. The you know tweaks in government stimulus and the childcare credits and all those things impact spending like there's just so many factors. It's really complicated and it's going to be interesting to see how those all net out for the Walmarts and targets and Best Buys of the world. Scot: [51:55] Yeah and you know for listeners we're going to this is kind of one one data point and we're going to keep track of other retailers as they report and kind of sort through it for you so we can figure out what's going on in the data and you know here in retail Land by the time July rolls around and we had in August we're all thinking about the fourth quarter so what we're trying to do is parse these tea leaves and see if we can help you think through any strategies for the fourth quarter so that's going to be where we'll start to lay down some content here in the next several episodes. Jason: [52:26] Yeah now a number of listeners asked me to ask you like because Amazon had such a soft quarter it's presumably going to affect the stock is that going to slow down your plans to buy a ticket on Virgin Galactic at all or. Scot: [52:39] I have no desire to go to space so I'm more than happy to watch the billionaires do their thing and you know and I'm glad they're not spending my tax dollars so I'm all good with what they're up to. Jason: [52:53] Fair enough I think the listeners will be thrilled to know that you're staying safe. Scot: [52:58] Doing my best. Jason: [53:01] Awesome well I think that wraps up this this quick take on Amazon earnings as always if this was valuable to you we sure would appreciate that five star review on iTunes. Scot: [53:16] Thanks everyone for joining us and… Jason: [53:19] Until next time happy Commercing.

Most entrepreneurs would have balked at the decision to launch Neighborhood Goods in late 2018. After all, many department stores were barely surviving by the end of the 2010s, and the department store retail model appeared to be on the verge of collapse. But against all odds, co-founder and CEO Matt Alexander has leveraged amazing growth in changing economic times.So what sets Neighborhood Goods apart? It all comes down to a creative rethinking of the in-store experience. They start by curating a smart range of products. Then, they display them in dynamic, engaging spaces built for human connection. It's all about bringing to life the kind of community experience that transforms a quick errand into an enjoyable event. Check out Neighborhood Goods and follow them on Instagram Connect with Matt on LinkedIn Connect with Kristen on Twitter and LinkedIn

Today we’re kicking off another episode of RETHINK Retail with guest Matt Alexander. Matt is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Neighborhood Goods. Bursting onto the retail scene in 2018, Neighborhood Goods made it abundantly clear that it was not your grandmother’s department store. Neighborhood Goods is the store of the future, mixing a traditional store environment with the ease of technology and the vibrancy and community of an international bazaar. Join us as Matt shares his journey to co-founding Neighborhood Goods, his insights for DTC brands and what Neighborhood Goods is doing to help brands hard-hit by COVID-19. - - - - - - Hosted by Julia Raymond Hare Produced by Gabriella Bock Edited by Trenton Waller Social Media by Madison Freeland

Matt Alexander is the CEO and co-founder of Texas-based Neighborhood Goods, a modern take on the department store that opened its first outpost in Plano in 2018 and now has locations in New York and Austin. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Check out this week's sponsor, LUMIN, for incredible men's skincare products: www.luminskin.com/clubcool After a quick recap of the weekend and a brief discussion about new-age department store, Neighborhood Goods, Barrett and Phil talk music. The conversation includes notes about Sofia Coppola's new film scored by Barrett's favorite band, Phil's go-to vinyl albums, 90s and 2000s hip-hop, and why EDM is now a source of depression. Stay tuned for an eclectic mix of tracks on our second official playlist. On the back half of the pod, Barrett talks about some of his favorite items from the upcoming Howler Brothers collection before the duo break down and give initial thoughts on the new FW20 teaser video from Aimé Leon Dore. Support the Podcast! www.patreon.com/clubcool www.instagram.com/clubcoolpod

Matt Alexander, CEO of Neighborhood Goods, explains how the store is adapting to the COVID crisis. He talks about following through on their commitment to transparency, as well as some initiatives they have in the pipeline for their reopenings. James Cook is the director of retail research in the Americas for JLL.  Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts Listen: WhereWeBuy.show  Alexa: Say "Enable the Where We Buy skill" Tweet: @JamesDCook Email: jamesd.cook@am.jll.com  Instagram: @jamcoo Leave a message on the Where We Buy hotline. We may use it on an upcoming show. Call (602) 633-4061  Read more retail research here:  http://www.us.jll.com/retail Theme music is Run in the Night by The Good Lawdz, under Creative Commons license.

Episode 10 is a very inspiring one! I interview Sandy Diaz Haley, who happens to be someone I worked with during a college internship and we reconnected a few years ago. Sandy has always been one of those energetic, hilarious, full-of-life people. Someone who's fun to be around. Sandy was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2014. Her diagnosis came after years of ignoring strange symptoms that ultimately lead to struggling to walk on her wedding day. Although she has had some major lows, she has come out victorious with this disease. She walks us through what it's like to have MS, how she was diagnosed and how fitness has helped her manage her symptoms. Today, she is a healthy, active and proud advocate for the disease that once made her think she would never live a normal life again. Sandy really says it best: “There's so much we can't control in life BUT what we can control is our reaction to the hurdles life throws at us. These life experiences and how we let them impact our lives, make up who we are. MS does not define me, it makes me work harder and for that, I'm beyond grateful.” Where to find Sandy / Bada$$ Ladies of DFW: Her IG: @badassladiesnetwork Her FB: Sandy Diaz Haley Bada$$ Ladies website: https://www.badassladies.com/ Other resources we mention in this episode: News segment on Univision News segment on Fox News about how getting active has really helped her disease outlook and overall health Blog post about the importance of exercising featuring Sandy (This episode was sponsored by MiniLuxe. TFI podcast listeners get free nail art add-ons (worth $10). Just mention The Fitness Insider when booking or add it into the notes section on the MiniLuxe app when booking an appointment). MiniLuxe recently launched their polishes at Neighborhood Goods in both Dallas and Austin, so you can shop their polishes there!) If you'd like to follow along updates with this podcast, be sure to follow me here: @thefitnessinsiderpodcast For more info, see the podcast official website: www.thefitnessinsiderpodcast.com Click below to listen to the episode, or listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you normally listen to your podcasts here. Don't forget to subscribe, rate & review The Fitness Insider. This helps tremendously. Thanks for listening! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thefitnessinsider/support

“The hardest thing about growing is relinquishing control. Things are going to happen without you being the first line of defense, so you have to set up the team to be able to handle it. It's all about the systems.” -Brittany Grignon, founder & operating owner of Session Pilates In Episode 9, I sit down with Brittany Grignon, founder and operating owner of Session Pilates based in Dallas, Texas. We talk about how exactly she got Session Pilates opened, how she optimizes revenue and creates high demand with just 15 reformers in each location and a little bit about her marketing plan. Brittany opens up about how she was able to take Session from 1 location to soon 4 locations in 4 years in a place where Pilates studios and boutique fitness is rampant (i.e. lots of competition). Expanding a strong brand and replicating the experience across all locations is not an easy task, and Brittany talks about her tricks and tips on how to do it the right way. You won't want to miss out on this one! Where to find Brittany Grignon / Session Pilates: Her IG: @bgrignon Session Pilates' IG: @sessionpilates Session's website: https://www.sessionpilates.com/ Book a class at Session through StudioHop (This episode was sponsored by MiniLuxe and Follain. TFI podcast listeners get free nail art add-ons (worth $10). Just mention The Fitness Insider when booking or add it into the notes section on the MiniLuxe app when booking an appointment). MiniLuxe recently launched their polishes at Neighborhood Goods in both Dallas and Austin, so you can shop their polishes there! For Follain, TFI listeners get 10% off in-store and online. Just use code “TFI10”.) If you'd like to follow along updates with this podcast, be sure to follow me here: @thefitnessinsiderpodcast Click below to listen to the episode, or listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you normally listen to your podcasts here. Don't forget to subscribe, rate & review The Fitness Insider. This helps tremendously. Thanks for listening! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thefitnessinsider/support

Jamie and I kick off this episode with our thoughts on NRF2020 - the National Retail Federation’s "Big Show" in New York. Held in January each year, this 40,000-visitor-1000-exhibitor behemoth is gradually turning into a packed ’retail week’. Jamie and I cover our impressions of the show and what’s new and noteworthy, as well as giving a summary of the highlights of our store tour in which we visited Showfields (see RetailCraft 15 for an interview with one of the founders), Amazon 4-Star, Atelier Beauté Chanel, Glossier, The Real Real, Gucci, Camp and Neighborhood Goods.   You can see the details of the store tour here: airtable.com/shr6VPGFXHB4LNBoU/tblIQv68dVMxyALSJ   Next we travel back in time to NRF itself, when we were joined in the podcast studio by Laura Padfield, Head of Strategy and Business Development, International at Marks & Spencer. We cover a range of topics from the international growth and approach, differences between regions as well as hearing Laura’s reflections on the stores we’d visited.   Run time: 36 minutes. INFORMATION: Laura Padfield: www.linkedin.com/in/laura-padfield-1bb80b21/ Jamie Merrick: www.linkedin.com/in/jamiemerrick/ Ian Jindal: www.linkedin.com/in/ianjindal/ and www.twitter.com/ianjindal   Recorded on location in London, UK at Spiritland Studios and at the NRF Podcast Studio in New York, USA. Episode photo credit: Ian Jindal.

Digital strategies aren't just about creating alternatives to the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. Done effectively, they can actually bring people back to the store, while also eliminating customer anonymity, creating rich and actionable data, and deepening relationships between the store and consumer in a way that transcends the simple transaction. Our newest episode, which brings together a terrific panel of experts from a wide range of disciplines, was recorded at Google’s New York City offices during the recent National Retail Federation (NRF) Show.   Our guests: Matt Alexander, co-founder of Neighborhood Goods which has an unusual take on physical retailing with stores in Dallas and New York. Patrick Flanagan, Senior Vice President of Digital Marketing and Strategy for Simon, which has more than 200 properties in 37 states and Puerto Rico. Tom Furphy, CEO and Managing Director of Consumer Equity Partners, a member of the Retail Tomorrow podcast family, and a regular contributor to "The Innovation Conversation" on MNB. Jalna Silverstein, a leader in Ernst & Young’s Transaction Advisory Practice and its Real Estate, Consumer Experience, and Retail strategy.

EP204 - 2020 Annual Predictions 2019 Recap - Predictions made on episode 159 Scot At least 5k more store closures in 2019. Yes.  9,300 US store closures per Coresight. Amazon – Prof Galloway is big on Amazon having to create a AWS spinoff and has moderated that to tracking stock. I’m going to predict Amazon doesn’t do either of those things. But this WILL be the year they break ads out. Yes. Galloway was wrong. eBay/Alibaba – I think this is the year when they both need to do something big and the stars are aligning for a combination there. Nope.  Shopify gets acquired by one of the big ad-based companies (facebook/google most likely) Nope. Walmart stumbles in e-commerce. Nope Score 2/5 Jason Amazon store count exceeds 1000 stores Nope.  571 Amazon Stores 22 Book 15 4-Star 8 Pop-ups 25 Go 2 liquor 499 Whole Foods Walmart buys a last mile firm Nope Another big  bankruptcy (going to be a tougher than expected year, JCP, category killers Office, BBBY, Neiman). Yep (Payless ShoeSource, Destination Maternity Shopko,Forever 21, ShopKo, Gymboree, Things Remembered, Charlotte Russe, Diesel, Z Gallerie, Charming Charlie, Barneys, Sugarfina, etc ...) Mobile commerce revenue passes Desktop – Aided by PWA’s, and payment API’s we see mobile gap narrow. Nope.  60/35/5 Desktop/Mobile/Tablet Nov-Dec via Adobe. Fads (Voice Commerce, Customer facing AI, SocialCommerce, VR BlockChain). Yes BONUS: Amazon breaks out prime revenue (No) Score 2/5 An epic fail for Jason & Scot! It turns out the future is difficult to see (and our case the timing is also tough). 2020 Predictions Scot Shopify wilts a bit - new competition comes out with different angles (marketcap stays static) Fedex does something drastic - buy eBay? Merge with Alibaba? The year of returns - “happy returns” - a startup raises $100M+ in space. Mallageddon continues At least another 8k stores Google gets aggressive in ecommerce 10% traffic to ‘shopping actions’ buy ebay/fedex Jason Walmart - growth slows due to completion of grocery build out. Marc Lore leaves Walmart. Amazon - Opens affordable grocery concept. Digital grocery wars heat up. Owned brands continue to grow. 5% of retail in 2019, could be 8-10% in 2020 (as measured by IRI, for CPG private label). Installment Payments heat up - At least one company is acquired (Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, QuadPay, Sizzle) Digital in-store heats up, QR codes make a comeback Bonus:  Cashier-less stores (Amazon Go), blockchain, 5G, big data, and personalization won’t have a significant impact on retail. No DNVB will break out. No major retail anti-trust actions in US. Brick & Mortar Marketplaces won’t take off (Showfields, Neighborhood Goods, B8ta). Shopify won’t compete with Amazon.   Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 204 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, January 2nd, 2020. 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. http://jasonandscot.com Google Automated Transcription of the show Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode at 204 being recorded on Thursday January 2nd 2020 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners will Jason happy New Year happy new decade hope you had a really good last decade and I hope you had a good holiday. Jason: [0:53] I did Happy New Year to you. I'm with you on that new decade but they're you know there's some controversy about whether it is a new decade or not. Scot: [1:01] Yeah I don't believe that it's a it's a 10 plus one problem we'll just to sweep sweep past. Jason: [1:07] Yeah it's the twenties as far as I'm concerned so. Yes but it has already happened I nailed our intro despite the fact that we typed 2019 in the show notes. Scot: [1:22] Azle Easter I got them there for you you found it. Jason: [1:25] Yeah I was I felt I felt special about myself that I was able to fix that on the Fly. Scot: [1:32] Who said the most important question is have you been able to see the new Star Wars movie. Jason: [1:36] Oh my God Scott I've been thinking about you nonstop because yes I got to see the new Star Wars movie and obviously we'll will be spoiler-free but I I was totally happy with it and enjoyed it. Scot: [1:48] Yeah yeah me too weird thing happen to me where I've gotten to where I kind of like the Mandalorian almost better than the movies so I don't know. Jason: [1:57] So here's why I've been thinking about you nonstop my 4 year old is now both feet in on Star Wars everything. Scot: [2:06] Good quality parenting right there. Jason: [2:08] So we wouldn't want some of the movies there's a ton of like kid-friendly Star Wars content you probably knew all about this but there's like the Lego movies and cartoons and all this different stuff, and like for Hanukkah he got a lightsaber which he has not been separated from since and. Scot: [2:27] Nice. Jason: [2:27] We got a bunch of Star Wars books including I got him, like a graphic novel version of episodes for 5 and 6 and so now every night as part of our bedtime ritual he's his down with me and we we you know read us a segment from the book. Scot: [2:46] Give us your Darth Vader voice. Jason: [2:48] Yeah I'm not doing any voices on the podcast sorry. Scot: [2:53] Baby geek I am your father. Jason: [2:55] Exactly I have said that exact phrase tan. The what's super funny is my wife and I like you have enjoyed Mandalorian and we were watching it one night and Stephen King in like you should have been asleep and it came in and saw I like. 30 seconds of Mandalorian which we have not let him watch Mandalorian but Steven is totally 100% fixated on Mandalorian. So he's already convinced that mandalorians are way better than Jedis. Like the only character he likes from all of the previous Star Wars work is now Boba Fett and he like he brings them up and every contact and we're like. You seen 32nd. Scot: [3:44] Team Honda. Jason: [3:47] Anything he's like he's like four and he's asking like. Like when he sees Yoda in like Clone Wars he's asking like how is he only a baby in Mandalorian. Scot: [3:59] You have time like it's really confusing. Jason: [4:05] Star Wars is super confusing to explain to a four year old white guy because you start with the premise that like the bad guys have red lightsabers in the good guys have other colors and then like, it's only Don's I knew that all the bad guys used to be good guys and then become good guys again and so I. It's super like that Santa can that it yeah yeah it's a very convoluted but suffice it to say there's a bunch of Mandalorian and baby Yoda posters up in his room and he's like we're leaving in a Mandalorian World which just makes me think of you. Scot: [4:37] Regal Walden toys are coming out so that it's going to be exciting in the next couple of weeks are all the they held them because they didn't want to spoil some of the plot elements of Mandalorian soon there's a big wave of toys coming so it's good time. Jason: [4:50] I know and in fact a bunch of entrepreneurial people because they did not release baby Yoda toys during the show because they were trying to prove your point keep him Secret. So everybody and their brother started making baby Yoda toys and like there's been like you know a huge intellectual property Crackdown and there's like you know hundreds of people from Etsy that have been. Don the cease-and-desist orders over that. Scot: [5:17] Speaking of toys I saw on Twitter that you were going to try to hit one of the new Toys R Us did you make it to him. Jason: [5:24] I did I am wearing a button right now that says I don't want to grow up I'm a Toys R Us kid. Because I went to the Houston store a few days after it open so there's, Tyreke and for our listeners like Toys R Us went bankrupt or done at super sad huge disruption in the toy industry, a company bought the the intellectual property of Toys R Us and they did a partnership with beta who's been on the show a couple times, the open initially to Toys R Us stores so there's one in New Jersey and there's one in Houston Texas. So I got to go to the Houston Texas one and it was fun it was fun to see the brand, back alive and reimagined then it was a you know it's very different than a Toys R Us a traditional Toys R Us store because these are. Kind of 20,000 square foot Mall base toy stores versus. 80000 square foot big box toy stores but it was a fun immersive retail environment with a bunch of toys and, this mall which is a a mall Scott like a week before Christmas felt like a ghost town to me like it was. Tragically empty but I would argue the Toys R Us with the second busiest store in the in the whole mall and. [6:49] Behind Apple you're exactly right side note people are only in the Apple store to get tech support but still. But this one was really busy and people like had made a special trip just to go in like the brand is so strong so it looks like these first two stores are doing pretty well and I know there's a plan to open more so kudos to them for saving the brand and beta for doing a pretty good toy execution. Scot: [7:16] Nice the so thanks for the trip report this is our annual recap and he's always run long so I think we should just jump right on into it so being the first show of the decade and the year it is our custom I guess we've done this for fact, to do an annual prediction and then Square ourselves so way back in episode 159 we had our predictions, or 2019 so I think what we'll do is score each other to start out with and then we'll put out our predictions so why don't you go to my last year predictions. Jason: [7:58] And before you jump and let me just say I despise this show I've had red leading up to the show in the reason is is I've never done very well that however will I have done I've gotten progressively worse every year and last year while I did quite poorly you did stupendous wave and so, it's like I've dreaded even seen what my predictions were last year and hearing about them so I'm just going to rip the Band-Aid off and we'll get through the show but your first prediction for for 2019 was that at least 5K more stores would close in 2019 and let's get this out of the way you blew away that prediction coresite which is the company we most often use for kind of tracking Us store closures had like 9300 stores closing this year IHL did a study in the world even more store closures than that in their in their study Dope by any measure way more than 5,000 stores closed and you know in hindsight I should have let you get away with that prediction because that's why, it was too easy. Scot: [9:12] Well no I don't know if there's a lot of people saying but that was kind of going to be the worst. Jason: [9:19] That no so if you had said there is going to be worse than last year that would have been a slightly more predict like. Tempstar 5000 was less than last year or this year but yeah I agree, most people thought there be fewer closures this year than last year in that bike by depending on how you count did not prove to be the case that much more controversial thing on the whole store closures is it more open and closed if you go by the course I track her a lot more closed than open but if you go by other studies, that are the feel more comprehensive like they're actually were more swords that open then close so. Scot: [9:58] Yeah and I know the size Matters right to some of these are mattress stores which are pretty big. Jason: [10:04] And I whoop all a lot of the people that say way more stores open then close are also counting like restaurants and stores for example and the end restaurants have a lot of charm and so, a lot of controversy but bottom line you started out of the gate strong you're one for one and. Your second prediction, you just you just jumped right into the gutter because your second prediction was that Professor Scott Galloway would basically be wrong. Which I like as a general principle but more specifically what you're talking about is the, an inner 9 people the climate a year ago he had just published a book about the the for one of which was Amazon so he was he was publicly speaking about Amazon a ton and he you know was really beating a drum around having to split up Amazon and they're potentially Amazon would voluntarily spin off some of their businesses because they're so lucrative and so you know the talk to usually about 8 if you ask until your prediction was kind of to go negative and say you always wrong and Amazon isn't going to be split up and isn't going to voluntarily split up in any parts of their business and, you were certainly correct none of those things happens. Scot: [11:28] What have I learned from this anti Galloway bet is that he throws out so many things he gets one right and then looks like a genius show his we work one with hit. The bus was other ones didn't put the he's ridden the we work one for a good six months. Jason: [11:43] Yep yeah I feel like he the first one that hit for him that really like you know he made a lot of hay en was predicting Whole Foods would be acquired by Amazon and then yeah he was instrumental in that kind of picking the, he was an early picker of the we were demise the pressure point he also predicted Amazon would acquire a bunch of other people besides Whole Foods that they didn't in my favorite prediction is about 3 years ago he said that Amazon had peaked in that you should short the stock. Scot: [12:14] I would not have been good. Jason: [12:16] Side note yeah that would turned out not to be good investment advice. So yeah for your point like anyone in this predictions face like the whole key is to throw a bunch out and just remind people of the ones you got right and not bring up all the ones you got wrong. But you're doing great you're two for two yeah so third prediction that. Either or eBay and Alibaba would need to do something big in 2019, and so you use you propose that potentially they might do some sort of joint venture or some sort of combination. And I have to say he's got as far as I'm aware that did not happen. Scot: [13:03] Yeah but itself StubHub when you said that's pretty big. Jason: [13:09] No not relative to their socks. Scot: [13:11] It was Lucy 4 billion of 30 billion market cap that's more than materiality. Jason: [13:23] Again I'm dreading my own predictions so I'm grading you very very strictly enough so I'm going to say you're two for three right now. Scot: [13:35] Another thing just point out is the eBay CEO just got up and left one day if that was kind of surprised I don't know if we count that as something big happening or not there's this line with the Borden peace out. Jason: [13:49] Yeah need to do something big. Scot: [13:50] That's kind of a shot. Jason: [13:52] Sell the property will parts of your company and then watch the Executive Suite I don't think that was the spirit of I think you were more proposing they would do something that would help them reacquired growth. Scot: [14:05] Yeah but another thing I didn't anticipate us this anti-china thing that we have going on here right now so the tariffs were one thing but there's just. A lot of anti-china going on right now that I think is going to make this murderer and possible I don't think the US government would let app. Jason: [14:24] Yeah I think there's there are some number of entanglements there that that would be challenges there aren't there were some little Partnerships there some interesting things we like, well I guess it's more JD and the Walmart in the US but. Back on track your two for three and your fourth prediction was that Shopify gets Acquired and you said potentially by one of the big add bass companies like Facebook or Google +, once again to my knowledge that did not happen are you agree or do you have a argument there as well. Scot: [15:03] I agree and you know what's really amazing is if you look at kind of your your Shopify when I made this production was their stock is like at 1:44 and they were attending. Nick on all the stuff like 3x so weather like a 1012 blade on a company now they're $47 company they're pretty much on acquirable I think at that price and then the valuation multiple is extremely lucky so if you look at all the different soccer the service companies yet uses range of like 8 to 10 x there's something like 15 to 20 x is just crazy, good as those guys they essentially don't they will be at choir and not not a choir. Jason: [15:53] Totally agree there they're killing it both in terms of their their financial success and valuations but also their they're just winning in the marketplace and they're like you have continuing to capture more Greyhound away from the Enterprise guys and they're doing a bunch of interesting things so we'll talk more about them in the future I'm sure but yeah they're a bunch of people that would like to acquire them but for your point like there is not that's not really economically viable at this point and then number 5, Walmart stumbles in e-commerce and I took that to mean. That they're the rate of e-commerce growth would slow over 2018 which was pretty solid gross at like 40%. And they actually were exactly at 40% again in 2020 so there, they're growing very quickly they're growing faster than Amazon certainly much faster than the, the market overall and their growth rate in 2020 or 2019 was basically the same as 2018 so like by that measure I'm not giving them a stumble in 2019 but do you you agree or was you think it was some other dimension they stumbled in. Scot: [17:15] Agree I probably underestimated how long they had to kind of Wind by converting grocery over but I think this year probably will give you the. Jason: [17:29] I feel like that's a common theme in all of our predictions ynm that I've noticed both you and I are sort of afraid to double down and be like wrong one year and then say say it again the next year but many of our predictions come true a year after we predicted. Scot: [17:43] Lyrics the Alexa are pause airpods I did like 2 years and then it came up here I didn't God darn it. Jason: [17:49] Exactly which is frustrating yes so being super brutal you ended up 245 which is way off your your historic average. Scot: [18:02] Yeah I usually bat 500 but it wasn't wasn't there this year I mean on the stuff I feel like e-commerce slow down a little bit. Jason: [18:13] Oh no I for sure feel like it has and I do think. Scot: [18:16] But the pace of innovation is really slowing which is makes up makes it harder to throw out big predictions. Jason: [18:21] Yeah I also feel like it is this point like it's the timing of many things is tougher to predict than the actual events themselves and the Horizon is now longer than a year for your point so that's that's that another challenge with this whole predictions thing but I'm not remotely confident that I didn't any better so so with no further Ado let's let's see how I did. Scot: [18:51] Yes yes so your prediction so let's jump into this the first one is you were very giddy you probably had just visited three or four of the Amazon stores and you said look I am sure this can be over a thousand Amazon physical stores by the end of the year so I think. Whole Foods helps a lot here in this is there were there were a bunch of Articles out there that Amazon was going to because Wall Street Journal that they're going to have, thousands of Stories the right now we're sitting in about five to six hundred so you got Whole Foods 500 Whole Foods there's some pop upstairs for Stars book stores throw all that together you get sky like 555 75 so that's a pretty big Miss 57% is f on any grading scale so sorry I did not get that. Jason: [19:53] Yeah no I'll be honest I thought, perhaps Amazon go with scale and much more you were generous that they were actually a lot more pop-up stores the last year they closed most of the pop-up store so it's possible there's fewer Stars this year than they were last year of you if you included those so yeah I wildly miss that in the only like slightly interesting thing in that in that whole thing is I feel like the one concept that has scales slightly More Than People realizes the 4-star store so there now 15 for Star stores which is like coming up on on you know the number of bookstore so pretty soon we might have more, more 4-star stores that we have book stores but nowhere close to a thousand I was wildly wrong. Scot: [20:38] What are the clothes the popups cuz I've kept an eye on them in our malls and they're pretty popular MMOs price at the. Jason: [20:46] Yeah yeah well you know for a while they had a ton of them in Whole Food stores, and yeah I feel like they opened a lot of them in places where they could get real estate rather than in places where. Where there was a like strategic audience need a few pop-up stores their main are some kind of interesting Concepts so that yeah I don't I don't know. Scot: [21:12] So that's 0 4 5 4 for those homegamers keeping track of the score then your second one and this was one where I think the timing probably is going to be what this was on the heels of Target buying ships and here we are a year later that's gone really well you have Target, Ecommerce accelerated they're constantly talking about how should you store is doing well and all those initiatives that if they can anchor on ship, so your prediction was that in 2019 Walmart would buy a last-mile firm and that did not happen I think the big idea and last-mile will there be a couple one was going to just kind of Associates kind of on their way home free stuff and then the second one is this whole body camera thing where they're going to pop Associates right in your house to deliver stuff I don't think that is really caught on either. Jason: [22:10] Yeah I know II do I agree I think they I made that prediction cuz I felt like, that honey how stuff is really growing for them and they would need more Last Mile capacity and I still think that it is true, I didn't foresee that last year but you know like as whole food as a FedEx has kind of gone push the last run away from Amazon that the company they're running to is Walmart and so we we've seen some like bigger strategic Partnerships between Walmart and FedEx and now that you know they're starting to be some some economic weakness at FedEx, I do not want to talk about this year's predictions but that you could almost imagine at one point that that could be an acquisition or some kind of deeper strategic partnership but nevertheless did not happen last year. Scot: [23:03] So that says 045 stole your third one and I think you made a comment last year that you need to be less specific to this one's kind of interesting. And they said there could be another big bankruptcy but then you said such as JCPenney one of the office guys Bed Bath Beyond need and Marcus so you kind of had an ore in there or are you know we could have took her to this again. Being generous since we're sitting here at over to there were a lot of bankruptcies so we had the seat jabri we had Forever 21. What's rue21 was that a result 2018. Jason: [23:49] That might have been 18 or not sure. Scot: [23:51] One of the maternity stores Payless shoes and we'll see we had there was one of the mattress stores. So there were there were some pretty high-profile bankruptcies. Jason: [24:07] I'm taking the win but in hindsight like that was a lame prediction like of course somebody's going to go bankrupt every year so if you're not specific at Tulane prediction and if you are specific the names I mentioned. I still am taking the win and I would point out like the one that gets talked about the most which is actually one of the smaller ones is Barney's was like the, start a story brand that went bankrupt and I know the one that almost doesn't get talked about but was most crushing and near and dear to your heart is sugarfina. Scot: [24:37] Yeah. Steer. Okay so your fourth prediction. Jason: [24:44] Wait wait let's recap the score I'm now one of the three. Infinitely improved over over the previous two. Scot: [24:50] Yeah yeah you're all on at are two more to make up some some room here so your fourth prediction was that mobile Commerce Revenue would pass desktop and lessors of the show know you are a big fan of pwa which is not a rap band it's some kind of a technology for mobile stuff and also the new payment apis and some of the other stuff you thought we're going to close the mobile, I'll defer to you since you're the guru on this didn't did you. Jason: [25:21] Yeah did we mention that that e-commerce is slowing down a lot, none of those things happened at near the scale that I thought they would end so for sure no mobile Revenue did not pass desktop revenue and I I thought I could like save face and say well that didn't happen it did happen on the big shopping days bright like so you know you could kind of make try to make an argument that oh I totally happened on December Monday or things like that but the reality is even over the holiday. If you'll get November through December, 60% of all revenue happened on desktop 35% of Revenue on mobile and 5% on tablet so bottom line I wasn't even close. Sad. Scot: [26:12] Yep sorry dude so let's see that gives us one out of four, all right last chance on number 5 on this one, Scot of one of your anti predictions you said following things are going to be fads and not take off voice Commerce AI That's customer-facing social commerce virtual reality and boxing. Jason: [26:38] Yeah and again not a very awesome prediction but I'm going to take the win on that and say that those things are all we're all basically feds at least in 2019, the one that feels like it's trying to get some traction and some some aspects of social commerce but but I would still argue they weren't like. Meaningful in 2019. Scot: [27:02] If I give you that one. Jason: [27:03] Yeah I'm desperate for I'm desperate for a win that would give me the 22052 at least IU. Scot: [27:08] Yeah yeah and then you threw out because you're you're Jason you just couldn't stop at 5 got a Bonus and you said Amazon is going to breakout Prime Revenue you're really specific I had to go back and listen. Cuz I had a feeling you're kind of get a little slippery on it so Amazon has not broken out that's that's a no. Jason: [27:31] Yeah what really happened is I misspoke what I meant to say is that callonwood breakout primary. For Amazon and I yeah I said it wrong. Scot: [27:43] Yeah but since I was a bonus will you know we won't we won't count it so it's practically a tie this year so which is to me that's a loss cuz over the over the The Arc typically beat me by three or four answers. Jason: [27:59] And so it would be a win for me but since you basically came down to my level it doesn't I don't think it feels good for either of us but at least. Scot: [28:06] What are you get better. Jason: [28:07] At least we've established our credibility now so I'm sure it was on the edge of their seats to hear our wise predictions for next year now that we've shown how I'm nipotent we are. Scot: [28:17] We're going to rebound to I can feel it go do you want to join to do yours first. Jason: [28:22] No I want to hear you're so I can potentially use them. Scot: [28:27] Yep so here's my five predictions so I mentioned earlier that Shopify is kind of gone up 3x in a year that just feels you know, very nose bleeding to me and there's a lot of new competition coming out so I think whenever you have a value creation event like that where they've essentially created 45 billion dollars out of town are there could be a lot of money chasing Shopify, I don't know what their weaknesses but every company always has one so it's going to be interesting to see, what comes after them what angles they come after and all that good stuff so that's that's my prediction is that they're going to wilt a bit and you know I'll put a. [29:14] I need to put something more specific there I'll say they did kind of stay at this market cap or go down 10% somewhere between kind of here in temperature I don't think there's going to be another kind of like huge run up type your and it's going to be largely your folks waking up to say wait there is competition out there for this business model. But you don't think that doesn't get talked about this to turn just has to be like through the roof right so just on a unit turn to have to just be turning tons of customers and now in a cohort, it probably is its revenue for the cohort pipe the GMB for the cohort crime makes up and then that's what drives the revenue, overtime it just feels like there's going to be sup Rider light shown on part of their business model that isn't, this kind of perfect kind of price for protection company. Jason: [30:09] No I would agree with that I do think that maybe the one thing that that mitigates that a little bit is they are starting to successfully go upmarket a bit and get like some slightly more. Stables lower turn customers with higher gym be so so maybe that balance is out in the long run. Scot: [30:29] Yeah it's like a million at the base of the pyramid though and it takes a lot at the top of the pyramid. Jason: [30:35] It just takes one Kylie Jenner. Scot: [30:37] That last. That's my first prediction my second one and another prediction we would kind of I can't remember which was did that for a long time is part of me just like the earpods I was saying, Amazon will get into delivery that is, that would be a double a man because it sucks such an obvious once and for the longest time FedEx UPS said no no no there are partner or not our competitor the bloom is totally off that one right now where was like okay this is bad in fact you mentioned earlier FedEx is like getting hammered over this and so did Amazon kind of dug the knife in further where they won't even let seller fulfilled Prime sellers use FedEx because they say the service level isn't good enough. Jason: [31:32] Yeah you talk about throwing some holiday shade. Scot: [31:34] Ouch ouch so as a result of FedEx is under a lot of pressure right now and I think it's going to cause some kind of interesting thing to happen you know you got eBay out there kind of rudderless right now you could see FedEx eBay you could see you mention Walmart I think there's going to be some interesting, kind of marriage that happens with FedEx in and it's can be driven from the world of e-commerce. Jason: [32:04] Get I like that one. Scot: [32:06] Predictions for 3 this is not my forte but there's just a lot of Buzz around returns so there's several startups you could probably write them better than I can save Mall. BCS contact me about this which means it must be like just kind of, yeah they're all trying to solve returns problems and there's all kinds of clever ways of doing this of no Consolidated return centers different ways of managing the supply chain that kind of thing so I'm going to say 2020 will be the year where you know they're just probably be some kind of a winner that emerges from that and they'll be kind of like ShopRunner has try to do and not to successfully the offer a prime and a network of retailers that form an alternative prime one of these startups will be successful and I guess I'll Define it as. Raising over a hundred million something like that something that's like pretty pretty. Obvious that their leader they'll be pretty successful in in kind of taking a run at offering an on Amazon, multi retailer multi-brand approached returns. Jason: [33:25] So that's funny I wrote a similar prediction I didn't end up using it because I thought it was two wonky but I totally agree with the sentiment it does like I think it's returns it become a huge acute problem and so you know we're seeing lots of new investments in the hole reverse Logistics base to try to solve it so it that that seems reasonable although somebody raising a hundred million dollars is not peanuts so the so I like your. You're taking a stance. Scot: [33:58] That's my third and fourth one is a keeping with my mall again which has been a winner for for two years in a row I'm going to say you know what you call 9000 store closures in 2019 it's a good start. So I think we're going to have many more store closures I'm going to say at least eight thousand so continuing to keep, about the same as last year if not more I think we are going to see, I just feels like we're still over stored in a lot of different categories like drug stores that kind of stuff so I put that one out there. [34:34] And then this one this is one of these I've made a long time and I'm always wrong but I've some reason I'm back to it this year I just finally believe Google has is waking up to the Amazon Fred and and starting ticket much more seriously now they're there, terrible branding job at it but I think execution wise there is something there they have this Marketplace which is essentially called shopping Google shopping. Actions and you know the sink, they're getting pretty serious about it and I think this year they're going to get really really serious about it so what's that mean so I think I think. Overall I think I could see them actually in the hunt to buy an eBay or FedEx or something like that that could be interesting and then you know another one is the shopping actions is it's always just been this kind of on the edge like well a little Beyond 2% of Android latest Android lollipop popsicle Twix and yes it is a being like percent of a percent of a percent and not Material so so I'm thinking they get pretty serious about it meaning it's going to get a lot of exposure I'm on not only just some fraction of Android but across all Google properties. Jason: [35:59] So I like it how like what were you cancel BC to know that that that happened like you expect them to be like I'd top 100 retailer like what would what's the. Scot: [36:11] I think yeah I think 10% of shopping traffic going through it would be material so I would come start there. Jason: [36:20] Oh wow yeah that's quite mature okay. Scot: [36:22] And I would look at like search marketing as someone like the referee on this search marketing. Was that search engine land or one of those. Jason: [36:31] Ya SE land.com. At least to get the ball rolling you know the last month they announced Bill ready who is that executive PayPal is the new, like VP of Commerce a Google so they like they haven't a new person to sort of weed that initiative so that maybe bodes well for your prediction. Scot: [36:53] Yeah I worry about it because these payments guys want you when you've been in the payments world everything looks like a nail so so I worry we're going to get Google pay 8.0 embossing. Jason: [37:07] So yeah supposedly and I I don't know but I think he's got some non-competes and supposably like is being hired explicitly not to get involved in pain. Scot: [37:17] I did not know that. Jason: [37:19] So maybe that will benefit you. Scot: [37:23] Let's we can only hope. Jason: [37:24] Yes yes I like it though. Scot: [37:27] All right those are my five what are your five. Jason: [37:29] Awesome duck so my first one is I'm just going to take yours from last year and protect them for this year. Thinking of you just missed the timing and given all the ones that that have happened the past that's my new strategy so last year you predicted it Walmart, would would have a hiccup in 2019 so I'm going to say in 2020 is the year that the Walmart rate of growth slows down and I don't, actually mean that that, is a distressing anyway I just think sometime this year they're going to finish rolling out online grocery pick-up to all of their stores and they're going to have to comp against, stores that were opened last year where has for the last few years they've had this benefit of opening a bunch of stores and going from zero to some, some big number of digital grocery so I think it's going to be much tougher to maintain that 40% growth rate so I expect that growth rate to go down, which is enough kind of natural and then I'll throw out a wacky one and say I also actually think that this might be the year that Mark Laurie exits from Walmart. [38:43] Just think like, that he's probably been there awhile like we weave you know started to see some of hit a lot of the jet people have, kind of transitioned out now Andy Dunn has transitioned out that the guy has basically unlimited funds in the bank like I think he may just be like he's accomplished with what he can accomplish it at Walmart and we we might see a Changing of the Guard. Scot: [39:08] Did Nadal Ray say that he had like four years to make a trillion dollars but so it feels like they're being expensive choice. Jason: [39:18] Yeah I think it will be a I think he could afford an expensive choice I don't know how that would all work out like I could imagine him to go shooting some sort of payout, it made sense for both parties will see. Scot: [39:35] Is that a nand or nor. Jason: [39:37] Yeah so I want my official prediction to be that the rate of growth slows but if Mark Lori does away this year I want permission to go. Galloway and just like launch a website that's called Jason predicted that Mark would we. Scot: [39:52] Got it so it's amore with the Galloway Asterix. Jason: [39:56] It's the color its color exactly. So then my next permit prediction again following the trend that I like to always you always make some Amazon prediction so I'm going to steal that and. How to be honest like part of me feels like this is too easy and not a very controversial prediction but so many things don't happen that that like I do think it's fair I think this is the year that Amazon finally opens its own grocery concept bike separate from Whole Foods and I think it's going to be targeted at a more affordable price points and I think it's going to dramatically heat up the sort of digital grocery Wars and most notably, the Walmart Amazon Kroger battles. Scot: [40:44] Cool. Jason: [40:46] So number three is that I think we're going to see a lot more emphasis and talk about owned Brands this year and that's going to significantly grow as a part of retail so last year about 5% of all retail goods were, like private label type products and I think it could be dramatically bigger in 2020 I think it could be sort of in that 8 to 10% range. Which would be a huge disruption in the retail Marketplace. Scot: [41:19] What's your data source. Jason: [41:21] The 5% is actually 4.6% and I will have to I do have to get my intern to pull it out but that's predominantly focused on like the cpg and grocery space so it's one of those those Data Tracking companies but I'll find it for you. Scot: [41:47] So it's not Jason Goldberg go to himself. Jason: [41:49] No no no I we need a credible we need a credible external. Scot: [41:53] Is a data point out there were on the lam purses. Jason: [42:00] Yeah I like that one we just put it in the Echo chamber and and it'll become real. Scot: [42:06] That'll be interesting so that does that include digital native recall brands or this is more just like Target spending up. Jason: [42:17] Yeah, so I'm primary thinking about omnichannel retailers like Shifting the focus to Brands they own rather than so like to be it's more of the the, Captain Jack's of the world like I think Walmart's going to make a major effort to grow their own Brands Target you know me is is putting a huge effort into their new grocery brand and I I just think, the big macro Trend in in retailers we're going to see a couple retailers really try to can compete on, sort of Assortment and being the everything store and then in North America to me that's Walmart and Amazon and every other retailers going to try to win by selling stuff that no one else has and so I just think that's going to result in a lot bigger, Pechanga retail selling their own stuff instead of other people stuff. [43:12] We shall see ya. My fourth prediction is you know you you have on the area that there's a lot of momentum at the moment and returns and reverse Logistics another one for me is the installment payment space so I said installment payments are going to dramatically heat up and I think that's going to result in at least one major acquisition in that space so I think like, when I talk about installment payments I'm talking about a lot of these companies that are sort of alternative credit means a lot of them are kind of like, Finance your purchase in for for monthly payments that kind of thing and cities are friends like affirm and afterpay and Karma and I I just think that you know next year you see one of those acquired Maybe by a major credit card company or Bank you know I think some of the big traditional Financial folks are going to want to own a piece of that hot space And so there's going to be some good acquisitions. Scot: [44:15] Who who do you think this is an addiction but I'm curious who you think the buyers are going to be like traditional like Financial folks like City or or is. Jason: [44:26] Yeah so I think I think the big the big Banks participating banks that have a retail credit Division if you are receiving retail credit services so you do private label credit cards for like Best Buy, these guys are now taking a chunk of that space and and they've accomplished something that you've always wanted to do which is their built into the checkout flow which is super valuable to these credit card issuers and so I could easily like imagine one of those credit card firms wanting to acquire one of these guys I also think you could, you know it could be a PayPal or, square or you don't even like one of the big credit networks like Visa. Scot: [45:15] Singing payments do you have plans to move to Africa this year. Jason: [45:20] I was going to but I've been told that I only have one job and so I'm not qualified to to like move to Africa and remotely do my two CDL jobs. Who would you be referring to buy a by chance. Scot: [45:36] So Jack Dorsey CEO of Twitter and and square it's just kind of randomly said he's going to move to Africa for some. Of time if she can get Scott Galloway it really angered him he's very upset about. Jason: [45:52] Yeah but In fairness like I think of you a shit like Square in particular you're like, why is my guys been in a lot of his time on this Twitter thing and then now he's going to do it from Africa like that that would seems like, that would be a legitimate reason to have some concern. Scot: [46:12] Yeah yeah yeah. Jason: [46:14] Yep I would love to visit Africa but I think it would be on vacation and then my V prediction. Is one that I feel like I used to do all the time and then you know I skipped a year, so what will try it again I think this is going to be a year that digital in-store really heats up and the surprising piece of that is this much-maligned a technology that people in our industry like to make jokes about the the ugly QR code I think is going to make a a major comeback at retail and we'll see a bunch of of a Retailer's deployed QR codes for various forms of mobile wallets and particularly for like, letting you scan products and read reviews and things like that ends in retail stores. So those are my five and then. Scot: [47:08] DuckTales risky people hate QR you want a visceral hatred of York. Jason: [47:12] Yeah I feel like it's it's a bit of sneaky success I feel like there's a lot of people but they're pregnant primarily pendants that like have all this negativity around the QR code but didn't secretly you know. There there's a bunch of of use cases where the QR codes have been like Paramount like it's, it's you know a huge chunk of all payments at Starbucks and it's Walmart pay which is secretly been a success and it's you know it's it's Snapchat and if you go to China it's everywhere is WeChat so, so hopefully we'll see you by usually I am dead wrong in these things so I am not overly confident about any of them but. But I'm at least throwing it out there and again because the bonus is always treated me so well I thought I would throw a bonus in this year. Scot: [48:03] What do you have for this year. Jason: [48:06] So my bonus is I'm just going straight negative because I'll be honest when I first read these forecasts all five of my forecasts are things that we're not going to happen and then I realized that I can't I can't be that guy right so so I tried to make more optimistic reasonable forecast but then I reserve the right to point out all of the Ebenezer Scrooge bah humbug, moments so here's my long list of things that are not going to happen this year cashierless retail stores like Amazon go blockchain 5G big data and personalization none of those those Technologies are going to have a major impact on retail Talking Heads are going to go crazy about them and write stories about how you know if you don't do it immediately you're going to go out of business, but I think they're going to be the examples of success are going to be few and far between I don't think, everyone loves to talk about DJ need a vertical Brands but I don't think any of those are going to break out in a be particularly successful in 2020, I for sure don't think we're going to see any major retail antitrust actions in the US. [49:11] So that would be my negative Scott Galloway prediction I also don't think the the brick-and-mortar marketplace stores so that's beta showfields neighborhood Goods I don't think they're going to have a huge success or break out in 2020 and Shop of eyes getting a lot of Buzz right now but the the, thing I hear most about Shopify is that they're going to become a viable competitor for Amazon and I actually don't think they're going to compete with Amazon at all in 2020. Scot: [49:42] Yeah that the people that say they can compete feel like they think it Shopify would have some front door kind of marketplace Tech experience that kind of what you think people are looking. Jason: [49:54] There's people that talk about maybe they aggregate traffic and have some kind of marketplace experience where you could shop across multiple vendors you know they they bought a logistics company this year in the rapidly building out there with just aches and on paper that looks like, fulfillment by Amazon and some people are like oh that's competing with a fulfillment by Amazon but as I as we said earlier in the show I admire Shopify think they're making a bunch of the right decisions and they're doing really well. None of the services they provide to a client in my mind. Replace or compete with any of the services Amazon provides in anyway and like, I think they're for the most part synergistic in there they're going to have a lot of customer overlap but it's the end of the day Amazon is in the business of generating a huge amount of traffic and monetizing that traffic and they sell that traffic to their customers and that's exactly the opposite of what Shopify does Shopify does everything for you but get you any traffic whatsoever and you are totally responsible for bringing your own traffic and so I just think, that's a that's a, both sides of that strategy makes sense for both companies but I just I think all the pendants that are like oh you know the secret competitor for Amazon's going to turn out to be Shopify I just don't see it. Scot: [51:15] Any other bonuses you want though there. Jason: [51:21] No no no no I think I press my luck enough hopefully that you know there's some nuggets in their our listeners will be able to use they shake their 2020 and that will be able to redeem ourselves when we unquestionably I enter the new decade next January. Scot: [51:43] Yeah you know what maybe it would be fun as if listeners I'm just doing this off-the-cuff so what if listeners wanted to add some and we could kind of like aggregate some of the better ones in and talk about them on the next show but then also when we do the recap see what had a third competitor which of these listeners and see how they do against you. Jason: [52:05] Yeah that's a great idea because I it's it's kind of boring coming in second so I feel like third would be that's why I've been to just. Scot: [52:14] Looks like it would feel better if it smells cancer. Jason: [52:17] Fair enough. So maybe I try to take only the worst products that be funny I try to cherry-pick the worst predictions and then it still be me so yeah I'm totally in on that if listeners want to jump on to Facebook and we leave any of their own predictions or hit us up on Twitter will be happy to aggregate them put them in the show notes and include them in our recap next year and that's going to be a great final call to action because it's happen again we've used up our a lot of time so definitely love to hear all of our listeners predictions and also feel free if you just think, Scott and I are crazy and you want to refute any of our predictions we'd love to hear your thinking behind that and as always the beginning of the year before you get really busy at work is a perfect time to jump on iTunes and finally give us that five star review. Scot: [53:10] Things are running Jason congrats on salvaging a tie out this year. Jason: [53:15] Thanks very much it it it it feels good to be West behind than I usually am thanks everyone for listening and until next time happy commercing.

Random stuff about Tesla, e-commerce, millennial trends and the world of Gen Z

Traditional retail exists in a vortex of information, which doesn’t make sense for today, says Matt Alexander, co-founder and CEO of new department store Neighborhood Goods, on this episode of the Innovators podcast. The company’s inaugural space, which launched in Texas in late 2018, carries a selection of new and established brands and focuses on driving customer relevance through data. Join us for this episode as we explore why experiential retail needs to go beyond putting a ball pit in the store, and how modern brands are using physical space for entirely new reasons, and why legacy retailers may have the ability to play catch up after years of ignoring customer needs.

Neighborhood Goods is a store, a brand activation, a restaurant an event center and more.  And now it's expanding. Since we last spoke with CEO Matt Alexander, two new locations have been announced.  As the management team readies for a New York opening in December, Matt takes a breather to talk about what they have learned since opening their first location a year ago in Plano. James Cook is the director of retail research in the Americas for JLL.  The latest Neighborhood Goods release notes are posted here. Listen to episode #93 for our first interview with Matt, plus an audio tour of the store. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android  Listen: WhereWeBuy.show  Alexa: Say "Enable the Where We Buy skill" Tweet: @JamesDCook Email: jamesd.cook@am.jll.com  Instagram: @jamcoo Leave a message on the Where We Buy hotline. We may use it on an upcoming show. Call (602) 633-4061  Read more retail research here: http://www.us.jll.com/retail Theme music is Run in the Night by The Good Lawdz, under Creative Commons license.

From the Simplr studios in San Francisco, this is your daily briefing.IntroductionWith your E-Commerce Retail Briefing for today, Thursday, October 17th, I'm Vincent Phamvan.Google has been the powerhouse in search ads for years, but a new forecast predicts Amazon will continue to chip away at its dominance. The retail giant has continued to optimize its ad functions and has experienced major growth in the past few years.First, here are some retail headlines.DoorDash Opens First Brick-and-Mortar ShopDoorDash has gone beyond online delivery and has opened its first brick-and-mortar shop. The company’s first shared kitchen, called DoorDash Kitchens, provides a cooking space for four of its restaurant partners. The kitchen, located in Redwood City, California, also allows the restaurants the ability to offer food delivery to seven Bay Area cities and pick up to 13 cities. The company’s head of new business verticals said that, “To date, DoorDash has been primarily focused on helping partners grow existing restaurants, so this is a really natural extension of what we built our business on,”.Hill City Opens Pop-Up StoreMen’s activewear brand, Hill City, is looking to ramp up its growth. The direct-to-consumer company launched by Gap Inc. a year ago has opened a store in San Francisco. The 12-month pop-up features a curated selection of best sellers. Hill City is also trying something new for a Gap Inc brand: entering into wholesale partnerships. Select items will be available at Neighborhood Goods, Need Supply, and A Runner’s Mind. Gap’s Athleta brand will also feature the Hill City collection in seven of its locations. The expansion of Hill City, which has been referred to as a male version of Athleta, comes as Lululemon is growing its menswear business, whose comparable sales grew 27 percent in the last year.Madewell and ThredUP Team UpMadewell and ThredUP have teamed up for a program called the Madewell Archive. Select Madewell stores are now offering secondhand jeans for $50 dollars a pair. The used denim is sold only at Madewell stores in Austin, Chicago, Nashville, and New York City. At the moment, customers aren’t able to drop off clothes to sell or pick up items they’ve bought through the site, but a spokesperson said the partnership is ongoing and there could be changes later on. The partnership puts Madewell on a growing list of retailers who are breaking into the resale market. A spokesperson from ThredUP said that quote, “Madewell wanted to take their sustainability efforts to the next level and expand their denim recycling program — we are so excited to power this new resale experience for them and continue to promote a more circular fashion future,” end quote. For ThredUp, the partnership comes not long after announcing their consignment clothes would have featured sections in select Macy’s and JCPenney stores.Amazon Gives Google A Run for its Search Ad MoneyGoogle by far holds the highest share of search ad revenue in the U.S., but according to a new eMarketer forecast, Amazon is expected to chip away at that dominance over the next few years. The retail giant has made moves to upgrade its ad offerings. Last year, they simplified their advertising functions branding and came together as Amazon Advertising. In May, the company agreed to buy an ad server and a dynamic creative optimization unit that would help advertisers place ads and measure effectiveness. And in early October, Amazon held an event called AdCon to showcase its growing list of ad products, drawing in about 400 people in Seattle for the event.Advertising is critical for Google, making up about 84 percent of Google parent company Alphabet’s revenue last quarter, with search ads a major component. The study said the U.S. search ad market is expected to grow nearly 18 percent this year to reach $55.17 billion. Google holds a 73.1 percent share of that, equaling $40.3 billion. Amazon’s ad business has seen huge growth in recent years, climbing 37 percent to $3 billion in the second quarter. In February, eMarketer said Amazon was projected to claim 8.8 percent of U.S. digital ad spending in 2019, up from 6.8 percent in 2018. Amazon also passed Microsoft last year to become the second-largest ad platform for search in the U.S.ClosingDon't forget, Simplr can help you scale up your customer service with 24/7 support. Find out more at Simplr.ai. That’s S-I-M-P-L-R.aiThanks for listening to the latest episode of the Retail E-Commerce Briefing. See you tomorrow.

From the Simplr studios in San Francisco, this is your weekly briefing.  IntroductionWith your E-Commerce Retail Briefing for today, Monday, September 16, 2019, I'm Vincent Phamvan.Apple’s new streaming service could pose a threat to rivals. A former Netflix and Hulu executive said he thinks Apple’s unique marketing advantages and low price point could make Apple TV+ a competitor right away.First, here are some retail headlines.Neighborhood Goods Raises $11 Million in FundingDirect-to-consumer department store, Neighborhood Goods, has raised $11 million in a new funding round led by Global Founders Capital. The Dallas-based concept store has raised $25.5 million to date and has plans to open new store locations in Austin and New York. The store concept provides a brick-and-mortar outlet for online companies and carries brands like Dollar Shave Club, Draper James, and Stadium Goods. Neighborhood Goods is also experimenting with features like online browsing of in-store selections.  JCPenney Launching New Line of Outerwear for MenIn a press release, JCPenney announced they would be launching a new line of outerwear for men. The line will be launched through their private-label brand, St. John’s Bay. According to the release, JCPenney will roll out the new line in 600 of its store locations and will include a selection of shirts, jackets, vests, sweaters, and more.  Walmart Expanding Grocery Delivery ServiceAfter piloting Delivery Unlimited earlier this year, Walmart will now be expanding its grocery delivery service to 1,400 more stores this fall. Walmart said the program would become available to more than half the country by the end of the year and be available at 1,600 of their store locations. In a press release, Walmart revealed the expansion of the program comes after receiving positive customer response. The membership will remain $98 dollars a year or $12.95 for a monthly subscription. Walmart has led in grocery pick-up, but the new grocery delivery functionality is a major step toward keeping up with Amazon and other grocers who have introduced their own delivery plans.    Victoria's Secret May Be Gearing Up for ChangeL Brands Victoria’s Secret may be gearing up for change. Brand chief, John Mehas, unveiled a new direction for the brand’s merchandise and stores. The changes address the consumer’s shift to prettier styles and move away from what the lingerie brand has typically been known for. He also revealed they would be partnering with third-party brands to help it cross that bridge. In a statement, he said he sees this as an opportunity to, quote, “take a step back and reinvigorate the brand,” end quote. While Victoria’s Secret is still a leader in lingerie with $4 billion in global sales, the company has struggled to keep up with consumer trends and its growth is slipping.  While Victoria’s Secret is in the process of shifting gears in the midst of struggles, L Brands Bath and Body Works is continuing to see runaway success. While the company has resisted splitting the companies in the past, executives still haven’t ruled it out. MKM Partners Managing Director said while probably not the preferred route, the board is likely weighing a spinoff of Bath and Body Works, dependent on a combination of trigger stock price and confidence in Victoria’s Secret recovery during the next few quarters.Apple Joins The Growing Streaming WarApple is pushing full steam ahead into an increasingly crowded streaming space and former Netflix and Hulu executive, Simon Gallagher, believes Apple’s streaming service will be able to compete with rivals right away. Apple TV+’s will debut with nine original series that will include star names like Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, and Oprah Winfrey. While the streaming service will be a low $4.99 a month, some believe people won’t pay for such a slim selection if they already subscribe to a competing service like Netflix or Hulu. However, Gallagher believes it only takes a couple shows to encourage users to maintain their subscription and that Apple will be able to with their current lineup. In a push to promote their streaming service, Apple has offered one free year to anyone who purchases a new iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV.  A lot of new contenders are joining the streaming arena. Disney, WarnerMedia, and NBCUniversal are also poised to launch their own streaming services. Disney’s service will launch two weeks after Apple’s at $6.99 a month. Apple’s aggressively priced monthly subscription is just one of the advantages it has of gaining users. There are 1.4 billion Apple devices in use around the world that would give it built-in consistency greater than Amazon which has 100 million Prime subscribers. Apple’s brick-and-mortar locations also garner a lot of foot traffic that will give them a marketing advantage many of the other streaming services don’t have.          ClosingThanks for listening to the latest episode of the E-Commerce Retail Briefing. Don't forget, Simplr can help you scale up your customer service with 24/7 support. Find out more at Simplr.ai.   Until next time.

The throughline of Matt Alexander’s career is his ability to curate and create community. Three years ago, on episode four of the podcast, Matt talked about building a focused set of small retail brands. Today, he’s running Neighborhood Goods — a modern department store that’s the culmination of those early ideas. Neighborhood Goods is a unique retail experience that rotates featured brands, products, in-store activations, and ultimately, the stories they want to tell. On this episode, Matt talks about bringing together local, digitally native, household name brands together under one showroom (9:45). Rather than sales-oriented goals, he shares his hopes for helping online brands explore offline concepts (12:55). With so many featured brands, Matt created a unified point of sale through a consistent rule set, carving out in-store quadrants, and training staff to be brand experts (17:26). Matt speaks on discovery and utility with a rotating, pop-in business model (25:02), and reveals plans for opening a second store in Chelsea Market (28:01). Finally, Matt talks about combating the noise (36:09), creating a dignified retail experience (49:59), and bringing people together (54:27). Also mentioned on the show: Vertical commerce and how the next generation of retail will be built Well Made Episode 70 with Paul Munford: Building on Greenfields Camp STORY b8ta Rothy's Unbranded Mizzen+Main MeUndies Sonos Link and images can be found on the Lumi Blog.

Given the rather distressing news out of physical retail in earl 2019 - Neighborhood Goods plan to re-invent the department store might seem strange. But according to CEO Matt Alexander, consumers don’t hate department stores, they hate what they’ve become.

Given the rather distressing news out of physical retail in earl 2019 - Neighborhood Goods plan to re-invent the department store might seem strange. But according to CEO Matt Alexander, consumers don’t hate department stores, they hate what they’ve become.

Matt Alexander, CEO and co-founder of Neighborhood Goods, talks about how his store's rotating collection of paid brand activations represents a new take on the department store experience.  Fallon Johnson, Director of Marketing, leads a tour through the newly opened Neighborhood Goods store at Legacy West in Plano, TX.  James Cook is the director of retail research in the Americas for JLL.  Portions of this episode were recorded in front of a live audience at the ICSC New York Deal Making conference in December 2018. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android  Listen: WhereWeBuy.show  Alexa: Say "Enable the Where We Buy skill" Tweet: @JamesDCook Email: jamesd.cook@am.jll.com  Instagram: @jamcoo Leave a message on the Where We Buy hotline. We may use it on an upcoming show. Call (602) 633-4061  Read more retail research here. Theme music is Run in the Night by The Good Lawdz, under Creative Commons license.

Amidst what most agree is a virtual collapse of the department store model for retail, one entrepreneur in Texas is aiming to redefine the channel. In this episode I speak with Matt Alexander, founder of Neighborhood Goods, a new-concept department store in Plano Texas. 

Retail is one of the most dynamic industries in the world and retailers are driving innovation. On this episode, Matt Alexander, co-founder of Neighborhood Goods, discusses how the Plano, Texas, startup is rethinking the traditional department store experience. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

Matt Alexander is the founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods. In this podcast, Matt shares his vision for Neighborhood Goods, what he describes the "App Store for retail," which is creating a compelling offline shopping experience. Matt explains why digitally native brands are investing in offline channels and shares why, despite the headlines, he believes there's a future for physical retail in the age of Amazon.

My guest today is Jordan Odinsky ( https://twitter.com/jordanodinsky ) , investor and head of platform at Ground Up Ventures ( https://www.groundup.vc/ ). GroupUp is an early stage venture capital firm investing in pre-seed and seed stage startups in the United States and Israel. Some of their investments include Fast, Shapeshift Gaming, and Neighborhood Goods. In this episode, we discuss cult brands and unique product launches. I highly recommend following Jordan on Twitter @jordanodinsky ( https://twitter.com/jordanodinsky ) You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ). You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc ( https://twitter.com/ConsumerVc ). Links to Jordan's articles mentioned: The Value of a Velvet Rope: Effects of Hype and Exclusivity on Launch Strategies ( https://medium.com/ground-up-ventures/the-value-of-a-velvet-rope-effects-of-hype-and-exclusivity-on-launch-strategies-41be2e4db71e ) and Cult Wars: The Making of a Cult Brand ( https://medium.com/@jordanodinsky/cult-wars-the-making-of-a-cult-brand-152bce93981f ) On this episode you will learn: * If a brand wants to use scarcity and waiting lists as a strategy, how should they first go about finding their early adopters? How are brands taking advantage of mimetic theory * On the surface, how does he define a Cult Brand? When a brand is picking their enemy, what are traits that the enemy has to have? How should a startup think about defining the enemy? How he thinks about the balancing act of why people "feel most like themselves when they are part of a group, but the initial drive to join a cult is to discover and clarify one's individualism". If a brand is experiencing high organic growth and engagement from customers, is that early signs that they have a cult brand? * As an investor, does he think a company that has high organic growth as a cult brand? What's the principal reason why a cult brand might fail or a brand would never get into cult status? Does he come across early opportunities that he believes will develop into cult brands? His focus at Groundup. One thing he would change when it came to venture capital What's one piece of advice for founders?