Podcasts about office products

Today's all new episode tackles common questions and challenges faced by newcomers to selling on Amazon, specifically around restrictions and approved categories. It begins by addressing the concerns of many new sellers who find themselves confused by the limitations placed on what they can sell, noting that initial approval typically includes categories like Home and Kitchen, Arts and Crafts, Office Products, and Pet Supplies (excluding pet food).   Even with all the initial restrictions that Amazon has though, there are a significant number of available ASINs (products) in these approved categories that total over 50,000 products—that meet specific criteria such as having some past or current FBA offers, being non-hazmat, having no Amazon sales in the past 30 days and experiencing at least 30 or so sales rank drops in the past month.   Further, the episode provides strategic advice on how to expand your list of potential ASINs by selecting trustworthy sources.   Special guest at the conclusion of today's show, Jeff Schick of JeffSchick.com answers the question: "If I get some 'free stuff' from a supplier or elsewhere, can I sell it safely on Amazon?"   Watch this episode on ourYouTube channel: https://youtu.be/x2WajDhHOwA   Show note LINKS:   SilentJim.com/ungating - a post in our facebook group that's all about what categories are open to you as a new seller   SilentJim.com/free11 - get access to the book that launched this podcast, sold over 1million copies with 1,000s of five star reviews on Amazon.com - it's the latest version of the Silent Sales Machine book!   TheProvenConference.com - So much information and great networking at our LIVE event. We'll have Rabbi Lapin as our keynote speaker and 40 break out sessions at the upcoming event in May 2024 in Orlando!   SilentJim.com/bookacall - book a call here to discuss our offers including coaching, legends and ProvenAmazonCourse.com course   My Silent Team Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam 100% FREE! Join 74,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - the comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   JimCockrumCoaching.com - Get a free session with a business consultant on our team at 1-800-994-1792 / 1-801-693-1688 or TEXT US at 385-284-7701 (US & Canada only for Text)  ALL of our coaches are running very successful businesses of their own based on the models we teach here! We've been setting the standard for excellence in e-commerce and Amazon seller coaching since 2002 with over 7,000 students served! Hundreds of our successful, happy students have been interviewed on our podcast!  

20231228  Vispero Presentation-Ten Tips for using the Quick Access Toolbar in MS Office products. Originally Broadcasted December 28, 2023, on ACB Media 5   The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is a customizable bar that contains commonly used commands in Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, and Outlook. We showed participants  how to access the Quick Access Toolbar, add/remove commands, and reposition it to fit your preference.   Sponsored by Vispero

20231012 Vispero Presentation-The Power of the F6 Key in MS Office Products Originally Broadcasted October 12, 2023, on ACB Media 5   The F6 key is used in MS Office products to navigate to different areas of the screen like the Status bar, Ribbons, and open feature panes. Participants joined us for an overview of these areas and learned how to increase their productivity when navigating in the Office.   Sponsored by Vispero   Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

In this interview we speak with Rebekah Hanks and Sara Nielsen Brand Manager and Sales Manager for Porter's Office Products. During the interview we talk about the first ever back-to-school bash the company is sponsoring, the activities that will be offered at the event and how Porter's Office Products plans to continue to support the Rexburg community.

EP307 - PrimeDay, NRF Nexus, Commerce Next http://jasonandscot.com  Amazon Prime Day 2023 occurred over June 11 and 12th. Adobe says total sales were up 6% over 2022. Discount levels were much more conservative than holiday. We give a complete breakdown. Commerce Next 2023 was held in New York City June 20-21st. NRF Nexus 2023 was held at the Terranea Resort in Southern California July 10-12. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 307 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, July 23rd 2023. 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: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 307 being recorded on Sunday July 23rd, 20:23 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason and Scot show listeners, Jason it's been a minute since we recorded a pod as the kids would say we've had a series of feels like the universe doesn't want us to podcast either I'm out of town or you're out of town in a place where we don't have Wi-Fi or a mic and then I had a little kid drama and we had to reboot and but here we are we're finally getting the pot in them. Jason: [1:07] Thank goodness and we're I think we're going to talk about this in a minute but I've been to several events and people are starting to get on me they're mad, that we fallen off of our regular recording. Pace in so I feel like I hope we will get credit for recording a rare Sunday night show and I'm looking for even extra credit, I'm actually recording this on vacation at an upper Lake Michigan lake house sitting in my car stealing the neighbors Airbnb Wi-Fi. Scot: [1:42] Yeah I give you 100 extra points on that one yeah definitely definitely some kind of new Ninja level podcasting that you're doing there. Jason: [1:51] I feel like that alone deserves a five star review on iTunes. Scot: [1:55] Yeah I feel like at some point the police are going to tap on your window and it's going to be fun to listen to that when it happens here you hear you explaining what you're doing in that that foggy car there. Jason: [2:05] Exactly I promise to keep the bike running if that does happen. Scot: [2:09] Maybe some post-show editing we'll call you've been a busy on the road retailgeek so I know you went to Commerce next and NRF Nexus which sound kind of relatively somewhere they both got that NEX in there, I was not able to make those and we purposely haven't really talked about it so I'm excited to hear your take on the State of the Union that you've been at to trade shows. Jason: [2:36] Yeah yeah I think Commerce next might have been shortly after our last recorded show so it happened June 20th in New York City in Manhattan at the the Midtown Hilton and this is a show, I don't know what year it is it's been going for a while but this is put on Friends of the show Scot Silverman who's been on several episodes and his Partners Veronica and Alan, and you know they they sold the show so as to raise some money last year so the show is getting, more serious they're hiring more staff they hired another friend of the show Jill Dvorak from the in our EFT, to manage content and it was you know bigger and better than previous in our interests Commerce next shows which were already good so I thought it was a good show in New York. [3:33] Two days one track of content for the most part on the main stage so you know you got to see most of the main speakers, there were like lunches and breakout sessions I did a session on sort of the evolving art of platform selection and you know this kind of shift from monoliths to, to these sort of mock based headless platforms and the pros and cons of, in picking the Best in Class vendors for each little Point solution versus all-in-one sweets from one vendor and, we had we had some good dialogue about the relative merits of all those approaches and sort of the evolution of the technology platform. [4:19] Which I used to talk about and work with clients all the time and I feel like. Kind of I've lost some of my muscle on that like it it comes up less often and I think part of the reason is all this stuff is getting, somewhat commoditized and it's just easier and safer to pick a solution and and you know get into the e-commerce business than it used to be. Scot: [4:43] Yeah the Pod we've talked a lot about headless and then there's that whole acronym of what they do which escaped to be just as internet yeah mock then you work on them and not the best branding is that this till the very much, you know what folks are looking at or are you just kind of walk them through the 30,000-foot layer of you know and on-prem open source SAS and then headless or her like what's. Jason: [5:13] Yeah so it's yeah so it's mostly Cloud it's headless it's it's you know multi-tenant Cloud headless. You know what Gardner calls compostable Commerce so you know 8 micro services or you know efficient apis or however you want to look at it but often it's like. [5:39] Rolling your own UI or buying a you I versus getting a you know pre can you I from. What they the funny term for the old Legacy Solutions is monolith so I guess AP Oracle and IBM now HCL are these like mono. Monolith Solutions and like Commerce next and fabric I'm Commerce tools are kind of the more modern architecture is for the actual platform. You know once on an interesting you know Shopify there's headless version of Salesforce you know Bigcommerce they're all kind of playing in this space and the interesting thing is it used to be a huge game-changing decision what you picked and. In many ways it just is less important it's a less critical decision to your overall business because they're all like pretty good and somewhat interchangeable today with any of them the sort of modern ones it's you know the folks that are. Kind of still trying to feed the servers under their desk and keep the the you know sort of on-prem, proprietary Stacks going you know are the are the folks that are usually behind. [6:57] Also and I know even, Wes about the specific nuances event of individual vendors but the there was a robust Exhibit Hall at Commerce next and by far the most common vendor is a all-in-one, AI based marketing Suite so you know all these tools that have like a CD P email server SMS server personalization engine like all of these sort of. Out marketing Outreach Tools in a single vendor driven by Ai and I have great empathy for anyone that needs to buy one of these things because there's like, 30 of them and they all have the exact same words on their Booth the same same Basic Value prop so it's a crowded space right now. Scot: [7:46] Yeah yeah that was gonna be my next question the AI Buzz is sweeping through every company and I'm sure I'm sure our e-commerce vendors Are Not Alone. Jason: [7:54] Yeah yeah and there were a number of sessions at both shows, switching per second from Commerce next which was June in New York to Nexus which was July in California so interrupt Nexus is kind of the spiritual successor. Before in a ref acquired shop dot-org we used to have this great shop dot-org show but we have another great show the shop dot-org merchandising Summit that was a smaller show in California there was a little more sort of tactical Hands-On type stuff, and in some ways this interact Nexus is the spiritual successor to that it's like four or five hundred person conference. At beautiful Resort the Tara no resort in Southern California on the beach. [8:47] One track of content great networking and just you know a nice week to spend with, many of your co-workers and, I was vastly Overexposed at this show I feel like they spent their whole Budget on the venue so so they had me do way too much content so the first night the big keynote was an interview with Kara Swisher so I got to interview. Kara Swisher who you know famous Tech journalists started New York Times started the code conference so I interviewed Steve Jobs Mark Zuckerberg Jeff Bezos you on mosque like all those guys multiple times and so you know very famous interviewer, here's the brutal part of this the most common thing that happens to me at these shows is people recognize my voice from this podcast. And they're super excited and then the first thing they say is oh it's great to meet you but where is Scott. Because everyone is way more excited about you than me which kind of hurts so then like now I've made the big time I'm on the big stage interviewing Kara swisher and what do you think everyone says to me. Scot: [10:10] We're Scott. Jason: [10:12] Yeah because she does a podcast with Scott Galloway. Scot: [10:15] Galloway. Jason: [10:16] Exactly and so if they're not disappointed. Scot: [10:18] The big dog. Jason: [10:19] Yeah yeah that it's me instead of you they're disappointed that it's, it's a me instead of Scott Galloway and I did mention probably on stage that we both did podcast with egotistical co-host named Scott, but I also alleged that my Scott was way better than her Scott and she agreed even though I don't think she knows who you are. Scot: [10:43] No no lies detected. Jason: [10:45] No exactly. Exactly no but we had a pretty good conversation she's. David very opinionated and outspoken but she's also pretty well informed so we got pretty deep into Ai and some of the pros and cons and some of the, the near term and far term use cases around AI we talked a lot about social commerce and why it's, hasn't caught on here yet and it you know has has more legs in China she's very psyched and in favor of autonomous vehicles I thought you would. You like that and so I feel like we had a pretty wide-ranging conversation that got pretty good reviews I got good feedback that I didn't blow it. [11:32] And then we're that not enough I also had my own keynote onstage right kind of recap the state of Commerce and you know did one of my data pukes and I spent a fair amount of my keynote talking about the emergence of these Chinese juggernauts particularly Sheehan and Tim ooh, and I showed a chart that was pretty eye-opening to the audience of web traffic like a lot there's a lot of charts footing around about mobile app downloads particularly of ten Moon how quickly they've gotten, you know to be the top downloaded shopping app on the US app stores but I showed. Amazon Walmart Target Tim ooh Incheon. Monthly web visits and you know, for people that aren't following it closely she has been around for 10 years they've been kind of in the u.s. in their current form for at least five years Tim has brand-new just launching last November and. Shion is. Almost it is about 80% as much traffic as Target, Tim ooh past Target for when monthly web visitors in January of 2023 and is now sort of halfway between Target and Walmart. Scot: [12:56] Yeah it's amazing. I spend a fair amount of time with 16 to 25 year old young ladies and it's all she and all the time they don't ever mention team and they call it Shy and I tell them retailgeek says it she in and they say they don't care. Jason: [13:13] Yeah she's an Insider. Scot: [13:14] Call It Shine they say everyone calls it Shine so sorry. Jason: [13:19] They started out selling wedding dresses. And yeah the they also are doing well you know we haven't talked a lot about them lately but they've expanded from a apparel retailer to a broad set of categories including consumer electronics and they've launched a third-party Marketplace on the US. Scot: [13:37] Wow. Jason: [13:39] So both Tim ooh and she and are now third-party marketplaces kind of competing with a very similar assortment and yeah both both are capturing. Pretty pretty significant attention of us consumers. Scot: [13:57] The did you get booed off the stage or they were like you. Jason: [14:03] No not theirs I think people are were I suspect people are slightly less informed than they should be on them and I feel like people are interested in we're taking note and then I did a third session for the CMO marketing Council on, generative AI there are a bunch of other sessions on AI as well but I kind of did a deep dive on some of the Commerce use cases and I'm, particularly interested there is a lot of new I mean there's new stuff every week and there's a general stuff that you can imagine, being applied to Commerce but like Google launched a new generative AI feature for apparel try on, that's remarkable like so you upload a picture of yourself and you pick any of these garments and it shows you that garment on you and it's not. [14:58] Some stupid rendering where it's like you know a gif on top of you. Or you know some distorted thing like the garments flow on your body type but in a very realistic way and this is a functionality that a few websites have offered for a while with really complicated 3D models and really expensive. Product detail Pages because they have to scan all the apparel and have to get you to take a picture of your body to scan your body and it's like a cool experience but it's a lot of work to get there in this Google thing just does it with a couple of flat images and it's. [15:35] It's really pretty remarkable so I you know I definitely think the the future of a Peril shopping and a bunch of visual categories. Is going to be you know seeing this stuff on a realistic representation of you. And they have another feature coming out soon that they call scene Explorer which is kind of the, the augmented reality hold your camera up to the Shelf at the store and overlay all the products it sees on the Shelf with all the digital product detail from, from the Google catalog which is interesting. Scot: [16:09] I was gonna ask you about the Google thing because when it was announced there was some confusion where it looks like you could say it had like somebody types some Matrix of 256 body types and you could say that's me and you could see the body type not you but you're saying you can actually upload your own picture. Jason: [16:27] Yeah so the the confusion is understandable because they launched a feature with a predetermined set of models. There was kind of a proof of concept and so you could like pick a model and they had models with different body types and so you know and ethnicity so you could see kind of your ethnicity with your body shape and then three weeks later they said and here's how you upload your own picture. And so they're technically two different products but they happen in such close proximity you're like I wonder why they launched the first one. And In fairness the first one is a like in available to use API that Commerce sites can use now the second one is kind of a science. Like proof of Technology concept that they've released to the academic Community but I don't think they've released it for commercial use yet. Scot: [17:21] Ian timing-wise I don't know if this was before after your show there but Shopify has their new kind of like co-pilot kind of like, a eyepiece it's really more at the store level though. And you got a lot of buzz but I looked at it it just seemed like a fancier wizard for setting up stuff but God it didn't seem as game-changing as some of the Google stuff. Jason: [17:46] Yeah yeah although it is interesting that just everybody's building that Rai into every product right like you know I think someone said recently like. Like every text box on the Internet is going to get a large language model. Scot: [18:02] Yep the expectation is you can just like talk to these things and having to do stuff for you so it's going to be. Jason: [18:06] Exactly yeah yeah so it's interesting and that was for sure a Commerce it interrupts Nexus that was probably like 80 or 90 percent of the conversation was AI base so it was kind of. It was fun for me to talk about a few things that weren't a i based because it was getting getting a little tiresome and fun fact. Nexus if you recognize those dates July 10th through the 12th it's because it was during Amazon Prime day. Scot: [18:33] Yeah yeah and anything else before I move on. Jason: [18:39] No I think those those were the big things you know two shows that are well worth attending for for folks that are looking for Commerce events and I'd say you know congratulations to both for. For putting on a good growing robust events in a in a semi challenging climate to get people's attention. Scot: [19:01] So you know there's always the what you talked about in the front of the hall and then the back room chatter what's what's the back room chatter what's top of Mind are people worried about and by people I mean people in our industry are they worried about the recessionary headwinds and inflation or do they you know they feeling pretty good about. Holiday this year what's kind of the scoop. Jason: [19:26] So I don't know I might even say there's two tears there's like what's the normal conversation in the hallway and I do think there's a lot of conversation about. What's going on in the industry right now from a momentum standpoint and and I think that the. The sort of Top Line there is it's complicated like it's really weird like there's, there's economic indexes that are becoming more favorable I mean we're seeing like the inflation numbers come down, you know there's still some data to suggest that the US consumer is in like pretty good Financial shape All Things Considered, but there's a lot of indications that consumer spending is slowing down and, you know we're just coming into kind of Q2 earnings season I think Amazon is going to report next week and so obviously we'll do a show about that but, you know a lot of retailers have kind of reported soft q2's and even more alarming they're lowering their guidance for the back half of the year so you kind of simultaneously have some like. [20:31] Decent economic news and Pew no more economists are starting to say hey a soft Landing is possible and maybe we're going to avoid a recession which you know I feel like. The majority of economists earlier in the year we're pretty convinced that we were going to end up in a recession and so that would feel favorable but then at the same time, customers feel like they're cutting back and you know a lot of growth indexes are kind of slowing so I feel like there are variations of what the heck is going on with all of that when I like privately talk to people and get into a lot more specifics, I have to say I am not optimistic for a robust holiday I feel like a lot of people. Are gearing up for a pretty challenging holiday with pretty deep discounts, like there already is a Slowdown in sales and so people are worried that they're going to be in a bad inventory position for holiday and they're just seeing. Consumers in continue to trade down there seeing, sort of elective category product categories really start to take a dip and you know more consumer budget going to Necessities versus wants and so. It is increasingly sounding like it's going to be a challenging holiday especially from a margin. But I hope we're all wrong. Scot: [21:57] Is that shared by folks or that's kind of like what the big gun on the elephant in the room is base. Jason: [22:03] No that's I when I talk to retailers about like what they're bracing for and you know what their their Play books are for holiday and you know people are talking about expecting to see deeper discounts. More competition on discounts which than roads margins and you know some some traditionally stalwart categories being soft and stuff like that. Scot: [22:26] Cool well you mentioned primeday and it wouldn't be a Jason and Scot show without some. [22:46] That's right so unfortunately Amazon doesn't announce their second quarter results until Q3 and then we'll get the real well July they won't really talk about primeday but we do have some Amazon news coming and we'll do you doing a show if the universe aligns for us around those results but until then we can talk about primeday first of all did you end up buying anything this year. Jason: [23:10] I did I feel like I talked in the show every year about, over buying on like cables and chargers and I did do all of that again, the other I bought some I think I mentioned on the show before that I moved from a condo to a house in the last year and so we have this new thing that we didn't use to have called patio furniture so I bought some. Like Furniture to hold the covers when it rains in Chicago some weird weird outdoor stuff. Scot: [23:45] Up getting some accessories one of my anchor multi-headed. Octopus things died and this is frustrating I thought I was buying another one and I specifically was searching on anchor I was on my phone and I was having to go fast and the thing showed up and it was like a no-name it wasn't an anchor device and it's already acting wonky so kind of. You know how they can advertise and like really get this is kind of the negative side of some of the Amazon experience these days I was pretty sure I was in an anchor only mode but but a non anchor product snuck into my cart I end up getting up. But it was cheap so there you and it doesn't work so yeah that was a bummer. Jason: [24:29] Yeah if you want to buy like cheap no-name stuff you should buy it from Tim oh it'll be like 99 cents. Scot: [24:36] Yeah no like wish does it take six months to show up her. Jason: [24:39] No it's you know so Tim who is seven to ten days and they offer you a shipping guarantee so you get like store credit if it doesn't arrive in 10 days. Scot: [24:54] That's good cool well what did you see on Amazon Prime day I'll do a little Wall Street piece but I thought you may hit some of the high notes. Jason: [25:04] Yeah so a you know primeday is important just because it's primeday but also a lot of people use it as sort of kind of a first indicator of what the second half of the year is going to look like so this year was on the 11th and 12th it's been 2 days for, for a number of years now and you know Amazon doesn't really report anything very useful about primeday it's everything's a record. [25:29] They did more than they did last year which they're always going to do more than they were last year, but they don't give you any real numbers so Adobe is the most commonly cited, some estimate of primeday an adobe estimates twelve point seven billion dollars were sold on primeday which is up 6.1 percent year over year, now A Wrinkle In These third-party estimates is none of them are just estimates of Amazon. They all you know talk about this phenomenon of other retailers doing sales on primeday and so they're actually measuring, e-commerce sales on the primeday is not just Amazon sales so they're saying industry-wide, 12 point 7 billion in sales up 6.1 percent year over year, which is robust there were people that were forecasting would be bigger than that the other forecast I've seen was emarketer emarketer with same ballpark they estimated thirteen point five billion, they said about eight of the billion would happen on Amazon and 5.5 billion of that was going to happen off Amazon, both of those are us estimates so that would you know be decent growth it would be a deceleration from, from the last few years of primeday growth. Scot: [26:50] Yeah the so one of my favorite reports was from Colin Sebastian who's a friend of the Pod and he's from Baird and he basically said that they thought it was an acceleration so meaningful, so Amazon reports items sold and then they take that and some proprietary data and they're saying it was a 20 to 25% you're over your rent increase and they ended up increasing Q 3 is estimates based on them so it'll be interesting to see you know, where it's going to fall on that so that seems like the bookends we're hearing are six percent and 25% that's a pretty big big range to see where it's going to fall into the will never disclose, Axel primeday results but, we'll know when they announce Q3 if they beat her exceed that that it was kind of towards the high end and if they come in on the lower end of the range well no it's more like that six percent. Jason: [27:51] Yeah yeah and that'll be interesting 25% in the current climate would be pretty darn impressive not saying it's not true but you know you look at like the last couple quarters of Amazon's growth they weren't that high you know you look at the end retail Industries growth, not near that I so like if they're driving 20-25 percent that would be big, yeah and I guess we'll never win we'll never know for sure did anything else jump out at you in The Baird report. Scot: [28:20] That was the meat of it they were just really focused on that a little little things in there like last year there was a lot of supply chain issues and lot of reports product not getting to people it does seem like this year they things work a little bit more flawlessly so there was some, some just Optical stuff like that. Jason: [28:39] Yeah I really didn't hear the many glitches in this year's primeday which you know it's one of the sort of like highest demand is the year so you know it is a day when you would uncover glitches I saw a bunch of other a smattering of other interesting data points about Prime from various folks Adobe and it is in addition estimating sales they showed category growth and so they call that out like appliances was the big category growth with 45%. Up year-over-year household products were up 28 percent year-over-year Electronics were up 18% year-over-year apparel up 17% and then the big winner is Office Products which is up 76 percent, and at first that might surprise people but one thing to know about Office Products is they always do phenomenally well on primeday because primeday tends to fall right at the beginning of back-to-school shopping. [29:35] So it's kind of a perfect perfect storm there, yeah and then they also Adobe reports discount rates and here's where it starts getting interesting they said that on average Electronics were 14 percent off, apparel and toys were twelve percent off and that those were the deepest discounts and to put that in perspective on holiday of 2022, toys were 22% off consumer electronics were twenty-three percent off and a pair of was 14 percent off so that data would imply that the discounts have Prime were. Not as significant as the discounts, that we you know Tennessee over holiday period another does that surprise you at all. Scot: [30:24] No I dunno you know so since we're in the this kind of economic situation I think the consumer is really. Not getting off the dime unless they have deeper discounts and I think they probably had a pretty good data science reason for the. Jason: [30:43] Yeah so then one interesting thing which also says something about the consumers Health the. Buy now pay later use was up 20% on primeday and represented 6.5 percent of all sales. So that you know quite that's been a growing payment type for a while but I would argue it's kind of plateaued and so it's interesting to see that big big step up on prey. Scot: [31:08] That's a firm right there married to a firm set. Jason: [31:12] Well so on Amazon but again all these debts are this kind of like, everybody is primeday and so I think that does include like Target and Walmart sales which are not a firm so so it's all those guys karna and affirm and, and there's too many to name these days but then to me some of the interesting things were like who participated in primeday and so you know a. A digital marketing agency Acadia that tracks this stuff pretty close and that Q Masters works for who who I think is one of the really smart voices on Amazon sellers they reported, this year eighty percent of all Amazon sellers participated in primeday in some way and from their methodology last year 69 percent participated so it's. [32:12] The participation levels continuing to increase in its nearing 100 percent of all Amazon sellers participating in primeday which, isn't super surprising it seems like primeday is a pretty successful important thing to participate in, they also said in general that primeday that's ours had to spend fourteen percent of their total revenue on primeday on Amazon digital marketing so that came from momentum Commerce that estimated that so that's a, pretty high, on top of the take right you know that's that's just all the Amazon marketing services and then a particularly interesting take was from our friends Joe it Marketplace pulse he reported that, 150 Brands were promoting by with Prime on their own websites, on primeday which would be up 10x from last year where there were like 15 Brands using by with primeday. [33:17] So you know just interesting how it's all playing out with kind of Amazon expanding off-site like all these other retailers getting in the market I feel like the vibe, there have been other years when a lot of other retailers more directly counter programmed against primeday in this year. There were a lot of sales on primeday for sure but it almost felt like more retailers did like Fourth of July sales and almost tried to. Preamp primed a little bit as opposed to completely focus on. Scot: [33:48] Yeah I guess we won't know until the data comes out windows so we won't have that. Jason: [33:55] Yeah so the. Scot: [33:56] While. Jason: [33:56] The Debbie Downer. Scot: [33:58] Anyone. Jason: [33:59] This is you know primeday is actually in Q3 right so we're we're just going to start getting cute to data here like the US Department of Commerce Q2 data for e-commerce will come out in mid August, Amazon report Q2 next week and then a bunch of other retailers in the next couple of weeks but that'll all be Q2 data in this primeday stuff is all cute 3 so it's it's going to be you know four months down the road before we have. Have more clarity on that and will be you know well into holiday when we get that clarity. Scot: [34:32] Yeah well speaking of data I saw you had a tweet where you went through some of the new Commerce data what are you seeing there. Jason: [34:41] Yeah so obviously we talked about the US Commerce data every month so last week just after interrupt Nexus on July 18th there's Department of Commerce released its June data and, this is one of those it's complicated these results don't seem that that favorable kind of stories June retail sales overall were up six percent from June of last year which is a pretty meager, growth rate and a significant deceleration so if you go year to date January through June sales this year are only up 1.9 percent, versus last year and again like normal retail years sales tend to go up about 4% a year the last three years you know largely impacted by the pandemic we've had the three highest growth rates in the history of retail so they're all much higher than four percent so only being up 1.9 percent year-to-date is a, pretty disappointing place to be it's still. Healthy amount from before the pandemic so year-to-date we're up bike 35% from before the pandemic, you know what everyone immediately asks when you talk about these numbers is well what does inflation due to them and if you adjust those numbers from PlayStation year-to-date we're down 2.8% and we're only up 14% from before the pandemic so. [36:10] You know that reflects you know a consumer that's being pretty conservative with their spending. And that you know is a worried sign going in a holiday if we only grew you know less than 2% or you know on a real adjusted basis We Shrunk three percent from last year. We don't get great monthly data for e-commerce we get better quarterly data so the monthly data we get is this thing called non-store sales which is kind of like. Cattle catalogs and e-commerce and it's a little bit of a broader catalog but it was up. [36:46] Nine point nine percent in June which means year-to-date we are up 7.9% for, non store sales and so that's reflecting kind of a return to typical e-commerce growth rates like before the pandemic e-commerce would grow 10 to 15 percent. Year-over-year in brick-and-mortar with grow 4 percent. At one point during the pandemic we had an inversion where retail is actually growing faster than brick-and-mortar than e-commerce and e-commerce has over the last couple quarters been kind of, flipping the script and kind of going back to normal and so at the moment we have this thing where e-commerce growth is back to its normal, eight to ten percent level and brick-and-mortar is well under it's normal for percent level. Um so that's kind of the Commerce story and again will get better e-commerce data because will get the Q 2. E-commerce data next month. I did have one funny story I didn't mention when we're talking about the Tim ooh and she in stuff Tim ooh and she and are now suing each other. Scot: [37:59] They're in their Chinese companies room. Jason: [38:01] Yeah so Bo for Chinese companies Sheehan has a US headquarters in Boston I don't think Tim who has a US headquarters that I'm aware of, so she in which again has been around for a while is suing newcomer Tim ooh, by saying that Tim has been impersonating Sheehan on social commerce platforms including Twitter, where you know of course the verified system has been kind of, put in flocks and so Tim who is accusing Sheehan of creating a bunch of fake social media accounts to undermine. [38:42] She in and, Tim ooh is counter sewer not countersuing their separate suits Tim who sued Sheehan in US court for violating us antitrust laws because what Tim who is saying is that she and is trying to walk up all the factories in China and get all these factories to sign exclusive trade agreements to only sell products through Sheehan and explicitly to not sell through Tim ooh, and so Tim was trying to use us us antitrust wada sort of, who have all the playing field so you know and it just addition to being too fast growing sites that are winning winning consumers and and you know taking as a meaningful share of retail sales there now both be coming, jobs programs for lawyers just like every other retailer in America. Scot: [39:34] Yeah the I just don't think that's going to work I don't think the US courts are really going to find you like. Jason: [39:41] Yeah so definitely not it. Scot: [39:43] Hi going to say your evil Chinese company. Jason: [39:46] Yeah so I don't know I doubt it I doubt know so I think they all have standing to Sue and they're all obligated to follow us law so I think the suits will go through I do think there is a. All right Leah wrong there is a sort of anti-chinese sentiment in the US but I doubt that carries through to the courts I think that's a lot bigger deal for. Potential regulation against some of the things these companies are doing and there is a. [40:14] There's a complicated thing that both TNT Moon she and her getting partly accused of violating like, there's a a a cap, on Customs that shipments have to be worth over 800 dollars in order order for you to have to pay tariffs and you know meet all these import obligations so if you ship a container of clothes from China to the US you're going to pay tariffs on the import of those clothes and you're gonna have to comply with a bunch of laws like that the, clothes were made at a factory you know in a region of China that's known to violate human rights and all these things and there's this loophole that if your sale if your shipment is under 8:00 in value. [41:04] You don't have to do any of that and so when she and started they were shipping a lot of stuff straight from China and and it was all under this 800 our threshold and timbu is still shipping everything straight from China XI and has built a few warehouses in the u.s. so there, probably Blended but like there's a lot of talk on Washington about changing our trade treaties and lowering that minimum, to because there's a significant amount of shipments coming from China to the us that are. They're now under that threshold and taking advantage of that to not not be you know incur all these costs that the bigger companies are having to do. Scot: [41:46] Michael we will see it'll be funny to watch that one rattle through the courts and see who wins. Jason: [41:51] Yeah yeah yeah it's a you know it's all if you don't have a huge financial interest in it it's fun to grab some popcorn and just just follow the drama of all of it. Scot: [42:02] Cool any other exciting news you want to go into. Jason: [42:05] No I think that is everything on my list for for the this month I'm going to be, interested to see how Amazon earnings play out next year again there's a weird thing like, you know in general growth is decelerating the industry average is decelerating and our friends at Amazon and Walmart which are the two largest retailers in the US by a significant margin, Arbor of grow have historically been growing faster than the industry average which kind of means. There's not a lot of growth for the rest of the industry and so it'll be interesting to see whether that Trend continues, in with this Q2 data or whether you know the law of large numbers starts to kick in with these guys. Scot: [42:53] Yeah and if you have these fast Growers out here like these upstarts the Sheehan and the team is who are they taken care from that's that's always the ultimate question that we ask. Jason: [43:04] Yeah absolutely so we're going to have to continue watch and more data becomes available. Scot: [43:10] Cool so do you have any trips coming up that people need to be worth any appearance. Jason: [43:14] I'm all vacations all the time now so. Scot: [43:17] Having done three Keynotes you're burned out. Jason: [43:20] I am not of course I'll be at every show so I think next up for me is eat a least in Boston so if any talks are planning on attending that or in the Boston area, drop me a line and we can meet for a Starbucks coffee and you can give me a hard time about why you wish Scott was there and not me. Scot: [43:40] Cool and then on our docket we have August 3rd as Amazon earnings will try to get a show out pretty close to that one and then we've been promising folks a deep dive I get notes all the time and now that you've done a talk on one that will that should be helpful because now you've hopefully got some slides that we can use as an anchor it so we'll have to get that in the can once we get back to a more normal schedule here. Jason: [44:04] Yeah and that's a deep dive on generative a I assume you're talking about. Scot: [44:07] Yeah yeah yeah I do too cool. Jason: [44:10] I love it well we'll give back some time to users so if you appreciate this nominally shorter episode feel free to give us a five star review and encourage us to be briefed more often. Scot: [44:24] And until next time. Jason: [44:26] Happy commercing.

This episode of OPI Talk takes us to Canada, where we catch up with COPA President Sam Moncada. Sam tells OPI about a recent training initiative launched by the association and then goes on to talk about the role of COPA and current trends in the Canadian business products market.   Episode recorded and produced by Andy Braithwaite Music by: Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

Host Chaz Wolfe welcomes James Gilman, the President of Perimeter Office Products. James started with the company at just 23 years old and quickly rose through the ranks to become a top salesperson. Over the years, he's continued to grow with the company and has now taken the position of President. With his background in sales and management, he has a wealth of experience to share with our listeners.During the show, James will be discussing his journey to becoming the President of Perimeter Office Products, the importance of setting expectations for your team, how to trust your team to make decisions, the secret to Perimeter's success, and how to go all in with your business, family, and marriage. Tune in now to learn the lessons that James has learned along the way so that you can start growing your business now. We hope you enjoy this episode with James Gilman and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!During this episode, you will learn about;[01:35] Introduction to James and his business[05:36] Properly setting expectations for your team[11:14] How to trust your team to make decisions in the business[13:12] James' background before becoming President at Perimeter Office Products [21:12] How a professional continues to hone their craft [26:23] The secret to Perimeter's success[33:58] James' most important KPI[37:11] Grateful but not done [43:56] How James goes in all in with his business, family, and marriage[48:57] How to connect with James [49:36] Information on Gathering The Kings Mastermind Roundtable Group Notable Quotes“Pouring into your people and having that good relationship with your team is absolutely invaluable.” - James Gilman “There's no way that you're gonna be able to scale if you have to be involved in every single decision in your business.” - James Gilman “No matter where you are, no matter what you're doing, you're always gonna have to deal with people.” - James Gilman “Be focused on doing the actions, not on what results you're getting.” - James Gilman “Your clients demand a good experience, otherwise they're just gonna leave.” - Chaz Wolfe (Host)“When you're giving other people grace, in times when you just trip and fall on your face in front of everybody, your team is way more willing to give you grace back.” - James Gilman “As long as the acquisition's outpacing attrition, you're always gonna grow.” - James Gilman “It's your obligation to succeed so you can show other people what is possible.” - James Gilman“There's no better feeling than to watch other people succeed.” - James Gilman Books and Resources Recommended:The Art Of Dealing With People by Les Giblin:https://www.amazon.com/Art-Dealing-People-Giblin/dp/0937539589Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Dr. Frank Luntz:https://www.amazon.com/Words-That-Work-What-People/dp/1401309291Let's Connect!James Gilman: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-gilman-4a282154/Website: https://www.perimeteroffice.com/perimeterChaz Wolfe (Host): Website:

https://www.freedomscientific.com/webinars/jaws-power-tips-for-increasing-productivity-in-work-and-play/ In this new series of JAWS Power Tips, listen as Rachel, Elizabeth, and Cathy detail ways to optimize your JAWS experience.

OPI Talk speaks with South African industry veteran Hans Servas as he prepares to retire as Chairman of the country's shop-sa stationery and office products trade association. As reported recently on the OPI website, South African trade association shop-sa has appointed a COO ahead of the retirement of its current Chairman Hans Servas at the end of this month. Servas enjoyed a long and successful career in the country's stationery and office products sector before taking on the Chairmanship of shop-sa in 2012. As he prepares to step down, the association will now be led by Hanlie Delport, who was brought in as its COO in April of this year. In this podcast, Andy Braithwaite speaks to Servas about his career, some of the challenges that shop-sa has faced in the past few years and what he hopes the association will be able to achieve going forward.   Episode recorded and edited by Andy Braithwaite Music by: Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

Join us for a heartfelt episode with the CEO of Pencil Cup Office Products, Teresa Gandara, where she shares how her business pivoted and survived the pandemic.

Join us LIVE as Michael Brodeur and JT Mlinarcik interview Bruce Nelson about leadership and what is important in life as a follower of Jesus. Bruce Nelson served as Chief Executive Officer of Office Depot from July 2000 to October 2004 and as Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2001 to 2004. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Office Depot from August 1998 to October 2004. Prior to joining Office Depot, Bruce spent over 35 years in the global Office Products industry in a number of senior management and leadership and positions. Since his retirement from Office Depot, Bruce has served on both nonprofit and privately held company boards. He is actively engaged in Reverence Farms, a 1st generation family owned and operated 400-acre diversified dairy and livestock and farm in Saxapahaw, NC. Bruce graduated Idaho State University in1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree and double majored in accounting and economics. In 1985 he attended Stanford University's Executive Program. He has been married over 56 years to his wife LaVaun. They have two adult children, a son-in-law and a granddaughter who are all engaged in Reverence Farms. Bruce is now devoting his life to serving Jesus Christ and spreading the good news of the Gospel. He is currently enrolled in Dominion Bible Institute, pursuing a two-year on-line degree in Ministry.

00:00 Intro11:22 A+ content is down12:01 My own Walmart account was suspended12:37 Did you guys see my rant12:59 Amazon Aggregators: Boosted13:46 One of our clients, Casely - Voted as No.17 Fastest Growing Company14:39 Restock Limits - FBA has caught up17:27 My Amazon Guy is hiring18:25 Would a good time raise price a few days prior to black Friday - the leave it raised till the New Year19:27 Launched our 14th product a month ago. Enrolled in Vine but 0 claims. Zero views on product heavy ad cost. The product will flop w/o at least 1 positive review21:23 Testimonial: We used MAG a year ago to help w/ a seller support nightmare. Your team resolved the problem in 72hours. Worth every penny. Thanks21:35 What do you think about having one campaign w/ the same KW w/ Up & Down and another that is Down only22:55 Been changing my pics. Can you please take a look and assess the order and relevance. ASIN: B09B4RSDMD27:46 Where do you see in 3-5 years from now, AMZ 3rd party sellers be? Do you think it'll explode, or be much harder to sell31:22 In the Brand Catalog Manager, we are listed in Office ProductsB09G4LSGQN, STUDIO ELEVE22, Office Products but in the Regular Catalog of AMZ we are in Arts Crafts & Sewing34:03 In Ads Manager, how do you delete portfolios34:53 For the verbiage in A+ content, do you have to use exact phrases, or just a word salad, to index35:50 Any recommendations  for product insurance36:35 What happens if you just straight up put in KWs or phrases in your A+ content and not even make them into cogent sentences38:10 We are brand registered, have access to A+ but the brand baseboard section w/ analytics is missing39:05 How did you grow and gain clients when you started your agency44:11 Not seeing the new brand catalog manager like your recent video showed, do we need to ticket for access44:28 Even if we have a lot of stock in AMZ FBA, do you suggest doing MF also till the new year45:04 We can't connect/link our seller central to our brand registry45:30 Given that AMZ recognizes plurals, is there any benefit to putting both words in your title or listing if each word has a high search volume46:46 Other than Helium10, where do you go for product ideas48:22 All the components of my product come from the US and CA. That being the case, do you still think ordering a year supply of inventory is necessary48:55 Can you explain the AMZ vs Walmart graph49:20 How do I set up to make sure the returned products are not going back to the inventory again50:29 If AMZ lose my inventory, how do they decide on how much to reimburse50:54 ASIN review: B082XGW8CJ52:14 Do video ads usually have the highest ROAS for you52:36 Do you have any supplement clients? If yes, what is their ad spend54:32 Our DE account was suspended because we haven't successfully registered VAT number this July, and our US account was related to DE account and got suspended too55:04 I can't add videos to my listings in France1:01:06 What is a normal return rate for hair tool products like hair dryers or curling irons1:01:30 I have my UPC in my logo on my product, can I send in inventory just like that or do I have to sticker it w/ the FNSKU1:01:56 Who should I call to set up full service? Do your team handle the A+ photos and content if I send you products1:02:35 Do I need my own personal documents ready such as a passport or bank statement for AMZ when opening multiple Seller Central Accounts w/ multiple LLCs in Wyoming1:03:14 How do I get in touch w/ your company? And are you AMZ approved1:04:04 I can't load up UPCs in our EU account because our UPCs are shared by both our EU and US accountsSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

00:00 Intro10:25 Amazon Freight: Startup with an Amazon12:53 Amazon Advertising Test Opportunity: DSP - Demand Side Platform14:05 Advice on changing locked fields15:33 In VC, what flat file to use for changes to category field & other fields17:45 Making bundles from other brands, what brand/manufacturer do I enter when adding the listing18:55 On flat files for listing edits, when do you use the UPDATE option over a PARTIAL UPDATE20:30 GTIN exemption vs GS1 UPCs, why UPC route would be better for only a couple of SKUs21:28 Do you have any video samples showing the process and your submissions to kick off unauthorized sellers on one of your or your client's listings22:38 Are you using Helium10's new feature "title density" for any of your listing optimizations22:49 How many characters can Alt Test for image have? Do the word index that on the image24:28 Do you suggest using the (Shipping Settings Automation) for self-fulfilled products25:07 I sell 300 units from 1 product using FBA, if converted to FBM, approximately how many units will be sold, FBA higher price because of the shipping25:44 I shipped 30 products in 1 box to AMZ. They say there were 31 in the box - shipment still receiving after 2 weeks. If true, items do not have FNSKU only bard code on the label26:55 I want to open a Walmart seller account, what is the application activation time? Is it very hard to get approved? Any tip signing up28:00 We provide a customer service number with our product. If the customer calls and asks for a refund, will issuing a refund without AMZ being in the loop cause a problem28:59 Do you have a recommendation for liability insurance? Amazon is asking for a COI. How much should I expect to pay every month30: 22 Does your brand store content (verbiage + alt-text) have ranking power and help w/ indexingHow do I set up PPC campaigns for the 1st time via Excel spreadsheet upload vs. manually31:10 How do I set up PPC campaigns for the 1st time via Excel spreadsheet upload vs. manually31:53 My product has color variations. Swatches are not showing on the listings. I included the link to the images for the swatch in the flat file and uploaded it. It was saved in the backend but still don't show on the listing33:10 Will a partial refund count as a full refund in Amazon return/refund percentages stats33:38 When I view products in the Brand section on Seller Central on Amazon, it shows Office Products behind my brand name. How do I check if my product is really in Office Products instead of Arts & Crafts35:32 What is your acceptable defective rate for inspection of your product? What do you do if the report failed or is higher than the AQL you set36:39 AMZ lost my shipment37:51 I suddenly lost organic ranking for one of my main KW over a month ago. I was page one for this KW and not it doesn't even show in search40:40 In broad, I convert for a search term really well and the root KW is my mos profitable and highest seller but in phrase and exact, I have below 0.2 CTR and hardly any sales42:01 ASIN REVIEW: B08PSBYXHS47:07 I'm trying to ship pallets to AMZ w/ a mixture of the following: Single SKU in single boxes stacked onto the pallet, and also clear bags w/ product inside packed into boxes. All the clear bags contain the same SKU48:02 As an employee, does Steven allow you and others to launch your own products/brand48:48 My product is not indexing when you search the ASIN+KW out of its category. Should I try a partial upload flat file to update the product type to the right one49:34 I have updated my title, bullets, description but haven't received more indexingSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

The North American Office Products Awards are back! After a break in 2020, OPI is delighted to confirm that the 2021 North American Office Products Awards (NAOPA) will take place during Industry Week '21 being held from 7-12 November in Orlando, Florida. OPI is now accepting entries and nominations for the nine NAOPA categories. What are the categories? Who can enter these awards? Why should I even enter? What is the judging process? OPI Director Janet Bell answers these questions – and many more – in this episode of OPI Talk, hosted by OPI News Editor Andy Braithwaite.   Episode produced by Andy Braithwaite Music by: Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

When UK wholesaler Spicers folded last year, it dramatically changed the balance of what had essentially been a duopoly in the market between Spicers and VOW. One consequence is that it has opened the door for another distributor, Exertis, to play a more prominent role. In this episode of OPI Talk, OPI News Editor Andy Braithwaite speaks with Exertis Supplies Commercial Director Raj Advani about recent developments at the company and for his thoughts on the UK independent office products channel.   Episode produced by Andy Braithwaite Music by: Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg  

How did the pandemic impact the US office supplies retail channel in 2020, and what are the opportunities for resellers in 2021? In this episode of OPI Talk, Leen Nsouli, the Industry Analyst for The NPD Group's Office Supplies division, discusses results of the firm's research into the retail channel in 2020. She also looks ahead to opportunities for the 2021 back-to-school season and highlights other market trends that office products resellers ought to be focusing on.   Episode produced by Andy Braithwaite Music by: Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

Exciting discussion with Wes McArtor from Nexera and Gary Peterson from GAP Intelligence on how Business Intelligence could be utilized in selling and supporting Office Products.

On the Get Your New View Podcast, you will experience solving mission-critical business problems that produce long-term business relationships. Your clients will report that they have boosted efficiency and solved business problems, and had fun in the process! In this episode, you'll learn how an iterative process improvement can help your company adapt to change. Companies are subject to constant and continual change. I have a personal theory that companies undergo significant change every five years. Think about it. If you were with a company for five years or longer, what was the company like five years ago? What did they do? Did they sell the same services and products as they do today? Did they have the same customers that they had five years ago? What did the technology look like five years ago? What did the team look like? What did the processes look like? You have probably seen significant differences in how you do things, and all of these things are a factor. Key areas we covered in this episode:  Why change management is a process that needs to be incorporated with people's fears and concerns about change. Learn how the 1998 book, “Who Moved My Cheese,” by Dr. Spencer Johnson is still relevant in business today. And, how now, the cheese doesn't just move once or twice; the cheese is in constant rotation. Learn which soft skills organizations and employees need to develop to sustain growth and profitability. Discover flexible processes and process improvement so that you can quickly adapt to change in your organization. Stop hemming and hawing and wasting valuable time and money.  How being nimble as an organization keeps you competitive. And it is about being nimble with your processes and being able to change them when the change is needed. Think about all of the companies that have gone out of business and suffered many layoffs because they did not have the ability to change. How Microsoft has redefined how they do things with ERP software. Think about Office Products like Excel and Outlook and how they have made them future-proof. It's a fantastic success story that you may benefit from.  Identify what can you do to future-proof your company so that it thrives even in challenging economic times.

The guest in this episode of OPI Talk is Boris Elisman, CEO of ACCO Brands. ACCO has recently announced a significant acquisition, buying video games accessories manufacturer PowerA in a deal worth up to $400 million. This is part of a strategy to transform ACCO into a consumer products-oriented branded supplier. With this in mind, OPI News Editor Andy Braithwaite asks Boris about how he views the office products channel, given the secular declines in many core categories and the challenges thrown up by the COVID-19 crisis…   Episode produced by Andy Braithwaite Music by: Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

Netflix to face local content quota under proposed Australian TV reformsNetflix and other global streaming services could be forced to spend millions of dollars on Australian programs and films under major changes to media laws proposed by the federal government Federal Communications and Arts Minister Paul Fletcher will launch a green paper with the proposed reforms todayFletcher said the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had reinforced the need for regulatory action to help the TV industry.A 2017 inquiry recommended subscription streaming services invest 10 per cent of the revenues they earn in Australia in new local contentFree to Air Networks currently have to screen 55% locally made contentCoronavirus Victoria: State government-backed universal contact-tracing app that centralises QR code data collection set to be rolled out next weekThe Victorian state government is expected to launch a QR Code app next week, to help people check in at businesses and venues around the stateThe app is being launched by Service Victoria and was custom built by Melbourne startup Two Bulls.An anonymous source said “There's a huge advantage for the government because it means that the data is fed directly to the Department of Health and Human Services"This also means the data will not be available to the venues themselves, to use for marketingThe Victorian government's app has been trialled successfully by 100 venues, including Officeworks, which has been using the app to check in customers at five of its stores.Exclusive: Foxconn to shift some Apple production to Vietnam to minimise China riskFoxconn is moving some iPad and MacBook assembly to Vietnam from China at the request of Apple IncApple is moving production to minimise the impact of a Sino-U.S. trade war.This move has been expected for a while now, not just from Apple but from many large US based tech companies, that have the majority of production coming from ChinaTaiwanese manufacturers, wary of being caught up in the tit-for-tat trade war, have moved or are considering moving some production from China to countries such as Vietnam, Mexico and India.The Vietnamese Foxconn plant currently manufactures Sony TVsFoxconn is spending $1b to upgrade its plants in India, to produce more iPhones there Microsoft productivity score feature criticised as workplace surveillanceMicrosoft has been criticised for rolling out a new feature to track users productivity in its Office 365 productsThe reports show how often employees are using Office Products like Outlook, Word and Excel, and how often they're in meetings, based on their calendarI saw a glimpse of this at my old workplace, and really found it quite disgusting, and I'm glad to see this being reported. “The word dystopian is not nearly strong enough to describe the fresh hellhole Microsoft just opened up,” tweeted David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founder of the office productivity suite Basecamp. Ant's Bargain bin - what have you found for black... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

One of the impacts of COVID-19 has been an acceleration of the shift to e-commerce and all things digital. What does this mean for the independent business products dealer? In this episode, OPI News Editor Andy Braithwaite is joined by technology solutions expert TJ Crayne. TJ has been involved in this side of the OP industry for more than 30 years, holding various executive positions in the software and wholesale channels. President of consulting firm PTC Associates, one of TJ's is current responsibilities is Director of IT for leading dealer organisation Independent Suppliers Group.       Episode produced by Andy Braithwaite Music by Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

In this episode, OPI News Editor Andy Braithwaite is joined by well-known office products industry leader Robert Baldrey. Robert provides some great insight into recent developments in the business supplies wholesaling channel, namely the unfortunate demise of Spicers in the UK and the acquisition of SP Richards in the US by investors led by Mike Maggio and Yancey Jones. Robert spent many years in leadership positions in the wholesaling sector, having occupied senior roles at both Spicers in Europe and at VOW's parent company EVO. He is currently in charge of Office Depot Europe's project to go to market under the Viking brand. Note: This podcast was recorded in July 2020.   Episode produced by Andy Braithwaite Music by Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r... Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

今天团长为跨境电商卖家推荐的亚马逊潜力选品是办公用品( Office Products )类目下的自密封泡沫邮件袋。

今天团长为大家带来的亚马逊潜力选品是办公用品( Office Products )类目下的39英寸小型电脑桌。

今天团长给跨境电商卖家推荐的亚马逊潜力选品是的Office Products类目下的潜力爆品——便携式电脑支架。

We discuss the history of humble office supplies like rubber bands, staples and paper clips. Our sponsor is Office Commando.

TASE architects are back in the new year! Today's topics to kick off 2020 include new Microsoft icons, the new Microsoft Chrome...I mean Edge, GCP's Indian Play, Ads in Microsoft non-Office Products, and more!Produced by Mr. WentworthFor more information on TASE Labs please see https://www.taselabs.net/For legal information, see https://www.taselabs.net/legaltermsCampfire by Scandinavianz https://soundcloud.com/scandinavianzCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/_campfireMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/9Rfykh-YzCc

On today’s episode of the Owner’s Mentality, I catch up with Keith Powell Owner of Pay-Less Office Products. Keith shares his story of humble beginnings in 1986 that included a “desk” that consisted of a door on two filing cabinets and being 8th of 8 in the Office Product supplier category in Omaha to growing into a Top 5% Independent Dealer in the Country.  It didn’t happen by accident. It happened through perseverance and cold calling. Keith shares why he believes cold calling is still one of the most effective ways to earn business, along with how being in a partnership shares similarities with a marriage, and much much more. There is a good chance Keith's company can help you with those essential supplies needed to run your office correctly with Office Products, Breakroom supplies, Facility Supplies, Promotional Merchandise, Office Furniture, and much more. Reach out and get in contact to start saving today

EP203 - Shopper insights from NPD Checkout NPD Checkout is a product from NPD that scan physical and digital receipts from a panel of more than 100,000 users to get a unique look into consumer purchase patterns in a variety of product categories. Jeremy Allen, Group President of Checkout, and Patty Altman, SVP Client and Business Development at Checkout join us to discuss what we can learn about the holiday from their dataset. 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. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 203 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday November 16th, 2019. Automated Transcription of the show Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this episodes is in recorded on Tuesday November 26th 2019 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your squad window. Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners well we're all here on pins and needles waiting for the first results of holiday 2019 so with that while we're doing that we would warm up your data analysis brain functionality with some gas that are focused on retaildata we are really excited to Welcome to the Jason Scott show both of these folks come from NPD we have Jeremy Allen he is the group president of checkout & Patty Altman choose the SVP client and Business Development check out what kind of showed us. Jeremy & Patty: [1:12] Thanks for having us it's an honor to be with you guys today thank you. Jason: [1:18] We are thrilled to have both of you and I started the tradition on the show we always like to take things off by having the guest share a little bit about their background so I'm Jeremy why don't why don't you get a stardust can you tell us how you came to MP3. Jeremy & Patty: [1:30] Absolutely so I've been with MPD for about the past 4 years my anniversary is coming up in December of this year that we don't check out business which will get into a lot more in this show but ended check out his MP start up business we use receipts to measure markets and how consumers shop we're very very excited about this business it's been a great investment and opportunity for us and for our clients prior to doing this and joining mpds spent about five years with Nielsen which is also in the measurement space I led the marketing effect. Is there helps clients improve their advertising reaching residents and before that I grew up in Consulting so I spent about fifteen long years at McKinsey & Company. Jason: [2:14] Route 15 years of Mackenzie is actually like 83 years in in people years. Jeremy & Patty: [2:19] Yeah and I have all the gray hairs to prove it. Jason: [2:21] Patty can you tell us how you got them pretty. Jeremy & Patty: [2:25] Yeah absolutely and thanks as well of her for having me on the show this morning I'm so I did attempt MPG for two years and I work on Jeremy's team I leave the commercial side of our business the mission of our team is to make sure that our clients use check out by rata latex in the most effective way and typically to drive big strategic decisions and cover opportunities and all within the the omni-channel space. Apart MPG I was at its cells for 7 years and I had a variety of leadership positions their everything from leading a Global Communication program, how to custom Resurgens in Brandon Division and renovation. Back to the keep probably 222 why I'm here at MPG now is my time that I spent at iri I was alright for 12 years and I was in the Consumer Panel division working with longitudinal panel very similar to what we do and it was there that I learned the ins and outs of how to best leverage by Rihanna lyrics and really the power of that that information so that you know it's funny but it feels like coming to MPD is. Because a lot of those studies that I did in the CPT space years ago things like Brands switching Milos retains you name it there the core of what we do at checkout and how we drive value at our clients. Jason: [3:38] That's awesome so is it fair to say that you guys basically took the best of Nielsen and ri-ri and brought it to make an even better offering a check out. Jeremy & Patty: [3:47] That's exactly right so what what's interesting is that panel analytics what that basically means is your tracking the same consumers spending over time it's been a Mainstay in the cpg space so there's a product of meiosis and I are I collaborate on call the homescan panel and that's where many of those cpg brands bread and butter analytics come out of that in our space we call a general merchandise in Food Service the industries and MPD tracks there hasn't been a longitudinal panel before check-out so we're bringing those exact same discipline as it existed for decades and cpg marketing to general merchandise and it's it's been a huge opportunity in our clients are thrilled trouble that innovation. Scot: [4:27] Ricola just to make sure so Jason are pretty familiar but just make sure listeners are tracking us there's some kind of two companies in this space there's Nielsen and NPD Nielsen, they do a lot of data around cpgs and then you guys do the Nazi party stuff with York on General Merchandise is that a is that a fair characterization. Jeremy & Patty: [4:46] That's exactly right so we track 24 Industries and it's basically I would check everything that you cannot eat or put on your body so you're getting personal products so it's closing its jewelry its beauty products it's Sporting Goods it's we also do food service so restaurant operators all of those things that you find in a Target or Walmart that don't fall into the cpg category we track. Scot: [5:10] And then again for listeners that aren't familiar with how how this works at General at NPD and then you're working on a sub project within their called check out in the overall in PD so you're at least 23 kind of non cpg categories, I'll pick one of my favorites which is Automotive how does that work how are you tracking Automotive data. Jeremy & Patty: [5:32] Yeah so if I just back up for a second mpd's been in business for about 50 years and we track these twenty-four Industries and we do it in two primary ways so 1 is what we call a POS which stands for point of sale. So similar to a Nielsen RI we, data from retailers to all of their register receipt data we aggregate that data and we classified into a standard hierarchy that we then use the measure products sales with that we can measure manufacturer brandshare we can measure retailer share and its really we called the data record set the standard by which companies measure their performance and our Industries so that is what MPD has been doing for 50 years so it's retailer data aggregated organized and then given to the industry to measure performance that's one dataset that ipd uses the other one that would be used for a long time is consumer surveys so a POS data that we get from retailers tells you what sold for how much it sold and how many units sold the consumer data we really go out and ask consumers, what they bought and why they bought it right so it's that we called the why behind the buy checkout is a startup that gives us another way to measure what consumers do the difference with check out that will get into his Patty mention it's a panel so historically with our consumer data we would ask trackers we would ask the same questions, different people each month with a panel you're asking the same questions are getting the same information from the same people over time and that's where the Innovation comes in for us in these industries. Jason: [7:00] That that is awesome and I always like to talk about the soda panel data as observed Behavior what we actually see customers do versus the survey data is more stated. Behavior is what customer said they do which may or may not perfectly accurately reflect but they actually did. Jeremy & Patty: [7:20] A hundred percent correct and that's why we love receipt so if I get in to check out for a minute what's what's interesting or different about checkout is exactly what you said we would ask consumers what they bought where they bought at why they bought it receipts we don't have to ask any questions and it's factual so we'll check out those as we have an app called receipt palette available and I owe store on an Android. Consumer download that app and we asked him to take pictures of all of their receipts for all of their purchases we also ask them to give us access to the rear seats so the core of checkout is getting a consumer to give us information on everything they purchase in the form of a receipt with an organized that data in the same way we do our point-of-sale data in the same taxonomy is the same hierarchies is class by the exact same way and with that we can measure what people are buying through their receipts. Jason: [8:08] Perfect and I don't want to belabor the methodologies so much but it it's super helpful because it lets us understand where there's any potential, data biases in just like what the what the capabilities of the. The dataset that's driving the insight into so you're you have a consumer at this enticing people to take pictures of receipts and. To me part of the cool part is that you just implied as you're not just getting in-store Behavior or just online Behavior as, as some other panels are doing you are actually seeing the same person across their their shopping habits on Amazon or walmart.com and in a Target store at Costco store. Jeremy & Patty: [8:50] That's exactly right and what's Patty use the term omnichannel that's exactly with me by omni-channel we're really interested in trying to understand everything I can supervise. Where they buy it from a channel perspective and from a retail perspective and from a brand perspective and historically measurement has been Channel Centric right so you have an e-commerce measurement service which we used to provide within checkout you have a brick-and-mortar measurement service but what was missing there was the interaction across channels and it's exactly what you just said we might getting purchases across all those different channels retailers and Brands we get a full picture of how a consumers making decisions about what the Spanish word I'll spend it. Jason: [9:26] Awesome and then you sell to other traditional data collection problems we have, you don't care how many different devices be customer used to ShopRite because you're not using cookies you're you're getting the receipt so you see the same customer on their their laptop and iPad for example. And a you don't care what the method of payment is right so they pay with cash or a credit card doesn't doesn't matter because it get a receipt in either case and you see that receipt. Jeremy & Patty: [9:54] That's exactly right in for some of the industries that we tried tried that we tried cash is extremely important so if you think about food service and people buying a meal at McDonald's cash is the dominant method of purchase and if we didn't track the receipts we miss all those cash purchases that's one of the advantages over credit cards for example some sources to use credit card data track spending. Jason: [10:14] Perfect sedan is there some unintended bias in your in your pant like because you're its people that are willing to download and use this app. It seems reasonable that they might skew more digital and therefore shop online more than then Middle America or anything like that at like you guys feel like there is some. Some specific biases that you try to account for or or do I have that wrong. Jeremy & Patty: [10:40] Yeah there's always going to be a bias in any panel depending on the data collection depending on what to be an ass to but what we do with with checkout is we use both waiting and projections just to make sure that we are eliminating as much of that bias is possible. So when we look at results from our panel it is indeed that's reflective of the average Shopper for that category for that brand for that retailer. Jason: [11:04] Perfect and then as I understand it there's about a hundred thousand people in the panel right now it sounds like a huge amount but there is like 240 million households in the US. I'm guessing that you do some dancing math to somehow. Make the the hundred thousand represent the all the household or all the consumers. Jeremy & Patty: [11:28] Yes fancy math is exactly what we applied the right now that we we have marketing research and Sciences here who are the best in the industry you know well known people who have been doing this for many years and we have, but the waiting system to make sure who's in our panel is represented appropriately and then projection systems to make sure they could reject out what the total us. Population would behave so we take that hundred thousand and make a represent the total US population. If I can just add that hundred thousand by early next year will be a hundred and fifty thousand so we continue to invest expand the panel because we believe we can accurately represent the population with a hundred thousand but in many of our Industries sample size is critical so the more panelist we have. The more industry's categories Brands and products we can track US were always trying to invest and expand the panel for that reason. Scot: [12:18] Cool that's really helpful in thanks for going to the Jason Gatlin of data questions I'm sure you guys get this from clients all the time so it's fine. Not foreign to what time 21 I'm analyzing data I find the real value is in kind of surprises both both positive and negative if you will what are some of the most interesting surprises that you guys have seen from this project over. Jeremy & Patty: [12:43] So what was really interesting for me one of the very first things that we did when we got the first. Long enough term data set to be able to observe consumer behaviors as we broke pick people up based on how much they spent online so imagine a portion of the population that spends less than 25% of their spend online versus another portion of the population which are heavily engaged in e-commerce it's been more than 75% of their spend online and we really trying to find out it's do retail preferences change and you would think they obviously would but do they change and how did they change based on how much of a spend how much spend people do online and how engage they are the e-commerce what was interesting is people that are primarily brick-and-mortar the number one retailer as you might expect Texas Walmart people that are primarily online Shoppers the number one retailer as you might expect was Amazon what was fascinating though was to look at how the other retail price is changed over time and what we're really trying to understand was where the, brick-and-mortar retailers able through their.com offerings to maintain their fair share of the market as people moved online. And for the most part they weren't right and a big question that we're working with our retail clients on its how do I present a multi-channel omni-channel offered it to Consumers so that whether they love coming into my store or whether they really rather stay home and shop online they're choosing me as their retailer and an interesting example is. [14:08] Has been a phenomenal job of using their store assets using a.com offering really making a friendly for consumers and actually do better with consumers as the as consumers shift from buying. [14:21] Predominantly in stores to predominantly online bestbuy.com picks up more than their fair share of that heavy online consumer cohort. That was fascinating and we use that as an example with our retail clients to say hey don't worry about. Amazon as the p.m. if you can win you can create a compelling offer for consumers do what you do well use all of your assets. And you can actually win with consumers as they make that shift online. Dimension Automotive earlier that said it's a really good example for automotive clients where online penetration is still low. What is your thinking about consumers moving more online for automotive purchases those retailers were really trying to figure out how did we win from the very beginning with an omni-channel multichannel offering for those consumers. Scot: [15:04] Recalls on any other insights from so it's this population that's like using less than 25% so I guess they're doing more Walmart any other interesting would like. What is that type of a person is it the lower-income cohort or that certain parts of the country or how would you think about that person. Jeremy & Patty: [15:27] There's definitely excuse lower-income and more Middle America as you would. So we're still saying is it in you guys know this way better than we do we still see that internet Ecommerce shopping go SKU to where the population centers that skews toward the coast that's where you had the Leading Edge Shoppers that are much more comfortable with technology you have a much higher presence of internet availability although it's becoming ubiquitous now so it's middle of the country and lower-income that desk you toward that lower online engagement cohort. Jason: [16:01] So you you mentioned something that was interesting. You talk about a retailer like Best Buy sort of out I'll come out punching their weight in omni-channel which is fascinating to me I have a premise that. In our industry a lot we we we work based on these urban legends and you know we often don't have data and so like by where did math like omni-channel spend Shoppers tend to spend more than in-store Shoppers in that. That sounded good when some CEO set it to the the shareholders and then it became. Serve a defective fact in our industry and then the data sets like yours come up and we get to either confirm or debunk some of those urban legends so am I am specific I am curious I'm at specific example. Is your data showing that omni-channel Spinners to Shoppers that use both online and in-store tend to be more valuable for retailers or or is that an urban legend. Jeremy & Patty: [17:03] I think it depends on the category so a lot of times what we do is we'll segments consumers based on spending into a heavy spending group and a category medium or light the heavy your suspenders, you tend to be people that have, uptmore multi-channel engagement so I would say in general and it sounds like you were hoping that I would debunk this one I would say in general or data would tend to agree with that premise but it really depends upon the category. Jason: [17:31] In fairness I'm probably out of business if you debunk that that so I'm fine. Jeremy & Patty: [17:34] Okay I thought you wanted me to be a contrarian and I can't be on that point. Jason: [17:40] Yeah yeah yeah if you jumped in and said any money you you spend on digital is a total waste of funds on. Jeremy & Patty: [17:46] Fair enough. Jason: [17:48] So thank God I dodged that bullet I don't put you on the spot but were there any other sort of. Surprises to you in terms of omni-channel behavior or are there any retailers that you would have expected that are doing you know really well at capturing their share. Any categories that tennis humoral new channel. Jeremy & Patty: [18:08] So in terms of categories it's cute. You know what I what I will point out is the automotive example that I pointed out earlier I would say there's a couple of categories like Automotive in Home Improvement. [18:20] Where they've been able to to benefit from watching other categories and other retailers as consumers shifted online and those retailers didn't embrace it. And really take advantage of all the assets that they had to make sure that they were getting their fair share they're doing a better job out of the gate with an omni-channel offer so if you think about an advance for example to buy online pickup in-store which is a unique capability that you have if you have a physical store location of your changing the muffler on your car it's pretty urgent for you to get it quickly right you may not be able to wait till the next day, but to be able to do the shopping figure out what part you need to be able to look up a model number online. Select exactly what you need and then go drive over and pick it up to be able to complete the repair or Auto retailers founded that was a very compelling value proposition so figuring out. What you do well and where you can win, and where your stores actually are a benefit to you is it something that I've really been impressed with with with some of the other retailers we've observed and Home Improvement similar as much earlier. Many people thought you don't got you're never going to buy lumber online while you're right but there's a huge assortment of items that are in a Home Depot or Lowe's many of them are very friendly for e-commerce and being able had a to figure out that buy online pickup in-store the multichannel offer they can really learn from your Best in Class retailers like Target that have done a really good job, figuring out how to appeal to the consumer with all the different channels and features that they offer. Jason: [19:48] That's true that you and I did want to clarify one thing because you have different different companies use categories definition slightly differently when you say Automotive do you mean actual, vehicle sales or do you mean like automotive aftermarket parts and accessories. Jeremy & Patty: [20:05] Thanks for clarifying only automotive aftermarket parts and accessories we do not track vehicle sales. Jason: [20:12] Perfect so then the target example which is particularly interesting to me, because I feel like we've seen this really interesting Behavior we have the Walmarts of the world, in my mind are really trying to go toe-to-toe with Amazon and and you know Amazon's got 800 million items online Walmarts in a rapidly expanding their offering and you know trying to match same-day shipping and all of that I feel like when they zig zag Target actually zagged and said hey you know what we're not going to be the everything store. We're going to carry a curated assortment in that a storm is going to live in our stores and we're going to use our stores, much more centrally than Walmart does for example so you know their car chipped and they they ship a significant portion of all their e-commerce orders from the back of their stores and they do same-day delivery from the store inventory, in my mind when I look at those two companies I go what you know Walmart's really playing for assortment price and convenience and Target is really. Playing for curation and omni-channel does that show up in your data of it like you know. The omni-channel is more relevant to Target than Walmart. Jeremy & Patty: [21:24] So I agree completely with the stories that you just laid out on those two companies and our data does support that at least as of right now. At target.com is doing better than walmart.com in a fair share sense with people that are heavier online consumers. That's the facts would support that Emmett and I you know I love about the shift example that you brought up as a very consistent with the Target brand right so you know what I was growing up and I guess I'm old but people call Target Tarjay right but if you think about the shipt delivery service you have these part-time and in many cases working moms or work-from-home moms that are coming into your home they're unpacking your groceries they feel like they're part of the family too very personalized, brand experience of the way they've done it is very consistent with their brand Heritage in my opinion. Scot: [22:15] Wrinkle in Time it wouldn't be a Jason Scott show who didn't talk a little bit about Amazon you've already mentioned them a little bit there what are things are ice and I'm curious about is when you get the macro numbers you see that the Amazons about half of online sales since my first question are related Amazon his is that track what you guys are saying. Jeremy & Patty: [22:38] Yeah that's a really interesting and question I'm arguing shows that about 43% of total online sales moves or Amazon to Summit. That's the way you just quoted but I think it would really have to know is that there's just a ton of variation across Industries so for example if you look at something like softline industry is like apparel about 20% moved through Amazon as opposed to Choice which, approach 70% and think about the differences between those two industries toys is often for a specific occasion is often around a holiday it's often for gift giving purchase so that combination of what. The product is 4 or the gifted of the occasion is for as much as the desire to have a specific online experience tends to drive the Reliance on Amazon vs. The rest of the online space. Scot: [23:26] And you guys so if I kind of think of this giant pie of e-commerce you guys are seeing what what percent do you think you see of the whole pie if you're not doing cpg and apparel. Jeremy & Patty: [23:39] We do do apparel we don't do CBG and I I don't know what the shit I honestly don't know the answer to that. Scot: [23:46] I thought there's something like if you couldn't put on your body or something. Jeremy & Patty: [23:51] Oh yeah no personal products so that they probably the best bad example that I lay that. Scot: [23:57] I was thinking sweaters not Nada Massacre. Jeremy & Patty: [24:01] Will mascara retract it's more the lotions and deodorant tuxedo. Scot: [24:05] Okay why it's complicated. Jeremy & Patty: [24:07] It is complicated. Scot: [24:08] So so you know you when you read the headlines and and Jason I got there and talked to a lot of retailers and I've spoken it in PT shows about Amazon you do get this feeling that they're on this kind of like unassailable on and unbeatable does the data indicate any kind of tips that you would give to retailers are brands of of how to draw a quote-unquote beat Amazon or or two at least kind of slow down there their head weigh. Jeremy & Patty: [24:36] So I just got I think it's a lot of what we have been talking about I'd I think and then we have to be careful right because all these retailers are friends of ours and we want everyone to play nicely, seed to having a physical store where you can engage with consumers on a different level and be there for them and build a relationship and greet them in person inform an impression of a brand that's a connection with a person is a real Advantage being able to ship from your store being able to let somebody things up the same day if it's available there's some advantages that a physical brick-and-mortar Network give you as a retailer. But I think when unexploited right I look at headlines from and you'll remember these from 10 or 20 years ago that talked about the death of the store right and there was probably a credible point of view those before it at some point that people would never go into stores anymore. There may stores made banners that are doing great because they realize that there are some things that consumers want from a store and we would just encourage all of our. Retailers that have that physical presence to take advantage of that figure out what they can do uniquely to connect to a consumer when they come into the store to strengthen the connection to the brand, and it's powerful. [25:45] Yeah I just to add to a Jeremy was saying it's really only about the it's really all about the consumer not about the channel so the clients are either reach other manufacturers who are seeing really operating at at the highest capacity or those that always keep the consumer Central, to the story so whether it's an experience of walking into a brick-and-mortar store physical location or if it's purchasing at their direct consumer or a. A person in a curated site the message the field of communication is all holistic and fits together so it's a shopping at the consumer experience and not a channel experience. Jason: [26:18] Yeah that makes total sense I'm always like I'm less interested in which retailers are doing well against Amazon are there any of the categories that you track where. Where do you feel like Amazon isn't as dominant so there's more online white space. Jeremy & Patty: [26:35] So Patty mention just a cystically apparel and it's offline categories especially when you get the fashion is one where we see a lot of players other than Amazon do well right there a lot of. Com Pure Play e-commerce retailers that have brands that speak to something and see to Consumers and stand for something and those who really well right I think that's a place where we would all knowledge that there are a lot of other players in that space and it's not one that Amazon seems to be dominating or moving toward dominance. Jason: [27:08] Yeah I know that makes sense I it's funny I get asked all the time like like what categories can we get in. Where Amazon is nrt winning and and I have to come up with a different answer every year because Amazon. Conquesting more categories but like I used to say live plants and now they're shipping live Christmas trees. I feel like I can't win on that. I meant you regretting I didn't ask you a question earlier when I was in the data gauntlets Y100 the I know for a fact that both retailers and brands are customer of your data, but I'm guessing how they use it is slightly different like can you share after the brief example of. You know what the typical use cases for retail and what they might do differently as a result of your data and then what the typical use cases for a product manufacturer. Jeremy & Patty: [28:00] Yeah I know absolutely end and we work with a ton of different clients are really using checkout in a multitude of ways whether they're retailer or whether there are brand so you know in MN across both quite honestly all of them are always interested in the basic or metrics of how consumer shop we have a product you're called Essentials which in any other company would be things like a purchase summary of purchase Transit a shopping bath and both from a retailer and a Matic manufacture perspective they need this information and they use this information to understand the core foundation of the health of their brand. So things like penetration what percent of the population is is buying my product or buying right how much do they purchase over the course of the year do I have a a penetration strategy or do I have a virus strategy and how does it differ from my competition, that's always critical one thing that I adore one study that we find it actually Bridges the gap between retailers and manufacturers of something for the leakage tray and basically would have leakage tree does is it looks from a conservative from a retailer lens what trip. A retailer is missing or or not converting for specific category and from there we can identify that opportunity and how much dollars are being missed because. Is going to the competitor and who is that competitor in addition what we can do is the next. [29:22] To help him activate or identify strategies you which to to convert. Trinity why I say it's also a great manufacturer play as well as you know I mentioned earlier I've been in the cpg world many many years and category management functions or just the bread and butter of how manufacturers work with many retailers, the Crux of that was always we could read. [29:43] So that was pretty commonplace in the cpg world the reality is it's less common place here so we're finding manufacturers who are really successful with retailers are using strategies like leakage trees to help them understand how to improve their business, and that in turn of course also helps create a better relationship and also opportunities for the manufacturer without retailer. Jason: [30:07] Awesome very cool Inn in general is check out a tool that like. Is it a turn key tool that a client would use themselves or is it is it sort of a data set and what the client buys from from you is Insight from a person that's using that data. Jeremy & Patty: [30:23] Yeah that's a really great question and we really think that's the value proposition about checkout we right size the offer to wear or what stage a manufacturer and retailer my baby so for example we have some really sophisticated clients who either came from the cpg world and they use a vuse us before they understand these metrics and and how to use them to a really affect acid level are we having Seltzer platform for those clients where they can go in and pull those measures that I talked about earlier that really are the essentials of the core of the, understanding business the other side of the equation where there are usually a pretty complex issues that need to be answered big dollars are on the line we have a team of experts here who understand the categories that we deal with from a retailer or manufacturer point of you understand the issues that they're being challenged with and how the best way we could line up what the client is looking to do versus how checkout can assist and can drive solutions the other thing that's really unique about us and MPG is because we have those POs and consumer asset we can tell the complete picture so we can start from up from a step from a sell-side on the POS why cells might be up or down if that's the challenge of client is facing, we could then look at the consumer data to understand some occasion base or some other information about how people might have their attitudes towards towards a specific product brand or retailer and then we really bring it home with the check out their data and that check a data completely focused on helping to understand. [31:53] What strategies you need to employ that are going to motivate be Shopper or the consumer that you want to attract still get it can be self-serve or it can be a very curated experience where we are handed lock step with you I'm from start to finish on the solution and what you can do with that solution. Scot: [32:09] Cool I like that this is the first time I've heard the term leakage tree. Feel like I want to go cut down the forest of leakage trees. Jeremy & Patty: [32:18] Ocean of of leakage is really important going to be think about what the fundamentally what it means of the retailers been successful. Bringing someone into their store and yet they're choosing to leave their store to buy somewhere else right so being able to figure out what was I missing from this category from a category perspective or a brand perspective or rice. What didn't I have that made that consumer we're already did the hard work to get them into my store what am I missing so they had to go to one of my competitors to make that purchase that's powerful and we do that across all the categories to show retail is where they're leaking and why. Scot: [32:53] What were the topics on kind of fascinated with is what we call Molly getting right so we're definitely seeing problems at malls obviously this point Macy's just recently announced their reporting and they kind of blames their problems on the fact that a lot of the other anchor tenants at malls like like Sears are closing the sum of the day that I've seen I can't remember where this comes from but it do showing not only are Mal visits down but the intramall shock visits are down to so people are going to Great Reigns actually going to the mall and going to the Apple Store and getting some airpods and leaving the mall they're not they're not kind of. Reading the restaurant six stores that they used to you guys have any kind of multi-level insights that you can talk about. Jeremy & Patty: [33:38] It's a great question and probably something we should study but we haven't so I will put that on the list of things that we should look at. But we would have a solution for it so it's a client did come to us and said they wanted to understand that we have something called the sequencing study which we can understand over a course of a day of someone, shopping experience if they purchase at Macy's what they did. My mother was brick-and-mortar or did they then go online and purchase something through them to be purchasing something during the course of the of the day we can help identify where they had to go out from that initial purchase to get other items that could be online it could be in store. Scot: [34:16] So kind of a little bit of a pivot here this is something that Jason I have been pondering for literally I'm 5 years now so here on the show we talk a lot about the data out there at a macro level of Hephaestus e-commerce growing I'm so generally you have comscore I think it's the Department of Commerce but it's do the Census Bureau they say that online sales are going to 15% and they kind of put something like a new survey you look at 13 to 15% of sales are online but then you know on the show we always do his new shows and we have Amazon is over 25% Walmart's over 30% this just online sales Target at 50%, Shopify even like eBay is kind of relatively flat so it feels like. Either someone is losing tremendous share in there that that we don't see or the 15% number is wrong you guys have any any insight into which of those things as possible or maybe there's something I haven't even imagined is going on here. Jeremy & Patty: [35:18] So I don't know what's driving it but I can say that you're the Department of Commerce number of 15% is consistent with our numbers we see growth from 13 to 1316 % quarter-on-quarter that's something we publish instead of a new card retail Trends that's very consistent with the numbers that were seeing so when you see outline examples of people with double-digit growth 40 50% growth at you know I guess I would be with you that they must be taking share from somewhere but I also don't know where that is coming from. Scot: [35:49] Maybe maybe another way to ask for Smite my senses at Sonny's brick-and-mortar guys that I just really not continuing to keep their share so I'll pick on like a JCPenney's cuz they've been in the news but not asking you specifically but I guess one counterexample is. Are there examples of omni-channel going really poorly and is that more the norm than it going really well like like the best by example. Jeremy & Patty: [36:15] I think it is I think it is a bit by default right so if you don't pay attention to it and you don't build an omni-channel offering you don't have it. Com presents that appeals to your consumers and you don't invest in it, you know kind of has to go poorly because you're up against people that are doing it really really well right they know how to cure a disorder and online in a different way they know how to use the building have an endless shelf online they know how to do targeted marketing to bring people out of their sight so if you're not doing that your. Com presents can feel take off and I think you've raised a great example we probably do have many retail examples it's not a place where they've invested maybe because they had to focus on other areas and it hasn't taken off and they probably are not capturing their fair share. Jason: [36:58] Which is of course always sad and it's I guess it's going to remain a mystery why we have this, Spirit of numbers my own Theory, we talked to the very beginning sort of surveys versus observed behavior that the US Department of Commerce data which which mini data providers in Dexter dated to. Essentially is a survey they send a letter to a retailer and say, what percentage of the sales were online in a mini cases they've been sending that letter to the same guy for 40 years and that's a store. You know the answer to that survey doesn't necessarily like tie directly to the Erp system of every retail. Be that as it may I'm I'm kind of curious you have all this like juicy real data from customers. I have to imagine that there's. Some kind of common mistakes that you you see repeated over and over again that you try to evangelize with customers like art are there any reoccurring themes that you tend to talk about that you can share with her audience. Jeremy & Patty: [38:03] Can it comes back I think too little bit of what we spoke about before really the The Shopper or the or the the consumer has to be the center of every single strategy so it's not enough to just say oh we need a direct-to-consumer we need brand. Com website to hell, pimenta our sales it has to be something meaningful and fit, what's a consumer expect for the Shopper expects but the experience what they know about the brand I'm so really has to all fit together what we know that some of our clients have moved away from having a Circle D, or separate digital teams we still see, being a separate function when really it should be just one holistic approach I'm it should not be separated so where we see clients when he more often than not is where the consumer experience is address elastically and it's not Silo different channels where we don't see it happening is where it it's either an afterthought or it's not a connected experience for the shopper. Jason: [39:02] Yeah we certainly will observe the same it's kind of sad that we're still having this conversation in. Jeremy & Patty: [39:07] Grid. Jason: [39:08] In 2019 but it do my experience recharge I've gotten a lot better at about talking about. Having the customer at the center in in not having silos but that doesn't necessarily mean that the the organization in the metrics that they pay attention to behind behind the scenes are are perfectly in the. Scot: [39:29] What are so this is kind of so we've talked a lot about kind of what I called kind near window of what the date is telling you what was kind of project it forward and I'll kind of leave it to you guys too to figure that out the one one way we see a lot of people talk about this as though look at kind of the millennial and gen Z he's got to see that generation and then protect their behavior for work but what's the date of essentially telling you guys about the future. Jeremy & Patty: [39:57] That's a broad question future of retail. And younger Generations are choosing to spend more on, experiences and I'm sure you guys have done many podcasts on that growth experience spending but experience and services are getting an increasing share of spending our clients that sell Goods are trying to figure out how to leverage and capitalize on that so it is similar experience brands, where retailers or experiences that their consumers that have an affinity for their brand or also drawn to so could be Acquisitions it could be Co promotions it could be, I tried to tie in and Merchandising their products where they wouldn't have before but that's an increasing concern for our clients, a consumer's younger consumers especially are moving more and more away from buying stuff is the central feature of where they like to spend their money and and getting experiences and memories out of it. [40:55] Related to that is is the notion of committee consumption which I think we may have coined that term but if you look at any any consumers discretionary spending. They have an increasing share of that spending every month it's committed before their first paycheck comes in and things like streaming services things like your cable bill things like your cell phone bill. Things like video game memberships you know they're all the different streaming services that have been the news lately that have launched consumers are spending more and more of their money before even comes in in this this notion committee consumption so that's crowding-out discretionary spend on goods and that's a real challenge for clients as well so figuring out you know these subscription models are interesting from any traditional e-commerce retailers are brick-and-mortar retailers and your subscription service is coming up there will my consumers be willing to dedicate a portion of my spends or their spander of their income every month to me and there are several big retail Brands like Nordstrom. But have a service where you can spend a certain amount a hundred bucks a month for four outfits they'll send it to your door you can return the ones you don't like but they're trying to figure out how they can get in on this an ocean of a consumer saying okay every month you're going to get a portion of my spend and if you can't win with that you're going to lose cuz you'll get crowded out and I think that's been fascinating and we're trying to. Work with our clients to see how they can work through that. Jason: [42:15] That that is super fascinating a trend we talked a lot about on the show we call Auto replenishment in so you you can imagine like if your. You know a general Merchant with a hundred thousand views on the shelf and you're seeing that higher and higher percentage of consumption shift to this committed consumption like can you make. Paper towels and toilet paper committed us consumption by you know providing some service where those things just show up in the customer doesn't have to shop for them again so. Yeah it'll be interesting to see if what you said of fighting against that trended we if we seen more more retailers try to embrace that Trend you feel like that could be successful in. In a broader range of categories in Weston today. Jeremy & Patty: [43:00] I think we're seeing a it expand and we're seeing trial I don't know that we've seen proof I mean that the again you guys are the experts in the e-commerce and Amazon space but the statistics that you see on what people are willing to spend. Or how they're willing to engage when they have Prime memberships the amount of a purchasing that they do in the frequency of that purchasing on Amazon what is Auto replenishment in the number of boxes that are showing up on their door crowding-out unit trips to, two other retailers were they may have bought the paper towels or the cleaning products it's astonishing right the purchase frequency on Amazon dwarfs and its factors 10 to 1 but it's a it's a it's a big multiple so I think Amazon certainly and in that case has gotten it right. A black Porter other claims that are trying to figure out how they can win with that and some of the apparel manufacturers I think you're a really good examples there. Jason: [43:52] Yeah that's awesome along those lines Amazon made a pretty clever announcement this week day they launched a new product called the dash shelf have you guys seen this. Jeremy & Patty: [44:05] I have not. Jason: [44:06] It's so it's a a smart shelf that's design for their B2B customer so you'd put it in on your your Office Products shell for your pantry in your business and it. It weighs the products that are on the shelf and automatically reorders when the the Shelf gets below a certain level of inventory so they're essentially. Pushing automated Inventory management out to all these small businesses for you know ordering you know coffee and cleaning supplies for businesses which if I'm Office Depot or Staples or one of those companies. I bet that would be pretty scary because they're you know again taking a bunch of that discretionary spending and shifting it to committed Amazon consumption. Jeremy & Patty: [44:52] I love that I had not heard of it so thank you for telling me about and I love that idea. Scot: [44:56] Ever you just kind of startup question the would look at your data can you tell if someone is a promise or not and can you do guys project and say hey we think there's this many prime users. Jeremy & Patty: [45:08] I don't have the projected answer but yes we can tell if someone is a prime user as I mentioned before we have access to e-commerce receipt so in those receipts pill identify if your Prime member so we can see that was interesting and I mentioned before the purchase frequency that we see him on our users that are Prime members is about 35 purchases, the average purchase that we see from other retailers is in the new 2 to 5 range so it's just massive the, engagement and loyalty that Amazon has been able to create with that Prime Membership which by the way you know we've looked at all the things you get with prime that really is a good value for consumers and I think consumers recognize that so it's I'm certainly not the first person to say it but it's a brilliant thing that they've done in it and we see it hard at in terms of Engagement that consumers cat. Scot: [45:55] And that that 35 is over the course of a week here. Jeremy & Patty: [46:00] Over the course of a year. Scot: [46:01] Yeah Jason does that in the day at Amazon. Jeremy & Patty: [46:03] It was really interesting to their spending typically is lower but with that many purchases over 35 different occasions and it's you know close to 2,000 on average per year. Jason: [46:17] That's that's crazy that's a huge like endemic advantage and I'm assuming it's a mean because if it was a medium Scott's you know that wasn't Star Wars purchases a year from Amazon would probably have a. I'm more skewing effect on the data. Jeremy & Patty: [46:32] Yes they were that's an average. Jason: [46:33] But that's actually going to be a great place to end it because it's happen again we've used up all our allotted time but if we've whet your appetite and you want to continue this conversation you're welcome to hit us up on Twitter or leave us a question on our Facebook page as always we we really appreciate it if you jump on iTunes and give us that that five star review, but Jeremy Patty is a real pleasure to talk to you today and thanks for sharing some of the insights from the checkout. Jeremy & Patty: [47:03] Thanks so much for having us thank you. Jason: [47:07] Until next time happy commercing.

A Business with a HeartAutistic Adults Find Equal Employment With Stride, Inc. After dealing with tragedy and loss, this Albuquerque family chose to improve the world using their experience to change lives. STRIDE Inc., is a globally recognized office product business known for integrated employment of adults with special needs or autism. STRIDE’s CEO Kerry Brennan Bertram shares her family’s loss but also their positive achievements.  Kerry also shares STRIDE’s commitment to the environment and exceptional office product supplies. Carl is the marketing executive and he shares his stories regarding his special needs colleagues. James, Marie and Vaden, special needs adults, join the podcast conversation. For over three decades, Marie has learned every job in the packaging and assembly area. She’s referred to as “the boss” because of her knowledge. Marie is a machine operator and quality assurance agent. The responsibility of mentoring new employees belongs to her. Peter is in his 70s and he does not speak.  He is on the non-verbal autism spectrum but Peter is a genius in math.  He has been with STRIDE, Inc. since the beginning in 1981. Peter does not join the conversation but there is a very interesting ‘red’ story about him on the podcast. James has been with STRIDE, Inc. for eight years. He assembles the multi-pack pens for orders and he works in the shipping department. His humor is in the names that he gives his colleagues. Reading about animals in the Amazon is something he enjoys. Vaden thanks Kerry and her team for hiring him years ago. He is charged with the responsibility of quality assurance, to build sample packs, and run the blister card machine. He’s thrilled that machines don’t do his job because he loves his work. STRIDE, Inc. (https://www.strideinc.com) Contact Your Positive Imprint host (https://yourpositiveimprint.com/contact/) Autistic employees: Marie, Vaden, James Chief Executive Officer, Kerry Brennan Bertram Carl Kinkel Exec Dir. Sales and Marketing

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EP159 - 2019 Predictions and 2018 Recap Our annual predictions episode for 2019 and a recap of our 2018 predictions. 2018 Recap - Predictions made on episode 112 Scot Mallageddon 2.0 - We saw 7000 stores close in 2017, I think this accelerates in 2018 as the 30-40% of weak malls fail  closures. YES Amazon will NOT buy another offline retailer, triples down on private label. YES Amazon will squarely get in the last mile business in 2018 and compete with FedEx and UPS. NO Amazon’s ad group will get so large that they have to break out details about it and everyone will be shocked at how large it has gotten so quickly YES Walmart will make a big M+A - top candidates would be Instacart, postmates and eBay. YES Somebody acquires Magento, or they go public. YES 5/6 Bonus - Amazon comes out with Alexa powered wireless earbuds - because I want them. NO Jason Grocery gets disrupted by digital (led by curbside pickup).  Digital grocery doubles in US, at least one delivery firm peters out.YES Drug gets disrupted by digital. NO AI Gap - biggest trend of 2018 NO Voice - Huge but not for commerce. YES Payments - Retail digital wallets die (except Starbucks/Walmart/Amazon).  Bitcoin tanks. YES 3/5 Bonus - Amazon launches a wearable. NO .  Scot crushes Jason! 2019 Predictions Scot At least 5k more store closures in 2019  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. eBay/Alibaba - I think this is the year when the both need to do something big and the stars are aligning for a combination there.   Shopify gets acquired by one of the big ad-based companies (facebook/google most likely)  Walmart stumbles in e-commerce Jason Amazon store count exceeds 1000 stores Walmart buys a last mile firm  Another big  bankruptcy (going to be a tougher than expected year, JCP, category killers Office, BBBY, Neiman) Mobile commerce revenue passes Desktop - Aided by PWA’s, and payment API’s we see mobile gap narrow Fads (Voice Commerce, Customer facing AI, SocialCommerce, VR BlockChain) Bonus: Amazon breaks out Prime revenue.   Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 159 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, January 6th, 2019. www.jasonandscot.com Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 159 being recorded on Sunday January 6th 2019 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Hey Jason and welcome back and happy New Year Jason Scott show listeners Jason am I mistaken or is that some new music we have there at the beginning. Jason: [0:48] Yeah yeah due to overwhelming listener feedback that I finally updated the the intro to the show it is the same song and the the same announcer but you know you and I both both had some career accomplishments in that in the last year until now there are titles are updated and it's you know just kind of refreshed for the year. Scot: [1:13] Yeah and you how is the new gig going for anyone that missed for smashing on you if you missed any of our last couple episodes but Jason has a new gig will see if I can remember this Chief Grand Superior digital retail Commerce officer is that the right now. Jason: [1:31] The for the second time in a row you nailed it exactly right. Scot: [1:35] Awesome my dad sometimes I drop a word in there but I think I got them all. Jason: [1:38] Yep and impacted cuz you mark that title so much in the last episode I had a ton of a client with legitimately fancy titles all making fun of me for the for the entire break so thanks very much for that Scott. Scot: [1:52] Awesome it's maybe that will be everyone's New Year's resolution is to give Jason a hard time about his awesome new title. Jason: [1:58] For for sure. Scot: [2:00] Coldwell we're post holidays here I think everyone's probably on the edge of their seat did you get any cool new gadgets. Jason: [2:12] Ya always tough. Like in general there's an extremely narrow gap between my desires and fulfillment in so. Like if I got some new gadgets for Christmas it's most likely because a new Gadget came out right before Christmas so I will say I did some refresh is I finally got the. The iPad Pro the 10.5% sync you also have I haven't unbent version I've been pretty. Pretty happy with that and because because of the new job I had to trade out laptops and so now I have finally have a in all USB C. Ecosystem with the iPad and the the the laptop so I've getting those new gadgets of course cost me thousands of dollars in new adapters and cables in. And all angles but I guess the one minor little toy I got is a new. A video camera well I got a couple new vision cameras so I got the DJI osmo pocket. Scot: [3:24] Nice. Jason: [3:25] This is a tiny as in fits like in the palm of your hand you could you could hide it in your hand video camera with a a fully-functioning gimbal so it's, pretty cool to have some some. Funny pictures I'm looking forward to taking nap to the several upcoming trade shows that will probably talk about in a minute so that has been cool and I did a little earlier than Christmas get the new Nikon. Mirrorless camera system so a Nikon Zed 6 if you're from your upper or a Z6 if you're in the US. Scot: [4:01] Cool house that is the mirror listen can you tell the difference. Jason: [4:05] Yet yet so Nikon has always had a great reputation for digital still cameras and great image quality in low-light capability in the color rendering they've been extraordinary really horrible at video. And I'm assuming I actually need a camera that's. Okay it Stills and also very good at video so the fact that I've always own Nikon cameras and have Nikon lenses have been. A constant pain point for me because my car's been so far behind on video and so there's some the mirrorless cameras in general are much better at video and this this. Nikon's first mirrorless full-frame camera. Really does a pretty good weed frog for video capabilities in a lot of ways so it's it's definitely the best. Video stills camera I've ever owned. Scot: [5:01] Koba I know you're off to CES next week and we will have a lot more gadget news for us then you and I are both at the NRF Big Show so maybe we'll shoot some video do a live streaming or something fun like that. Jason: [5:12] I will bring all those gadgets why be using them to photograph any cool new gadgets that you got for the holiday stuff. Scot: [5:19] I I said William like you where I think I probably had caught up on my gadgets before the holiday suit so nothing new for me. Oh yeah yeah I do think did you get the keyboard case on your iPad I really enjoyed that. Jason: [5:35] Yeah I did I've enjoyed that it's been it's my first iPad with a pencil so that has been it's been cool yeah. Not permanently I I will concede to have misplaced it but it it does reemerged. Scot: [5:51] That an airpods have this weird like they want to get lots of gaple somehow his program them to is a margin enhancer to get lost as quickly as they possibly can. Jason: [6:02] I'm afraid to even talk about that because my my wife is so much more responsible than me and she's on like her her like 4th or 5th pair and I am still in my originals through some some like and Candy miracle. Scot: [6:15] Goodwill as is our tradition here on the Jason Scott show every year we kick off the new year with a recap of what happened in the last year and then we have our predictions so the predictions are twofold last year about 365 days ago we made a bunch of predictions couldn't remember so it's kind of fun to go back and look at those are super geeky and want to go back that was episode 112. It's a method that means we did 47 shows last year so that's 47 hours roughly of Jason Scott if you if you have a week to burn if you have mono or something like that that you want to recover from and you need something to put you to sleep for 47 hours a week we have your cure so we will be breaking the show into three pieces for going to do kind of a good bad ugly of 2018 and then we can go into recapping our predictions and squirm and then from 2018 and then we're going to put out some 2019 predictions so I think what you'll see from the 28th predictions is we're actually pretty good pretty good at this thing after how long you been at this 3 for years now I think we're getting pretty good on the prediction game. Jason: [7:34] That's easier for you to say than it is for me to say this year but sure. Scot: [7:39] Without further delay let's jump into The Good the Bad and the Ugly Jason what order a couple of your goods from 2018. Jason: [7:46] Yep so I was really excited to see some of the new physical store Concepts and the very end of the year you know Nike open at House of innovation we talked about that in the last show that's super exciting to me I think some of the Amazon Concepts like go and 4-star are are super interesting there's a lot of new physical Marketplace Concepts like we've had beta on the show I've mentioned show failed before and then a lot of these mobile-first stores like the Sam's Club now so I think, the you know we're really starting to see digital Impact Physical stores and drive new store Concepts which is awesome. [8:24] On the platform front I was excited to see Adobe make the big investment in Magento in an e-commerce platform. In many ways I feel like the the commercial platform space in the Enterprise platform space in particular that I play in is kind of. In the worst spot it's been in in 10 years in terms of. You don't really meeting the needs of retailers and clients and there's always been this this conflict between CMS systems that people like Adobe make and commerce platforms that people like. IBM sap in Oracle make in so I'm very optimistic that adobe who who is dominating the CMAs. Essbase then making a significant investment investment in e-commerce you know really could be the way forward for 4. A lot of new new retailers in in Commerce entities that need an enterprise-class system. And I say this with the one caveat Magento as it is is not the solution. [9:33] Adobe's willingness to invest in Magento 2 me is historically a Dobby is always been a. And aggressive acquire that acquired a bunch of stuff and you know it often takes them several years to really integrate the stuff so I'm not expecting Miracles this year per se but in the long run feels like. Adobe deciding that Commerce is an important part of the stack is super exciting and then my my last good for the year. Is kind of specific it was Walmart's investment in Flipkart in the reason I think that is good I think it is super smart for. From Walmart to be aggressively fighting for digital in in the super important Emerging Market in India. Some things happened late last year that make those Investments actually look a little softer is as a Indian regulation on foreign Commerce is has gotten more challenging but the reason I just think it's good overall is. I feel like that investment that huge investment in digital for Walmart you know his is the most. [10:38] Tangible physical manifestation of Walmart's absolute recognition that. Digital is the way forward in the day you know that they have to compete with the Amazon than alibaba's of the world and can't can't abdicate any of that Digital Ground And so seeing them them fight for for that that intellectual property you know I think is a encouraging sign for all of us in the future what about you what would it were you excited about last year Scott. Scot: [11:07] Well I'm always the guy that gets to say it wouldn't be the Jason Scott show without Amazon and Sonos surprised they're my good is crying it out with Amazon so I thought was really interesting than Amazon you mentioned a little bit but they really expanded their store footprint so they had acquired Whole Foods back and 17 which obviously is a big splash into offline and they never really expanded Whole Food stores I mean 2018 was a year of kind of adjusting that that acquisition they announce now they're going to start opening more here in 2019 so that's going to be interesting to see I think the surprise for me in an impossible one was done to go experiments and then just kind of really ramping that up pretty quickly you know I think they built another for 5 is that many more on the way there's rumors of wars and then you're the one thing as I travel around not nearly as much as you but going to various malls and things I would say pretty much every a mall in the US seems to have an Amazon pop-up store and I think about all those people I don't know how many that is it's how many of these are out there but I think if we looked at. [12:23] Your class A malls I think there be three or four hundred of them so I wouldn't be surprised if there was three or four hundred pretty substantial Amazon pop-ups out there so it's I think that's pretty interesting and really is a testament to the Amazon. [12:38] You're expanding into kind of omni-channel world and get their products in front of more people. [12:43] I'm done once asked on the front end of Amazon the back end of Amazon that was really interesting this year was what I would call it start a frenetic expansion of. Delivery capabilities some of this is last mile so they acquire twenty thousand of these Mercedes Sprinter vans I'd be surprised if any listener at least the United States hasn't seen one of these I see you to a date at this point in my area. [13:09] And they built a 1099 Network a very clever way kind of taking a page out of FedEx Grounds Playbook where they were actually kind of put you in the business guarantee you rub you and routes and then boom you're off and running so I think they got those 20,000 sprinters out there delivering packages and something like six months which is just pretty crazy about a lot of soccer capabilities so if you're a third-party now you can use Amazon soccer in your phone at Center and almost be like little extension of FBA Whole Foods we saw them can I ditch instacart and then layer and their their 1099 other 1099 network of Flex for that they've added a ton more jets that got to where are hubs coming and I attractive distribution centers pretty closely so in the USA in 2018 they added 46 more performance center assets and then another 23 in the rest of the world for a total of about 70 I am all in that's an additional 11 million square feet of space that came on line in 2018 and then that adds to the existing 850 or so globally and 250 million square feet so, so it's a lot of people that I always talk to you that the baby not in the industry but on the cusp there always surprise I'll say what how many how many from home as soon as you think Amazon has versus Walmart but they both have 10 and the number I think that's about right with Walmart but Amazon has. [14:34] Tremendous amount of assets they built so it matters it's Amazon a so far ahead of anyone it is going to be interesting to see there. My last surprise was becoming I think the economy did really well last year even the last reported as of December on the job side was really really strong so that we're seeing a strong economy you know as the Fed kind of Titans interest rates in the stock market with a lot of shakiness there but underlying economy. [15:09] Then let's put it in the battle I'll start those so I think the bad was I was so surprised about how kind of negative to Amazon hq2 process turned out, kind of ended in a in a thud you know it wasn't like this kind of I guess unless you're one of the two cities I think they're. Pretty excited but even then there's a lot of protesting going on in the DC New York area that Amazon's coming and then it got these really big incentives so yeah I think that's going to be interesting to watch and see what happens as Amazon is so large now that they can't just fly under the radar and I think they managed the back of that process kind of weirdly not where it seems like everyone that are decided and then and then it's kind of pain a conspiracy theory if you believe that they were just Gathering data from people what I'm concerned about a little bit you and I emailed about this just recently I kind of put it in the bad category in this is holiday 2018. I'm so Adobe came out a couple days ago what their final report they said the holiday came in at 14%. That's e-commerce so Little Debbie disappointing if that's true then you send me some data that showed MasterCard said all in 5.1 I guess you know this better than I do dinner or else was right around there and set right would that be kind of a win or a loss of your. Jason: [16:30] Yet so for all of retail that's that that's probably a win it's a little better than the recent historical averages but I think the. That does averages hide the fact that you know it just was not equal 4 for all retailers and inside I definitely think there are winners and losers. Scot: [16:54] Yeah unfortunately don't think we'll know until Amazon reports there they're kind of the Bellwether I look at and you know, Indus. Where they would have pre-announced if they had missed so they haven't said anything unfortunately Apple did pronounce look like they had a really rough calendar Q4 I believe it's there there theraphysical q1i which is always confusing what companies do it that way but that seems to be isolated to China with some of the tariffs and things in the Chinese economy that that I don't think we'll Amazon has as much exposure to just really interesting to see where holiday 18 and zup and I think we'll know what covered on the show as we always do I think we'll know by that first week in February however all the all the leaves fell and and what happened. Jason: [17:41] Yeah I'm looking forward to seeing how that all plays out so some of my bads. Didn't get a ton of Buzz last year but I've been pretty disappointed in the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling regarding a internet sales tax and so you know, basically the Supreme Court rule made a ruling in favor of a state that was suing to collect sales tax on. An internet sales in Oxy like I'm okay with. People having to pay sales tax for other online purchases I'm I actually think in general rather be Universal pricing and in. You know you buy from the same retail online or in the store you want to see the same price and and that's a lot to be taxed in a similar way the reason I say that the ruling was bad is. Because a bunch of the ramifications of the way this particular ruling plays out it just creates a lot of uncertainty in friction in the e-commerce space and so. Which states you actually need to collect sales tax in which they tax you definitely don't need to collect sales tax in and which states. You may or may not get sued by a state if you don't collect sales tax in right now is kind of. [19:02] Thrown up in the air and it creates a lot of inconsistency and just a lot of. A sort of effort and friction that isn't helping anyone and so I feel like there was opportunity for for Congress to solve this problem before dumping in the lap of the Supreme Court's and. You know maybe that was overly optimistic so didn't happen until we're going to have to let this play out for now a number of years and. Just like the unfortunate the other sort of bad one to me this year is we had some kind of ugly CEO exit so you know what we forgot about that this far end up but we had. You know the very ugly exit at Lululemon. [19:44] Early in the year I want to see February he was he was the CEO and chairman and got kind of forced out and he's now been. In an irritant for them on an ongoing basis you know Mickey Drexler was. Lasted less than a year of J.Crew and you know maybe not CEO of all but you know I see you judge executive term for some bad reasons it Nike. And so you know that certainly to me as one of the the the bad blemishes on on 2018 from a Commerce perspective. [20:19] And then my my ugly if we give it to the the really bad stuff for 2018 I just think it what I mean you're always going to have churning in retail stores are always going to have, bankruptcies Doug mcmillon famous what he carries around this west of the top 10. [20:36] Can retailers from my 1980 and there aren't a lot of those names that are that are still in business today so bankruptcies are in a shock but I feel like. 2018 hits is particularly hard with Toys R Us and Sears and then you know below them you had all these other guys David's Bridal Mattress Firm Brookstone Nine West Claire's Gymboree bonds. Etc and so you know as a lover of Commerce and Retail and sorry to see some of those stories brands. [21:07] You don't go away or get greatly diminished so that's only felt ugly and then right towards the end of the year, we had a IBM sell their big Enterprise e-commerce platform Webster Commerce to US service provider HCL, that to me is a probably super ugly for IBM clients that are relying on that platform and. You know now it's fragmented from the rest of the IBM stacked and there's going to be a bunch of challenges there there's a bunch of clients that own the or just moving to the. The cloud version of Webster Commerce which they didn't sell so that seems ugly I just feel like the the Enterprise Commerce platform space. In general is in a bad space and it's most manifested by by IBM which was you know one of the top three platforms are arguably the top platform getting kind of dumped by IBM this year. Scot: [22:08] Call yeah I'm going to plus one or as my kids would say retweet on the bankruptcies that tear you when was painfully know is that it is a kid that grew up Star Wars fan I spent many a midnight madness so you know. Jedi Friday or whatever the column hanging out in t r u so that was disappointing then you. Add insult to injury one of the shopping center if we go to a lot had a combined Tru Babies R Us like a huge one it just sitting there empty for the last last three or four months is kind of sad. Yeah I kind of say you know in this top of the mall Denton, so interesting stat here that came out towards the end of the year. I mentioned it, he did pretty well but malls were there emptiest in six years from a tenancy standpoint no foot traffic is also down at malls this company RI sorry is I had a report that said that they're at an 8.6% vacancy. [23:05] Again that's the highest it's been in 6 years and that represents 4 million square foot is the most available square footage in malls and then strip malls have been hit chick really bad because you know I think Toys R Us is really kind of one of those strip-mall type stores that it was an anchor for a lot of strip malls and and as we see in the enclosed malls when she loosened his anchors you get up into this death spiral kind of situation so I would also Echo that on the ugly side cool so so that was kind of the what was sawed in 2018 let's put it to our predictions in and see if how Clairvoyant we were on condos so I went back to Good Ol episode 112 and service predictions I'll go to mine and then you go to yours and then what kind of see how he did sue her quickly I had five predictions and a bonus so number one Mulligan 2.0 in 2017 we saw 7,000 stores closed and I said it's going to accelerate into 2018. [24:05] I ended up with 9,000 closures then my second prediction was that Amazon will not buy another retailer this doesn't seem like people may think well why would you say that it's kind of obvious but back then we were on the heels of the Whole Foods acquisition in a lot of Wall Street analyst for like issuing those reports you know Costco's Definitely Maybe the next company know it's Nordstrom's know its Target so that's that was kind of the backdrop. Predictions is really say these guys are off base I just don't think Amazon's could do anything big again in 2018, in the corollary to that was that they would instead of doing that they would triple down on private label. [24:44] Third prediction I ripped my prediction on Amazon Logistics they would be competing more squarely with FedEx ups and then number for this one turned out, pretty good I said Walmart will make big m&a instacart Postmates and eBay so, playing on Marketplace and last-mile their number 5 and said somebody would acquire magenta or they would go. And then my bonus was the Amazon would come out with Alexa powered, your butt's so I mentioned airpods the topless show I love my airpods but I am not a huge Siri fan and I everyday I wish Alexa what would hang out on my airpods instead of Siri so that was the Genesis of that production Warrior 2018 predictions. Jason: [25:30] Yep so I also had five in the bonus the first one was the grocery would get heavily disrupted by digital I think I called out specifically that would be wed by curbside pickup. Number two was the drug would get the heavily disrupted by digital, number three I said the biggest train would be talking about in 2018 was what I called that AI gap which was kind of, the difference between the big players that could take full advantage of AI in the smaller players that couldn't necessarily afford to do it as quickly, predictions for was voice I said it's going to continue to be huge and grow quickly but not for Commerce. And then my V prediction was mobile payments was digital wallets I said a bunch of them with. I said Starbucks Walmart and Amazon when continue to thrive but a bunch of the other ones women's and, snarky side note I mentioned that I expected Bitcoin to tank and then my bonus was. Close to the same as yours I I said that I thought the Amazon would come out with a wearable in 28. Scot: [26:42] What did you what you mean by Rebel. Jason: [26:45] Army night. Your paws were the most likely scenario but I just felt like they would find some way to get Alexa on on your body and especially because they lack the phone that seems like. You don't like it could be some kind of widget that you you clip to your clothing or or carry with you but but or I wear something like that but I guess my biggest expectation was that it would be your pot. And we will talk about the results of that moment early but I want to start off by breaking down how well you did so now that we reminded everyone what we thought 2018 would look like in the beginning of 2018 let's see how we actually did so your first prediction was the store Mulligan what do you think. Scot: [27:38] Yeah I'm going to because I put a specific number in there of 9,000 I I I missed that one turns out it took me a while to find the state looks like there was 6235 closures in hindsight what I should have done and there's no good data set for this is looked at the square footage of so you know when I don't know when a mattress firm closes that's different than a Sears or JCPenney are Toys R Us closing right is this really the square footage we care about so I would argue I would throw myself at the feet of the judges and say look at miss the number of stores but I think if you look at kind of what did clothes and yours juices rundown of store closures in 2018 Toys R Us 735, Walgreens 600 n Taylor Loft Dress Barn 500 Teavana 379 Best Buy 250 Mattress Firm 200 Gap 200 Children's Place 144 Footlocker 110 Kmart 109 Gymboree 102 and then let's goes It goes from there another kind of big square footage when Sam's Club 63 how big is a Sam's Club like two hundred thousand. Jason: [28:49] 100 weeks but yeah. Scot: [28:50] Honored yet so there's enough so it's all right I think if we looked as square footage I bet and I don't have a source for this unfortunately I have heard that the there was way more square footage in 2018 so. Who does if you want to hold it till I rely on the stop. Jason: [29:08] Yeah I'm actually giving you that one because I would, went out do I call the sources we do have the track store closures none of them claim or try to be comprehensive so they're they're tracking stores in a particular category or that made a particular criteria and saying they close that many but none of them for example are trying to keep track of. Potentially how many mom-and-pop closed or those sorts of things and even there are a couple of sources of square footage in your right the square footage is more dramatic because we had closure is it a lot of big stores but even the square footage tend to be like. People that are attacking mob a square footage in what the closures are so I just I don't think there is a definitive number but I think the spirit of your prediction came to pass and I think was the. The biggest shrinkage of a store for stores in in recent memory. Scot: [29:59] Colton so we'll call that one in the sky cam. Jason: [30:05] For sure so your second prediction Amazon will not buy another offline retailer and you said they'd triple down on private label so pretty with B, and I prediction but but I actually. I liked it so how do you think you did. Scot: [30:24] Predictions so obviously I didn't make another big acquisition of an offline retailer in it you know the trouble down on private label I think maybe they even quadruple down that it's hard to get data on the cell to does a good job and then we had some other data folks 10:10 to concentrate on the show and you know I think if you could attract our conversations on the show or the squeeze 7 episodes the second half of 18 we were spending a lot of time talking about Amazon 3rd party because it's probably the number one thing on retailers and Brands mines you know so so so I would call this definitely something that happened there. Jason: [31:12] That for sure, annoyingly totally giving it to you so 242 so far your third prediction which I touch you like is your annual protection, is the Amazon Logistics. Scot: [31:30] Yeah and this one's kind of squishy so I'm going to kind of say this was a zero so my mind we won't cross this one until I can ship a product on Amazon like I would FedEx from point A to point B. So I think it's become insanely cleared everyone that this is what they're building now so I think everyone is kind of, in fact if you if you go look at a FedEx stock chart and you'll see they had a number of issues with the terrorist it help them it would not, listen to their conference call their CEO and founder Fred Smith, you got a little agitated by a kind of the fifth or sixth Amazon question that he got so I think it's become pretty apparent everyone would Amazon's doing here and the the ball is no longer hidden the cards are on the table and who knows maybe 2019 will be that year when we can ship a product Coast to Coast for $3 on Amazon. Jason: [32:31] Yeah for sure so I'm sort of with you I feel like they made a lot of progress in that direction seems like you need to be something that will happen but but you don't get full credit for this year so if only because I need to keep the predictions competitive, so your fourth prediction was the Amazon the ad group we get so large that they would have to break out there the revenue separately and that people would be totally shocked how how big they got so quickly. Scot: [33:04] Yeah and so did this is a win they didn't have to break it out like they do AWS work so I could separate kind of reporting piano but they have had to break it out because it has been so large they created this they when they announced the quarter last year they said going forward they would change the way they recorded stuff. Unfortunately they stopped recording a lot of my favorite stuff which was kind of sad so they used to have this interesting breakdown between him and some things that have gone away now but when they did that they did start to break out category called other and everyone knows that that's like 99% and so and it has gotten quite large so you'll hear me talk a little bit more about that in 2019 president. Jason: [33:50] Yeah and you don't even though you're bad at reading predictions and you put that highly specific thing in there that didn't happen I'm totally giving this one to you like for people that haven't lived through the industry in last year people are not talking about Amazon's ad Revenue in January of last year in you don't even like the Scott Galloway's of the world that like make a living. Making predictions and then you know reminding everyone when they're right he wrote a book that you don't Amazon with 1/4 of the book and he barely mentioned advertising in that book in like, July and so for you back in January to have said hey there ads is going to be this big thing and it was going to be shocked when they find out how big it was and then you know last June and then again in October when they you know, showed how fast that was growing and everyone's exactly talking about that I feel like you you basically put the words right in there was a mouth so I'm totally giving you credit for that but you still ain't get one point for it so so you're three or four running into to your V prediction which was that. Annoying Walmart will make a big MMA and you mentioned some some last-mile candidates. Scot: [35:08] Yeah. Jason: [35:09] How you did Scott. Scot: [35:10] I'll give you sixteen Billy syneresis flag, Walmart acquired what card it was not one of the ones that predicted but. You know I probably should have so it was my my set up on this one going back then was, it's not like Walmart had all this pressure you know that they had to get in the game with with Amazon more and I was thinking Last Mile but it totally makes sense on their National side as well so that was, clearly a good call to kind of read the tea leaves on that one. Jason: [35:48] Yeah that was totally good and then annoyingly even though they were only supposed to be 5 predictions you did 1/6 prediction and you know to be annoyingly for me cuz I I'm I have this one-sided rivalry when I'm trying to compete with you I believe your 6 prediction was that a Dobby would acquire Magento for 1.6 billion dollars. Scot: [36:07] It wasn't that accept fake but it was that someone would acquire Majin to or they would go public so so there you know so having been on the other side of this when when you get to a certain scale as a startup in the magenta got through some complicated things but they're effectively a start up again right there an independent entity they had a private equity the clock starts ticking was what I was thinking and what that clock means is that investor wants their money back and he's private Equity guys BC's want a 10-year Horizon private equities like two or three that was kind of feeding into that prediction and then you know it's also on the other side it's. Musical chairs you know so so everyone every big cloud he's going to want to have a great platform and it just felt like there was. One chair left in and kind of two Cloud companies that wanted to sit in that chair so so that's what it said in the so happy that I read those tea leaves right as well. Jason: [37:07] What congratulations so recap five out of six right and then you did do the bonus one and that was the Amazon would have an airpod like headphones they and what it what do you want to say about that stuff. Scot: [37:23] So my strategy here is it's easy to call this when the wind because you had the same one so your Prime. So Amazon specifically didn't get released this but this is actually my son was looking for some new headphones so we went to, I would assume next to the derelict Toys'R'Us I mentioned earlier and I was surprised I'm a big I'm listening I'm on the show right now with some qc35 from Bose and I looked and it said now featuring Alexa and I was like what the heck, this is awesome now Alexa is in the Bose headphones then I went over to the job or display and it said now featuring Alexa then I went over to like two other kind of you know generic style things and literally as I backed up and looked at the row of headphones every single pair suddenly I had Alexa so what's happened is Amazon has issued an API or some kind of capability in a very strategically work with a lot of these manufacturers and unbeknownst to me until now literally like January 2nd when we were born in some. [38:29] Best Buy gift cards they are there are a lot of airpod like Technologies and and you have every configuration headphone you can imagine with Alexa now and I play with it it's actually exactly how I want it to be so on my Gadget which list is I am hoping that somehow these Bose headphones I have break and that I can. Get a new pair with Alexa or maybe I need to go check and see if I can retro them to have Alexa probably not try some kind of I'm sure there's some. Gizmo this to make me buy a new car. Jason: [39:02] Yea though I can certainly help you with the accidental breakage problem when I see you in in New York in a couple weeks but yeah yeah same boat I I'm not giving it either this credit for this cuz the Amazon didn't didn't actually, come out with an Amazon branded product but what did happen I can't remember the exact date like August or September they did finally release exactly as you suggested an API that made it totally possible for OEM to build Alexa into the headphones and you can imagine folks are doing it right then but then even a bigger deal one of the big chip manufacturers in November started shipping a new Bluetooth chipset the included that capability and access to that API in the chips at so you're already seeing a bunch of announcements that's before. Brands had the opportunity to build new products with this new Bluetooth chipset my expectation is I'm going to show up in Las Vegas tomorrow and there are going to be Bluetooth products with an Alexa embedded in them coming out of my ears with early. So I think we yeah we may have missed The Branding on that one but the floodgates are about to open up and not one of my predictions but sidenote like I think everyone's noticed that. [40:24] Airpods have been Apple's most successful product in The Last 5 Years and you know the. The Amazon Alexa family's been the most successful Consumer Electronic it in The Last 5 Years, I'll be shocked if we don't see apple Google and Amazon directly battling it out with smart smart earbuds this year. Scot: [40:44] Cool one of the one of the many Jason Scott show interns just handed me a note it looks like I can upgrade my headphones with firmware so we're going to stop a show right now. Jason: [40:58] We're not going to stop at but you may not hear Scott anymore cuz he's going to like drop by the audio. Scot: [41:03] I'm going to be upgrading my firmware while Jason finishes the wrestler show speaking of Jason let's go through your predictions so what was my score so was it 5 out of 7. Jason: [41:13] I forgot I forgot what it was I'm giving you five out of six we're not counting the bone. Scot: [41:18] Okay but I think that helps you but I'm okay with. Jason: [41:21] Well but we're also the setting it was the same bonus oh. Scot: [41:24] Okay so your first one was grocery gets disrupted by digital led by curbside pickup listeners will longtime listeners will know that is your favorite. Grocery solution digital grocery doubles in the US at least one delivery firm Peters out. Jason: [41:41] Yep so, I'm calling out a window side note I have come to realize that I hate my predictions from last year and because I just, put them badly like they're too subjective and in many cases like hard to measure so at one of my New Year's resolution is to write better predictions and we'll find out how very shortly. Scot: [42:05] It's easy to say you hate them in January of 2019. Jason: [42:08] Yeah for sure for sure but but I do think the sentiment of this when like was wildly true Walmart ruled after I pick up to 2,000 stores that over 40% e-commerce growth every quarter this year which is wildly faster than last year is faster than Amazon Kroger get a bunch of their own curbside pickup called quick list but a bigger deal they did an exclusive partnership with Arcado the biggest digital Grocer in UK Albertsons made a bunch of big Investments they both announced that they were going to watch the first digital grocery Marketplace and they also announced that they were going to build dedicated micro fulfillment centers out of the backs of a bunch of the Albertsons stores our friends at shoptalk launched a dedicated digital grocery show called grocery talk and it's sold out with 3,000 attendees in the first year you know you go internationally and the the Ali Baba concept hammer and the JD concept 7 fresh are going nuts I think it's it's a safe and fair to say digital grocery blew up even even though. You know I mean I have perfectly nailed the specifics and again there's no perfect metric but it does appear that digital grocery more than doubled in the US. Scot: [43:28] Wood shed delivery from Peter. Jason: [43:30] Yeah that's the part where I sort of depends on how you count right like you could argue that like one that got acquired like shipped for example. Scot: [43:42] Oh that's like tripled. Jason: [43:44] Not with any retailer besides Target. And I think I mean you know there's there's something there on the ropes a little bit but yeah that was a dumb part of the prediction so you can you're going to trust me anyway so don't you don't need a whole night. Scot: [44:00] Oh when writing predictions don't don't like a daisy chain hands together because. Jason: [44:06] When specifics yeah yeah. 2 + 1 is that is that I'm one-for-one right now feel free to stop listening to schoenauer. Scot: [44:17] Okay the judges give you that one okay because we're going to flip your aunt's to Anor and give you one there alright your second prediction was drugs get disrupted by digital. Jason: [44:30] Yeah and I mean a few things did happen that are interesting Amazon invested a billion dollars in pillpack they wash their first over-the-counter brand basic care they partnered to do that like at home medical devices under the choice brand of course there's this big joint health care venture between Amazon Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan but to me none of that adds up to a true disruption yet and I I mean I think there's some is there a lot of interesting tea leaves to read this year but I'm I'm not going to argue that I should get a point there. Scot: [45:12] All right and then your third prediction was the biggest trend of 2018 will be the AI Gap. Jason: [45:21] So once again a stupid prediction how do you argue something is or isn't the biggest Trend but I think it's safe to say this wasn't so I kind of miss this one like you know I do think. Aai was one of the hype things that got a lot of chatter in 2018 and there was one IPO that you could argue with sort of AI Commerce which is Stitch fix realistically like I didn't I don't think we saw a i dramatically transformed any retailers and so my my way more specific prediction that. Did the it would open a gap between the big retailers in the little retailers why I just don't think it's fair to say that happened so that was a dumb prediction and I'm I'm not one for 3. Scot: [46:06] Okay I'll see how you did a number for you said his voice is going to be huge but not for Commerce. Jason: [46:14] Yeah so again based on my fragile ego I feel like this one is climbing out of the hole a little bit I do think of voice was huge I think Amazon alone has said they sold over a hundred million devices now it's their best-selling device on all their big days that there's some by some metrics Google is actually. Selling more devices in the last couple quarters than Amazon I'm not sure I totally believe that but but I do believe they're selling a bunch of devices as well until for sure, voice over all was huge and I think even more clearly voice commerce was not there was some some data that came out in the third quarter that said that less than 2% of people that own smart speakers that ever tried to do Commerce with it feel like the only only even moderate volume, Commerce type applications were things like a Starbucks in the Uber for sure people are not ordering things with. Complicated attributes and in promo codes via there their voice devices self. Again I'm going to take the win there and which would put me at 2 for 4. Scot: [47:32] Does that hundred million devices suppression. Jason: [47:36] No because I mean some very low-cost devices we haven't talked that an issue I don't think that they now even have like and you can frequently get devices free and as part of bundles but they never liked him $19 device that you can plug into any speaker. And so they they just have all the price points in there you know there, is you highlighted there a huge advertising platform than one of that biggest biggest media platforms on the on the planet and they generally dedicate about half of all their pixels to selling this stuff so I mean. Today I am not shocked they sold that many devices if you if you ask me in a 3 years ago when they started this stuff if they would get there this past I probably would have said that shot. Scot: [48:21] So just like one way I think about this is probably 80% domestic 20% International I don't think they push the Alexa stuff is hard International so then to the pilot 89 us net, that article is totally undermined right is global High thing. Jason: [48:40] Yeah I think that was a global number. Scot: [48:42] There's three hundred and fifty people are in the US 250 households 200 million households. Jason: [48:51] Little north of 200. Scot: [48:52] Yes it was just going to round numbers 200 million households 80 million devices there's going to be some like your house that has 30 devices but that's like we on this Edge Neo so you know call it's approaching half us households have an Alexa device that's pretty amazing. Jason: [49:13] Yeah for sure but it is I feel like it is pres been on them like they're lots of devices that get to that. That 50% market share eventually and it depends on the technology took a long time but I do think one of the ramifications of the like modern digital era is. That all of this happens much faster so you know it. Adoption of new things just happens much more quickly than it did in the ear of radio or TV and so you know smart speakers, you know followed a similar trajectory to a lot of those other media technologies that they just did it in a way I can press time. Scot: [49:47] God I wish I could give you two on this one but it's been our custom to just give one point prediction so sorry. Jason: [49:53] Yeah totally totally fair. Scot: [49:56] Then your payments so you said retail die. And Bitcoin tanks so you didn't and in there. Jason: [50:11] So like you got him like me for my poor Boolean logic and again stupidly written like I call that some specific digital wallets that were the exceptions and those exceptions large we did really well Starbucks did very well on there some evidence that Walmart did well Amazon you know his continuing to thrive is a digital wallet I didn't spell out the digital wallets that wouldn't do well but in my mind there were two families of those there's Apple and Google which, like all indications are are pretty flat so there are people using them in liking them but it but it does not appear that they're growing particularly fast and it doesn't appear that they're getting as much reuse as, I'm sure they would hope so so our friends over it payments that that track this like it kind of found ample in Google to be flat and then there was this whole genre of digital wallets from financial institutions so specific Banks like Chase and Citibank and the card issuers like MasterCard and visa and. [51:13] Yeah none of those digital wallets are used by anyone that's not a family member of the company so I do feel like that that is fair and then stupidly put a hand in there 4 Bitcoin that had nothing to do with digital wallet so I have no idea why I did that but that is arguably, my best prediction of the entire thing because I think Bitcoin was at $16,000 a coin and in that is the beginning of January that you wanted me to prediction and today it's at about 3:36 hundred bucks so it's basically a quarter of its its former value so if you if you wanted to invest in any prediction in this entire, in N last year's entire show the most money you could have made was to take my advice and short bed. Scot: [51:59] Unless you were a Magento investor. Are Flipkart okay and then finally you said Amazon will come out in the wearable and I think you have already dismissed. Jason: [52:14] Yeah yeah thank you you are to cover that one so so I think you add all that up I'm I'm three out of five you're for it at 5 but with a like a much richer more impressive for. Scot: [52:26] Cool thank you I appreciate the kikuta sir I think you did a good job but hopefully you learned some some important lessons about writing your predictions and let's let's jump into that you want to go first you want me to go first. Jason: [52:39] I want to go first, before you jump in and in case we have any that overlap. Scot: [52:45] Are you good for. Jason: [52:46] So my first prediction is that Eddie Lampert is not going to launch a space exploration company. Wait wait that's all right so cheating just making fun of your negative predictions but I do like that one if anyone wants to keep it as my bonus my first one I guess I'm trying to have more measurable objective things I think continuing the the evolution of Amazon's brick-and-mortar I think Amazon is going to have more than a thousand brick-and-mortar stores by the end of this year, combination of goes Whole Foods in some other expansion of bookstore Concepts but a thousand stores is a very meaningful brick-and-mortar retailers so if you go to like the the NRF top list of retailers and you sort it by number of stores a thousand stores makes you about the the 67th, largest retailer in the US by number of stores and so in addition to all the other areas where Amazon's excelling in. And dominating I feel like eating that thousands door threshold like definitely makes you as usually credible brick-and-mortar retailer and I think they're going to get there this year. Scot: [54:04] Do you want to throw and and in there about. Jason: [54:07] And Eddie Lampert is not going to want to space exploration. Scot: [54:10] Okay alright I almost got that in here. Jason: [54:14] So then my new strategy is just to take your predictions that didn't happen from the year before and doubled down on them. So you last year said Walmart was going to make a big acquisition and you highlighted some of the last mile companies and you got credit for the making the big acquisition but it wasn't the last mile company, I think they're going to fulfill the other half of your prediction this year and actually buy a Last Mile company. And that's potentially potentially instacart Postmates taskrabbit but I also think something like that. Adda live wood would totally toy fit in there so I'm I'm sure we'll see Walmart both organically grow and acquire. Let more last-mile capability this year. [55:07] Number 3 I am sad to say based on our previous conversations but I I think we are going to see another big beloved brand go bankrupt this year so I actually think. In any way I do I told you I think that it was an unexpectedly good economy this year. I am not as confident that we're going to sustain that for all of 2019 and there are you know it again I think that the the booming economy hasn't been. Equally generous to all retailer so I do think there's some retards have had a tough going and I think as both get tightened a little bit that potential will be the last. The last straw so you know I certainly think the department stores. You know is a vulnerable category United by JCPenney certainly is vulnerable I think any of the category killers that used to win based on assortment you know aren't winning an assortment anymore do the online so you know that could be one of the. The Office Products companies are Bed Bath & Beyond or some of those guys and you know when we talk about department stores. You don't one super story brand in the US that you like I think is has a bunch of money a bunch of. Debt due in 2019 and seemed to be having some some substantial disagreements with her creditors at the moment is Neiman Marcus so I would be sad to see them go but it seems like. [56:35] Like they're going to have to do pretty well tough to forestall that so I'm afraid we'll see another another big bankruptcy this year. Scot: [56:43] How many demons are there are they only like four big cities room. Jason: [56:47] So it's not a huge footprint unless it's 40 spores and they own a couple other Concepts as well but yeah. Scot: [56:57] Predictions for 4. Jason: [56:59] I feel like I might have made a similar version of this before but the. I'm bringing it back so mobile the mobile Gap getting narrower is my is my official predictions I think aided by a progressive web apps and payment API we are going to see. Mobile really catch up to desktop in terms of conversion rate and also total sale so I guess I'll see you in my dreams specific prediction is. That we have more mobile Commerce than desktop Commerce in if you take out tablets in 29th. Scot: [57:40] And then last but not least. Jason: [57:42] Yeah I'm taking you or negative predictions to the extreme and I'm just saying there's a bunch of pads that I don't think will will. Be significant and in 2019 the first one is still going to be hyped this year and still going to be a fad. I actually don't think there's going to be a ton of like customer-facing AI experiences or are frankly even way better personalization experiences in 2019. I think we will see more more chatter around social commerce but it's still not going to catch on. I don't think going to see any meaningful Traction in in VR for Commerce. And I certainly don't think blockchain is going to be a very important element for most of Commerce so that you know there's the ones you you all of those Technologies are ones you hear people talk about a lot and. Like I frequently intended rough drafts of retail Trends decks with all these things in a minute I just don't think any of them are going to be very Signet. Scot: [58:44] Any any bonuses you want to put on there. Jason: [58:47] I do the you talk about Amazon being forced to break out their ad Revenue do I actually think they're going to get forced to break out the revenue related to Prime Membership. And I hope that happens cuz I think it would be super interesting to see what percentage of. Of their their sales come from Prime and and you don't total total Prime Revenue in those sorts of things would be fascinating to know. Scot: [59:15] Did you include, like a whole p&l there or just really Prime revenue and sales around Prime. Jason: [59:22] Yeah I don't know how specific I want to get on bonus I don't think I official purposes I won't say piano but I hope that they have to get as granny or as. Using Prime members as a segment for reporting Revenue. So that's what I got hopefully it's better than last year hopefully I am I'm not getting. I hope I am enjoying next year's version of the show more than I did this year's but the time we're finally to the part that I'm really looking forward to which is what Nostradamus thinks is going to happen for next year so Scott what do we got. Scot: [1:00:00] Yeah it's always hard to follow up on him set up pretty good predictions and if you like last year the, the chessboard was more clearly laid out for me than it is this year and and the the tilt of the board is really hard so you know we're coming off a year where the economy was smoking and wages are going up but then we have a lot of changes in the political scene there's lots of talk of impeachment there's like all kinds of craziness the garments closes record this really hard to know which way the economy is going. But you know whenever I'm on kind of the fence on these things I tend to be an optimist so it's my heart for real blood so I'm going to lean towards the positive side of things I think you know hopefully we navigate to all that I know, Tailwind of a good economy in 2019 as an industry which I think we all agree would be good so. My first prediction so following on that optimystix thing by first one's kind of negative so like you I agree we haven't seen you know. [1:01:06] The end of this kind of I think it's a Dominos that are falling and I don't think a lot of people even kind of put that together yet so like you seen Sears file Chapter 11 I don't think many stores come out of that I think we're down to a handful of Sears that's going to put pressure on malls I think that puts more pressure on JCPenney. If you look there stocks already down from for $2. The other two are heading into a delisting scenario below a dollar I don't know what's going on with their creditors but all these old-school guys Leverage. So you get into the stuff spiral it sure does feel like JCPenney's stuck into that. Spiral they have 860 stores. [1:01:45] Macy's is Macy's is doing really well today, but once you get stuck into this kind of swirling drain of mall-based retail it's really hard to get out of there and I do worry that they kind of there a domino that falls in there. [1:02:01] I've already closed some stores to trim their footprint and their 660 more so I don't think they would do bankruptcy everything but I think they may have to sell some of those stores are closing so I'm going to say at least 5,000 more stores and if we can ever find the square footage I think it'll be, about as bad as 2019 so I think 2017-18 was a huge step up 8 1617 and 17 18 wheeler big steps up I think we'll go sideways which is still going to be pretty bad though because that step up Rick kind of this 5000 larger stores whatever the equivalent Sopranos that I do believe was larger than 2017 just my first pregnancy second one is you know your your buddy Scott Galway also known as Professor go away he is really big on TV telling everyone that the government's Crackdown on Amazon and for some spin-off AWS he's backed off that a little bit and now he's talking about well maybe they'll have to have tracking stock I'm going to predict this is one of my anti production so you can Amazon doesn't do those things but this will be the year that they know that adds does get broken out and I'll be specific here as its own p&l kind of line out of the bath report because when I kind of build a spreadsheet and it got to take. Cloud stuff which is AWS and how I think adds is growing and I think. [1:03:30] Off the record I think you for ads will probably do as much as the rest of 2018 which is going to blow people's minds but it makes total sense, me and probably you cuz that's what you would do if you were brand new grass is so when I put in a spreadsheet and track them I believe it's going to be about the same size as AWS by like 20 22 or 23 1 and I've seen a couple of Reports say the same thing, that is my second prediction and just to recap it again they're going to have to break out they won't and I put an end in here in tribute to. To Jason they're not going to spin or tracking stock AWS but they will have to break out ads. What's your prediction is I think too kind of the companies out there and I've talked about Amazon and it's in the ones that are struggling on Mosside you have kind of eBay and Alibaba they had come like what I would call up computer in 2018 it is kind of you know it wasn't a great year it wasn't a bad year but they both had they have type beat up over the last year at least companies both have leaders that they want to grow and be aggressive, I feel like something's going to happen there and when I kind of think about it I've always thought this would be a perfect kind of combination so these these two companies just feel like they belong together to me so I'm going to call that there is going to be a combination there. [1:04:52] Number for and I know she didn't really make platform prediction the last platform that last chair kind of out there is Shopify now all the cloud and infection on this all all the cloud guys seem to have kind of bed on their platform rent and I will get them all but I think, so then you may be single who's left by like a Shopify and then another footnote is shopify's really expensive assets oh yeah honest AC it's like for 5 billion dollars but it has to be small revenue is going to use super high valuation so whoever buys this that really kind of limits the number of companies that buy it has to be super my prediction here is you have the ad platforms and specifically I'm thinking Google and Facebook, they're just getting pummeled right now on the ad side from data collection and and you know all the things about Russia hacking and all this in front of Congress just getting beat up I think if I had 100% of my revenue from ads and I was one of those two companies I would be willing to spend a very large sum to diversify That rumney Base because I do think that business model is going to be under external pressures for a while to mow predictions I think that last seat is taken by either fat Facebook or Google. [1:06:14] To be an ally bother someone so I'm not to be super specific there but I do think Shopify gets taken out this year and my sis production is kind of an opposite one of you so we're going to misaligned on this one I think Walmart has made a couple a lot of big bets over the last year and it's just really hard to get all this right so so spending that much on Flipkart I think Amazon shareholder base is in Amazon Walmart shoulder base isn't Amazon shareholder base and I think they look at that and they're kind of like scratching their head and thinking wow I could open a lot more stores I could then X Y and Z you could have written a dividend check so that they have a much different old school master bass been Amazon does and I think that's going to put pressure on them this year so it's a, prediction is that they're going to stumble so I think their growth rates going too slow I think they got a lot of early wins from Anna digitalizing the groceries I think a lot of those are one-time pops and, they are going to get stuck in that to keep that growth up at that and I'm north of what they said 30 40%. [1:07:18] They have to do some big m&a Flipkart has to go right zlata has to go right there and I don't think we have that flexibility to navigate to that I think they're going to have a run, I don't want that to happen so let me be clear I don't want that to happen I just think it's the natural progression of these things when you have a year where you put a bunch of bats on the table, your tab another year we're not all those bets are going to go well and truly they they're probably brace for that I think. [1:07:46] It's not going to be there nothing about a business or anything but it is going to be a tough year for them I think I'll do a cover set. Jason: [1:07:53] Interesting well I think that's a terrific sort of spectrum of predictions between the two of us and that is going to be a perfect place to leave it in the reason I say that is because we always right these show outline that we intend to be 30 45 minutes and I believe I predicted this show would be 70 minutes and right now we're at 67 minutes so I'm calling it I can be right about one thing it's how long the show is but if you are disappointed that we could have shortened you there was something you wanted to discuss that we didn't get to or you have any questions about the show or ideas for future shows feel free to keep the dialogue going on Facebook you can jump on their pop a question will be happy to chat with you as always we greatly appreciate those five star reviews on iTunes that's a wonderful belated Christmas present to Scott or I so feel free to the jump on there and we would greatly appreciate it. Scot: [1:08:52] Thanks everyone for joining so hope you enjoyed the first show 2019 happy New Year and we look forward to spending 2019 with you talking about what's going on in e-commerce retail and the rest of e-commerce insurance. Jason: [1:09:08] Absolutely and so until next time happy commercing.

EP138 - Amazon Q2 2018 Earnings Hot Take  This episode is a hot take on Amazon Q2 2018 earnings Amazon Q2 Earnings Highlights $52.9B, which is a 39% y/y increase $2.98B in operating income $21.8B in Free cash flow, less $11.4B in capex, $6.2B in lease repayments = Net $4.1B Free Cash Flow AWS had a material acceleration up 48% y/y constant currency and profits were $1.4b Amazon Web Services – came in at $6.1b – 49% y/y growth (an acceleration from last quarters 48% growth) North America – $32.2B up 44% Y/Y, operating income of $1.84B International  – Revenue increased to $14.6B (+21% Y/Y) for a $0.494B loss Marketplace 53% 3P by Unit sales 3P Growing at 55% (constant currency) Wingo GMV estimate -> 1p – $37.6b/ 3p – $71b = $108.6b GMV Amazon Ad Business – grew 129% y/y  to $2.19B Cowen estimates $8.6BN in 2018  rising to ~$37BN in 2023 Amazon increasingly bypassing agencies to go directly to advertisers Increasing likely Amazon becomes first $1 trillion dollar company Jason & Scot will at eTail East in Boston next week. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 138 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, July 30th 2018. Join your hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature – Google Automated Transcription of the show: Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 138 being recorded on Monday July 30th 2018 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your Tahoe Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason are welcome back Jason Scott show listeners well last week the big news in e-commerce was Amazon 2nd quarter results but we didn’t get a chance to cover it live because you were down under. Jason: [0:55] That I was I was in the future in Australia. Scot: [0:58] I know he’s not wild you you cross the time zone when you go there and then you lose a day when you come back so yeah it’s very strange. Jason: [1:07] I assume I’m now even. Scot: [1:09] Yeah if you if you keep going though One Direction you’ll either turn time backwards like Superman to or I don’t know if you’ll arrive younger than when you left. Jason: [1:21] Yeah I can certainly use that but I’m not currently that’s not a nephew and I’m currently experiencing. Scot: [1:27] Cool before we jumped into Amazon’s second quarter deep dive give us some highlights of what you saw in Australia and you know since we’re theming on Amazon here let’s start there Amazon has launched in Australia and I imagine that the Aussies are really fired up about that. Jason: [1:44] Should I feel like that is the big change last disruption in the local retail Market I would also I also feel like the. The sort of recovery from the global financial crisis has changed circumstances in Australia a little bit but it said it’s an interesting Market. [2:04] For me it felt a little bit like a Time Warp like I was going back in time a couple years in retail. They’re they’re not as over stored as we are so malls are still like a pretty popular concept like they don’t have too many into the overwhelming majority of malls or sort of the equivalent of what we call in a mall here. And that’s a a growing in popularity shopping concept there in fact like there’s a premise that the. Traditional department stores in in Australia are suffering a little bit because people are choosing. Two shot multiple manufacturer stores in the mall versus going to a department store but overall. It’s a timer for two reasons number one is Scott and I think you already know it’s an odd Market in that a lot of international retailers. [2:57] Didn’t protect their IP rights in the early days until entrepreneurs from Australia would travel abroad they would see some interesting retail concept. And they would bring it an unlicensed version of it tossed really on their own so you’ll see lots of familiar brands for North American Choppers like Target and Kmart. Woolworths but they’re they’re not and The Branding may even feel very similar to what you would expect in the US. But they’re not in any way related to or associated with the North American companies and in some ways it’s a Bizarro world so. Like you know Kmart is probably more vibrant in Australia than Target for example. [3:40] Which feels a little bizarre for anyone that you used to North America where that’s that’s definitively not the case so to the retail Brands it takes a little bit of time to get your head around because they’re familiar and yet for him and then you know I think it’s dorkly the market just hasn’t had a lot of competition like most of the Australian retailers have had to compete with each other but there’s not a huge number of them so they. They don’t have direct overlap like you don’t tend to have two or three brands with the same product assortment in the same price point so i q no U tend to have. [4:13] A retailer in every price point or a category killer in the in the category so you have like an office works. As the category killer for Office Products but they don’t have. A direct competitor like like Office Depot OfficeMax have a Staples here for example and then until recently the the currency exchange rate really sucked in so you didn’t you also didn’t have Australian consumers. Shopping internationally via e-commerce and so really those consumers were kind of locked in the to the local choice there’s no they’re not a lot of international retailers in Market there’s a lot of international Brands and Market but not a lot of. Wholesalers of other people stuff inside so I would argue that the market just didn’t involve really fast and now you got Amazon coming in there I’m which is a big disruption and you have much more favorable exchange rate so you have. Australian consumer shopping tomorrow in Hong Kong and and shopping pesos in in the UK and doing cross-border Commerce and things like that so suddenly there’s a lot of competition suddenly they’re all getting much more heavily disrupted and they’re all trying to figure out a lot of the digital things and Omni Channel things that retard you know we’re more likely to be struggling with you know 2 to 5 years ago here in North America so it’s it’s it’s going to be interesting. Scot: [5:36] Yeah so Channel advisor full disclosure we have an office in Melbourne and it’s a good region for us Amazon coming has been great for us the one thing we’ve seen a ton of is there’s a lot of Chinese Imports and Australia and it frustrates Australians because they have this weird kind of this is kind of topical because the news did this weird thing where you can sell anything and Australia for $1,000 and under and there’s no tariff but then Aussies can’t sell the China without Tara so there’s like this huge disadvantage and it really always frustrates the third-party sellers I know they’re that anything can come into the country for under $1,000 without any kind of a there’s just some guy text benefit almost like they don’t pay Australian tax on it or something and but then they always had a hard time exporting out of Australia so did you hear anything about that or. Jason: [6:29] Yeah so I feel like there’s a number of those sorts of things and and you know I was really really is part of Asia is it is you know there’s it’s very International population and so there there’s a lot of Asian expats in Australia and said there’s there’s it you know it’s it’s not just proximity to the good deals like there’s a lot of Asian brands did it appeal to a big chunk to the local market in Australia, alright are multi-generations in Australia there is this strong sort of national pride thing so I always feel like. They’re they’re very there they’re more opposed to Outsourcing jobs and their there more favorable to. Meeting RC Brands and products then some other markets in all markets we see. That that does kind of stated preferences you no go away when. When there’s economic pressure so I’m not saying Australians won’t buy cheap goods from China but I’m just saying, they maybe put a little more weight on the local stuff then do Americans for exam. Scot: [7:44] Call the other thing I’ve noticed in Australia is pretty much everything will kill you did you run into that at all. Jason: [7:49] I was aware of that but I did not run into that I did not see any vocals boxing with kangaroos. They’re made they’re probably were venomous spiders but I’m happy to report I didn’t see them which is all I care about like I just want to die in my sleep and not be scared the bejesus beforehand. And I was I was mostly in Melbourne and Sydney which are you know big Metropolitan City so I I imagine the density of things that can kill you is more skewed towards public transportation in Alaska Critters. Scot: [8:23] House on the Gold Coast in like a I thought I’ll go to the beach for half an hour or something and it like every other sign was like no warning Riptides warning sharks warning life threatening jellyfish poison manowar’s warning piranhas like ever in Australia. Jason: [8:43] No I think it I think it was Jim that fact that there are there are like more deadly species in Australia than anywhere else and I think that’s particularly like the snakes in the venomous spiders and then is you mentioned a lot of the The Aquatic Life. Scot: [8:56] Yeah they couldn’t tell hundred percent if they’re yanking my chain but the folks in the office for telling me there’s a venomous spider that hangs out in toilets and like all Australians when they go to the toilet they will actually do a visual inspection for this spider because it will actually bite you in the bum and it can kill you if which is like a terrible way to got. Jason: [9:14] That’s why I don’t know the weather know this but either they were totally yanking your chain or my house were much more happy for me to die. I was not worried about that although I did Quinton Henley I did look in every toilet because I was I was constantly making videos trying to get some that were flush and counterclockwise in it yeah. Scot: [9:33] Nice but still have to put those on the action. Jason: [9:38] Exactly yeah the toilet videos yeah I’m pretty sure it’s like cow tipping. Scot: [9:43] Cool any other exciting Australia highlights. Jason: [9:48] Nope I mean people are super nice I had a ton of great conversations with retailers and I do think they care a lot about the customer experience and they care about winning in this certavite in competitive market that there now in butt you know just circumstances they they haven’t had the impetus to change quite as quickly as as some other market so. Scot: [10:11] Well let’s jump right into the big amazon news with the Q2 Deep dive. Amazon news your margin is there. [10:34] Also serves a lot to go through so we’re going to contact what I call a peel the onion approach and start at the macro-level and then look at the different lines of business with an Amazon we’re going to look at the cloud segment the add business and then the US and international retail businesses as well as the third party Marketplace that’s a lot to cover so let’s jump in from a macro standpoint the big story of Q2 was the bottom line. And in fact the top line was a little bit below and the analyst estimates and part of that was due to there’s a lot of rule changes going on in the world of accounting. Which is causing every company a lot of Heartache intimate with this unfortunately there’s this new accounting principles 606 which is making a. We visit how they look at their different things so Amazon had to move some stuff from 1 P to 3 p which creates a revenue headwind because in 3p they only count about 10% of the revenue because it’s their Commission CNN 1p the count a hundred percent so in fact Amazon actually missed the top line so usually if that happens you see this whole you know crater going to stock but then that didn’t happen here because what happened is operating income blueway expectations so it came in at. [11:52] 2.98 billion so that’s the third quarter that operating income was over 2 billion and it was just too shy close at 3 billion you know what would that be 2 million short short of that. That’s a 375% year-over-year increase in operating income and then every segment Amazon reports on improved their profitability as well and will cover that as we get in that represents a 5.6% margin and expectations was for 1.7 billion so this was 77% above expectations which of these numbers is you know 1.2 billion dollars more than while she was expecting in his truck that is meant. Amazon is I kind of caught this stair step effect so Amazon will. [12:39] You know don’t don’t climb the stair and profits will go down and what they’re doing is this business is very capital expenditure heavy right so you have the big capex is fulfillment centers which are not cheap and data centers which are also not cheap so Amazon and Fortune asked both because derp derp those are the two core pieces of what they’re building so you can imagine the phase where they’ll build like 24 filament centers in 20 distribution centers and the look massively unprofitable but then as those come online and they optimize them and they get capacity then Revenue starts to kind of the the capex stair goes sideways and profit starts to climb and then Amazon will kind of go through another phase of of harvesting. [13:28] Prophets and then after that they’ll say oh we need more data centers and fulfillment centers and I’ll have to kind of keep chewing away at it so we’re one of those Cycles now I’m that that we’re kind of harvesting investment and what’s interesting is as they’re climbing the stairs every time they take a breather the possibility is going up pretty materially and they’re doing it again such a big number you had so you normally people would scoff at a 5.6% total margin but they’re doing it against a top-line that. [13:56] Massively large so 3 billion dollars works out of the bottom of that equation which is which is pretty incredible so so that was kind of everyone was pretty kitty about that to see if they know they haven’t level in a very long time. And then there was there’s a nursing backdrop that happened you were not show you sounded like you picked up on this but there’s this this whole kind of thing that’s been out there called Fame search Facebook Amazon Netflix and Google and Google had pretty good results obviously Amazon did and then Netflix kind of had a little bit of a bad results at there they miss their subscriber growth number and then Facebook had a really really really bad week last week so they they had that kind of guy on their conference call so their revenue and profits missed an egg on a conference call and it essentially said look we’re going to reset expectations of Skyway on Washington caught kitchen sink order the stock was immediately down 20% and unfortunate that kind of held there so there was this whole thing coming in so it’s kind of interesting to see Amazon really kind of printer. A quarter and blow errands expectations. Jason: [15:11] Boxer to put the F into Fang if you will. Scot: [15:14] Absolutely yes Google kind of mess it up cuz they change their name to alphabet but everyone still calls it thing but it’s it should be either fan or whatever. Santa hat the another kind of interesting tidbit here subscription Services which is where Prime lives are there’s a couple other subscriptions on there that you can buy but that is primarily Prime Revenue. That accelerated to 55% year-over-year growth which was good and then longtime listeners the show will no operating income and revenue are the measuring sticks that most other companies use but Amazon really uses. Cancel that is a lagging indicator and what they really focus on is as more of a Ford indicator and it kind of has to do with the stair step. I love you and I’ll G I introduced that’s free cash flow and what free cash flow does is it it kind of is an earlier way. To the counting rules to kind of predict where. [16:12] Profitability is going to come in so let’s let me kind of walk you through that I’m going to try that this always gets a little confusing so I think I’ve tried to boil it down here so when you when you just take what I would call. [16:23] You got to go to this waterfall right so the top of the waterfall you have just pure free cash flow and that was about 22 billion dollars massive amounts free cash flow. Then they go and they invest more Catholics right because Amazon is Never Off This treadmill of investing in capax just the. So this quarter they invested only 11.4 billion and capex just hilarious because that’s probably more than. People are spending in like last 10 years for like most retailers but that’s that’s so is a light investment quarter. Do only 11.4 billion that leaves you with kind of 10.4 billion in free cash flow after the capex Investments then they’ve gone out and they have you know some of these things that they buy they buy outright and other ones they leased land and what not to try to smooth out. Cash outlay for data centers in fulfillment centers along with more with Revenue comes in so they have 6.3 billion of that they paid back in the quarter so really when you get all that out the cord which is free cash flow without lease. When you take out least principal repayments was 4.1 billion so those are kind of the end of the metrics Amazon spends a lot of time thinking about what you could argue is. That biggest number I gave you that 21 billion is really what Amazon focuses on because you know if you kind of go to this. [17:45] Take a region like the United States there there’s they’re getting to the point where they really don’t have to go that many more fulfillment centers in it and in fact the profitability of the North America really kind of pop this quarter will talk about it because of this they’re essentially it saturation so when you get saturation with some of these things that free cash phone number. The top of that waterfall becomes the number because you pay off the cappex pay off at Lisa’s now you’ve got all these fulfillment centers they’re producing Pan the free cash flow flows all the way to the bottom line so over the long-term you should see that gap between about the three billion dollar operating income in the $22 free cash. 12 close as a market matures that’s what gets Wall Street so. [18:28] Not terribly excited about Amazon is these free cash flow numbers are are pretty amazing and Amazon while they’re investing yeah I started that 21.8 billion + free cash flow and ended up with 4 there’s a lot of investment in there like 17 billion dollars with an investment when there’s a day where they’re not making those Investments this is just going to eat a massively kind of cash generating business which was funny we talked about it a lot on the show there still this overwhelming belief out there. That either a olive Amazon is a profitable or that be the retail business is sustained just by the cloud business none of that’s true the retail business on its own as profitable. Especially in North America and international it’s still losing money but that’s because certain markets specifically India Scot amount but I think it’s pretty safe to assume there’s markets like the UK and Europe for their probably look a lot like the US they’re pretty mature but then there’s a lot of markets and I including Australia even yeah I bet Amazon isn’t profitable in Australia so. Just want to make sure we just spelled the you know that that whole incorrect urban legend at Amazon or its retail business are not profit. Jason: [19:40] Yeah for sure and Scott correct me if I’m wrong in this but. Even if they wanted to keep investing at this same Pace like they’re there is a scale problem right like it is you keep growing that Top Line cash flow that fast like there comes a point when you just can’t make. The capex Investments at that same. At that same growth scale if you well some people would even say like the stair-step isn’t necessarily intentionally that they’re taking profits but just that it it takes them more time to retool and and scale the Investments at the same Pace that they’re there their top line revenue is scaling. Scot: [20:19] Absolutely let me have some you know so the most exciting line-of-business we’ll talk about is ads and you and I both there are in this world the nice thing about ads is it it doesn’t require any cat that’s right so it’s. It actually possibly could be the most profit line of business that Amazon has and I I think. Even though Amazon is closing are showing Dollar business I think there’s probably the could be a joined our business there that a lot of people haven’t woken up to because unlike all the Amazon other businesses it doesn’t need data centers that doesn’t need for Film It Centers and it rides on top of those so it gets this kind of triple flywheel effect. I’m from those Investments That Amazon’s making. Jason: [21:04] Death of though this last reporting. You probably didn’t want ads to be the the dominant source of income you had cuz that that probably dancer Facebook Super Bowl. Scot: [21:14] Yen one one sidebar is a kind of thinking there’s been a lot of interesting writing about this if your Facebook and Twitter is also in the same bucket Netflix will go in and it sits on it stop living subscribers I don’t think those big deal but but the Twitter and Facebook their core bottle is under attack right because you have this whole attention to swinging very far away very far towards privacy with gdpr the whole Cambridge analytica and you know so they’re core model is kind of under attack were there since Lee saying give us your data for free and we’ll monetize it by selling it to other people which which sounds weird when I say it like that that’s perfect what you been doing all this time and you know so you have to I have to imagine somewhere in those boardrooms people like we really need to find an e-commerce leg you know kind of a of Revenue here so I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Facebooking and Twitter got a lot more serious about e-commerce Revenue because transactional review is way cleaner from political economy misgivings than than address. Jason: [22:22] Yeah for sure and I mean a ton was written about Facebook but I don’t know if you follow John Oliver he has the Last Week Tonight Show on HBO and he did a hysterical honest version of the Facebook app. That. Can’t completely describe an RPG rated podcast but you can find it all over the internet and it’s it’s definitely worth the watch is pretty funny. But the punchline of the lad is Facebook we own Who You Are. [23:02] So at the very top line for Amazon the growth was pretty big RightSource 37% year-over-year growth. On the revenue and you don’t remember remedy for for for Amazon doesn’t exactly equate to e-commerce DMV because they they do have some other businesses and in the revenues a mix of one p m 3 p but 37% growth. You know for a company they’re sized you know we always highlight on the show that that the Department of Commerce in comscore sort of estimate all e-commerce growth in North America at about. A 15% growth rate so you you have the the biggest company in the space that represents more than half of all the activity in the space and they’re still growing at more than twice the the average growth rate which is pretty scary. Scot: [23:57] Yeah a lot of people are starting to kind of wake up to this and you you pricing all the headlines that you know Amazon what’s half of e-commerce and that kind of thing would which is true but if he Commerce is growing it fit. 15% and Amazon phone at 37% then you know next stop 65% $0.75 85% 95% so we will later we’ll see you know eBay group pretty decently like eight 9% but then we’ll always here from Walmart and Target those kind of guys that they’re growing 30% shopify’s gmv is going 30% and it always becomes this kind of question of who is who is growing at negative. And e-commerce to kind of generate this 15% I always come back to that when I when I when I start to hear all these things come out of the quarterly reports I don’t have a great answer for that we’ve talked to folks. Animal I believe the numbers are wrong out there and they don’t trust at 15% so we’ll leave that two listeners kind of decide. [25:03] The glass little thing on the top level here is at Wall Street. [25:11] You’re very quickly says wow that was great cue to tell me about Q3 so it’s very much a show me show me kind of a world there I am the do that through guidance so Amazon’s guidance for Q3 was a little light on revenue and I think that this again was due to this kind of Optical news from stuff from 1 P to 3 p but then the prophet guy that gave to Wall Street was wildly ahead of their estimates and this is why you see that world of Wall Street you called us a beat and raised quarter that’s essentially what Amazon did is they not only did they being cute too but they all the analysts had to scramble and go out and say the whole world of profitability Amazon has changed what does that do for our bottles and minute is models are built off of operating income and free cash flow so you know I saw I saw price targets out there 2020 120 200 I think the highest I saw was 2300 I remember right around 2000 is when Amazon it’s $10 so yeah this is the kind of momentum here that that’s pretty interesting to see if this is what catapults Amazon there I don’t think I quite get there but you know when Q3 comes out I think Amazon all indications are from third parties out there that they had a Blow Away Prime day. [26:33] That could be if they were kind of being raised and 2/3 on top of this and especially on the bottom line then we could get that $20 by Lucy will have to July. So probably be. August 28th 23 or October 22-23 is probably when they’ll announce Q3 and I bet that maybe when we kind of see the first trying to our company. Jason: [27:01] Yeah and that’s a great reminder to me that we need to get started on the trillion-dollar sound effect that will need for the podcast from them. Scot: [27:08] Yeah yeah I’ll have Jeff on he’ll be a big celebration party. Jason: [27:12] Exactly I know he keeps asking but that maybe would be the occasion to finally let him on the show. So one of the businesses in this number is of course the Amazon web services and you know if e-commerce is doing pretty well against its competition amazon-web-services is doing even better right and is you is you mentioned you know one of the two common myths is that this is the only profitable part of Amazon that’s her to carries the retail part as a reminder like this service want and really had like a 7-year Head Start before they developed any serious competition and today you have. Microsoft and Google in particular you know fighting hard to catch up. Spencer literally 7 years behind and I think there’s a Warren Buffett quote you know something to the effect of you really don’t want to spot Jeff Bezos so 7 years head start on anything. Scot: [28:06] Yes all that was great. Jason: [28:07] Which is a pretty good quote so you know again the circumstance going into this is. [28:14] That Amazon web services is way larger than all of their competition combined and so normally you’d expect. That’s great but it should probably be harder for them to keep growing at this pace and the bad news for the competitors is they did keep growing at that pace and in fact there their rate of growth is still slightly accelerating so so they had like 6.1 billion in in revenue for AWS that’s a 49% year-over-year growth. Which is an acceleration of of 100 basis points from q1 and you know that puts them at like at 24 billion dollar. [28:55] Run rate. And the operating margins are getting better so so operating margins for the quarter went up like a hundred 20 basis points you know so you got margins improving on a big growth when you’re already like the. The huge market leader in so that’s that’s you know pretty impressive and for sure those profit margins. Are much higher than you typically see you in any kind of retail and certainly higher than we see an e-commerce or or Amazon so you know they’ve there pretty consistently in the 20 to 25% operating margins for the for the last three years on on Amazon web services which is much more healthy Marge and then you’re going to see you in a in a retail bit. Scot: [29:45] Yeah as a is a super geeky a fellow Super Geek guy I saw one analyst it did this kind of cool kind of. Thinking on this Amazon discloses some of the work load data so work load and growing at 49% workloads I think we’re going at like 60 70% so what’s happening is they are getting better at optimizing the data centers and handling those workloads with less capex imagine some that’s Morris law that kind of kicks in their butt yeah I’m sure there’s some technology to I’m sure they’re getting good at your how do you spread these things across the field data centers you know how do you buy more commodity Hardware there’s a lot of rumors that they were going to compete with Cisco because they build your own network they do software kind of networking Stratus infrastructure instead of Hardware so they were so they they were able to handle a tremendous amount of workload growth convert that into Revenue but then increase margins more efficient inside of the data center layer there in end of cloud services they’re providing they’re also seeing really good you know there’s this whole family of things people can use an and you know on the conference call they talked about they don’t get specifics but they said they were very pleased which means. [31:08] Yeah it kind of Amazon body language must have been more than 10% kind of a thing you know of cloud customers expanding into some of these new Services they have so they have a lot of new scheme was database Technologies bi. Call center Technologies and machine learning and Ai and they still seeing a lot of customers expand into those things which is which is new needs more Revenue per customer as well. I bet they don’t really totally disclose that. On your Warren Buffett quote one analyst had a clever thing it’s not funny they run out of superlatives here so he essentially kind of said I mean dang they they added an Azure I would just Microsoft clouds and a Google Cloud platform just in the last year so they you know they’re just like every quarter they had like four or five JCPenney’s on on the GMC side there they’re laughing those guys so bad that they’re yep there you go over your number added kind of just you know the year of your growth exceeded the two top competitors which is crazy. Jason: [32:12] Yeah yes it it’s pretty scary. And I hesitate to even call it a stumble the one slight bit of negative PR I’ve seen lately has to do with one of those AI Services they have a facial recognition service and there was a little bit of a stir somebody use the Amazon facial recognition search service and ran it against Congress and it said Miss identified like a hundred and fifty of the congressman as. Criminals and like I’m not sure anyone did the fact-checking like it’s possible that that just true it sounds like to me but. [32:49] I’m assuming from the articles that that was a mistake like that really has nothing to do with Amazon web services it’s kind of the state of the. The technology in the databases that all these guys used to train facial recognition. But I did see them get some slightly negative Buzz there and then of course it is interesting retailers the one segment where you would expect. Ews to have a little bit of head winds because Amazon is such a successful retailer if you are another big retailer that’s fine cloud services. It wouldn’t be surprising to see them you know Skip Amazon even though they are the dominant player and we are starting to see that a little bit like it was more of a press release than. Then any actual activity but on Friday this year Walmart announced a big partnership with Microsoft Azure for data services and I you know I presume that was designed to. Somehow take some of the steam out of prime day which. Unite I would argue wasn’t wasn’t very successful and then I know Google Cloud platform Services just had their annual conference and one of the big announcement today or was that that apparently for some time Target has been. One of the main tenants on Google Cloud platform services so so it is too we’re starting to see some of the big retailers adopt some of the other class but your point like. And not in the overall economic picture it’s it’s not making you in that tiny little dent. [34:18] So moving on to another business that’s not as big as Amazon web services but pretty interesting is the emerging advertising business on Amazon and so you know what is regular listener I don’t know there’s a bunch of different formats of of marketing opportunities that sellers can buy on the Amazon platform to improve visibility for their product in so that that generates advertising revenue for Amazon in Scot keep me honest here but they they want that Revenue into a kind of miscellaneous bucket they call other revenue and I I think we’re all. Largely assuming that the bulk of of quote-unquote other revenue is this ad business but it but there are some other pieces of. Of Revenue in that bucket as well do I have that right. Scot: [35:09] You do and it’s kind of confusing so they they give you some tidbits on revenue and break out ads inside of other and then like I mentioned subscription services but because those things aren’t going quote material part of Amazon’s business the SEC doesn’t require to break him out and that in their entirety so ads end up being in North American International but AWS is all the way out because it’s pulled out as its own kind of operating its own p&l if you also unlike line business ads we only know the Top Line we don’t know the profitability I think we all assume it’s probably. Jason: [35:43] It’s hard for it not to be very profitable yeah. Scot: [35:46] What is the extent there is no expenses psych are there are you at the traffic in the it just kind of like almost pure profit I would imagine so so yeah you’re right. Jason: [35:56] So that so the number for that other Revenue grew a hundred and 29% so so she use year-over-year growth and I think cow and came out and said that their estimate for the annual revenue from this advertising service is now 8.6 billion in for 2018 and you know when they start a forecast that out there there forecast says forecasting that that could be a 37 billion dollar business by 2023 which is the acceleration over. Over their previous estimate from just a couple months ago. Scot: [36:35] Yeah that’s a Facebook so this business will grow to be a Facebook by 2023 in 5 years and he had to nudge their numbers up because it’s outperforming what what they’re saying they’re so. Jason: [36:46] Now we used to say. Scot: [36:48] An Amazon fashion day could pull that in a year you know someone for years they could have added a Facebook. Jason: [36:52] Yeah now generally when people tell that story they remind you that that that’s a 2017 or 2018 Facebook and the 2023 Facebook will probably also be a lot larger but that’s may be less obvious this this week than it was last week so that is certainly interesting not really related to their their announcement that there is other data out there to just sort of highlight. What at what an interesting business this is you know if you’re doing a search on Amazon platform. By definition you have really high purchase intent so the ads on that platform. Are are likely to have a directors are much more likely to have a direct response then adds on almost any other other advertising vehicle. And so you know Merkel consolidate the data from other clients. Every quarter and they publish this this great compendium of a marketing stats and they would they were talking a little bit about the efficacy of like one of those signature ad formats on Amazon which is the Amazon headline search ads there’s an ad. It shows up at the top of a search and they’re saying that like comparing that to a Google pla which is one of the the most Commerce friendly. Appointments on Google that Amazon headline search get 42% more clicks and convert 3 1/2 times better than Google play so that’s. [38:18] You know partly a definition of the of the shopping traffic than Amazon gets versus the more you know browsing and in general information traffic that the Google gets butt. You know if if their revenue gets anywhere like Amazon or Facebook’s advertising Revenue it’s. Its Revenue that has a much clearer Roi for the ad purchaser. Then some of that that the ads that are purchased on the other platforms where you have to believe that influences eventually going to translate to purchases. So I think that’s that’s super interesting, and then you know somewhat in line with the other digital ad platforms like Google and Facebook is becoming increasingly clear that Amazon’s very interested in fostering a direct relationship with the big ass fenders and they’re really trying to bypass the traditional agencies so you know I work for one of those agencies like that’s you know definitely not good news for that sort of old app Revenue stream for the big big digital agencies as it increasingly seems obvious that you know if there’s only a handful of these big digital advertising platforms they make themselves really friendly today advertisers that you know they can make it difficult for the for middleman to add much value. Scot: [39:38] Free Colts those are the that’s the cloud in the ad highlights Witcher are in a driving substantial beats here and then let’s dig in the retail side 2 on the third-party side revenue from third-party seller Services grew 36% year-over-year which is down slightly from which it was about 40% of year ago so you know just kind of scale kind of slowing down I think but again you have third parties are growing 36% year-over-year is not too shabby in a world of 15% and in fact when you think about it if third prettiest girl. [40:15] That fast then overall online sales for Amazon were about 18% first party is growing for a bit slower so the third party part of Amazon is growing substantially Amazon does report the unit volume mix and the unit volume mix hit a new high water mark and Q2 of 53% it was interesting it it kind of when you look at it overtime at q117 and it kind of this equilibrium of 50% and it stayed in that range all the way through 2017 and then here and 2018 it’s really kind of started to ramp up I think some of that was a couple things so I think Amazon always loves for 3p to go through FBA if possible cuz that’s the best user experience and it so I think Amazon and in 17 had vastly underestimated the the popularity of FBA with third parties so they built a lot of fulfillment centers globally in Parsippany us to kind of catch up so it feels to me it didn’t seem time they had some policies to kind of help drain some of the slower moving stuff out of a PA so I feel like the kind of used 2017 as a catch-up to get. [41:27] APA right sized again counties in that stair step method ology profits took a hit from that and now we’re really seeing creepy ramp up because I think there’s a lot more room in that PA to drive things I do my own proprietary analysis of this and one I kind of peel apart the quarter I end up with first party at 37.6 billion 71 billion for third-party so third-party is getting to be almost as twice as big as first party so it’s your time looking at. 6030 Castle Cliff there I mean 6535 and I have three pgmp growing at 27% and 1p growing at 12% so this move between one p3p delete this a little bit but adding those together to get 108 billion dollars of gmv for the quarter which I think is the right way to think of Amazon and that puts them at a you know north of a 400 billion gmv run rate. Which is essentially the size of Walmart we can compare Amazon’s GMB to Walmart retail sales which I think is the right comparison there. On the US side to side Jason or you want me to jump into that. Jason: [42:43] Sure I’ll hit the top on and you can add any any color but North American revenues continue to be really strong so that there were 32.2 billion for the quarter that’s a 44% year-over-year increase and I I think that basically hit the Wall Street expectation but they you know again you don’t improve the operating margin I think they beat their. Their consensus estimates for the operating margin so again fast expected grossing growth in North America and North America has been properly 17 consecutive quarters or. Scot: [43:31] Yeah but I’ve lost track to being sweet. Jason: [43:34] Yes but so it’s something something in that range. Where you at we’re going to call it a 12 consecutive quarters of profitable growth in North America so going back to positive profit in North America so that’s you know going back to the the sort of old wives tale that they’re not profitable the retail business in North America on its own is a profitable business it’s growing robustly it’s not super high margin as. You know most most retail is not super high margin but there’s not very many retards in North America that it wouldn’t take the last the last 11 quarters for for Amazon’s business so North America is a very robust retail business. Scot: [44:28] Yeah and if you look at the operating margin for that segment again operating margin is really a trailing indicator free free cash flow would be better but they don’t break it out by a segment cuz you’re not required to file SEC but it improved from 3.7% bottom line profitability 5.7 in Washi parlance that’s a 200 basis point increase which is pretty material on a quarter to quarter so you’re really starting to see them. Squeeze some some benefit there. Some of that is coming from the ad Revenue so that again the ad revenue does getting mixed into this North America piano AWS isn’t cuz it said separate Simon so it is in their hind it’s helping but it’s maybe a third of the profit comes from that business. But I don’t think it’s fair to separate that because those two things are very much more intimately connected than AWS is essentially. Jason: [45:24] Yeah and that I mean reminder that the ad business wouldn’t exist if they weren’t retailer driving a bunch of traffic to that site to shop for Stuff. Scot: [45:35] You want to do International. Jason: [45:37] No I’m going to toss it to you for the cool accent. Scot: [45:41] Yeah yeah thanks crikey so. On the international side if there’s any kind of blemish on this quarter it was International and then maybe the Top Line kind of being a little light but I think people kind of get the Top Line being of 1 Peter 3 p move and it is. Truck drives Rockville police they’re okay with it so he International Group 21% year-over-year was largely due. [46:08] A launch last year sometime that there anyways I’m so they had a tough comp in in a Wall Street. ABS line but so is a little bit of white on the top line from what people were expecting it again on the bottom line it was good it was pretty strong so International has a loss so it is she won the last was 4.2% and then this quarter it was 3.4% so again kind of a really nice quarter-on-quarter Improvement but this is clearly a part of Amazon that’s losing money and yeah for those folks that really want to find a piece of you found it so the international business of Amazon’s losing money right now it is improving its profitability pretty dramatically quarter-on-quarter so and Q4 it was down 5% in a lost 5% and then yeah back in the 2017 it lost as much as 7% so it’s really kind of cut the losses and half in less than a year and you know I think we’ll see this at this kind of pace you could see International get profitable. If you stretch get there in 18 but maybe by mid 1990 you know if Amazon opens up Brazil in a more serious way there’s a lot of countries that are not in and or they do some Acquisitions so they’ve added some things like sukur that. Could make it kind of go negative again they they will do that because I see it is as such a big opportunity. Jason: [47:30] Yeah and I would just remind people of your thinking about this in terms of a traditional retailer very few retailers that are wholesalers of other people’s stuff that sell third-party product had been very successful at expanding internationally so lots of retailers have success in their home Market they say hey what time you getting getting saturation here we should expand in some other markets to grow our our total addressable market and they start opening stores in other markets and more often than not they fail utterly or at the very least aren’t profitable and so like I would argue if you pull Brandon manufactures out that sell their own stuff the the majority of retailers International operations are unprofitable and some much more wildly so than Amazon right I think an Amazon case what we’re still seeing is is an investment that hasn’t paid off yet but there’s you know every reason to believe that it could just be early in the investment cycle and I I think that compares favorably to a lot of traditional retail competitors. Scot: [48:35] Yeah and the last thing here you know what Amazon is really good at is seeing something work in one market and rolling it out rap play the others I don’t know I haven’t tracked person where they are on the ad but I’m sure like in Australia they don’t have the ad platform active yet because they’re trying to get third parties ramped up but you know what you can Dad is there seeing the ad platform work really well in North America I’m pretty sure it’s it’s. Parody Future parody in England but I don’t think the rest of Europe is really been aggressively sold that and then countries like India you know where the the type of a model this kind of hybrid ad and Marketplace model is is much more prevalent in Asian Alibaba really kind of I read this whole concept you can see you know you can see International almost getting prop on the back of rolling that ad platform out in a in an aggressive way and getting it into all these countries where it’s not and then getting it penetrated more intended the countries where it already is an English and whatnot so that’ll be interesting to watch. It could even further because they don’t kind of tell us the breakdown of of that other line you’re my bet be it’s probably 80 or 90% North America and very small International and I would imagine the international side to be as big as a North America side just kind of just naturally so that ad business we could be vastly under sizing that add business even that kind of like that’s Facebook scale that the people are saying. Jason: [50:04] Yeah and I I mean I would argue that the ad business is as robust as it’s getting it’s still pretty immature even in North America so there’s there’s certainly lots of room there but you know this this whole metaphor of a flywheel like the one downside of a flywheel is it’s hard to start pedaling in the beginning until you get the momentum right and. Why can’t a lot of these markets they’re still doing that initial pedaling like in Australia they really just want Prime so you know a lot of the synergies that that all of these different systems than Amazon launches that ultimately turn into this you know Juggernaut platform ekosistem. You know aren’t in play as much in some of these new international countries as have already played out in North America and so like overtime. [50:50] They look those things could get fired up you know they can pour gas on Prime sign ups and in Australia for example. And Scot it’s going to shock you but it does happen again and we have used up all of our allotted time we are at minute 50 of our 30-minute highlight show if you want to continue but it was all valuable stuff and I know all the Whismur stuck with us so if you want to continue the conversation or do you want to know what Scott would have talked about it I gave him 10 more minutes you can jump over to Facebook and drop us a question and we’re happy to have a dialogue there as always Aviv that this episode was helpful to you we sure would appreciate it if you jump on iTunes and give us that 5-star review. Scot: [51:35] Next to join us are one we are going to be at Etail and Boston ETL East sews drop us a message to Vitas Facebook as whatever your preferred method of communioncation isn’t would love to meet up with some are there. Jason: [51:49] That would be awesome and until next time happy commercing.

The Moneywise Guys Friday, June 15th www.MoneywiseGuys.com Guests: Ben Stinson, Owner of Stinson's Office Supplies + John O'Leary, Owner of O'Leary's Office Products

EP132 - NPD Idea 2018 Recap  NPD held it's semi-annual customer conference, Idea in Austin Texas on May 16th and 17th.  Jason and Scot both presented content at the show.  This weeks episode is a recap of the show. Target CEO Brian Cornell Keynote Google X, Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller Keynote Author Michael Dart Keynote (Retail's Seismic Shift: How to Shift Faster, Respond Better, and Win Customer Loyalty) Scot Wingo "MarketPlace Madness" (PDF) NPD Retail Trends Don Unser, Group President at The NPD Group Steve Baker, Vice President, Industry Analysis at NPD Group Jason Goldberg "Last Mile In The Customer Experience" (PDF) Oren Shauble, Partner Guinn Partners Jamie Sohosky, Walmart VP Marketing, Customer Experience Jaron Waldman, Co-Founder, Curbside Generation Z Panel Connor Blackley Youth Logic Madison Bregman  Youth Logic Jonah Stillman - Genz Guru Alexandra Levit (moderator) Entertianment by Runaway June and The Doobie Brothers Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 132 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, May 21st 2018. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 132 being recorded on Monday May 21st 2018 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your Coho Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners will Jason we're both back in our local areas here I think your local are you okay. Jason: [0:50] I am I am your correct. Scot: [0:52] I never know where you are these days we were both in Austin recently and we had a real fun trip down there it's rare were in the same city much less at the same conference and we both spoke on separate topics at the NPD idea conference. [1:08] Did you have fun. Jason: [1:09] I did it was a great conference I enjoyed the conference and of course it's always fun to get to spend some time with you in person I feel like we we talk all the time via VIA the microphone but it's it's fun to actually see you making funny faces when I say stuff. Scot: [1:24] Absolutely yeah it doesn't come over to the the podcast quite as much as in person. Jason: [1:29] No we might have to start doing this as a video Call Me Maybe. Scot: [1:32] Okay so tonight we thought we would there. [1:39] Wanted to share some of the insights from the show this is a pretty interesting show that we attend and let me kick it off by explaining who is NPD the provides data 2 / 20, and how this works is because I like Nielsen Nielsen I think does this for cpgs and NPD does it for non CP Jesus how I can I think about it. Large scale systems across. Over a thousand retailers that opted into this program that data is all swirled together anonymized and then also mixed in with over 12 million consumer. For surveys and output of that is really interesting data that they Brands license and retailers to understand things so for example. Let's say you sell. [2:31] I don't know what's a good idea if a GoPro style cameras or anything like that action cameras you can use in PD data to see how is your model doing versus the competition. How you know how much is the number one doing the number to cross different retailers things like that. Every year they every other year they get some of their top customers together and categories like apparel Automotive Beauty. Construct Tronics jewelry I sent you everything but cpg and they look at the trends that are shaping the industry. [3:06] And I've spoken of this a couple times and it was exciting to have you there this year the theme was Under Fire On Fire. And it's got a clever theme so what are trying to articulate there is. Retail is under Fire everyone's feeling that but then there are certain segments that are doing really well so there's certain segments that are on fire. [3:31] Unfortunately had a conflict and I was not able to get down there for the first part of day one but you were there and we're able to attend some really good session you told me about so let's start the recap there on the morning of day 1. Jason: [3:46] So there they kick things off with a bang, you mention a lot of great brands that end it also tends to be really seen your stakeholders from a lot of the brands and retailers which is kind of cool so it's pretty, impressive intimate Gathering into the first keynote was actually the CEO of Target Brian Cornell so that's a pretty good gift as we would say in the industry and I'm always. [4:13] Like obviously I always want to hear what brand has to say it's always it's always great when these guys coming events are willing to share, [4:21] The CEOs of major retail organizations are super polished and their they certainly don't come here with the intention of giving away any Trade Secrets and they never do so. You know you got a kind of moderate your expectations you're not likely going to get some. Revolutionary new announcement from from Brian at a show like this but you know I think it's interesting to hear his his take on on a lot of the things that targets going through in trying to do. And he spent a lot of his talk. [4:51] Really talking about the sort of changing role of the store and you know he was pretty damn that he's like hey you know these stories today have all these super important roles we. Yeah we have customers that come to the store to pick up orders that they placed online we have a lot of curbside pickup now we're using the stores as an inventory location to do same-day deliveries to customers home. We ship over half our e-commerce orders from the stores to the customer's home you know customers use. tattoo sort of exploring evaluate products and now many customers want to check to make sure the products are in stock before they come to the store you know all these different use cases of how the target guest wants to use the store. That are very different than the use cases the guest had. Even seven years ago when you know most of the newest Target stores were built and so you know he spent a lot of the time talking about the challenges and opportunities of. You know taking a test or if it was designed to solve one particular set of problems and leveraging it to solve. A lot of newer very different problems and so I found that interesting. And then he did Chef to talk a little bit about their their acquisition last year or this year rather for shipped and shipped is. A delivery service so they are so you can think of the Minnesota personal shoppers before the target acquisition they supported a number of retailers. [6:26] You could order products from their website they would go to a retail store pick up those products for you and deliver them to your home. And in so you know I think most of us talk about them is primarily being a same-day delivery option. And you know Brian to mention that I think that they have curbside pickup. And over a thousand stores now and then they're quickly moving to same day delivery in a thousand stores leveraging these the shift employees that they have. They've hired but he is real Focus was. Did the delivery is the least important part of the the shipped experience that these are the magic of a shift in the reason at Target was particularly interested in and then versus some of the other vendors that into space was. That ship that had this intimate personal shopper model where they. They did that try to maintain full-time employees and they would try to send the same employee to the same customer so that all I read them you know I always tried to match up the same shop or with a customer so that that Chopper will get to know the customer overtime. That communication tools built in the platforms or the Shopper has questions are asked to make substitutions. They can communicate in real-time and apparently a high percentage of the the shipt personal shoppers are moms and so Brian kind of talked about it being, a moms to moms service and that the the target gas really value this personal relationship that they were starting to develop with this. This formerly shipped person personal shopper that's now a core part of the new Target experience. Scot: [8:02] Wrinkled so then after that they followed up with another strong keynote this one was from Google. Jason: [8:10] Answer this is a dude I'm pretty sure this is not the name his mother gave him but he goes by Astro Teller, and I was familiar with that sir I haven't seen him speak before though and he was I thought he was awesome so she is responsible for the moonshot program at Google, and you may know more about this than I do but like in general I think of the moonshot program is the portfolio of, initiatives at Google that are all intended to develop new billion-dollar plus Revenue businesses so like the autonomous vehicles would be. The the big Marquee thing in the in the moonshot program. Scot: [8:51] Yeah they would they transition to alphabets I think they call it X and then the self-driving is spun out as, waymo there's a couple other things they've done but inside of their. [9:08] I think this drones the balloon internet's flying cars that you're so a lot of really wacky stuff in there so. Plenty of interesting things going on in that that group. Jason: [9:19] And will come back to Wacky but as you can imagine a guy named Astro is pretty good at talking wacky so, he he he was mainly talking about, Innovation and he started out by defining this thing that he called level 1 versus level 2 Innovation right and so level 1 Innovation that are like those things that could make your business 10% more successful and the level to Innovation are those things that could make you you know 10 x more successful. And so you know he's not the only guy talking about 10% versus 10x but his point was. [9:57] The first time you can't you hear any good 10x idea it's going to sound crazy, and so like by definition to be successful at these kind of 10x Innovations in any organization you have to be comfortable sounding crazy and you and you have to cultivate environment that safe enough that, the people are comfortable enough proposing things that sound crazy because he's like you know his is premises fundamentally. These things that are so disruptive to the business that they could you know Drive 10x growth for the business. [10:32] Like just are so disruptive that they that they don't sound rational or safe. Upon you know first consideration and so kind of funny line. He is a no-show hands in the audience imma give you a choice between two options and you raise your hands and tell me which one you would rather do. Would you rather do an initiative that has the potential to generate a billion dollars in new revenue for your company but only has a 10% chance of success. Or would you rather do something that will generate a million dollars but has a guaranteed success and. Not surprisingly that you know basically everyone in the audience raised her hand and said hey we would rather do the billion dollars with a 10% chance. Mathematicians on their listen to podcast with quickly note that like the. The weighted value of a 10 billion dollar opportunity with the 10% chance is still a hundred million dollar opportunity versus a $1000000 opportunity so. So statistically speaking that that's the. The better risk but then he asked the funny frog question how many of you fundamentally believe that your boss always supports the billion-dollar opportunity versus the million dollars guarantee. And way less hands went up and so he's like Alright so. [11:55] Here here here's my Innovation solution for you you don't need a new innovation strategy you need a new boss. And so he you know you kind of went into this this whole premise about how organizations are just. Young wired to avoid risk and that you know even though it's irrational you know most most organizations are are built to reward. In a biased towards the $1000000 in guaranteed Revenue versus the the 10% chance at a billion dollars shot and how companies that want to be successful you don't have to think differently. He even kind of went into even some of the things that you you should do to be a successful level to Innovation company. And you know one of the big points he had there was that you should always tackle the hardest part first. Any he talked about how that's kind of counterintuitive that a lot of people that you don't want to get a quick success under their belt so you know the tackle the part that seems. Easiest to do and you know you talked about how when you explain to someone rationally why they should do the hard part first. They say they kind of get it but it doesn't really change behavior and so he has come up with this kind of silly metaphor. To make it more apparent he's like if your boss assigned you to get a monkey teach it to recite Shakespeare standing on a pillar. [13:22] Should you start by teaching the monkey how to recite Shakespeare or should you start by building the pillar. [13:29] And his his point being like sure you could start by building the pillar and you get a early way in and you can say you are 50% through the problem because you solve one of the two problems. [13:39] You're never going to teach the monkey how to recite Shakespeare so building the pillar was a complete and utter waste of time whereas if you would have started with the problem of. Training the monkey to recite Shakespeare you would have quickly learned you cannot impact training monkey to recite Shakespeare. And therefore you know you would have moved on and then a company that rewards level to innovation. That that quick learning and failure you know what would have been rewarded versus versus penalized so that was kind of. [14:09] The premise of his talk he was a super engaging heads funny antidotes. My favorite part of his presentation was definitely the off-script moment he he walked through a bunch of. Future technologies that he feels like are going to create 10x opportunities for fur companies so he was talking about bioengineering he's talking about it and he wasn't so much selling any of these specific ideas but just talking about how. They trigger these kind of 10x ideas and you know some of the things that you might do with them sound sound crazy at first, and one of the points you if you wanted to make was about you know some changes to cybersecurity and so is a precursor he said he he asked everyone like, Teresa hand if they were you know primarily concerned about cyber-security today and, how much snow in in the room raised their hand and it was it was his reaction was hysterical he it was kind of a No-No moments, and he's like he's like oh my God forget all this stuff about innovation. I have bad news for you the bad guy is already in your network like you've already been breached. I didn't realize this wasn't already coming. And so this whole whole like absolutely correct narrative about how. You know sophisticated intrusion has gotten and how you know these kids that attend that the hacker conference is if I break into much more secure networks than retailer networks for fun and how like all these networks are almost certainly already breached in there already people inside your network. [15:44] And that if you don't have a business model to protect your customers data when you've already been breached you know you're probably in Trouble In fairness to the attendees, you know he went right after Brian Cornell from Target so you know a ton of target people were in the audience and if you work at Target and you you you been the victim of the very public breach that had a material impact on your business, you probably don't in a public room raise your hand and say hey I'm super concerned about cyber-security right so you know maybe maybe people just felt like it was inappropriate, to share that concern publicly and that's why they didn't respond or maybe they had question-answering fatigue by that point. But it was a funny diatribe that Astro went off on and and I certainly true like we all should act like like the bad guys already internet work. Scot: [16:35] Got it yet maybe it's cuz Brands a lot of brands of these conferences are pretty early on their direct consumer turning so maybe they may they're not even really thinking transaction websites maybe while they're not retailers in room should be pretty stuff. Jason: [16:51] Yeah and I will do it on another show that there been a lot more breaches and in retail in the last couple months in particular Avengers there a lot of retailers rely on it been breached and it's doing a black eye at a Best Buy in Sears in a bunch of others. Scot: [17:05] Yeah but what I find interesting is it's the ones I've seen usually are not through the Commerce side because the Commerce sides kind of got more thought around this usually is to the physical point of sale which is the entry. Jason: [17:18] Yet the physical plant cells have been a disaster and then some of these recent ones were where Aunt like ancillary things like the. The chat system that the retailer uses for customer service that you know you can also change an order via chat and so there's a Commerce function in there and your point is. It's not leveraging the same technology as the normal e-commerce site and doesn't you know apparently and in several cases didn't have the same level of security. Scot: [17:45] Cool and then who was up after Google. Jason: [17:49] So then the afternoon keynote and this is all on Wednesday so Wednesday was kind of a full day I think most of the attendees maybe showed up Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. Tuesday afternoon keynote after lunch it was a gentleman Michael Dart who's at the a t Kearney and. He has written a book called retail seismic shift how to shift faster respond better and when customer loyalty and I want to see it came out. Late last year maybe like November or so so it's probably about 6 months old though. [18:28] And so he did it talk about consumers of the future and had a lot of good points in it I think we're going to try to get him on the show here in the upcoming episode. Scot: [18:38] Yes so maybe we should let's give just a little taste and then we'll. Jason: [18:43] So a couple of the things that jumped out of me and that's that's got subtle way of saying that we're going to slow an interesting thing I just never thought about is one of the trans he talks about his dematerialization which is this sort of shift. From atoms to pixels. And he had an interesting stat that in order to create a dollar of GDP in 1930 required about 4 kg of material. Like you had to make into something to sell to generated our GDP. That that same GDP in 1990 so 60 years later you can make with one kilogram so so the amount of of atoms I got cut down by 1/4. Only 25% of the atoms are required 60 years later you know fast forward today and you only need a hundred mg so one tenth of what you needed in 1990 in so there's that just. You know this this strong shift in the economy away from from Material Goods driving the the economy. [19:47] He you know then kind of went into the the bifurcation topic that we talked about a few times on the show so you know he had to stab that 65% of the. Of the population was in the middle class in the 1970s and today it's only about 40% of the population is in the. The middle class so you're getting you know Uber rich people and poor people and you know his his promises one of the ways that that plays out in. Retail is you have these on one end of the spectrum price base retailers are really focus on offering low price and that cohort a Retailer's he. Believe have grown 35% is there is there five year growth rate. [20:28] For the price face retailer 37% on the other end of the spectrum the luxury premium brands of actually grown even better at like 80%. And all the retailers in between that he would call the balance retailers that aren't like aggressively focused on price and aggressively focused on luxury experiences have only grown at 2% so it's sort of showing the. The growth and Retail is exactly mirror the bifurcation of the population of we've had Casey well and brought back from the Delight talking about that on the show as well. You know you had some interesting statistics on on malls we talked a lot about how the a malls are doing a lot better than the rest of the malls but he actually has some statistics that all malls are down 9% it's just. The a malls are traffic is down 9% over the last couple years from a better starting point so they've gone from like growing to flatware as the BNC malls have gone from Flat to losing 10% of their traffic in the last 2 years. Scot: [21:30] Yeah on the malls he also I'll put it out as a teaser from having the show he had the the. [21:38] Worst Mulligan prediction I've heard so he had the highest number of Mall closures that he's thinking are going to happen so I was a little surprised by that but that's interesting. Jason: [21:50] But it is true that like only about like 20% of the malls would be in this like a category so I think did he say their UE thought about a thousand miles we get taken out of the system is that when I'm remembering 13. Scot: [22:03] I think you said 1300 out of like 1500 I think there's only like 200 remaining. Jason: [22:08] So that's that does still mirror that kind of a versus B and C ratio. Sign out we'll talk about another show is the Planning Commission in Miami-Dade Florida just approved a new mall project which they're very few of those in the world, and this mall would actually be the largest mall in the US who would be bigger than the Mall of America in Minneapolis and so that. Can a bucking the the the mall again in friend is we could have a new bigger motor than we've ever seen before which would be an interesting evolution. And then the last thing I'll touch on from. Michael Jordan's presentation he was talking about this Matrix that he called the the con Matrix. Is developed by this one on barbercon who's the professor at Ward and she she would have booked a couple years ago called the shopping Revolution. And in her world like. You could draw this 2 by 2 Matrix that all retailers fit in on the left side of the Matrix are our retailers that are focused on product benefits and so I'm proud of benefits on one end of the spectrum you have. [23:16] People that focus on The Prestige of the brand and so she would use like. Louis Vuitton or Warby Parker Saks Fifth Avenue or Zara Nike is kind of brand. Branda Advocates there and she would use like Eataly or Sephora as experience face retailers as the other end of that that. That extreme in in the other side of the Matrix would be people that focus on customer experience and their the. The spectrum is from people that primarily focus on a low price so she's got like Costco Walmart TJ Maxx in Burlington and that. That quadrant and then frictionless. As the as the other end of that spectrum and she has Amazon is the primary example of a frictionless and so kind of a different Spectrum this would be way more apparent if I were able to drop for you on the podcast so maybe I'll try to put a picture in the. In the show notes but as as you'll hear a lot of retail pendants talked about like another 10 to be the Spectrum there tend to be areas. Any Spectrum where retailers can really Thrive and do well and then the the retailers that are really struggling and we talked about Molly get in and we talked about retailers that are seeing negative growth. It's almost always the case that there. [24:38] The ones that have fall in the middle of the spectrum's and haven't really made a committed effort to own. You know one of one of the the pillars and so this this was another one of these Matrix is where. Where that you know you kind of look at at her Marquis examples in each each of the quadrants and say yeah that makes perfect sense and then you'd say you know folks that kind of fall in the middle of this this to buy to our bar probably in trouble and. And you know at the moment that that's sort of what's playing at in the marketplace. [25:10] Yeah so then that was all really warm up so those were those were a sort of the three opening acts Target Google, Michael dark, because then we all went to a even bigger room where they had their biggest session of the show which is this whole session about marketplaces and sign up for our listeners Scott, is a second-year Scott's done this talk and it was super annoying for me because every time I would talk to the the women planning the show about my session that say Hey registrations great you're doing really well you're right the second most popular session, but you're way behind Scott. Scot: [25:51] Yep so that was fun I was I was coaching them to make sure that you knew that I was figured a little fun competition there would be. Jason: [26:03] Yes and I I was a little just cuz you did get to pick your topic and I sort of I I accepted a topic they put in the agenda. Scot: [26:11] But you knocked it out of the park will get to that in the second yes or no. Jason: [26:13] Thanks man so what did you talk about in marketplaces is that a thing. Scot: [26:17] It is yep so two years ago and I did my skin. [26:22] Standard Amazon talk which is essentially for long-time listeners if you go way back to episode 24 we did the Amazon Deep dive so that's kind of a lot of the same content, that I gave that talk and this time they wanted to kind of widened aperture and talk about marketplaces so just just a quick summary about what we talked about. And what will do is. I'll send you a pediatrician that we can put kind of a copy to it in the link to it in the show notes if people want to go to the presentation so. The Purge for Marketplace is really interesting because you know you and I've been at the salon time I've been at this Marketplace thing for 20 years. [27:02] And what I found is there's a huge desire for Content that. [27:07] Pretty basic for what a retailer or a seller with the Cabana Marketplace because what's happening is all these brands are starting to think about going Direct. And they're just learning all the basics that that you know. A retailer or a seller has already there I'm kind of version 8 these guys are on Virgin once so. But it is always fun to kind of go back and revisit these things because the world has changed so much just a simple thing and you and I had a fun to scream about the marketplace and how do you do to find it so for example selling a car on over. [27:42] Talk is that a Marketplace or not I would say by strict definition probably not because. Well my definition marketplaces you sell off of your website. There's transparency for the consumer who you're buying from and then the business model is a percentage kind of a business model not a traditional wholesale markup so once you have that wholesale markup in there it's just a drop ship relationship. [28:07] First party retailer not a Marketplace so so in this talk we we probably talked about yo. Taking a step back and talk about consumers what do they want yeah we've talked about that a lot on the show don't think they'll be any surprises there then what is a Marketplace. [28:23] So just answer that question the types of marketplaces so you have pure plays like eBay you have hybrids like Amazon you've got a new social ones you got at base now. Etc, and then we talked about the pros and cons of selling on Marketplace and then some takeaways for the Brand's so it was, when I'm in the middle of training I can never remember the questions I don't know if you recall any that were Salient for listeners but. There was way more questions we had time for and then we had to go to a break and then had a lot of good discussions around marketplaces. Jason: [29:00] Yeah and let the record show I think you like I certainly agree with your definition that like, Wayfair is a drop-ship program more so than a Marketplace but what you call and Marketplace. That I totally understand after you explained it but like I think myself in a lot of other people don't immediately think of his Marketplace are some of the the social selling models in like when Google sells products through pla Zoar, shoppable pins on Pinterest or some of those things and then once you draw the picture I totally get out it is a Marketplace but I think those are the the the the one that outliers that kind of surprise, are the sneaky marketplaces if you well. Scot: [29:40] Yeah and when you're selling on eBay and Amazon. Don Juan differentiator is day or The Merchant of record which do I think about is when the consumer gets their credit card it says Amazon not you know Jason's Mouse shop so. But then to July these new models they're using so his new payment systems like a striper Braintree and they're asking you to, the merchant to now be The Merchant of record so it's kind of an interesting hybrid in that way. But it still has a percent of sales model there still a fair amount transparency does Consumer they're dealing with a third party so I. I continue to put those in the marketplace bucket but you know a lot of people don't. Realize when you're using things like Wanelo or there's this many of these now there's, we are well over 200 Market places that we track it down visor and more everyday and there's all kinds of really interesting models there is super vertical ones like. Reverb for professional music. [30:42] Or there's some for you know that dinner Morpher city-dwellers that are in the apparel category and it's kind of like high-end apparel so you're a pair of sunglasses that. Probably you and I wouldn't buy for $600 but there's someone out there that that is into those kinds of things. Jason: [30:58] Yep and I think one of the marketplaces that you introduced a lot of the audience to for the first time probably was wish and I happened to notice they're running like national tv ads now. Scot: [31:10] Yeah yeah wishes really, yeah they don't disclose a lot but there's all these rumors that they have crossed over a billion dollars at um they're spending a lot of money on National branding so they've done, I need to be a sponsorship so drawn symbol logos their logos are on jerseys they're doing a pretty big ad campaign around their Marketplace. I think of them as a cross-border Marketplace some most product available on wish is being sold direct from China and they. If I'm in a lot of supply chain things and whatnot. [31:44] The result is you get super cheap product which really applies that value or any consumer we talked about and bifurcation. But the trade-off is cuz a lot of its kind of on the literal slow boat from China it does take awhile to get there so it's one of those kind of trade-offs that consumers seem to be willing to make, today, I'm the one thing I worry about witches Amazon is now I got kind of all the same stuff at the same price but then it's an FBA so now you get it 2 days so it can be interesting to see how wish does against that. Head-on competition. Jason: [32:16] Yeah yeah the the television that I noticed, it was like a dad that had bought like SmartWatches for three kids and they each got like 10 bucks and so the kids are you know it's it's he's low-cost like sort of surprise and Delight moments. But I did have a take away from their their big NBA sponsorship is if you if you are building a business and you decide to use it professional sports endorsements, make sure the players know what the heck you do because there's some really funny videos on YouTube of like reporters asking. LA Lakers what which isn't as they're wearing The Witcher logo on their uniform and they they have literally no idea. Scot: [32:54] And then after my session we went to a one that you were excited about which was the jinsy panel. Jason: [33:03] Yeah I probably made Scott go to this one and. You know this is kind of a common model at a lot of shows is you you bring actual Generation Z folks. To talk to the audience and like help help give them the more accurate you know representation of of this. This Persona that you don't lot of Market marketers are targeting and what what's a little different about the MPD version like very often. Literally like the show organizers will go to a high school and get like five regular high schoolers and have you know some moderator ask them questions about how they shop or what brands they like and whether they like going to malls or not. In this case these are almost I'll call them professional Generation Z spokespeople. There's a guy I got to meet a couple of times now Connor Blakely who. I don't I don't know how old he is but you know he's probably like 19 and he started a company called youth logic and they essentially cell, need this kind of advisory service to Brands and so is a brand you you higher. Connor and he sends some genze folks to your office to. Serta evaluate your offerings and and talk about you know how they're seen through the the jimsey wins so Connor was on the panel one one of his employees Madison bringman was on the panel and then. [34:34] Another gen Z expert that it start his own company called Jen's iguru a guy named Jonah Stillman and I think Jonah actually got Mark Cuban to invest in his company. So we have these kind of three genzie's they were interviewed by the moderator who is Alexandria Levitt. I wrote a book about about some some other customer to cohorts in the past. Lacerta interviewing and they're all the typical funny moments like they. You know it some point they talk about olds and you know referencing like parents that that don't get something and that you know they. They talked about super old people and they were talking about people that were like 35 and older which you know probably was every single person in the in the audience. There's a lot of of a interesting dialogue about. Authenticity and purpose so you know like there's this notion that like genze like brands with a purpose like. The Tom shoes you know buy one get one kind of program but how Jen's he's really good at smelling out these inauthentic purposes. And that you know a lot of Brands Make Mistakes by having these inauthentic purposes Connor use one example of a you know company that bought a Super Bowl ad. Do I got a message that they are that they have an environmentally friendly purpose and conures like. [36:06] Hey if you really have an environmentally friendly purpose you would have wasted five million dollars on a Superbowl and and his you know kind of thing was, what you have to understand is jenzie grew up digital they've been bombarded with all these messages after multitask much more than any previous generation and so is a result they're much better at curating information and he he going to bluntly put it, like we we have more attuned BS meters than previous cohorts, and so you know you just have to be really careful about being being inauthentic with him and so there's some interesting takeaways, you know I thought the panel did a good job but I personally I do Wonder, if this is the last cohort we ever have to talk about because I like I do have this kind of premise that all the behaviors they were describing, like I can find you 60 year old to behave exactly the same way and in the old world of like television advertising like one of the only things we can know about her audience was how old they were and so we could kind of Taylor are commercials to a particular age, but today I feel like we have much more granular tools to the market to individuals and so I just I just wonder if, is like the differences between Millennials and gen Z are are ever going to be as important as as you know once the the differences between Boomers and and gen-xers was. Scot: [37:33] Yeah I kind of came away from the panel with called. Cognitive dissonance where says there's like six examples where they would say one thing and then they would like say something that totally countered it and it was really hard. To get your head around so the one example is in the early part. UConn reslife Genji's love them all is great I got them all the time and then someone else then several times you can tell that they haven't been to the mall a very long time because you know the guy was trying to describe what. Abercrombie looks like now and he couldn't really kind of articulated cuz I don't think he's been in an Abercrombie in a long time and then some. Jason: [38:10] Fun of Abercrombie from like 4 years ago but you're right like they have chain. Scot: [38:13] And then someone said if you had $100 what would you do in one guys like buy stuff in fortnite and you know the girl was like I buy some Nike stuff but she's not going to go to the mall for that she'll go to. I assumed she'd order on. [38:27] She also said you know I just buy everything from Amazon and I know from my Gins ears that you don't got to college age kids they do not like to go to the mall and you really have to kind of like. Dragon alert. So there's some that was kind of one example there's like six or seven other ones were just kind of like you just counteracted what you just said like 6 minutes ago. I don't know it's hard to nail down if I can. There's no actual thing to do. Jason: [38:56] Yeah no end to me part of that is like, I'm sure you can find Jen's ears that do go to the mall like an N relative to other cohorts yeah there are there are more 16 year old kids at the mall then there are 60 year olds at the mall, but like it's going down across all cohorts and and you know the point is being today you can know which 10, gen Z years really do want to go to the mall and you can have a message for them and you can know which ones like by 95% of the purchases on Amazon and you can have a different message for them so, that's kind of my death of the personas as we move into a one-to-one world. Scot: [39:36] Yeah I did not one thing the folks at NPD do a great job at is the entertainment at their shows is top-notch so they shuttle us over to Austin sea life which is exciting I never been there before I and we saw, a country music band which was runaway June and then the Doobie Brothers and it was kind of a long day so I actually enjoyed the opening acts kind of more than the closing act but that was just going to be so that was good. Jason: [40:04] Yeah and I I know nothing about country music so I had never heard of them so that way it's got a fun and I think it's a trio of young women that sing harmonies and one of the women was the granddaughter of John Wayne. Scot: [40:18] Yeah that was kind of neat neat fun fact. [40:22] So then we that was day one and then Day 2 began with you drinking three venti latte and then we went to go see Don Unser he is the biggest titles VP of sales there in PD he's the head sales guy and in one of the guys that leads there vertical teams and he had a really good presentation of some of the insights they've gotten from their data. Jason: [40:49] And so. The a Scott was nice enough to have bought at least one of those lattes for me that morning said thank you very much I appreciated that I had to meet early for breakfast with my panel so that was super nice of you. So MPD because they have access to this really rich data set Don and in particular is super well known for doing these retail Trends Decks that leverage update a lot and so this was kind of a. A permeation of that like he had some key retail Trends from the date in there and then you also had some. Hypothesis about like how consumers were actually changing as a result of some of these Trends which that was maybe a new spin on it. So is you mentioned upfront MPD tracks these 20 core categories across a whole bunch of retailers. And so it was the first thing he shows is MPD money so I'd which is kind of. How big each of the categories that they track is and whether it's growing or shrinking in so this was. A March 2018 view looking at growth over the last 12 months and you had you know category like the biggest category with by far the most significant growth for them as video games. So that category was growing at 18.4%. And it's a decent-size market it's like a 36 billion dollar market as they is they Define it Prestige Beauty was growing at 9.4% small appliances were growing at 7% Auto Parts at 5%. [42:24] Toys at 5%. Consumer electronics at 4.7% a house where is it 3.8 and then you kind of dropped in all these categories that had. Pretty nominal gross box office supplies Footwear perishable grocery Dry Goods Health and Beauty AIDS. And then you got into the bottom categories that were laggards for them apparel was basically flat accessories which is like sunglasses and things like that was down 2%. And then the big loser which is probably no surprise to anyone as Video Entertainment. Which young for most of The 3 Tails used to be movies that they sold on these plastic circle is called DVDs. And that that was way down at like 12% so. All told if you total up all 20 categories and MPD follows their following about 1.8 trillion dollars in consumer spending. All retails probably about 3.8 trillion dollars so it's a good chunk of all consumer spending and on the aggregate all those categories grew at 1.8%. You know but it's interesting to know that you know they're these big opportunities and in things like video games and Beauty less opportunities and apparel and accessories. And if you're a subscriber to MPD. That the even more granular view which Don didn't get into is super important cuz you look at consumer electronics and you say oh my gosh it's growing at 4.7% that's good news but then you look you look at the Grand your data and you see that like. [43:54] You know flat screen TVs which is the bulk of of the market you know it's kind of flat to down and it's things like headphones and smart smart speakers that are responsible for all the growth in the Consumer Electronics category, that's really kind of the the magic value of NPD is having that that. Granular look at what's happening in subcategories what's growing what's ranking you know what's on Trend versus off of trend. The one of the things that Don broke out that was kind of a new-look that I haven't seen them talk about before is that this concept of. Distribution of of Shoppers based on the amount of their spend is online versus offline so they so. See if I can describe this in a way that this possible to follow there's a chunk of the u.s. population that spends less than 10% of their their makes less than 10% of their purchases online. [44:55] And that chunk is 43% of all consumers spend less than 10% online then there's a cohort that's been 10 to 25% online that junk is 18% of the population another 20%. [45:10] 20% spend 25 to 50% online another 13%. Percent spend 50 to 75% online and then they're 6% of the population that spends more than 75% of their budget online, and said you know they had this kind of interesting distribution and you say oh my gosh the overwhelming majority of consumers 43%. Still you know which is the biggest by far one of these cohorts still spend less than 10% of their daughters online. You know the easy take away there is there's a lot more online gross and you don't call back to Michael Dart from the day before like he made the point. Nobody knows what that. What the final equilibrium will be on online versus offline shopping like Michael postulated that it could be 50/50 eventually but what he says I do know is. That is a one way Road people are only moving from offline to online that there are not people moving from online back to us. Which only makes some sense so. [46:12] You take mpd's new idea of breaking down the distribution of spender of Shoppers by these different different spending patterns. And then he you didn't break it down by retailer and you get some really interesting insights right so. Less than 1% of Amazon Shoppers spend less than 10% of their budget online so that big 43%. [46:36] Amazon only has 1% of those guys like those guys are not Amazon Choppers yet which is like frankly great news for Amazon. And Walmart is exactly the opposite right like the biggest chunk of Walmart shoppers spend. Less than 10% of their of their budget online and a tiny sliver of the Walmart Shopper spend 75% online and so you kind of you know those are the two extremes. Amazon heavily biased towards predominately online Shoppers Walmart heavily biased towards very casual online Choppers. And then you know what was interesting as they showed Target Best Buy in Kohl's which had surprisingly even distribution across all of those different colored so it's kind of interesting Target Best Buy in Kohl's. [47:25] Do just about as well with the the guys that spend 75% of their budget on line is they do with it that the women that's been less than 10% online versus. Walmart and Amazon you know I tended to be heavily bifurcated and so I thought I thought that was sort of an interesting new. New dimension that I hadn't really thought about before. Scot: [47:46] Yeah it was really cool it kind of need to take away was you know once there's another one where. [47:55] The big guy is so close Target at such a loss share as people went towards online in Amazon. With exception of Best Buy so it showed in one takeaway was Best Buy seem so kind of figured out how to stop erosion so you're what are they doing to do that and then you know there's definitely this battle for that 43% of people that are. We think we'll come online and your Walmart play wants to keep them in the Walmart family in Amazon, wants to extract them over onto Prime and that's going to be a really interesting Battle Ground over the next five years was one of my takeaway isn't it was just, we heard Mark Laurie talk about it Amazon hasn't really talked about specifically but some of the moves they've made with going to monthly prime number you know. [48:38] Paying Prime fees with cats all that stuff has been kind of along the same lines so it's going to be interesting to watch that that battle come to play. Jason: [48:46] Yeah yeah for sure and you know it. [48:51] I mean I always enjoy Downs presentations cuz I just think the the date is super valuable and it's like you know we have all these urban legends about how things are doing. Let there be super useful data sets the MPD provides like there's another one I didn't cover but that they do frequently. Where they show the fastest-growing subcategories right and that's all you know much more important than the big categories are you find out there like a shoes my beat Footwear might be flat. [49:21] Performance running shoes is a huge growth opportunity right now. And you know they even particularly talked about how in the subcategories. You can really see trends go viral so I can example that use is like Office Products is not a particular growth industry right now but. Elmer's Glue like in that the adhesive category is booming. And the reason is booming for for you no parents that don't have have like sub 10 year old children at home is there's this huge trend on YouTube of kids making goo. And slime rather yeah. And you know they're all these different ways to make an all these interesting you know things kids are doing with slime in the primary ingredient for all this slime is Elmer's glue and before this trend. Office product companies mainly sold for Nas you know bottles of Elmer's glue that you'd use to glue paper together and now they're all selling 5-gallon bottles of this this this glue and you know selling a much higher quantities. Scot: [50:31] Yeah it sucks I won't get into it it's a problem so I'm fine just taking over our lives. Jason: [50:36] Yeah it's interesting to see those Trends in and be able to react to this trans another one is like the instapot is the is this you no booming small cooking appliance which has you know lifted the whole small appliances category at the MoMA. Scot: [50:52] So that was the highlight there and then there was some random guy talking about last mile did you go to them. Jason: [51:02] I did I did I was actually the moderator for that one. Scot: [51:05] Oh yeah yeah. Jason: [51:07] Yes it might have been hard for you to follow because they had to like shrink down the room a lot from the earlier Marketplace one you know not make it look empty with with just interested in something as trivial as. You know how you get the goods to the consumer. Scot: [51:24] Is more intimate setting than the marketplace. Jason: [51:27] Exactly. [51:28] But I thought we had a good day so so I had three subject matter experts on the panel we had Jamie sadlowski who's the VP of customer experience at Walmart VP of marketing. Owns the Indian customer experience for Walmart and this is you know Scott Walmart is doing you know a ton of new last-mile experiences. We had a Jarren Waldman who's the founder of curbside so there a vendor. Curbside pickup programs for a bunch of retailers including like Sephora Nordstrom CVS. And Jared has kind of cool past he had the it started a mobile geolocation company that ultimately got bought by Apple and so Jaron actually ran the the mobile geolocation team at Apple for like 4 years and. You know a big part of the value proposition of curbside is that there's some really smart technology for using your phone to geo-locate you and get your order ready you know as you pull into the parking lot. So he had had some good good povs about. What customer expectations were in in The Last Mile and then we had a gentleman named Warren schauble who's from. A consulting firm called Gwen industries that specialize in drum Technologies. And Gwen is his bosses name who was the former president of DJI so you know certainly credible. [53:04] Drones face but these guys are selling like industrial drones for a lot of B2B uses. And of course you know drones are fake only talked about in The Last Mile and and I was certain pleasantly surprised orang was was. Turtle refreshingly candid that like. Really the regulatory environment in the u.s. is is we we are miles away from drones being an important part of the The Last Mile solution in the us cuz we're. Where you know there's still some very significant regulatory barriers but he did mention that most of the other technical barriers that you know the ability to build these practical drones that can carry heavy payloads. And the software capabilities to do the traffic management and delivery like you know he felt like those problems. Used to be big big technical challenges and essentially are completely solved and so you know in his mind at this point. [54:01] That the one barrier to two drones being important part of of The Last Mile are regulatory but he doesn't think there's going to be a resolution of that anytime soon. We did get to talk a little bit about autonomous vehicles and and you know their role in the last month which was interesting. The big takeaway from Jaren and Jamie is kind of going back to this Persona thing that like. You know the old world where we have like buy online pickup in-store consumers versus home delivery consumers versus in-store consumers and what you know both curbside and Walmart it started independently learned is. [54:38] Every consumer is a user of all these different experiences and that it's it's just really based on context and that there's a. In a soccer mom that loves curbside pickup for her regular groceries but you know how to certain occasions when she wants home delivery and she really wants to shop in the store for her own Christmas dinner meal so. You know thinking about. All these experiences being important in different context for the Shopper as opposed to thinking about these experiences being the one and only delivery method that different consumers would use I thought was pretty interesting. Scot: [55:12] You just back up a little bit I think it'd be good for listeners you had a great. It kind of opening setup which was good and you talked about the existing carriers and how much package volume they can handle and how much they're growing versus e-commerce maybe maybe run to that. High level for folks. Jason: [55:32] Yeah yeah so we've talked about this at a high-level a couple times before on the show. The in general e-commerce is growing at you know call it 15%. And that the carriers are growing their capacity at about 8%. So you know we we we have a clear mismatch there. For this show I showed some more granular data that Kalin and put together and so you kind of paint a picture for for how eCommerce companies are using the different carriers and and you know don't you know, the primary carrier that Amazon uses for the last mile is the US Post Office. And that's because their fulfillment center so close to the consumer that Amazon's big problem is not. [56:22] Moving the goods across the country they they mostly do that in their own private Network now they're their big problem is the Last Mile and the US post office has the by far the most economical. Route based delivery solution for that last Mile and so you're saying like 44% from memory of of all of us. Amazon packages get delivered by the US post office then UPS of the big air air carrier for Amazon. FedEx does do some deliveries but it's only like 5% and then you know a growing chunk I think it's like between 13 and 15% of Amazon. Packages get delivered by Amazon Zone people in that that's obviously a growing percentage. So then you break down that like the US Post Office is growing at like, their capacity light 8% UPS and FedEx are growing actually even slower and you go man for for these big e-commerce sites like Amazon and Walmart that are growing like 35%. They're they're consuming much more capacity than the post office and and ups are growing and so you know you think about Amazon investing in their own delivery Network, that's not too bad just reduced costs or to threaten the viability of of the commercial carriers it's really cuz they, they simply enough to meet their own growth expectations need more capacity than they can buy on the open market. Scot: [57:53] Yeah I thought that was so so super insightful and really cheated up nice and I just kidding it was a really good paneling. Learned a ton. I wanted to ask her side guy a couple things that he mentioned they're doing a lot more food curbside delivery in when he starting about food now these places have a curbside vendor like curbside and they've got six or seven other kind of pickup and delivery places at one point, do like. [58:20] Does the supply chain that the soccer they're using consolidate because you don't need restaurants think it like the six iPad sitting there so let's try to get Jaron on the show and see what he has to say about that kind of thing. Jason: [58:31] Yeah yeah that'd be awesome we we we did not, talk about that specific question so that be great when I asked him he definitely did take usra sort of the fastest growing component and I do think. That like he's providing. Software that essentially the retailer buys and owns versus a lot of those delivery services are sort of outsourced Solutions and be well you're certainly right like there's a but you know a, a desk full of tools that these are restaurants in Key West hours are using at the moment. Scot: [59:04] Cool and then your panel wrapped up and then I had to shoot out and then did you get a chance to see the rest of the show. Jason: [59:13] I didn't say there was one other. Breakout session that I did not get to attend but like I should we should have said for each of these hours during your session in my session there were a couple topics that you could choose then obviously we we were both you know the. The most interesting one to choose. [59:34] There a couple couple sessions during the last one there was an interesting case study on Sony. Sort of rebounding from really losing a lot of their brand Prestige to focusing on making some really hard decisions to get out of some categories and reinvest in others. I heard I did not get to attend that but I heard it was interesting and then the final Keynote. Then unfortunately a work emergency called me away for was the A-Rod was in town and and. You know talked a little bit about his own entrepreneurial Journey which I imagine was was interest. Scot: [1:00:14] Yeah I wonder if Jayla was there. Jason: [1:00:17] I did not see her yet I feel like she would have drop me a line if she was in town but. I feel like it's a good thing that we didn't have a deep brief recap on a ride because it's already happened again we've used up a perfectly good hour of our listeners time. So if you have any questions we didn't get to or or if you're at the show yourself or had any any comments we would love to hear. Your questions on Facebook and we can keep the conversation going there as always if you enjoy this show you know it only takes about 10 seconds of your life to jump over to iTunes and give us that 5-star review. That that really helps us with visibility on the podcast and we we really do appreciate. Scot: [1:00:59] Yep thanks everyone for listening and thanks to the team it in PD for putting on a great conference and for having Jason and I are speakers we really enjoyed the show and appreciated the opportunity. Jason: [1:01:09] I absolutely in until next time happy commercing.

EP103 - Amazon Private Label Deep Dive This episode is a deep dive into Amazon's Private Label activities: Framework for Amazon Private Label Brands Amazon's History in Private Label Amazonscape Advice for Brands and Retailers Update on Amazon Private Label Marketshare from 1010data Mary Meeker State of the Internet (slide 75 is the one discussed) Special thanks to Samir Bhavnani and Tim Wilson from 1010data. for providing their data and insight for this episode. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 103 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday October 4, 2017. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature - Google Automated Transcription of the show: Transcript Jason:  [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 103 being recorded on Wednesday October 4th I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot & Guests:  [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason and Scott show listeners. [0:55] Today we're going to continue our very popular deep dive series, and jump into something that has really caught on in the last 6 months there's been a lot of excitement around this so it was sparked by Mary Meeker really kind of putting a bright Spotlight on this, and that is the topic of Amazon private label, Jason I know you have thought a lot about Amazon private label and I think the the real meat and potatoes is know what what I'm hearing from brances there's a couple of questions there, really grappling with and we're going to answer this questions and give listeners some new data that, this the first time you'll hear this data thanks to a gas it's going to be on the show but before we jump into that I know you spent a lot of time thinking about this help give our listeners kind of framework for for how to think about these private label offerings are so many now it can be kind of confusing so as to how do you kind of sort them in and organize them. Jason:  [1:52] Yeah Scott well I don't think there is one perfect framework at the moment so I'm using a number of different dimensions to sort of think about these and slicing and dicing in different ways and so there's there's sort of for big. Big Dimensions II think about their 5 depending how you count the the first one is, Prime exclusive versus non-exclusive product so there's a subset of these brands at Amazon's offering that you have to be a Prime member to get sew-in apparel that something like button-down or good threads in in cpg that something like Mama Bear or wickedly prime or happy belly, and so you know here. Obviously there they're partly training use these private labels as an extra inducement to sign up for Prime and. And more and adding more value the prime memberships the II framework is is. What we call Amazon branded versus non-branded right in so of this ecosystem of. [3:00] You know now over 50 50 different brands that Amazon has has invented a handful of those five of those. You can look at them and immediately know it's an Amazon product because they they would either have Amazon in the name are there so closely associated with Amazon. And heavily advertised by Amazon that is very Queer as an Amazon product so that's. [3:21] Amazonbasics that's Echo that's fire that's Amazon elements in Amazon essentials. I'm but the overwhelming majority of these Brands and Amazon's creating. [3:33] It seems that they're they're going to reason with extensive links to not make it obvious that it's an Amazon brand and have it feel potentially like. [3:41] A standalone National brand in sew-in Apparel in particular they've created a bunch of these brands. And this is things like Scout and Ro James and Erin Waterton Road those those sorts of of brands. [3:58] So the 3rd framework will uses is to think about them in the different categories and this is the the normal product taxonomy like in a lot of these products fit any Electronics category their increasingly are products in cpg. There's there's definitely products targeted specifically a baby. There's a bunch of apparel and now there's some health and fitness and Home and Garden. And in each of those categories you're you're seeing some of the Amazon branded product and sum of the unbranded product. [4:31] You pointed out a couple to me that that we're new to me. You know like there may be even sub-brand so in fashion you're not answering to see like outdoor a fashion like Denali as a specific sub brand in the in the fashion category. In the last category framework that we use is what I called basic versus luxury and said there are a lot of these products where their biggest value proposition is. That they're at and appealing price point for a good quality product the matches the product you're used to using. In tow light apparel is the easiest way to think about this these are the that you know, the standard uniform button down shirts that we wear in their in their case would rename button down these are like the basic t-shirts and all all these sorts of things and as you talked about on a couple Brands like. Amazon sort of gives you three tiers of quality you can get a. An unfamiliar you know typically like offshore products from China at a super low price point. You can get a amazonbasics product at a low price point, or you can get a luxury branded version of a product at a higher price point in so a lot of the Amazon products are playing in this sort of basic category but increasingly we're seeing Amazon, to get products that are moving up market and have their own value propositions that are driving their own demand and they're not just a. [6:10] Value proposition you know for the same feature set that you can get from a national brand some case they're there differentiated quality and certainly like Amazon Echo would be the. The prime example of a of a luxury product that's sort of the the category leader with its own unique feature so. You know you can come use any of those Frameworks to slice and dice all of these different brands and as as time permits what you know we probably need to create some sort of the infographic to put in the show note to make that more clear. Scot & Guests:  [6:43] Yes funny you mention that way you actually have to if we happen to have one so just a little history that makes that framework I think that's super helpful. The background on Amazon private label, probably the first one that I can find documentation of is when Amazon watch Kendall that was the first time they came out with a product and its really funny because prior to Kendall, Amazon was notoriously famous for not running TV ads day back in like, 03 they ran a series of TV ads called the sweater women wear these guys singing this people singing Christmas carols by a fire. Stop doing that when someone ask Jeff Bezos why he said we want to take every marketing dollar and put it into, free shipping and lowering prices so so then kind of for literally 5 years they didn't really run any TV until they came out the candle they started to do TV and more. [7:39] Typical brand advertising it was interesting in 09 I was so I blocked I've been to this Amazon gig before it was his hip and. Jason:  [7:52] Weighted hip now. Scot & Guests:  [7:53] I guess I guess so well there's podcast now so there you go before Matt and I found this product called pins on and I couldn't. You don't figure out what's going on and it was supposed to go today on Amazon so they're kind of pushing it as likewise Amazon pushing the spins on thing so then I kind of went into the bowels of the trademark Registry and figured out it was owned by Amazon, oh my God this is a new private label so I just worked out a quick blog and then it actually got picked up by lot of press and then I, I kind of using that same method I found there was a list of six Brands three of them were actually just calling to reserve so they were trademarked but had never been utilized the other three were Strathmore in Denali, so I kind of stumbled on and then over the years I've watched this pretty closely so so for me and there's actually a lot of Articles coming out now about this or people using that same system in so there was one in court so they're like you know Amazon has, 800 private labels waiting in the wings and so that's a little tricky because, to me you don't I don't think we talked about it as a private label unless it is on the site and live and there's more than one product for sale another kind of checkbox for me is does it have kind of a logo, since that point just kind of notes, over the years they've done more of this and what we hear from Amazon insiders is this private label group kind of outside of, Kindle an echo is one of the hottest groups inside of Amazon so they're hiring massively they have plans to ramp up private label in pretty much every care. [9:30] Category so so here's the private labels we know today and I'm going to start with a, The Matrix taxonomy so so Jason you introduce some slow start, the ones are good too so we'll go through Prime exclusive first and then not prime exclusive or are generally available and then category so it would start with the things that are prime exclusive and, that the most they have in the prime exclusive bucket is fashion so they have Amazon essentials, blessings likes men's shorts at highly recommend those things of that nature. Kind of Basics but down you mentioned, Ella Moon good threads James and Erin is 22 of them have Row in the name Lark and Ro and Scout and Ro. May which is Mae and I think that's lingerie only the UK north 11 and Paris Sunday. There's a new one that's out called the fix and I believe that is prime exclusive, then the other bucket of prime exclusive private labels are in cpg there you have Amazon elements and I was getting elements and essential elements is fashion, she did it already Essentials is fashion elements to cpg happy belly Presto Mama Bear and wickedly Prime, then in the broader categories so these are just generally private label that are not prime exclusive amazonbasics which is the popular accessories to start as Electronics accessories and we've seen, you know things like a bocce ball sets and their stickers Amazon Basics is exploded past that the simplest kind of things. [11:07] Denali what you mentioned two dice funny so a lot of time still you can tell they test these things so $2 in strathwood of the ones I've been following the longest stressful it's been pretty true to doing kind of outdoor furniture kind of stuff, it only started this tools so it's kind of a Black & Decker competitor and tool sets and it's kind of pivoted you mentioned it to function and kind of outdoor. Pinzon has been there that's a home, Home Goods kind of sheets and those kinds of things Pike Street actually had one they retired that was a coffee brand it had Pike in the name as well I'm glad he's our have a nod to Seattle and they're so like Molly the mountain you see in Seattle Pike Street obviously, and then the journey available not prime exclusive fashion private labels are Franklin and Freeman Franklin Taylor. Iris Lilly that's a weird cuz everyone else has and and up down just two words together Iris Lily and that's exclusive to London and Society New York. And those are kind of it will put a graphic in the show notes that's part of this Amazon scape I did where I tried to kind of organized these things and capture the ones that are actually the kind of meat, criteria of you can prove its Amazon, through the trademark Registry there's actually something more than one SKU for sale and there tends to be a logo associated with it so it seems like at that kind of. Raises the bar on on what we included here but I think it's the right way to do it. So it would be great if Amazon told us exactly what their sales all these things are but. [12:38] Amazon satorius Lee secretive and they disclosed nothing about this there are two data sources out there though that we watch Pretty closely, and you're the instruction I've talked there's all kinds of different ways these companies collect data and, so one of them is one click retail and I believe it one click retail does is they have some ability with Amazon either directly or through their brand Partners to get into the, that the data that's available to vendors and the aggregate that anonymize it and then look at some insights from it, so according to them just recently here and the first week of October they have said that they believe Amazon private label has has done 300 million so far this year so if you feel kind of through the first nine months of the year in e-commerce and you've done, 300 million then it's probably safe to almost double that so because of holidays and call it 500 to $609. [13:34] They don't Unfortunately they don't tell us which of private-label is in or not in that but there are they do kind of didn't break down the top categories and in this category as they don't include. Kindle an echo so I'm kind of assuming that that 300 million number is does not include Kindle an echo so that's the the ones I rattled off but not kind of the devices that Amazon makes and manufactures. So and then later in the show we're at little teaser here to make it worth your while to stay around we are going to have the second date of Ender on the show as a guest for the Steep dive to help us kind of really, drill into this in and see if they can shed some more light on it. Jason:  [14:14] Yeah and I know Scott it's been a labor of love for you to keep the, the infographic perfectly updated of course a lot of listeners will will know that Amazon very famous we added a new private label in the last month which is the Whole Foods private label so that's whole 365 from Whole Foods is now being. Seemingly someone successfully sold on Amazon as a new Amazon private label. And I think there was a recent retail dive article that essentially said they they sold 16 million of the 365 in the first month and you know it sent you a reply chain problems and sold out of a lot of their guts. Scot & Guests:  [15:00] Yeah I think there's some data I'm not a grocery expert like yourself but isn't there data that that that actually for Whole Foods it's a pretty material part of their sales I think I've seen anywhere between 20 and 30%. Jason:  [15:15] Yeah yeah and I'm not exactly certain what the breakdown of Whole Foods is the. [15:22] Like at the top end of a grocery stores there's there's folks like all the annelida land and Trader Joe's that are like 60 to 90% private label, when you work at a traditional grocery store like a Kroger or Walmart you know they're there somewhere in the twenties and so you know I think Whole Foods is a little higher than a traditional store but but not in the in the Aldi's base yet. Scot & Guests:  [15:47] Okay cool before we got our guests on I think the questions that come up the most I just want to kind of, pink I'm off you just to get the conversation going here so a lot of this gets started because of that, battery data that's out there that shows that Amazon essentially came out with a private label battery this is like you know, typical household batteries like double a triple a CD in that kind of thing and it quickly became the number one seller, so it's a really kind of Sheriff from Duracell and Energizer in those kind of guys so if your brand out there, and your help as we talk on the show brands are in a different variety of of their current Amazon strategies summer taking a deep I want to do everything so we had for example dorel juvenile while there, they are doing everything they can on Amazon so that's kind of that I'm going to jump jump into the deep end of the pool and then we have folks dipping their toe and then we have folks there just kind of sitting out on the sidelines when it comes to private label what's your advice you offer to France. Wooden Amazon. Jason:  [16:52] Yeah well so busy brands of the super broad term. You know I'm I'm answering in terms of the kind of categories were talking about on the show tonight so food and cpg and health and. Mostly the basic sides of a parallel so you know if if you're talking about Gucci is a brand my answer might be a little different. But but in general brands have two problems have the problem they know about in the problem they don't know about with Amazon right like the probably know about is. Amazon is a super-powerful fast-growing platform it's now gotten in their space and making products that compete with him right so so Amazon being a private label competitor or a. Or you know I often talk to them about being at 8. [17:44] Brandy manufacturer competitor as opposed to a private label because many of these these products that have a much higher value prop than just a private label. [17:53] You have to address that the problem that a lot of Brands aren't aware of him and certainly should be aware of is. [18:00] People just shop different digitally in digitally has fundamentally changed how people shut up and huge. [18:07] Proportion of of North American consumers. Are using digital to help them make purchase decisions and so you know Amazon scary both because they're good at Selling Stuff digitally and they're making their own stuff to sell and in so in general when I talk to her and I say hey. [18:25] First thing you need to learn how to do is be great at selling digitally and you should use Amazon as an example right and so you know in almost any category you can pull up the. The Amazon label version of their pdp's and compared against you know who you think of is a market-leading national brand. And you'll just see how much richer and better executed in much better content is on the Amazon PDP so those are really. Templates for how to sell digitally. And if you're Brandon most of these categories were talking about I do believe you need to be on the Amazon platform that's where telling the consumers are that's where bunch of the money is. You know depending on how many Prime members you believe Amazon has does in the most locked in consumers in the marketplace and you're only going to reach him. If you're on the Amazon platform so even though animal Amazon's a friend of me in general. I think you need to be on that platform and I think you need to be using that platform to build your chops around digital merchandising and digital selling. And so I think that certainly a key you know part of consumer shopping different digitally. You know you need to be thinking differently about how you differentiate your products in in the store it was about the point of purchase. Packaging in the displays in your promotion strategy International television campaigns. In the digital world it's a lot more about trust transparency social proof there's a lot of new currencies that you need to start developing and there are things. [19:57] That you have competitive advantages on because you're this well-known will use National brand so it should be easier for you to collect ratings and reviews and develop social proof then it is for a net new brand launched by a. A retailer that no one shot from before so I certainly think there's opportunities to improve your your digital merchandise saying that leverage your your core strengths in. In doing all this I think it's super important that you have a direct-to-consumer. [20:29] Portion of your business so if you already selling direct-to-consumer you ought to be using that channel as your learning lab you ought to be doing constant s and evolution and different. Content in in. Different presentations to really nail how people want to shop for your product digitally if you're not in direct to consumer. It's time that you start doing some direct-to-consumer pilots and I'm not saying that because you're going to sell a huge amount of direct to consumer product and make a fortune in most cases your not but you need. When you sent through those wholesalers in those retailers you're basically disintermediated from your consumer and in this new digital world, you need a direct relationship with this consumers to understand how they're shopping for your product and what is resonating with them and what's not so you need a direct-to-consumer channel if for no other reason than to be, a learning lab as you figure out the best practices for for all of these things and then lastly I'd say hey while you're losing sleep about your customer shopping digitally and buying the Amazon version of everything, don't forget about the other thing you should be losing sleep on you know which is this is coming wave of Auto replenishment and just fundamental changes to the way people buy stuff and there's tons of stuff that consumers Buy. [21:44] Explicitly today when they run out of toilet paper do they run out of dish soap that they're very likely to get implicitly tomorrow either because there's a sensor in there their toilet paper roll or a camera in there kitchen or, microprocessor in their in their dishwasher and you really need to be thinking about, how you're going to preserve your current market share and hopefully grow it in a world of Auto replenishment when a lot more of those decisions become. Implicit instead of explicit so that's a lot to chew on. Scot & Guests:  [22:17] Yeah and maybe taking it up even another level I found there's like this a rational thing, Amazon causes so much fear it causes a rational illogical, thinking in a weird way I'm so serious what I mean so a lot of times people say I'm not selling a brand will stay within the framework you outlined of we were talking about here on Amazon because of the, Yep they're just going to take my data and create a private label but then I'll say maybe it's a cpg company I'll say well you're in Target Walmart, grocery stores and Costco and your products right next to a private label it why why does it bother you so much on Amazon when you've lived in a private label land for a while but what's your, do you run into that in like what's your how do you why are they why are there not able to rationalize heads. Jason:  [23:08] Yeah I do and again it's a devil they know versus the devil they don't I totally agree with you that it's irrational and and when you call him on it you know they have trouble articulating why it is different. [23:22] The other one that that comes up a lot that's in that that same boat is like. You know I always ask clients when they say hey I don't want to sell on Amazon cuz I don't want to get them my data if. [23:33] If you're in the diaper business and you're saying you don't want to sell an Amazon because you don't want Amazon to get your diaper do you believe that Amazon's not getting a very queer to look at the overall diaper Market without you like. You have to be a really large part of. [23:48] Of the market to feel like you're somehow keeping Amazon from Market visibility by staying off the platform like in most cases that. You know you're you're doing yourself more harm than you are Amazon there they're going to figure out all of those consumer categories whether you're there or not and so you know if, you probably need to be there again if your consumer Products Company. Amazon has 240 million consumers in the US there are 240 million households in the US. So that's a pretty big Market to be overlooking that's like saying a bank robber and I don't want to rob banks because I don't like them. [24:30] It's where the money is right now and so for most brands you need to be there you do need to understand that you are potentially enabling a competitor and you need to do it in a smart way, but I think most people that are staying away do so you know partly for irrational reasons. Scot & Guests:  [24:48] Yeah and the other one is I've given these talks about this stuff and then after someone always comes up and they say we're actually, it's either the horses out of the barn door it's like about to leave the barn in those say don't tell anyone but Amazon's approaches to be the private label manufacturer for axe or we're actually the guys that makes a battery and how do you feel about that in, I don't know how to answer that I can kind of see both arguments I'm curious I'll reveal kind of how I think about it but I want to hear how you think about it first. Jason:  [25:18] Tricky make me answer first. Yeah so that's one where I generally and again there's exceptions and every Market but in general I would say no don't do that in the reason I would say that it is, because manufacturing private label products for other retailers is increasingly becoming a race to the bottom, you are just going to be a commodity manufacturer and your Expediting Amazon's ability to build their own customer base and test the value props, for themselves and the best you can ever hope for is to be in a bidding war against everyone else in the world that can manufacture that product once Amazon's won all the customers and so in general. Well well there is short-term gain and you know you can protect some of your manufacturing capacity to cut other about wise be at risk by by partnering to be the private label manufacturer that's not a way to win long-term I mean you really need to think about the shift that's happening, every retailer is turning into a brand every brand is turning into a retailer, and in that world if you are making products for someone else that owns the relationship with the customer, you are never going to be in a position to control your own destiny you're always going to be you know in a super price competitive situation and it's it's just, not something that I generally recommend for both most brands. Scot & Guests:  [26:46] So the counter argument that I've heard from Branson in this is it's interesting is well we're going to we're going to. Go ahead and make that because, we want to it's a hedge little bit we want to see how successful they are and we want to learn from what they do and this is the only way we'll see sales of that item is if we're actually making it so, there's there's something Buddy there that's kind of part of that short-term wind that I think you're talking about but then I do think that they. Then they always say you know like. [27:21] Amazon won't be able to visit outside of batteries but like lingerie I've had someone say well you know where the number. Two lingerie manufacturer Amazon can't do this. They can't possibly do it and I'm kind of taking over 15 to 20 years I've heard that Amazon can ever do this thing alive, yeah it is turned out not to be the case every single time so, that does make me a little concerned when they kind of had the bravado that there are going people that can make this thing this widget. Jason:  [27:52] In general in this isn't universally true but like in Moses Brands you end up with two big brands that I bought a market share of number 1 and number 2 and in most markets there's an unknown number 3 that is really the private label manufacturer in in in some markets that. That number one very often has hasn't made a decision that they're not going to manufacture private label for anyone and so you certainly see like PNG you know publicly say that they don't manufacture for folks, the most often that number three ends up being the private label manufacturer and they do so be the reason that they're there. Doing it instead of the number two is because they're just willing to do it for less money, do you know if it ends up being a commodity manufacturing service that you're providing and this notion that you had some technical proprietary manage and that you know anyone else isn't going to be able to make what you make or or Amazon in particular isn't a meal of the deal with the complications in your category like, every one of these categories has great complications and there are Technical differentiators and there are IP differentiators. But what you say to all those barriers are lower barriers than they've ever been before and they're only going to get lower over time so that you know relying on that to be your mote um is pretty risky. Scot & Guests:  [29:17] Yeah and um just help blisters kind of put a little bit of math on this so if I am one of those Commodities manufactures what is that like a 5% margin business certain kind of single-digit. Jason:  [29:29] Depends on the category but in most cases yeah you're thrilled to make 5%. Scot & Guests:  [29:34] And then if I am a if I'm a brand and I'm selling through retail then that's 15 to 20% kind of a margin type business. Jason:  [29:44] Most typically exactly. Scot & Guests:  [29:46] Identify my grandson direct now I'm taking all that margin that get you all that that Mark up that retail enjoys which is usually somewhere between 30 and 50% I'm adding it to my 15 and, that's kind of like now I'm Into You know if this 60 - 2. [30:03] Maybe 50 to 65% margin on this is what I kind of think about that model this is why Amazon is doing it right I mean they can they can they can get a lot more margin that can pass, two thirds a third of it on the consumer have a lower price keep 2/3 and no action on a per-unit basis be ahead of the game versus being a retailer so that that's why, private label exist in an Amazon. The first one to discover this they just have the data to kind of go about it very quickly. Jason:  [30:32] Exactly. Scot & Guests:  [30:33] And then the last question before we get to our guests so we also have a lot of retailers to listen to the podcast what book should they do if they're not doing private labels that something the Explorer should they take the opposite, all in and kind of take a page out of the P&G Playbook and say we're not going to do private label will have just Brands only here at our retail shop. Jason:  [30:55] I'm looking forward to seeing that retailer that would be fun to watch but in general yeah, I think it's going to be increasingly difficult to make a living selling other people's stuff and when we will get successful retailers across the board there are already selling a ton of Their Own. you know we talked a lot about Walmart being the biggest retailer in the world like the second biggest retailer in United States is Costco Costco has less than 10% of the number of stores Walmart has any other the second largest retailer, in the usn there's a variety of reasons behind that. One of them is that the majority of what they sell is is private label product that Kirkland product in a few other brands represent the majority of of stuff that they sell in they they executed, very well they have that really interesting methodology of partnering with national Brands to launch new products and deciding if and when they'll they'll launch a house version of. Of those products in and they they've mastered that process along before Amazon got into the space when you look at the most terrifying grocery retailers that are entering the us right now and scaring the bejesus out of the traditional. Grocery retailers there their businesses that are predicated on on selling Almost 100% private label products, me know you got the one that us consumers will be most familiar with already is Trader Joe's in that space you look at traditional wholesalers like in in categories like Office Products or or consumer electronics and Best Buy has a stated strategy to have over 50% of their stuff be. [32:42] Be brands that they own it just very clear to to be a successful retailer moving forward, you mostly are going to have to sell your own stuff that you know. All the Amazons going to continue to be an aggregator of everything it seems likely that Walmart's going to continue to be a meaningful player and aggregators of everything but outside of those two players. There's not a lot more room for. Wholesale aggregators of products in so your long-term play your long-term viability is probably at least partially predicated on your ability to build brand that consumers want, and it will cause them to select you versus someone else and then I would. I would reiterate that that same Auto replenishment conversation I talked about with the brands if you're a retailer and you know. A bunch of the products that drive trips to your store or. Those things in the middle of the store that are going to become you know Auto replenishment products you need to think about how you're going to survive in a world in which, no one comes to your store to buy toilet paper or dish soap anymore, you need to think about a water world in which you know when people are shopping predominately opolis it's much harder to sell impulse purchases and so there's a whole set of, new business problems you need to be thinking about as a retailer in in particular in this Grocery and food category and cpg we're seeing the tsunami of curbside pickup buy online pickup in-store digital order ahead however you want to look at it there is overwhelming evidence that that's going to be a rapidly adopted model in North America and you know that fundamental. [34:20] Lead changes a bunch of the value props and so have your retailer you need to be thinking about how you win in a world in which curbside pickup is a meaningful part of your, your business. Scot & Guests:  [34:31] Jason one of the big bang moments and Amazon private label happened back in May when Mary Meeker had a slide about Amazon private label in her annual internet update, that's why I'd showed some sharks that had Amazon baby wipes and Battery offerings and that they had become top sellers so this is behind Brands like. Duracell Energizer in Panasonic where they were they were out selling you know kind of the name brands not the battery story and I know now that it came out in May with the Meeker presentation I've seen it, either tens or hundreds of times out there and I really think of it as the shot heard round the world for Amazon Private Label Amazon have been doing private label for a long time, but that that one kind of data point or especially around the batteries has come up in a probably with me, 30 40 50 times with brands that they were just really shocked by all that and you know if you look at that slide and look at the, bottom attribution you'll see that that data is attributed to 1010data, and to join us in our conversation about Amazon private label works cited to have Sameer bhavnani and Tim Wilson from 1010data and they're going to help us peel the onion on this welcome to the show guys. [35:41] Well thank you hey guys thanks for having us very excited to be talking about Robby Thompson shot heard around the world. Jason:  [35:51] Exactly but that that is a big-time right I would I would imagine if you're in the date of publishing business and Mary Meeker quote you that's that's about as good as you can get. Scot & Guests:  [36:03] That's basically summoning the mountain right there this is good as you can get it's also a very moment because you realize very quickly, who actually knows Mary Meeker is excited for you and who like my mother has looks at you like what are you talking about but. For me it's inside it was very exciting. Jason:  [36:24] That that's a tough one to explain to Mom I totally get it in for those of you that haven't seen her presentations they're usually like one or two slides and maybe like one data point in it so if you're that one data point it's huge because you're the only thing she's talking about. [36:40] Plus or minus about 300 slides in a 30 minute presentation. [36:46] But she makes it work. So before we jump into all that though there's always like to get a sense for how you guys came to our awesome industry can you give us kind of the lowdown about your your careers and how you ended up at 10:10. Scot & Guests:  [37:02] Sure guess so this is Sameer I'll stop. If you don't mind and the bulk of my career was spent at a research house called MPD. [37:12] And after spending I'd say almost almost 10 years that's as an industry analyst over at MPD I move more into the business side. And then a couple of years later my friend Tim who's with me today call me often told me he was starting a company. Who is focus was going to be on tracking what consumers are buying online and he wanted to know if I wanted to join him and I said yes and I'm going to let him see the history from their my history is I started. Investigating what people do online little over a decade ago at compete who is required by TNS and then kantar. Today I believe it's known as millward brown digital and I was so frustrated with the fact that a lot of our our studies. While they were great it was always just a little short with understanding the lower funnel and exactly you know what it is that people were buying so myself along with Aaron Mendez. Started the company in Quantico focused on what people buy online and we did this back in 2013 thought maybe we're a little behind the curve turns out we're a little ahead of the Curve. And during my first call was with Sam and so we we broke one Co-op and then eventually joined the 1010data family. Help round out their assets around the consumer purchase activity so today we have extreme email receipts. Credit card data debit card data. [38:44] We use all those behavioral Deus Ex to get a clear picture really but you're able to paint a pretty good Mosaic of what's going on. Both online and in-store and in that consumer purchase data is really the Crux of what were me Sam and the rest of the team are working on commercializing and bring it to the market. [39:04] And if you're unfamiliar. Internet were headquartered out of New York City and essentially what we are is an out-of-the-box inside right so we we help companies manage data. And we also help companies understand where consumers are spending their money. Jason:  [39:29] Awesome and you alluded to it a little bit but in terms of how you get your Insight I tend to think of you as sort of a large panel that then augments that panel with third-party data, so [39:45] So that the panel is sort of the quick stream in the email receipts and then your your augmenting it with some some third-party data is that why that right or can you explain to us. How you get your your data. Scot & Guests:  [39:57] Yes. Yeah absolutely so we have we have multiple inputs you know really one of the things that I've learned from doing a while is that there's there's no such thing as a perfect date is that they all have holes. They all have diocese etcetera so it's really about the more different the more information you can collect the more confident you can really be with what's happening so. We have we are actively scouring the internet or third-party data listening to analyst calls for any you know publicly traded companies we have, and we use all of the information that's available to us as part of our data methodologies for the projection of our estimates. However you know we do have our limitations in end you know we use our panel. [40:49] The way every other handle this company does I wouldn't say that we augment it necessary with with other third-party did a research but I would say that you know third-party inputs are an influence or an ingredient and the date of methodology. Does that make sense. [41:07] Here's a great here's a great way to kind of think about it so there's been a huge shift, in the measurement in the measurement world in the measurement of consumer behavior and that shit is essentially has been traditionally if you have a panel, what that means is consumers are opting into some kind of panel and they're going to get coins in exchange for answering survey questions of some nature, and that has been Houser the research base is really kind of measured consumer sentiment for decades and decades and there's one kind of fatal flaw in that. Methodology through well and that's very simply is that people forget so if you ask me where I had dinner with my wife Last Friday Night. There's a good chance I might not remember the exact name of the restaurant right McDonald's, and so what what has happened now is that the industry has shifted and because of. Sort of the move two words digital we're now able to measure actual behavioral data right we're actually able to actually measure what people are actually doing. Not not what people are telling us they think they're doing or what they want to be doing. Jason:  [42:25] Sure and into II like to attend to call that like sort of. Observed Behavior instead of stated Behavior so like you're not asking people where they shopped you're you're getting access to email boxes and you're actually seeing order confirmations for example. [42:42] Things like that. Scot & Guests:  [42:42] Correct correct. Jason:  [42:45] And in general like we're going to talk a little bit tonight particular about. Your insights on behaviour on Amazon and I tend to think of their being sort of, two approaches to getting insight into how people shopping Amazon they're sort of starting in the consumer and working backwards which it you know you're going to see all the consumers behavior on all their sites and, and because a lot of consumer shop on Amazon you're going to see a lot of their behavior on Amazon and I, I think of you guys in that space and then there's another set of entities that try to, scrape all the Amazon pages and data that's on the Amazon pages and sort of reverse engineer. Consumer behavior from the Amazon site itself is is that a affair taxonomy to be thinking about her. [43:36] You guys do both. Scot & Guests:  [43:36] I think you said that you said that pretty much perfect yeah we do the former we can certainly our focus on the former. Jason:  [43:42] Awesome well I think that gives us a pretty clear basis to to dig into the reason we're all here tonight which is talk about Amazon private label. Scot & Guests:  [43:53] Yeah it in Atlanta one quick follow-up are your guys customers retailers Brands both any any kind of. You know sizes at like 5 kind of companies or is it run the Spectrum in any kind of guidance to help our listeners can understand who your customers are. The bulk of our customer sponsor into a few buckets one is on, when I would say is well sort of well-known Merchants Tire retailers II is consumer brands. And the third would be financial institutions that since the makeup most most of our Revenue. [44:40] Got it so retailers are kind of using it for market share and Allison and selection analysis or assortment is that is that these case retailers. [44:50] Yeah so the primary use case for Merch are retailers would be around assortment right people are buying they they want to know what they should be out there shortly. [45:03] And then Brands is probably a market share game so you know how am I doing against my competitors on Amazon overall do you guys do, is this purely online data or is there an offline component kind of like I know the NPD guys have an offline piece as well. [45:20] There's their stuff there's booking online as well as an offline component. Certainly the the weaning that we have is this more towards sort of a digital art e-commerce piece of things and what brands, surprising how little Brands know about the size of markets and the growth of markets are categories within e-commerce so what we've been doing over the last couple years really has been. Give me brands of blueprint blocking and tackling how big is my category how fast is it growing. Which retailers are winning in which categories and Amaya tanning a fair share of that total pie, that's a really good Segway into Amazon private label which is essentially a brand let's start it kind of the what I called that shot heard round the world take us through the wiping battery data and that data you know if it was in, makers deck in May for all I know it could be a year old and I don't think it had the Lincoln time on it so if you have any new data on there that would love to hear kind of an update as well. [46:28] Shirt so just I'm going to take a shower real quick staff a try just to talk about just to talk about private label cuz you know some people really get it and some people really don't get it right answer private label has been. A real affordable price point high quality products for decades and decades Right grocery store chains have been doing it for you know. And, what's been happening lately is Amazon Amazon first four actually into private label began with its reading device right with the Kindle in consumer electronics, and from there Amazon expanded into, they had like for example the Fire tablet they did a streaming TV stick and then they did the Amazon Echo right which is a revolutionary type of device that everybody's playing catch up, and then the success that they started having in electronics LED them to start looking at more traditional. Let's let's call it household essentials type of products where you know they look at where is Walmart on the wicked Side Great Value brand. I'm so Amazon came out with two lines one one was once called amazonbasics and the other is called Amazon elements and those. Those Brands essentially well what I would say. [47:59] First start to cause fear with with some of the brand partners that Amazon had had and basically. If you look at something as essential as a battery it's been dominated by basically three branch right you know Energizer or Duracell Panasonic. And what Amazon is able to do is there a little look at you know years and years. Batteries or something that every single household has to buy on a very frequent and regular Cadence and they came out with their battery brand and there were three able to do that actually advertise that sell it for a little bit cheaper than the brand name. Are offering and categories like. Baby wipes or batteries and I think consumers tend to think that they have for the relative same quality yeah they do and mean. [48:56] One of the things that's interesting when you start thinking about the Amazon private label approach right they have they have ruled out in many different brands since then. Amazonbasics brand is. The largest by far right by our data they're on track to do about 500 million this year in us alone all online sales for amazonbasics and amazonbasics brand launched quite a long time ago. Right now I think of sometime around 2009 and. [49:27] Today with amazonbasics brand is really lot of the electronic or household Basic Essentials where you don't give me. care too much about what it is he put in for example Amazon essentials as well the closer or what they did with the diapers cetera. Any amazonbasics category they have really mastered exactly what it is the customer wants you can look at the date of one of the things that's interesting to me. [49:59] When I look at. Example that the battery category would be you just look at the number of skus that are carried and when you look at it the traditional battery players that are out there they carry literally hundreds of skews. On Amazon whether that's through the marketplace which may or may not be under control depending on how there but the strategy is. Amazon Basics battery count I think they have something in the neighborhood of 20 skews right and they're getting the great majority of their sales from just a couple of them so they really been able to. Mega sniper based approach. YouTube watching these products and they're starting to gain more more confidence you can see that as a start to roll out not just with household essentials but going into, Health going into apparel and no surprise that they see me rolling out private label and what appears to be all the biggest categories on mine the only category. Really huge online and growing quickly but they have not entered yet. Would be path right which is interesting because the 90s. If I'm a pet food manufacturer frankly if I'm any consumer product manufacturer start to wonder if if they're not competing with me right now what are they. You know I would not be surprised at all if it was some type of pet food that was rolled out here just because of the size of the category to go straight there. [51:28] Cool and then on batteries in the chart I saw showed something like Amazon basic battery is like 30% share and the Duracell was 20% and Panasonic was was like 12% etcetera, that date is still holding and, another kind of corollary so so I agree Amazon uses data too kind of come out with a better offering and a price point and packaging and stuff but then, you know the other thing do you guys have any point of view on the search experience in it how they're kind of service in their products versus competing ones. [52:04] Batteries is a good Battleground to talk about I guess yes 01 1 comment right. When we put out the dead a few months ago was I think I was 30% or so they've grown it so close to 40% so they're certainly trending upwards. In terms of an Amazon batteries selling compared to Duracell Panasonic and Energizer in and the rest you see the client everywhere. At some point though right there right at some point people are going to buy the brand name rice like my wife will. She buys she buys Tide laundry detergent or she won't buy a generic brand or any other brands always got to be tied and so in many ways. A portion of that business is always going to exist. And Amazon will sort of like 10 Mustang right will take a sniper based approach to figure out what the what categories are growing and how can I do something that's different and cheaper at the same quality. [53:03] I didn't do you so batteries or I Amazon's at 40% how about wipes I think you had them, they were number 3 in the last time I saw the data and their Huggies and Pampers were ahead in the Amazon was that kind of a 15 16% of day if they displaced either of those guys at this point. [53:19] They're still growing, but they're at they have it they haven't they haven't displaced the market leader. [53:34] Yeah until you've had your filter 615 there's guys at work then right now I can't even can't remember their names I don't have 3 so I can I can keep it all straight are there any other category. Are there any other categories like batteries were you look at it and Amazon his kind of created an a leading position with without a lot of people knowing about it that that jump out at you. [54:00] So those are those are by far the biggest ones and. You know if you take if you look outside of Industry we talked about Electronics in the beginning. Amazon is completely basically owning the home speaker space right now with the with the ECHO line of products whether it's the weather it's the portable Bluetooth speaker the dock or the. The show or the actual traditional Echo and if you look at tablet space right which is one apple Amazon's gone in there with a a lower price, good enough auction and not lower price by. 10 or 20% but lower price for like 60 70 80 per-cent and so they've really offended consumer electronics sales through the point which is fascinating that companies like Best Buy. Bed Bath & Beyond Target cetera are starting to starting to have been selling Amazon branded consumer technology products. Jason:  [55:02] Yeah which is super interesting when you think about it that that those competitors are then willing to carry cell that you know are viewable trojan horse for all of Amazon's other products. Scot & Guests:  [55:13] Best Buy and they buy an echo and then that person takes their house and what do they do with it themselves Amazon batteries. Yeah and that's it you know that's what made it so it gets me so excited. I'm getting into the home there is the Walmart Google partnership and the Google at home. I'm very excited to see what the shopping experience is like for all of us 5 years now because I don't know exactly what's going to be today. Voice searches is a new Pioneer at and I expect up the Google Walmart partnership to be. Very formidable. [55:59] People people we talk a lot about Amazon and for good reason. You know they spend more on R&D spend something in the neighborhood of ten billion dollars a year. Justin research which it's amazing what you can learn how to. [56:15] Yes they're massive yes they're huge let's also remember we know from the public earnings there roughly 95 billion in sales here in the US. Which is. One third of the size of Walmart $20. Will Amazon and Walmart growing you know High single digits. So it some point those lines will really start to converge but I do think it's important to get super excited and for good reason with all the Innovative approaches of Amazon brings it still good to remember there. A third of Walmart in Walmart has within the last year I think we would all agree started to take online very seriously and invest heavily in the channel. Won't we'll see if those Investments pay dividends but it seems like 2016 is one Walmart kind of said alright these guys are for real let's do something about it. Jason:  [57:22] Yep yep I want to unpack briefly the. [57:30] The size of it Walmart vs. Amazon as is somewhat debatable depending on the lens you look through so so for sure when you look at the earnings you guys had it exactly right but I think most people would would actually talk when they're comparing him with think about. How much goods Walmart selling versus how much good the Amazon selling and then you'd be looking at Amazon. Gross merchandise value versus their their revenue and I know Scott was probably biting his tongue cuz he's a guru in all this but, if you if you actually take Amazon's gmv and compare it to Walmart's gmv and you take grocery out of Walmart's DMV. Because until very recently. [58:11] Amazon didn't have much grocery Amazon's probably bigger than Walmart right now in non-grocery gmv but. [58:23] Be that as it may it's it's for sure for sure super interesting and that good. Scot & Guests:  [58:30] I think the key point right is that. Whomp Walmart's Walmart's one of their retailers that's not that's not resting on its Laurels and then actually trying to go on the offense to better compete for the long-term with Amazon on like a handful of other retailers. Jason:  [58:47] For sure I think there's tons of evidence there and we recently talked about a lot on this show it's this year that was the they were calling at the Godzilla versus King Kong battle. Most of the rest of the world just trying not to be a destroyed build in that in that fight. So it's going to it's going to be fun to watch but before we got into that you were shifted a little bit to the echo versus for example of the Amazon batteries, into me the actor was interesting because in my mind that's. [59:25] The echo has jumped this really scary Paradigm that that it doesn't seem like a lot of other Amazon products have yet. [59:33] It may have started out Life as a private label home speaker but it's not private label anymore it's the aspirational brand and it has a unique selling proposition and features and functions that the. [59:46] The rest of the market is struggling to to match and I certainly think of your product manager at Sony you're not talking about the echo as the. [59:55] As the private label version of your product your. [59:58] Trying to figure out how you get a piece of that the Amazon Alexa market share for child you guys agree with that like that seems like the difference between batteries wear. [1:00:08] Hey there just trying to let you know they're not trying to create the world's most desirable battery although I'm sure you know in some circles they've they've done that they're just trying to fulfill a bunch of demand. [1:00:18] With a a battery that's it at the right place at the right price with the right delivery vehicle whereas the the speaker is really created this aspirational brand that people seek out and give preference to. Scot & Guests:  [1:00:32] Yes I'm going to I'm going to make you feel real good I think you're spot on there and if you think about companies like Google and Sonos there now in other now essentially licensing the echo technology to put into their own products. [1:00:45] Writing so what happened like when I go into the spaces it was it was highly disruptive and one of the things the brands. Didn't know because Amazon doesn't divulge right bulbs for example Echo sails they won't they won't tell you how many Echoes they sold in a given year. Is it really didn't, know what it hit him until they got hit with a tsunami. And they sought writing this on Masters with a flattening of the crimes in a space that up until the echo had launched had been growing like gangbusters for themselves. Jason:  [1:01:22] Yeah answer that I guess that's the perfect question we love to know if you have any insight I eat everyone's always speculating about how big the the echo businesses have you guys tried to size that. Scot & Guests:  [1:01:34] Yeah echo echo through the first half of the year was about sinkholes about 150 million dollars and. If you look out right and this is just just kind of red conjecture and sort of a rough gas based on kind of market knowledge, estimated going to end up end up being in the 350 to 400 range by the end of the year calendar 2017. Jason:  [1:02:00] Interesting. Imagine part of it comes down to what you even count is that going to cuz it's your point if they're not licensing technology to Sonos and I was at CES last year and it was in you know hundreds of products like you. [1:02:15] Like that the overall revenue from that that that property for Amazon could even be much larger than there their own direct sales. Scot & Guests:  [1:02:23] Yeah it's whatever 25-year career it's one of the most Innovative called inventions that have ever seen. Jason:  [1:02:35] Yeah so here's the magic question. Scot & Guests:  [1:02:39] The revenue. And they shouldn't. Jason:  [1:02:56] Yep so. Any other products in the Amazon Echo System particularly the Amazon private label products for threatening to to sort of you know a game that same status are you like. Are you seeing any early indications from from anything else or there any product you you are keeping an eye on because they're there early fast Runners what's the. Scot & Guests:  [1:03:21] Within a coordinate. Jason:  [1:03:22] No with other Amazon products to achieve the kind of breakout success the echo hats. Scot & Guests:  [1:03:28] One of the other things the moving away from technology that Amazon is about to disrupt. Is basically help health and wellness and so Amazon. I seen a few things like protein powder or any kind of supplements. There's there's a lot of question in terms of consumer healthy consumer safety and consider most important consumer transparency right like what's actually in here where does this product. And if anyone listening has not seen the page for the Amazon tumeric product. You've got to go check it out it's besides the fact that it's gorgeous you look at this and they're taking something like tumeric right and they're basically saying here's here's where it comes from. Hear the benefits from it and it's one of the most transparent product detail pages that I've ever seen in my entire life. [1:04:28] And that's just sort of like their first foray into that right and that's that's something that's you know it's not as boring as you know if they have battery or pot and pan right if it's something that you're actually actually ingesting putting your body. Jason:  [1:04:42] Yeah for sure and it makes perfect sense that you'd say that to a category that Amazon's focusing on cuz if anyone has seen a picture of Jeff Bezos lately will see that he's getting totally jacked. Scot & Guests:  [1:04:54] And you're absolutely right I don't know if it's the tumeric or the CrossFit. Jason:  [1:04:59] Yeah so any like any early data on any of those health and wellness products I got it was it was vitamin E the first. [1:05:08] The first supplement in that family or you know and is that like catching any meaningful market share away from the the big player. Scot & Guests:  [1:05:16] Yeah I think so I think it was we haven't published anything yet just cuz they're sort of. Just starting I think I think we still need it I think we still need several more months of data, affordable to do that but I can I could almost be a picture conversation we're having with our marketing seems like first half of next year we got to call the state on how Amazon Student Health and Wellness. [1:05:38] Yeah it is a good day also started off very slow roll out right like the last time they enter. That's an answer something I was broke this personal was when they lost their first version of the Amazon elements diaper. Right back in 2014 15 so they're being cautious in what other category think about an additional help which is booming and they're being very cautious with their approach to be a little more aggressive and not quite as shy. But their approach into fashion where they watched several different brands and in fact they're at their fastest growing private label brand is actually. Clothing line name Scout and Roe which is up nearly 6X this year. [1:06:22] So big they are going after all the high-growth categories online and in some categories like apparel they're being extremely aggressive, watching a lot of lines. Depending on the type of apparel line you're talking about its they're giving a different names of people can feel like they're connected to it in a little bit of a different way. And in areas like health and wellness where it is. You know something that I'm ingesting it's certainly very much more personal than something is a piece of clothing they're being very slow and deliberate with their approach which is the same way that they approached. So I have no doubt that, even the tsunami you see with an elk and wellness sector online Amazon elements will be there soon and I'm also curious to see what happens. Right I mean that the Gap CEO. Nike just another one to be watching. Yeah that quick follow up on health and wellness what what is the brand they're using their is it a Amazon element sir. Amazon elements you mentioned Prime exclusives do you guys to your data can can you get an idea of how many folks are Amazon Prime. [1:07:48] Yeah we we have an indication I don't have it don't have all of that data to the sort of sitting in front of me we've done analysis in the past on. You know on Amazon Prime members what's happening now is an Amazon Prime is being coming a pretty a fairly significant portion of of the marketplace because. The offerings make it an absolute legitimate no-brainer for. Anyhow you don't need any kind of like middle-income in a bob sort of families if you're not a prime number I kind of don't know what you're thinking. Actually woke. I love it's the contact I'm a huge fan of man in the High Castle. One of the ways that we all know we read many articles about how important my membership is to the Amazon strategy. I was very surprised and we had to go back and double-check was very surprised to see that. Almost half of Whole Food Shoppers and not Prime members and. I thought I was like who would be that way and then I realized in my family I have to Avid two siblings. Tapping into half and Whole Foods Basin members which is only. Because we can see that if you're a Prime member and you shop at Whole Foods you spend over $300 more per year at Whole Foods. [1:09:25] The non Prime members non-prime. Non Prime members shop at Whole Foods spend $1,000 a year at Whole Foods and cry members stands close to $1,400. That's why they call it whole paycheck. [1:09:47] Old paycheck I went to Whole Foods soon after the right right after the acquisition and things like that, yeah they still have a lot of room to go on that. Cool and then you said on the on the, fashion apparel side Scout and row is up 6X how about another one that I thought was interesting was button to down and then they also have, goodthreads a couple others any other of those apparel items really breaking out or is really mostly discount. [1:10:30] You know it's it's it's really a scoundrel there's also a lark and Ro but you know we see that argument. [1:10:37] About 90% 85 90% Cowan Road beating up 6X there's no one else really more than doubling. [1:10:46] Franklin and Franklin. [1:10:56] Any ship can you give us a number like Amazon's private-label apparel items are doing 100 million or were they included in that like 500 million dollar number you said of the top of the show. [1:11:08] They're included in that 500 million dollar number at 500 million number isn't just Basics it's kind of the whole family of Amazon private labels but doesn't include Echo Out imagine or Does it include. [1:11:21] It doesn't kudaka right another way to say it may be more sensationally would be Amazon yeah does that include Kindle. [1:11:37] Yes I got it that's cool Jason Aldean. Jason:

In this episode of Art and Science Punks Kate and Rob discuss our families recent adventure visiting a girls in engineering event and talk about the importance of creating awareness of the need for more women in STEM fields. Kate and Rob also share an art pick and a science pick this week: one is about a medical pioneer, the other about how fun special markers and paper can be. Related Links and Resources Data Tables - nsf.gov - Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering - NCSES - US National Science Foundation (NSF) (https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/data.cfm) Gender Gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): Current Knowledge, Implications for Practice, Policy, and Future Directions | SpringerLink (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-015-9355-x) The Works Museum – a hands-on engineering and design museum for kids and their grown-ups Girls and Engineering - Girl Time Event (https://theworks.org/girls-and-engineering/) Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter (https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter) The Impact of Diversity in the Workplace: Better Decisions (https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decisions_through_diversity) Rob's Art Pick: brush Pen Markers: Tombow Dual Brush Pen Art Marker, N15 - Black, 1-Pack (https://www.amazon.com/Tombow-Dual-Brush-Pen-Marker/dp/B000XAORTC/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1506217786&sr=1-2-spons&keywords=brush+pen&psc=1) and cardstock paper: Neenah Paper Exact Vellum Bristol, 67 lb, 8.5 x 11", 250 Sheets, White, 94 Brightness (80211), 3 pack: Office Products (https://www.amazon.com/Neenah-Vellum-Bristol-Brightness-80211/dp/B06XCF8X8P/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1506218007&sr=8-4&keywords=cardstock) Kate's Science Pick: Virginia Apgar (https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_12.html), creator of the Apgar Score for newborns Art and Science Punks on Twitter (@artsciencepunks) (http://twitter.com/artsciencepunks) Art and Science Punks (@artandsciencepunks) on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/artandsciencepunks/) Kate Stenzinger on Twitter (http://twitter.com/katestenzinger) Rob Stenzinger on Twitter (http://twitter.com/robstenzinger)

Getting Things Done Faster, The One Cool Tip.com Cool Tech Tip show for September 6, 2015, S1E7 features cool tips and news including how to use a Shortcut to access the Microsoft Office ribbon in Office Products, using a Cool Siri Trick to Call Someone, learning How to Listen to Great Podcasts on Your Phone or Computer, Opening Task Manager FAST with this Quick Trick, Track Real Time Flights on FlightRadar24, Letting Stephen Colbert Give You Driving Directions, a throwback tip regarding how you can Mute your Twitter connections and finally, we'll also look back at the top tech tips for August 2015. Visit One Cool Tip at http://www.onecooltip.com

Adam Smith and Jonathan Domsky talks about office products that can help protect your company. Jonathan tells us his journey of founding Kidorable and what it’s like to work with factories in other countries.

Dan talks about podcasts as creations vs. time shifted radio, recording (and not recording) when you're sick, ID3 tags, managing wires, the benefits and downsides of pre recording intros and outros, interviewing techniques, using affiliates as sponsors, acoustic panels, and more. Links for this episode:5by5 | 5by5 Specials #31: The Hulk Doesn't KneelDan is joined by his 7 year old son, Cash, to talk about being a big brother, Google, the iPhone 6 and 6 , phablets, the role of iPads and computers in education, Grek Pak, black mambas, Stan Lee's Superhumans, and more. Support Dan Benjamin creating Podcasts and videosIf every listener donated $2/month, we'd have all of the creative freedom to deliver the kinds of shows we've always wanted to create, without any limits.  Reaching this goal would create a better balance between listener support and sponsorships, and create a more sustainable model for 5by5. This means better shows, more video, experimental projects, fewer sponsor breaks, and a better connection between you and what I create here. Amazon.com: VELCRO Brand - ONE-WRAP Thin Self-Gripping Cable Ties: Reusable, Light Duty - 8" x 1/2" Ties, 100 Pack - Black: Office ProductsAmazon.com: Velcro Industrial Strength 15ft x 2in tape, Black (90197): Office ProductsAmazon.com: Monoprice Fastening Tape 0.75inch One Wrap Hook & Loop Fastening Tape 5 yard/Roll - Black: ElectronicsAmazon.com: Furman PST-8D SMP EVS LiFT 15-Amp Aluminum Chassis 8-Outlet Isolated Outlet Banks Advanced Level Power Conditioning: ElectronicsEveryday Home Mattress Topper, Egg Crate Ventilated Foam - Walmart.comAmazon.com: Sewell Sound Dampening Foam, 2 Inch Thick, 1ft x 1ft, 12 Pack: Musical InstrumentsSponsored by Harry's (Use the code PODCASTMETHOD at checkout for $5 off your first purchase).

In this episode, you’re going to learn about how one of the most common and most frequently used office products in the world almost never saw the light of day owing to a series of rejections while it was being developed and then being nearly wholly rejected by consumers when it was first released to the public. [TRANSCRIPT] Don’t miss [...] The post Podcast Episode #108: The Invention Nobody Wanted That Became One of the Top Selling Office Products of All Time appeared first on Today I Found Out.

Electronics fuel innovations in many industries. As a result, electronics firms are under constant pressure to deliver this innovation on time and within budget, while contending with rapidly changing technologies, increasing product complexity and strict compliance and safety standards. Additionally, firms must typically coordinate project tasks across a global marketplace with an international supply chain. To help meet these difficult challenges, IBM Rational offers a set of solutions and products for several electronics industry segments, including: semiconductors, medical devices, consumer electronics, network equipment providers, industrial automation and office products. This podcast will discuss the comprehensive set of capabilities IBM Rational provides for the electronics industry. Paridhi Verma, speaker.

In this National Association of Realtors Commercial Intelligence Briefing, Rob Nahigian, Signature Series Speakers’ Bureau, FRICS, SIOR, CRE, MCR discusses the art of negotiating skills and the evolution of office product. Rob Nahigian is a Principal with Auburndale Realty Co. in Newton, Mass. and has 32 years in commercial/industrial real estate experience. Biography Robert J.…

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interview with Steve Miller, principal @ Origin Ventures www.originventures.com & former owner/manager of Quill office products on distribution in Canada