Remarkable Retail Podcast

Lauren Price, COS' SVP E-Commerce & Digital Marketing on Winning Over the Next Generation of Customers

Episode Summary

Our guest this week is Lauren Price, Senior Vice President, E-Commerce & Digital Marketing, COS North America. Lauren shares her career journey from luxury e-commerce pioneer to driving growth for the H&M-owned fashion brand and reveals how COS engages Gen Z through authenticity, quality storytelling, and TikTok virality, while preparing for the next wave of AI-driven discovery. Lauren also offers timely holiday strategy advice—focusing on agility, rapid data analysis, and making the most of short, high-impact shopping windows like Black Friday.

Episode Notes

In this episode of the Remarkable Retail Podcast, our guest is with Lauren Price, Senior Vice President, E-Commerce & Digital Marketing for COS North America discussing her impressive career trajectory and work positioning the H&M-owned brand for growth in a competitive, fast-moving fashion retail landscape.

Lauren’s career began in the early days of luxury e-commerce at Createthe Group, building first-generation online stores for high-end brands . Her path included consulting with Demandware and L2 (Scott Galloway’s firm), leading to her first in-house brand role at J.Crew before joining COS—a globally recognized fashion brand known for exceptional quality, timeless style, and meticulous craftsmanship.

At COS, Lauren oversees North American marketing and digital commerce, a key growth market. She explains how COS benefits from the resources of a global parent company while operating with the agility of a smaller regional business. This unique position allows for strategic experimentation while maintaining the brand’s commitment to premium quality.

A highlight from the conversation is COS’s viral marketing moment: a $45 T-shirt compared on TikTok to a $15 Uniqlo tee, with the influencer praising COS’s superior quality and construction. This sparked organic buzz and significant new customer acquisition, prompting Lauren’s team to launch a targeted influencer gifting campaign. The lesson: seize authentic, organic momentum quickly and amplify it with campaigns that focus on authenticity, craftsmanship, and product education—especially to win over savvy Gen Z shoppers.

Lauren also tackles the emerging challenge of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), advising brands to prepare product catalogs for AI-driven search while maintaining current SEO performance. She predicts AI search adoption will accelerate faster than previous digital shifts, urging retailers to run both short-term and long-term optimization in parallel.

As the discussion turns to holiday planning, Lauren offers several pieces of practical, results-focused advice.