Remarkable Retail

Live from Las Vegas: Shoptalk 2022 Recap

Episode Summary

We're live and in-person together for the first time since we launched the Remarkable Retail podcast for this special bonus episode. Steve and Michael sit down together in the Vegas Podcasting Studio (i.e. Michael's hotel room!) on the third and final day of the Shoptalk 2022 show in Las Vegas and discuss the key themes heard in the aisles, restaurants, and on the stage at Shoptalk 2022.

Episode Notes

We're live and in-person together for the first time since we launched the Remarkable Retail podcast for this special bonus episode.

Steve and Michael sit down together in the Vegas Podcasting Studio (i.e. Michael's hotel room!) on the third and final day of the Shoptalk 2022 show in Las Vegas and discuss the key themes heard in the aisles, restaurants, and on the stage at Shoptalk 2022.

 

Steve's Talk Show Session

Improving Store Operations with New Tools and Technologies

Analog and still largely human-powered, store operations sometimes bear unfavorable comparison to digital’s ability to efficiently and accurately track, measure and control nearly every aspect of the business. However, retailers are increasingly building and buying solutions that bring digital efficiency to the challenges of running physical stores. In this session, retail executives will discuss the tools and technologies helping them analyze and optimize store operations.

 

 

About Shoptalk

Our attendees tell us each year that Shoptalk is the retail industry’s best event, consistently describing their experience as amazing, educational, energizing, exciting, insightful, inspiring, productive and fun. Held annually in Las Vegas, Shoptalk is an unprecedented gathering of individuals and companies reshaping how consumers discover, shop and buy. The event provides a platform for large retailers and branded manufacturers, startups, tech companies, investors, media and analysts to learn, network, collaborate and evolve.

Shoptalk was founded in 2015 by Anil D. Aggarwal and Simran Rekhi Aggarwal and acquired in 2019 by Hyve Group, plc.

 

About Us

Steve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his       website.    The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book  Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at  Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a      Forbes senior contributor and on       Twitter and       LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel      here.


Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast,       The Voice of Retail, plus  Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  ,      The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and now in its second season, Conversations with CommerceNext!  You can learn more about Michael   here  or on     LinkedIn. 

Be sure and check out Michael's latest venture for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue,  his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!

Episode Transcription

Michael LeBlanc  00:05

Welcome to a very special bonus episode of the Remarkable Retail podcast. We're live at Shoptalk in Las Vegas. Hey, Steve, how are you?

Steve Dennis  00:16

I'm great. I'm great. I'm a little tired. But I'm great.

Michael LeBlanc  00:18

Well, I, I lots, so much to cover about this, this special bonus episode. I think it's the first bonus episode that we've done in our series.

Steve Dennis  00:25

I think that's right.

Michael LeBlanc  00:26

And it's also first time you and I have been together since we launched the podcast. So, it's great to see you, my friend. 

Steve Dennis  00:31

Very, very scary. Yes, but no, how many episodes have we done? Like 75 or something? 

Michael LeBlanc  00:35

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  00:36

And yeah, first time. 

Michael LeBlanc  00:37

First time.

Steve Dennis  00:37

Live in person looking at the Vegas Strip.

Michael LeBlanc  00:39

Yeah, well high above the Las Vegas Sands as the, as the Nazareth would say. And we're here to do a quick recap. It's Wednesday morning, and we're about to jump on some airplanes and, and head home. So, I thought, let's take advantage of the opportunity, get in front of each other and put out a bonus episode, kind of a recap for those who perhaps weren't able to make it to, make it to Shoptalk. But you, you were on the stage. You were moderating. I loved the format, by the way that you were kind of doing the interview, and what do they call it, the? 

Steve Dennis  01:06

It's called the talk show format.

Michael LeBlanc  01:07

Talk show format. 

Steve Dennis  01:07

Right, right.

Michael LeBlanc  01:08

I love that, I love that, cuz it. You know what I, I, I when I was, and we'll get to your interview, your session in a bit. But you had three people and you know, you had one end you had Target, and another end you had a small indie. 

Steve Dennis  01:19

Yup.

Michael LeBlanc  01:19

Andie Swim or Andie and I'm like, how do these folks coexist on a panel? As you know, that's a little tough, right? Scale [inaudible]. But the talk show format I really love because you got so much quality content out of each and collectively it was a great session, so.

Steve Dennis  01:33

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I think the one at a time with, with an overarching theme. I think that works really well, particularly to your point if you have diverse retailers.

Michael LeBlanc  01:33

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  01:34

Diverse kinds of backgrounds,

Michael LeBlanc  01:43

Each with great stories and great, great insights, but just different, right different scale, and you know, the, the degree to which they can put stuff into it. 

Alright, well, let's get into it. So, you know, where do we start? Well, you know, it's it. Let's talk about the vibe. I mean, people are here together, we're seeing people we've had on the podcast, and you know, only, only seen them on the, only heard them. And we're seeing people we haven't seen in a while. So, what's your overall sense of the vibe of the show and the level of excitement and interest? And, and what's your kind of overview?

Steve Dennis  02:10

Sound like Trump there. You know, tremend-, there was tremendous energy. Tremendous energy. 

Michael LeBlanc  02:14

It's a beautiful show, it's a beautiful show. 

Steve Dennis  02:15

We enjoyed it [inaudible] oh bigely. No, it was great, I mean 10,000 people, which is a record attendance to Shoptalk, I understand. And it was a little weird to be around so many people. 

Michael LeBlanc  02:25

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  02:26

But I think people were really, speaking for myself, I was excited to get back out there. It was great to catch up with. I mean, dozens of people that I haven't seen in two plus years. 

Michael LeBlanc  02:37

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  02:37

A bunch of people that I know, feel like I know through social media, but I've never met in person. 

Michael LeBlanc  02:43

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  02:43

And just randomly running into, into people. So, I, I felt like I spent way more time just chitting and chatting on the show floor or running into people in the you know, walking back to the hotel in the casino or whatever. 

Michael LeBlanc  02:55

Yeah, yeah.

Steve Dennis  02:55

So, so that's one but I think yeah, people really excited to be to be back together. They call it the, they're calling it the big retail reunion or something.

Michael LeBlanc  03:02

Yeah, yeah. 

Steve Dennis  03:02

So, and that's, that's the way it felt.

Michael LeBlanc  03:03

Yeah, absolutely. So, let's approach this by a both casual or anecdotal conversations you've had versus what you've heard from the stage.

Steve Dennis  03:11

Right. 

Michael LeBlanc  03:11

In times of learning. So, on the former, so, when you just kind of in the hall, you were just you're just saying you're just talking to Lauren from CNBC, and, you know, people, ‘Hey, what's going on?’ And you kind of just chit chat amongst yourself, what, what, what themes or trends did you pick up just talking to people who are a little, you know, not off the stage, a little less scripted, not in front of 100,000 people or whatever.

Steve Dennis  03:30

Right. 

Michael LeBlanc  03:30

Just chitting and chatting and anything come up?

Steve Dennis  03:32

I think there were a couple of things. I definitely had a bunch of conversations about, I mean, essentially, they were, what did you think about.

Michael LeBlanc  03:39

Right, [inaudible] what we just saw, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Dennis  03:40

The talk or whatever, you know, maybe it was a talk that I wasn't at, but clearly was being picked up on social media. So, you know, is the metaverse for real. Lots of talk about sustainability. But you know, then there's Shein that's this massive company that's not sustainable. Like, how do you reconcile the supposed interest in sustainability against some of the things that actually happened? So, there was a lot of reacting, you know, live streaming, you know, so some of these broad trends that were talked about as the next great thing, perhaps.

Michael LeBlanc  03:46

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  03:46

On this massive trajectory, you know, is it for real? What do you think? So, that was one the other set, I would say is just what's the pace of business? How much is inflation-

Michael LeBlanc  04:20

Right. 

Steve Dennis  04:20

Going to affect things? What are you know, as I talked to some retailers, but also some, some analysts or people that have access to customer data, what is that looking like? And that was that was actually kind of depressing, I would say because.

Michael LeBlanc  04:32

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  04:32

Most of what I heard there was things are really starting to slow down.

Michael LeBlanc  04:37

[inaudible] What did you, what did you call it? The great deceleration.

Steve Dennis  04:39

[inaudible] deceleration we'll see, we'll see how much it ends up decelerating. But it, it definitely looks like a flattening. 

Michael LeBlanc  04:44

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  04:45

Of, of the curve.

Michael LeBlanc  04:46

Well, the party's got us I mean, listen to music gotta stop, or the party's got to slow down at some point. I mean, we've had just such record numbers. And you know, you know, when I talked to retailers, they're like we expected a slowdown because eventually, we've been talking about this for two years, people will say shift back to services. I mean, you know, we're here in Vegas.

Steve Dennis  05:03

I was gonna say, if say, if any indication of how busy Vegas is, definitely seems like people are, are out and about and, and, and so yeah. Some of that shift back to services can take away from products. 

Michael LeBlanc  05:14

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  05:14

You know, the inflation at, you know, some point, like its basic economics, right prices go up, and demand is going to be affected. So, so, I that was, that was you know, as much as there's a [inaudible] in the air from being back together again. And some, you know, plenty of sexy technology, plenty of really cool things that are happening on the part of many companies, I think there was a little bit of this like, things, things might get a little bit tough to balance.

Michael LeBlanc  05:39

I, I picked that up in this thread. And I guess one of the threads is, and we'll talk about this later, is how to generate new business? And do we turn our minds to just being better at, at what we do with our existing customers, right? We've. we've heard that this treadmill of always acquiring new. We got growth, we got growth, we got growth, but let's stand, I saw that front, when I walk the show floor. I saw a lot of vendors who were really focused on how do you do and have a better relationship with your customer and versus acquiring customer? And, you know, so.

Steve Dennis  06:08

Right. 

Michael LeBlanc  06:09

You know, there's probably, you know, there's vendors who do both. 

Steve Dennis  06:11

Right.

Michael LeBlanc  06:11

But you know, I think retailers in typically when things slow down, they say, well, you know, if I've got less store traffic or less website traffic, let's do more with the traffic we have. And that's.

Steve Dennis  06:21

Yeah.

Michael LeBlanc  06:21

Not necessarily a bad thing, right?

Steve Dennis  06:23

I think it's got to be balanced. I mean, it depends on where you are in your maturity curve. But I mean, if you spent all this money to acquire a customer to not pay attention.

Michael LeBlanc  06:31

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  06:31

To, well, how to retain them, certainly, but also, how much growth potential is there? And what does that look like? You know, whether that's trading them up or cross selling, or, you know, this whole set of, set of things. So, I think it's got to be balanced. And it, it depends a lot on where, where you are. But yes, when, when you've got a lot of, strictly at this show, you've got a lot of the you know, so called disrupter brands that get showcased here, and many of them are very, very focused on this rapid growth. And, and that. 

Michael LeBlanc  06:58

Right.

Steve Dennis  06:58

That needs a lot of new customer growth.

Michael LeBlanc  07:00

Right. Well, let's talk about what you saw on the stage. Then we'll get to your session and talk about that a little bit more. Share what are the insights that came out from, from the folks that you were chatting to. 

So, you know, as we sat in the audience listening to different people present. I enjoyed, for example, the, the woman who leads Sam's Club.

Steve Dennis  07:16

Yeah, that was great.

Michael LeBlanc  07:17

Talk, talking about what she did, very insightful and, and such tremendous integration of technology. And they've got things that I can only imagine in Canada, curbside at a Sam's type format store.

Steve Dennis  07:29

Yeah.

Michael LeBlanc  07:29

And we don't have that at Costco in Canada, Sam's isn't in Canada, by the way. Interesting.

Steve Dennis  07:33

Cause I didn't realize that. 

Michael LeBlanc  07:33

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  07:34

Until you, until you said that I just kind of assume they had. 

Michael LeBlanc  07:36

Well, it's funny because they were in Canada briefly for a little while, and then exited. And then, so in Canada, Costco owns that Wholesale Club market, like lock, stock and barrel. And conversely, Walmart is a very great presence in Canada. Like, it's not like they couldn't figure out.

Steve Dennis  07:53

Yeah.

Michael LeBlanc  07:53

The US to Canada model, right? Walmart's nailed that they're doing very well, Home Depot, you know, lots of great US based retailers are very successful in Canada. So, it's just an interesting little quirk as, as I listened to her. But what, what did you hear from the stage that, that jumped out at you?

Steve Dennis  08:06

Well, Sam, just quickly on Sam's Club, I, what I thought was interesting there to your earlier point, you know, there's, there's a brand that is, you know, expanded greatly. I think, you know is it, every major market in the US for years, and they're really focusing on getting more out of their existing club. I mean, her, her first story was not about, oh, we're, we got all these new formats, or, you know, we've got all this ecommerce growth or, or whatever. It was really about how to do more with their existing customers, and a lot of that is technology driven. 

The, the thing that she talked about I really liked, I think they called it scan and ship. So, if you're in the club, and there's big, bulky items, you can scan the item to have it delivered to your home. And it, it I mean, I'm not sure that's like this massive opportunity. But I think it's a good example of thinking through the customer journey. And thinking about either ways you can take friction out it, or add some little, little extra value. And it seemed like they really been going through kind of every piece of the model. 

Michael LeBlanc  09:02

Yeah, yeah.

Steve Dennis  09:02

And thinking about, not just technology, but you know how technology can be used to, to improve the business. 

Michael LeBlanc  09:07

That's an interesting one. Because when you shop on, my experience, not with Sam's but with Costco in Canada. Is when you buy online, they ship for free, but the prices are different than what they are in the warehouse. So, you know, if it's $10 online, it's $7 in the warehouse, there's always like a $3 difference, right? So, it ships for free, but you're paying a premium. So that's interesting. I wonder if you're paying a premium to have it shipped to home, or you're paying the actual walk-in warehouse price. Anyway,

Steve Dennis  09:33

More question [inaudible] you'll have to get the research team in there.

Michael LeBlanc  09:37

Do a tour of Sam's Clubs and figure out how that goes. So, what else, what else did you hear?

Steve Dennis  09:40

So, yesterday the, Dara, the CEO of Uber, was talking about their sort of broad plans, which align against how to get you places. You know, with the mobility Uber part of their, you know, their original Uber part of their business. 

Michael LeBlanc  09:58

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  09:58

And then how to get things to you. That was kind of the way he, he divvied it up, and how they're expanding off of Uber Eats platform into Uber no eats things. And then it was, it was a really good kind of overview of how to think about, about the market of making your life easier by getting you the places you need to go, or bringing you the things you need. 

Michael LeBlanc  10:20

Right.

Steve Dennis  10:20

To run your life. So, I just thought it was an interesting framing.

Michael LeBlanc  10:22

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  10:22

Of that. And he definitely talked a little bit of smack about some of the other players that, that don't make any money and don't have the scale that they do. I thought that was interesting. 

Dave Gilboa from Warby Parker actually spoke right before or right after Dara, talked about Warby Parker's and that, you know, one of the issues that came up. I want to tie it to something that our friend Jason Goldberg talked about. Was how Warby is thinking about marketing, and how they have not backed away completely. But they have shifted away from you know, what sometimes people call performance marketing, but really, you know, this highly targeted leveraging data insight.

Michael LeBlanc  10:55

Understand the [inaudible] ads and all the [inaudible]. 

Steve Dennis  10:57

Yeah, digital, digital marketing off your Facebook and Instagram. And essentially what he said, which, you know, we've touched on a bunch of times, is that's become unbelievably expensive. And I believe he said that they found that they're spending a lot of money just to sort of chase customers, and they want to really want to build a brand that you know, people naturally go to. And so, they're actually using TV advertising, radio advertising in a sort of old school market.

Michael LeBlanc  11:24

Can you imagine having that conversation three years ago. 

Steve Dennis  11:26

Right.

Michael LeBlanc  11:27

Where are you gonna spend your money? TV. 

Steve Dennis  11:28

Yeah. And, and also, I think he, he also is just kind of somewhat alluded to this is that, you know, their stores or billboards. And so how do you get that top-of-mind brand awareness, that gets your customer to think of you first, as opposed to just kind of blasting into their feed and paying, you know, Facebook, Instagram, you know, 50, 60, 70 dollars to get that sale. Jason Goldberg was talking about that more broadly, and talking about how hard it is, to at a certain scale, to get performance marketing, to work for you. And the big difference is, which, you know, when he said it, I thought, well, this intuitively makes sense. But if you look at the bigger brands, and what happens online, the percentage of time that somebody just types in the brand name into search to get to the website. 

Michael LeBlanc  12:11

Sure.

Steve Dennis  12:11

Which is, at the margin is free, versus trying to, you know. Like I said earlier on blast into your feed, interrupt whatever the person is doing to try to pull them away to your site to sell them something. You know, that's become more and more expensive. iOS changes, as you know, made that even more expensive and difficult.

Michael LeBlanc  12:32

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  12:32

So, you know, he basically said that, you know, this is the, Jason said, this is the reason why so many of these digitally native vertical brands have really struggled to be profitable. Because they're, the marginal cost of adding a customer is way higher, it turns out, than the lifetime value of that customer. So, they're gonna have to really- 

Michael LeBlanc  12:42

And it's not great math, right? 

Steve Dennis  12:53

It's terrible, its terrible math, and, you know, topic for another day. But you know, I think this, you know, really continues to explain some of the struggles we're seeing with some of these brands. So, this kind of, I don't say it's a pivot away from performance marketing, but just kind of understanding better the challenges and seeing really, frankly, how some of the big brands benefit. Because the smaller brands are trying to steal their customers away. And that's turns out not to be so easy.

Michael LeBlanc  12:54

Let's talk about another couple, I guess customer, we'll call them customer drivers or engagers. The Metaverse and live streaming. I heard a lot about both. 

Steve Dennis  13:25

Right. 

Michael LeBlanc  13:25

Metaverse, and I we did a bunch of interviews here, talked to a bunch of people. Seems a little polarizing. Some people think, you know, nobody can define it. What is it? It's a bit of a hustle. On the other side, just some folks who were saying that they think there's a there, there. We heard lots of talk about the Metaverse, any, any early insights? And then we're actually gonna have some folks from Meta on the podcast later in the season.

Steve Dennis  13:48

[inaudible] you get Meta about Meta. 

Michael LeBlanc  13:50

Meta about Meta, yeah, yeah. But any, any, it's just. 

Steve Dennis  13:52

Well. 

Michael LeBlanc  13:52

From what you've heard, and, and you know, we'll get into the whole Meta thing when we get our Meta guest. But,

Steve Dennis  13:56

Well, I, I mean, I agree that it is, it is absolutely, absolutely very polarizing. You know, my answer is, I don't know, I think it could turn out to be very promising. I heard another speaker, I don't think she was talking about the Metaverse in particular, it really had to do with this idea of, of experimentation, where she said, you should think big, start small, scale fast. 

Michael LeBlanc  14:19

Oh, I love that. 

Steve Dennis  14:20

And I think that's the way to think about a lot of things. I mean, it's very possible that the Metaverse could be huge. Is it going to be a big thing anytime soon? I think that's very unlikely. Should most brands be testing and exploring? 

Michael LeBlanc  14:32

Or at least paying attention? 

Steve Dennis  14:33

Yeah. 

Michael LeBlanc  14:34

I mean, that's why you come to conferences like this. 

Steve Dennis  14:35

Yeah, is start out.

Michael LeBlanc  14:36

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  14:36

Learn more. 

Michael LeBlanc  14:37

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  14:38

You know, should you stand up some pilots? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Michael LeBlanc  14:42

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  14:42

Wait, take a bit of a wait and see. But if you're not pay, I mean, you have to be paying attention to it. 

Michael LeBlanc  14:45

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  14:46

And, and trying to figure out what it might, might mean. But yeah, it's I think that's probably the most polarizing topic. 

Live Stream, I think is maybe not quite as polarizing. But I think the narrative with what live streaming has been it's huge in China. Why isn't it huge in the US.

Michael LeBlanc  15:00

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  15:00

And I think that's a little bit of a false equivalency. The Chinese market, I mean, there's lots of stuff from, from China that people should be paying attention to. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't.

Michael LeBlanc  15:10

Not, not everything. It's not the future necessarily. Not everything translates.

Steve Dennis  15:13

Right, there's. You know, the China market, retail market developed much differently than North American markets, Western European markets. And so, I think it's really hard to, to say that automatically, it, it, it will move over. You also have such concentration with Alibaba, JD and other you know, there's, there's, it's just so. Again, it's one of these things, I think, should study, might be right for your, for business. But I, I'm not of the opinion that you can just sort of take China's numbers and say, that's where we're going to be in three years or something. 

Michael LeBlanc  15:45

I, I heard it go in two different directions, you know, one level down. One was how do we get the associates involved in social media as influencers and maybe there's a media component. We saw a bit of that during the peak of the pandemic. 

Steve Dennis  15:56

Right. 

Michael LeBlanc  15:57

Is there, there, there? And on the other side, how do we integrate live streaming into the platform do that, you know, as you said, you know, you happen to be, you know, on Instagram, and you see your favorite brand is live streaming a quick presentation.

Steve Dennis  16:08

Right. 

Michael LeBlanc  16:08

I think, I think there's some power in that. 

Steve Dennis  16:10

Yeah. 

Michael LeBlanc  16:11

So, then I think folks are starting to get their heads around it. I, my advice to them all, anyone who's listening, is pay attention to QVC, HSN, the tradecraft of live selling. It looks easy. 

Steve Dennis  16:21

Yeah. 

Michael LeBlanc  16:21

But it is a tradecraft. So, it's, you know, the technology probably is getting to be, I won't say the easy part, but pretty easy-ish. 

Steve Dennis  16:28

Yeah.

Michael LeBlanc  16:28

You get the platforms to help you get in front of the people, whether you interrupt them, whether that's a good idea or not. But the art of selling is a, a very refined art. So, that would be. 

Steve Dennis  16:38

No, I think, it's great point. 

Michael LeBlanc  16:39

That would be my, my advice. 

So, let's, let's, let's finish off on this bonus stop, Shoptalk bonus episode on your panel, your session. I keep calling it a panel, but as we described, it was more of the, the talk show format. So, talk about who you spoke with, and what they what were your impressions were for the, the session.

Steve Dennis  16:56

Yeah, this was. So, there's, they're across the three days, I think, or at least the first two days, the series of, of talks, presentations, whatever on elevating the store. My particular panel was ‘New Tools and Technologies for the Retail Store’. So, we had, Nancy King, was the SVP of product engineering at Target, Scott Perry, who's the head of digital for Drums Furniture, which is a big regional furniture chain, and then Melanie Travis, who's the CEO and Founder of Andie Swim. 

And I, I started off just talking about, you know, what I've been saying for years is, you know, turns out physical retail isn't dead but it's also, you know, changing. The role of stores changing, there's more kind of hybridization of the role of stores. And so that's kind of what we got into, in particular with Nancy, talking about how Target has invested billions of dollars to reconfigure the stores in pretty fundamental ways. Really leveraging the store for fulfillment. The stat that, at Target, about 20% of their businesses ordered online and of that, 96% of it is pulled from the store. So, that is curbside, BOPIS, ship from store, through the mail, home delivery. And they've gone just through this massive effort to put in new technologies. This we got a little bit into what, what's the back of the store look like. Yeah know.

Michael LeBlanc  18:15

Yeah, that was a great question by the way. Like, if you cast your mind back five years ago, how did, how does the store, how is the store structurally different? What does it store look like?

Steve Dennis  18:23

Yeah, just quickly on that, you know, I'm sure a lot of people will know, there's been this, you know, multi-decade movement to really eliminate or shrink the back office. 

Michael LeBlanc  18:30

The back room. Right, yeah.

Steve Dennis  18:31

The back room that, that was, I was involved in multiple projects over the years on that. You know, but, but that was because, you know, I mean, number one is good to get as much stuff in front of the customer. But number two was just really kind of flow the product from the supply chain onto the floor. But Target has completely turned that around. So, they're putting in shelving and robotics in some cases, and redesigning the workflow in the stores. And their results have been amazing. You know, part of why we wanted to have Target was, you know, here's an old school retailer that you would think was pretty mature, could be very vulnerable to Amazon and others growth. 

Michael LeBlanc  19:06

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  19:07

And yet, you know, they've done more than hold their own. With Scott, we talked about, [inaudible] head developed their website, and their general digital capabilities quite a lot. But they wanted to bring some of that into the store. And so, he just talked through, not, not too because I think this is, this has been a bad move where people think, well, you know, we want to make our stores more like the website. Well, I think you have to understand that shopping online versus shopping in a store are not identical. They're different kinds of things. So, he just kind of talked through how they're using QR technology, how they're using data across channels to personalize the experience. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Michael LeBlanc  19:42

And I, I liked your question about how you engaged with the commission sales team, because that is a key element in many furniture. 

Steve Dennis  19:49

Right, yeah, I think you, you and I both have had experience working with commissioned sales forces. And you know, certainly in the early days of the internet, it was like, well, I don't want to help somebody in the store just to have them go home and, 

Michael LeBlanc  19:59

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  20:00

You know, why would I want to do that? I don't make any money and you know, seems very selfish. But you know, that's the reality, right? Of, of how people that earn a living. So. 

Michael LeBlanc  20:07

Yeah. 

Steve Dennis  20:07

Yeah, he talked through how, how they did that and how, you know, sort of seeing the internet as your friend. Because people are coming in, which was my experience at, at both Sears and Neiman's, that people were coming in, in many cases, much more ready to buy. Because they did their research online. And now they come in and say, ‘Hey, show me this’. 

Michael LeBlanc  20:23

Yeah, yeah.

Steve Dennis  20:23

I want to try this on [inaudible].

Michael LeBlanc  20:24

Much more qualified lead, so to speak. 

Steve Dennis  20:26

Yeah, exactly.

Michael LeBlanc  20:26

They're coming in, they're 95% of the way there, and-

Steve Dennis  20:28

Exactly.

Michael LeBlanc  20:29

You just need to close, help close that deal. Crucial, though.

Steve Dennis  20:31

Yeah. No, you have to be very sensitive to it. And, and you know, also I think they've, they've been giving their sales associates more tools to help them. 

Michael LeBlanc  20:37

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  20:37

In general, that's a great way to think about this, you know, multi-channel omni channel harmonize whatever customer. 

Melanie, from, from Andie. So, Andie's is only about five years old, they've raised a good amount of venture capital money. 

Michael LeBlanc  20:48

Is it 20 million did she say? 

Steve Dennis  20:49

I think most recently 20 million. I think they may have raised 30 in total. 

Michael LeBlanc  20:51

They've done a couple [inaudible] that's great, that's great.

Steve Dennis  20:53

You know, which is pretty nice for pretty small brand. They just recently opened their first store in West Palm Beach. They're about to open some more. So, we talked through, what was it like to translate an online only experience into a store and, you know, things just like the, you know, the assortments different. You sell lots of black swimwear online. 

Michael LeBlanc  21:09

Yeah, that was interesting, yeah.

Steve Dennis  21:11

But you know, if you just translated your, your online mix to a store, you know, you'd have like 80%, black swimsuits. 

Michael LeBlanc  21:17

Right.

Steve Dennis  21:18

And so.

Michael LeBlanc  21:18

Or the black swimsuit. 

Steve Dennis  21:20

Which you know, I actually experienced when working with Land’s End when opening stores that, you know, the online assortment doesn't necessarily translate exactly. 

Michael LeBlanc  21:28

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  21:29

To stores. So, so, I thought, you know, that I thought was very interesting. And just some of the things that she's learning about how the store has to evolve. And, you know, she absolutely sees the store as being, as you know, most of these digitally native vertical brands that realize that stores are going to be important to. 

Michael LeBlanc  21:45

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  21:45

To their future growth and, and making some money maybe.

Michael LeBlanc  21:48

Well listen, it was a great summary. You know, it, it's great to be back out seeing people, hearing them in person, and experiencing the conference world again. And won't be won't be our last hopefully, this year. Hopefully, we'll bounce back, I'm in a couple of food shows actually in Canada coming up. I've got some [inaudible]. Any, anything you're going to in the next couple of months that comes up?

Steve Dennis  22:08

I've been looking at a bunch of things. I'm trying to decide what I wanted to do. I actually wanted to go to Shoptalk Europe, which is in London. They're not a sponsor, maybe they should be but they. 

Michael LeBlanc  22:17

Yeah.

Steve Dennis  22:17

There is a shop talk Europe at beginning of June. 

Michael LeBlanc  22:19

Beginning of June.

Steve Dennis  22:21

But I absolutely have to be back a few days after that. And I don't know that I can risk possibly getting. 

Michael LeBlanc  22:27

Stuck there, yeah.

Steve Dennis  22:28

Stuck in, in the UK.

Michael LeBlanc  22:30

Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, well, listen. Yeah, great bonus episode, our first bonus episode. I'm gonna shout out to the listeners, we'll actually for our next episode, coming up, next regular scheduled episode, we're going to have Michelle Pool from Croc's. We've got that interview already in the can so to speak. And you mentioned Nancy King was on your panel, we're gonna have Nancy on the podcast.

Steve Dennis  22:49

Yeah, that's gonna be great. I mean, I think I, I felt when I was interviewing her. I had like 20 more questions. So, I don't know if we'll get through 20 questions on the, on the episode, but we'll have a little bit more time to, to delve into the Target store, which will be great. 

Michael LeBlanc  23:02

And thanks again to the folks at Shoptalk for, for hosting us, Steve and I here. It was great to be here. And I also shout out to all the folks in Rethink Retail, because we got together with our fellow Rethink Retail influencers. 

Steve Dennis  23:14

Yeah, that was fun. 

Michael LeBlanc  23:15

And the Rethink Retail folks that brought us together for a session last night, which is just a pile of fun. So, it was great to see. All right, well, let's wrap this bonus episode for Remarkable Retail. Thanks, Steve. Great to see you. 

Steve Dennis  23:27

Likewise.

Michael LeBlanc  23:28

Not just hear your voice and see you on camera and look forward to chatting with you next week. 

Steve Dennis  23:32

Sounds good. 

Michael LeBlanc  23:34

If you liked what you heard, please follow us on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform so you can catch up with all our great interviews and insights and new episodes will show up each and every week. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel. And last but not least, tell your friends and colleagues in the retail industry, all about us.

Steve Dennis  23:49

And I'm Steve Dennis, author of the best-selling book, "Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption". You can learn more about me, my consulting and keynote speaking at stevenpdennis.com.

Michael LeBlanc  24:03

And I'm Michael LeBlanc, producer and co-host of the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, The Voice of Retail podcast, keynote speaker and host of the all-new Last Request Barbecue cooking show on YouTube. And you can learn even more about me on LinkedIn or meleblanc.co. 

Have a safe week everyone!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, store, inaudible, talked, customer, brands, retail, metaverse, canada, episode, podcast, retailers, target, thought, paying, heard, speak, call, big, talk show format