October 27, 2025 • 42 mins
Want a smarter way to sort real retail change from the noise? We sit down with Ricardo Belmar, host of The Retail Razor, global retail influencer, and advisor, to unpack how leaders can pair timeless fundamentals with timely tech to drive measurable results. From the rise of retail media to AI on the sales floor and the coming wave of agentic commerce, we map what’s hype, what’s working, and what to do next.
We start with the origin of The Retail Razor and its mission: cut through clutter and focus on outcomes. Ricardo explains how the pandemic accelerated collaboration, why retailers unintentionally became tech providers, and how high-margin retail media exploded by competing with legacy channels more than with Amazon. He shares where brands still struggle, comparable metrics, standardized buying, and in-store integration, and how connected TV and first-party data can unlock scale.
Then we dive into AI with a human touch. Associates need instant, credible answers, not laggy apps. Voice-driven AI that surfaces product knowledge through tools teams already use can boost confidence and conversion, while automation trims low-value tasks. We move beyond efficiency to possibility: solution selling at scale, curated baskets, and guided discovery that lift average order value. Ricardo stresses the playbook for faster, better rollouts, cross-functional buy-in, realistic pilots outside “friendly” test stores, and iterative deployment at 80 percent readiness.
Looking ahead, agentic commerce is poised to become a new channel with low adoption friction and high convenience, not a replacement for stores or websites. Expect experiential retail to regain momentum as storytelling and community pull shoppers back in. The throughline remains constant: product, price, place, promotion, people, and process, supported by tech that proves its worth in customer experience and operating metrics.
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review. Your feedback helps us keep the conversations sharp and useful.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:07):
Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the
Digital Front Door.
I'm Scott Benedict.
I'm thrilled today to welcome afriend and a fellow member of
the Rethink Retail Top RetailExperts Group, as well as a
fellow member of the Retail WireBrain Trust, and someone that I
deeply respect as a retailthought leader without
(00:29):
throughout the retail community.
And that is my good friendRicardo Belmar.
Ricardo is the host of theRetail Razor show, a recognized
global retail influencer, anadvisor to Rethink Advisory, and
an active voice on shaping thefuture of our industry.
(00:49):
He also brings a unique academicperspective through his work
with George Mation University'sCenter for Retail
Transformation, which I find isan interesting parallel to my
own time leading the Center forRetailing Studies at Texas AM.
So we have that in common aswell.
And I think together we've bothseen firsthand how academia and
(01:11):
industry really cancross-pollinate and work
together to shape the futureleaders of retailing.
And so, Ricardo, welcome to theDigital Front Door.
We're so excited to have youhere today.
Oh, thank you, Scott.
It's exciting to be here.
Very good.
Let me kind of start off andmaybe uh if anybody uh in our
audience has not heard uh of theRetail Razor brand or your
(01:34):
podcast before.
I know it's a well-respectedvoice in the industry, but I'm
kind of curious if you couldkind of share with the audience
a little bit about it.
What inspired you to create thatpodcast and what the Razor
metaphor uh means to you interms of kind of cutting through
the clutter of what's happeningin the industry?
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Happy to share a little bithere.
So if I kind of looking back,you know, into my background,
I've been serving the retailindustry in some capacity
professionally for quite sometime, and over the past two
decades now.
And you know, I reached a pointin that career where I was
leading product marketingproduct management for a managed
services company, where ofcourse retail represented well
(02:14):
over 40% of the customer base wehave.
And because of that role,obviously I wanted to understand
uh better the needs of retailersand to help define the new
services we offered.
And this was, I think, a timewhere most technology providers,
you know, we we had a tendencyto think of, well, here's what
we can do with a technology.
So let's figure out how to sellthat and apply it to a customer,
(02:37):
right?
Rather than what I think is thebetter way to go, which is to
say, let me put myself in mycustomer's shoes and understand
what's the challenge they'retrying to solve, uh, and then
work back from that and say,well, how could we do something
useful that can help themovercome that challenge and give
them a solution?
So um this also happened to be atime when I think it was what I
(02:57):
consider the early days of whatwe all think of now as B2B
thought leadership and theinfluencer space, where you
know, I could probably count onmy fingers at the time how many
quote influencers and expertsthere were posted on LinkedIn at
the time, where now, you know,there's an endless number of
people uh doing that as youknow.
Um and so, you know, by by doingthat, um, you know, I kept doing
(03:22):
that for a while and and youknow, doing more and more of
that.
It was obviously very helpfuland beneficial in terms of
getting clarity right on whatretailers needed uh and how we
could help them uh withtechnology solutions.
Of course, I I've always been onthat technology side of things
in retail.
So then, of course, you know, Itook that experience with me to
(03:45):
other roles, but then of coursethe pandemic happened.
And I I really felt that was acrossing point for retail.
It really became clear to methen that retailers really
couldn't continue to work withinthese silos.
Um and I know lots of people,right?
We talk about internal silos toretailer organizations, but I
really felt that up until thenit was very common for one
(04:07):
retailer to look at theiroperations and and want to keep
a lot of that functionality asecret because for competitive
reasons, right?
Because they didn't want otherretailers to know how to do the
same thing they were doing uhbecause that could give, you
know, put them in a competitivedisadvantage.
And I really felt that at thatpoint it was becoming more
important that there needed tobe more sharing of knowledge,
(04:29):
more collaboration to go thenext step and to really overcome
these completely new, hadn'tbeen seen before challenges that
the pandemic brought to theindustry.
So I at the time I started aquota show on the Clubhouse app,
which you may remember Clubhouseused to be quite popular, right,
during the pandemic.
It's kind of lost its popularitysince then.
(04:50):
But uh, at the time, I broughttogether a group of uh five
other retail experts who we wereall doing the same thing and
said, you know, let's take amoment each week and let's
tackle a new topic that we thinkmatters for retailers and talk
about why it matters.
And from that higher levelperspective, not so much, you
know, an executional level thingthat says, oh, here are how I'm
(05:10):
how I'm going to tweak myproduct pages on my e-commerce
site to get a tenth of a percenthigher conversion.
No, this was more about, youknow, strategically thinking if
I'm a C-suite executive at aretailer, what do I need to be
thinking about?
I see these new technologiescoming.
And I've always thought retailas an industry can often get
distracted by the latest,shiniest new toy that comes
(05:31):
along in technology and losesight of where it makes sense to
apply it.
So that's what we tried to focuson.
And as the Clubhouse app kind ofstarted fading from popularity,
I realized, you know, this wouldreally make a great podcast uh
for that same audience.
So that's where the retail razorshow was born from that.
Um, you know, that it reallyjust came from that what I felt
(05:53):
was a need at the time to dothat, to foster more knowledge,
sharing, more collaboration.
And and and the Razor metaphorisn't, yeah, I think is probably
a pretty direct kind of thing.
It's you know, our whole premisewas to cut through the clutter,
cut through the noise, uh, onthat basis that, you know,
there's so much content outthere.
Uh, and and I can say this asyou know, a technology vendor,
(06:15):
and so many rules that I've hadin that space, that we all do
it, right?
We all produce endless amount ofcontent to promote why our
solution is the greatest thingsince sliced bread and why
everybody should have it.
And and rightfully, I mean, youknow, that that's what we should
do.
It's what all the technologyvendors should do.
But as on the retailer side, Imean, it's it's hard to sift
through that, right?
And to understand, you know, youneed another voice that helps
(06:35):
you understand why it matters,right?
What's the business outcome thatthe technology is going to bring
to you that you should careabout?
So that's so that's theperspective where we come from
on the show.
And now today we've actuallyexpanded it to four different
shows from there, uh, eachcovering a different uh a
different theme.
So we have uh, you know, there'sthe main show that takes that
approach.
We have a show we call DataBlades that really focuses on
(06:56):
data insights around customerexperience based on research,
where we usually partner with ananalyst or someone who has a
data source like that that wecan zero in on.
We have a show called Blade toGreatness, where we focus on
leadership skills and leadershipdevelopment, uh, which we think
is really important in thisindustry.
And then the newest one that wewon't only have two episodes out
(07:16):
so far called RetailTransformers, where we focus
more on the individuals thathave done unique transformative
things that are really, youknow, they're changemakers,
they're they're disrupting theindustry, and they want to share
that knowledge.
So keeping with the whole themeof collaboration and sharing, we
hope that uh listeners can learnfrom that.
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
That that is awesome.
And you know, it feels like uhyes, there is a lot of noise out
there.
There's a lot of folks who haveopinions, and the the way I
think that that you frame itwith those those four different
shows is really narrowed in onwhere the pressure points are,
where are the the things thatthe industry kind of needs.
So I'm excited that you takethat approach, and and I I think
(07:56):
it makes a lot of sense.
I also think that if if there'sa silver lining in the pandemic,
and I wouldn't wish goingthrough that uh upon uh anyone,
is that it did accelerate sometrends that were already
happening in our industry.
That's true.
It's happening a little bitfaster uh as a result of that.
Yeah.
And I think it's bringing aboutthis integration between
(08:16):
physical and digital and tech aswell as business objectives.
And I think that's a healthything.
Yeah.
Because speaking of tech, you'veyou've often said that retailers
are becoming tech providers intheir own right.
And I'm kind of curious, how doyou see the evolution of a
traditional merchant ormerchandising organization into
(08:37):
a tech-enabled service provider?
And do you do you have a visionfor what retailers in your view
are really kind of doing thatthe best or the way that you
would suggest others modelthemselves after?
SPEAKER_01 (08:49):
Yeah, that's a great, great question.
In in a way, this is something Ithink is uh fairly unintentional
in a sense that uh you know, atraditional retailer, they want
to be good at selling atraditional basic core retail
function, right?
Serving customers,merchandising, you know, keeping
costs low so you can increasemargin across all these things
that we know.
But what's happened, I thinkyour point earlier about things
(09:11):
that were accelerated from thepandemic, I think is uh very
much a part of this, where thetechnology has become so
ingrained in so much of theseoperational processes within a
retailer, uh, where things thatin the past could have been done
manually, and sure there aresome retailers where things may
still be done manually viaspreadsheets versus other
(09:32):
things.
Uh, that's that's a wholedifferent topic.
But but uh putting that onepoint aside, that the technology
is so ingrained and so much apart of it that as part of this
uh changeover, if you will, ofretailers sharing some of this
knowledge and sharing thelearnings, you find some
retailers realizing, you know,we've gotten good at this.
(09:53):
Other retailers could benefit.
This could be incrementalrevenue for us if we offered it
to other businesses.
Um I think probably this islikely not going to come as a
surprise to many people, youknow, who are the two best
retailers at doing this?
It's Walmart and Amazon.
Uh because obviously they havethe most resources, they have
the deepest pockets to enablethem to do this.
(10:14):
But you see so many examples ofthat where uh, you know, whether
it's the ability, it's on thelogistics side, right?
Obviously, Amazon is such alogistics machine uh and
offering that to other sellers.
Uh, even Walmart doing this withWalmart local for delivery.
Um and then retail media, Ithink, was really born from this
as well, in a sense, right?
(10:35):
That probably was the first onethat initiated this and caused
many retailers to realize thereare other things we're doing
because we have all thiscustomer data, because we have
all this internal knowledge,that if we shared that, it could
actually be a revenue source forus, another incremental revenue
source.
So I think that's where that'scome.
Now, at the same time, I dothink that it isn't necessarily
(10:58):
implying that um retail hasbecome just another technology
business.
I think it's a part of it, butit retail is still a people
business.
It's still about the people andserving customers.
And technology is a tool.
It's a means to an end in anycase.
Even, you know, when we talkabout AI, for example, which is
what everyone's talking aboutnow in retail, it's still a
tool.
And I think that's one thingthat I find fascinating is uh,
(11:21):
you know, in fact, the recentevent I was at where it came up
in a session uh I was leadingwhere someone mentioned uh in in
this work workshop session, youknow, where they see AI projects
fail is when people get soovercome with AI being the shiny
object in the room, they forgetthat they're still managing a
technology deployment project.
(11:42):
And it's no different thanmanaging any other deployment
project.
All the same project managementrequirements are still there and
you still need to do them.
Just because it's AI doesn'tmean you get to toss those aside
and run free.
Um because it won't it won'tsucceed otherwise.
So I think that that's stillthere.
And and there are greatexamples, even, you know, I
don't I won't just uh you knowcall out Walmart and Amazon.
(12:02):
I think even with AI inparticular, there are lots of
I'd say specialty brands who Ithink are doing really
interesting things there.
I you know, two that come tomind recently Bath and Body
Works and Ralph Lauren, wherethey've integrated AI agents uh
as very advanced chatbots intotheir mobile apps to help
customers navigate productselection.
I think those are are superinteresting additionals where
(12:24):
they've made great use of thetechnology.
SPEAKER_00 (12:27):
Yeah, and I think one of the keys to success, and
you kind of touched on this, isit's not uh technology for
technology's sake, is how cantechnology be deployed to
improve the customer'sexperience, make the business
more efficient, lower the cost,increase speed.
And and so if you continue tokeep that in in view, uh you
probably are thinking abouttechnology the right way.
(12:50):
And one of those things that hasalso been an incredibly uh fast
growing part of retail has beenretail and media.
I'm kind of curious from yourvantage point, what's driving
that momentum uh and where areretailers still kind of uh uh
struggling to take that platformand use it in the most effective
(13:15):
and efficient way from yourperspective.
SPEAKER_01 (13:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Retail meaning is actually oneof my favorite uh topics in
retail right now to go through.
Uh I I think for me, the driveris pretty clear.
It's about the incremental highmargin revenue that retailers
want to achieve from it.
I think retailers saw whatAmazon did uh on their
e-commerce marketplace when theyintroduced ads and how much
(13:39):
revenue that was generating forthem.
And it's obviously it's notinsignificant.
I mean, it's pretty sizablerevenue.
Now, I I think where a lot ofpeople, in my view, sort of lose
the script on this is that whenwe people start talking about
how um the challenge of takingretail media market share from
Amazon.
And I take a very different viewon that.
(14:02):
I I claim that for mostretailers, uh you're not really
competing with Amazon's retailmedia because the size, the
retail media total addressablemarket is not fixed.
Uh it's growing.
And because it's growing,there's always going to be more
room for others.
Now, sure, it would be great asa retailer, right?
If you could claim, oh, I'm I'vegrabbed 10% of Amazon's retail
(14:24):
media robbery.
Wouldn't anyone would like to dothat?
But but do you need to?
I mean, I look at the questionas is that really the only
measure of success for a retailmedia?
And I think the answer to thatis no.
What really the measure ofsuccess is how much incremental
revenue can you bring in fromthe brands that you sell,
totally independent of whatAmazon does, independent of what
Walmart does.
I mean, it's true that betweenthose two, that's I forget what
(14:47):
the number is, but it'ssomething like 75 to 80 percent
of the current size of theretail media uh pie, if you
will.
But that doesn't mean thateveryone else is fighting for
that tiny amount because thesize is growing.
I I view this more as you'rereally competing with legacy
media.
It's you're competing withbroadcast TV, cable, print,
radio, all these forms thatcontinue to get dollars.
(15:08):
We don't often think about them,but uh ad people do uh because
they're still buying thatcapacity, right?
And so you're trying to get mindshare of the advertising people,
category managers, right?
You're those are the peopleyou're trying to convince to
work with you.
Now, I think the challenge forretailers is it's not just
enough to create capacity,right?
(15:29):
It's not just enough to have adunits you can sell to these
brands.
There's a lot of other thingsthe brands expect to get for
their dollar there, which whichof course they're getting in
other mediums.
They want to know how am I goingto measure effectiveness of
this?
Right.
Um, now everyone likes to focuson return on ad spend, but I
think there are other but bettermetrics.
That's probably yet anotherdiscussion on that.
(15:50):
But it's really more about howwell can uh a brand manage this,
because I think from the brand'sperspective, there could be 50
retail media networks they couldchoose to participate in apart
from an Amazon or a Walmart.
And how do they make thatchoice?
How do they measure it in a waythat convinces them that their
target audience is going to seethis and it's gonna bring them,
(16:10):
you know, it's gonna make theircampaign successful.
Those are the things that Ithink retailers are still
haven't quite solved yet.
There's not consistency, thereare so many different platforms.
You know, again, the retailer, agiven retailer may say, here are
the tools I'm making availableto you, here's the data I'm
making available.
But the brand wants to say,that's great.
How do I compare this to thefive other retailers that are
(16:31):
offering me retail media on fivecompletely different systems?
So how do I make that comparisonto know which one do I want to
give more dollars to?
Um so I think those are the morechallenging issues that there's
still there's still a strugglethere.
There still needs to be morework done, I think, to resolve
that.
But um I I still think this isthere's plenty of room still uh
(16:52):
for retail media.
I think we haven't tappedin-store as a segment.
Most of everything I just saidis still talking about the
online digital component.
Um in-store media, uh, you know,I I remember I in one of my past
roles, we used to market digitalsignage solutions, which um, you
know, I'll say back in the day,but this is really not any older
than like 2016, 2017, 2015.
(17:14):
But we didn't know better inthose days to call it a retail
media network, but maybe if wedid, we would have sold more of
it.
Um of course the challenge isback then, all the digital
signage providers were sellingto CIOs when really the the
mission should have been to sellthe CMOs, as we do now for these
content networks.
SPEAKER_00 (17:30):
And that's the thing to your point about competing
with Amazon, is if we take WholeFoods and set them off to the
side for just a moment, Amazonlargely doesn't have stores,
certainly not have the fleet ofstores that a lot of others do.
Right.
And so to the degree that thoseretailers that have both stores
and an online presence can takeadvantage of monetizing store
traffic in addition tomonetizing online traffic,
(17:52):
that's my view is is when retailmedia truly uh reaches its its
full potential.
SPEAKER_01 (17:58):
Uh right.
Yeah, and and we're seeing inreally interesting partnerships
there too, where retailers arebranching out to connected TV
solutions, to streaming video uhpartnerships.
So connecting the dots betweenthe data they have uh to the
data all these other sources canprovide to really paint a
broader picture uh foradvertisers on who the target
(18:19):
customer can be.
So I think there's there's stillplenty of potential that hasn't
been tapped yet.
SPEAKER_00 (18:23):
Yeah, that uh it feels that feels about right.
I'm curious, you mentioned AIearlier, and of course, we we
can't have a podcast withoutmentioning AI somewhere in the
conversation.
I've heard you talk about thebalance between AI and human
connection in retail.
And I'm thinking specificallyabout the frontline associate,
the the person who's out theredealing with customer and and
(18:46):
how they use AI-based tools tobecome effectively engineered
influencers in that interactionwith a customer in a store.
And I'm curious from your view,how how do you do that?
How does a retailer do that?
How does the the store associatedo that without losing
authenticity?
(19:07):
And how does that humaninteraction still become uh tech
enabled, but still a humaninteraction?
SPEAKER_01 (19:14):
Yeah, I I think for me that the fundamental point
here is that as a consumerwalking into the store, you
know, you you have a fundamentalexpectation that anyone you
interact with in that storeshould know more than you do
going into the store to help youmake a purchase decision.
I think that's that's afundamental principle every
customer has walk into a storethat unfortunately many
(19:36):
customers walk out of the storefeeling unfulfilled in in that
point, right?
That they end up feeling, no, Iknew more than those people did,
right?
And then they're disappointed.
So I think there's a fundamentalneed there where I also think
it's realistically, we ask so weask those store team members to
do so many tasks in a store.
And and the fact is, mostcustomers don't even contemplate
(19:59):
what are all the tasks.
If you haven't worked in astore, you just don't know how
many things that you know keepyou busy that have nothing to do
with working with a customer inthe moment that keeps the store
running.
And all of those things stillhave to happen.
So asking the store team memberon top of that to learn
everything there is to knowabout what you're selling in the
store can be a pretty tall orderand it's probably unrealistic in
(20:22):
most cases.
Um, obviously there are thereare some segments where you know
that it's a fundamental part ofthe experience.
You know, if we were talking uhluxury goods and luxury apparel,
for example, sure, you know,that those store employees are
gonna pride in themselves andhow much they know about every
individual item they're selling,putting a look together for
someone.
And so and that maybe is aspecial case.
(20:43):
But for the most part, you know,that's where technology fills a
need.
And it has to do that, uh, andwhere I think AI can really make
that need filled better.
Um and there are lots ofsolutions out there.
You know, there was a time whenwe talked a lot about
clientelling solutions, right?
Enabled by a mobile device thata store employee would have that
(21:05):
could bring up whateverinformation that the customer
was okay with them bringing upabout past purchase histories
and so forth.
Uh, and that could give themaccess to product knowledge.
And there was some amount ofsuccess with this, I think.
Uh, but you know, where are thechallenges in that?
Well, much like in launching ane-commerce site, the challenges
in how do you get all theproduct information?
(21:25):
How do you package it in a waythrough that presentation layer
that the store associate canaccess quickly enough?
Because one thing that I used todo when uh retailers I work with
who were challenged with thosekinds of deployments, I asked
them, well, have you putyourself in the shoes of that
store associate and used thisapp that you're giving them
anytime there's a delay in theapp, and you know, count the
(21:48):
difference between a one-seconddelay and a three-second delay,
and then pretend you're thecustomer standing there waiting
for that answer.
And I I would demonstrate thisto uh you know a CIO, for
example, and say where theythought, well, it's only two
seconds.
Okay, but if you're thecustomer, two seconds is one,
it's a lifetime two.
Do you have the answer yet?
(22:08):
As a customer, right?
You the answer has to be now,not in three seconds right now.
And so that was a challenge.
And part of the challenge forthe store associate is the
interface of whatever you'representing to.
And so, what's a more naturalway to do it?
Well, wouldn't it be great ifinstead of that uh your store
team member, and I'll I'll usean example here, as happens to
be a few solution providers Iknow that do this.
(22:28):
What if they, you know, if youyou're in a big box store that
uses two-way radios, right?
And every store has a radio.
Well, what if you could just usethat radio and ask a verbal
question to an AI that give justimmediately gives you the answer
that you can repeat back to thecustomer?
There's no delay in that,essentially.
Uh, and those solutions exist.
I mean, I've I've worked with uha few uh couple that do that,
(22:50):
where the um it's literally justa voice input to an LLM that has
access to all the productinformation and it just gives
you back the answer.
And then the stories I can justrepeat that to the customer, and
you can have this back and forthas interactive as you need it to
be to satisfy that customer.
And it's very natural, right?
It's it's you're not you don'thave to learn anything new.
You already know how to askquestions.
(23:10):
There's nothing new to learn youknow how to use the radio.
So there are ways like that thatyou can augment through
technology, the store team, uh,with that.
And then, you know, I mentionedearlier, you know, one of the
things I think retailers arereally focusing on uh with AI
is, you know, how can we be moreefficient?
Well, at the store, right?
All those mundane tasks that youask store team members to do
(23:33):
just to keep the store running,how many of those can be
automated or can you make theprocess simpler so that instead
of each step taking fiveminutes, it takes 10 seconds
because you've AI enabled it.
Those are the opportunities Ithink to do that.
Um, and I think you know,whether you're building a
solution with uh, you know, anAI like a ChatGPT or a Microsoft
(23:54):
Copile, I mean, all of thesehave toolkits that people can
build solutions around to dojust that, to make those
processes easier and moreefficient.
Yeah.
And that frees up the store teammember to solve a customer
problem.
SPEAKER_00 (24:07):
And you know, it's interesting, so much of
technology is pointing athelping a customer find an item.
And if you grew up in theconsumer electronics industry
like I did, we were taught thisconcept of solution to selling,
which is not the item, but thegroup of items that someone
needs to solve whatever theirneed state is.
And I'm surprised that throughdifferent elements of retail,
(24:30):
apparel and an outfit or foodand beverage for an occasion or
for certain dietary needs, thatnobody's thinking about how AI
can solve a solution for acustomer and actually drive a
higher average ticket and a fullbasket of purchase, not just an
individual uh item.
And I guess that's wheremerchants uh challenge
(24:52):
technology people theappropriate way.
And I'm happy to make myconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (24:59):
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I think part of thechallenge is because AI is new,
I think the desire that, andthis makes sense.
I mean, the you know, your yourexecutive leaders at a retailer,
they want to see where we canuse AI to get the quickest
return, right?
Because they they realizethere's an investment to be made
here uh for this technology.
Where can we get the quickestreturn on that investment?
(25:20):
And usually that's going to comefrom where's an existing
process, an existing functionthat we can make it more
efficient.
So the overall cost ofcompleting that function goes
down.
And that's where we focus the AIon.
But you know, this example thatwe're talking about is really
more about what's something newthat we otherwise couldn't do
that we can use AI to help usenable us to now accomplish with
(25:42):
a customer, uh, which has thenet effect, of course, of
bringing higher average ordervalue, more revenue in at the at
the top line.
And those, I think those aregoing to be the next things that
we see more and more of, Ithink.
SPEAKER_00 (25:53):
Well, one of the things I've heard you talk about
is that amid all thisinnovation, all this technology,
uh retailing is still aboutfundamentals, product, price,
place, promotion, people,processes, which again, as a
merchant, does my heart uh good.
How do you think retailers thinkabout grounding themselves
(26:15):
appropriately in these basicswhile still using technology as
an enabler or as a tool set?
Uh are they thinking about itthe right way, in your view?
SPEAKER_01 (26:26):
Yeah, I think that the challenge is that in in
retailers, there's always been alittle bit of a tendency to get
enamored with the latest andgreatest new technologies that
that shiny object syndrome,right?
And see, and you know,obviously, and it's not just
because retailers do this,obviously the technology vendors
kind of promote this ideabecause they want to sell more.
And and you know, everyone'sdoing what their job needs them
(26:48):
to do.
Um, but I I I think the key isthat retailers are have to
understand, right, that thebusiness hasn't fundamentally
changed with this, right?
The technology is a tool, andthat tool either allows you to
uh, as we said before, dosomething I can already do, but
do it better, either in a moreefficient way and or a more
productive way, um, or it allowsme to do something I simply
(27:11):
couldn't do before because itwas either cost prohibitive or
uh I had some other technicallimitation that prevented me
from doing this, that now thisnew technology allows me to do
that.
And that has the ability toeither lower my cost basis or
introduce new incrementalrevenue.
Um and implementing thesethings, just like anything else,
(27:33):
it's still a technology project.
And every project has to followcertain rules and constraints to
make sure that you successfullydeploy it.
Um, you know, that to me, aclassic example is for retailers
are if I'm a large retailer andI have hundreds of stores, you
know, what's my process?
I usually try something out insome kind of internal lab
somewhere.
Then I say, okay, we need to trythis in a store, in a real store
(27:55):
environment.
So every retailer usually has ahandful of stores that they call
their test stores.
And the people at those teststores, they know they're the
test stores.
So they tend to be people whoembrace something new.
They don't dislike the idea ofhaving new things.
They're hopeful that it willmake life better for them.
So they're more receptive todoing this.
(28:17):
So you you try it out at thosetest stores.
And I find that nine times outof 10, if that goes well and it
likely will, uh, youautomatically think, okay, now
the next step is we tried it atthese two test stores.
Let's go to 15 stores, right?
And see what happens.
But how do you pick thosestores?
Right.
Is I think to me the the numberone question that doesn't often
get asked.
Yeah.
(28:37):
Because you you you favorite theplaces that you're used to
having worked with previouslyfor another deployment.
So again, it's you you end upnot seeing the issues that may
come up because at the end ofthe day, every store is unique.
There, as much as you try tomake them cookie-cutter, there's
always something different.
Even if the something is justthat it's different people.
(28:58):
And and you never know ifsomeone who you tell them to do
A, B, and C when you use thistechnology, they end up
forgetting so, oh, is that A, B,C, or A, C, B that I'm supposed
to do that?
And and something that happensthat you didn't expect, right?
So you miss some of thoselearnings.
And then when you get to, youknow, I'm going out to 50 stores
and now you're surprised bythings that didn't work because
you didn't see it before, andyou ask, well, why didn't I see
(29:19):
it before?
And so so those are commonchallenges, and none of that has
anything to do with what thetechnology is.
Right.
Any of that can happen with anytechnology.
SPEAKER_00 (29:27):
And you know, it occurs to me as you were talking
that uh one of the things aconcept I learned through my
e-commerce experience is thisconcept of user acceptance
testing, that before anytechnology, any software was
considered ready forimplementation, the people, uh
some of the people who actuallyuse it got to put their hands on
(29:49):
it and give feedback to thedevelopers on that.
And and I I I mentioned that toask you this question that is,
is that historically uh Uh, CIOsor CTOs were the ones who were
the decision makers uh solelywithin their budget on
technology investments.
And it occurs to me that todayit'd be better if not only
(30:14):
they're involved, but butoperators, merchants, marketers,
logistics, whomever thetechnology touches, ought to be
a component of thedecision-making process.
My question for you is do youthink that light bulb moment has
happened in most of theretailers that you interact
with, or is that still I'm kindof dreaming about that, that's
(30:36):
about how the real world works.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (30:38):
I I think it's happening more than it used to,
uh, for sure.
I think that I think there aremore retailers that are doing
that.
And I think the the way you youone way that that surfaces is
when we see successfultechnology deployed by retailers
and we hear about it, and if wedon't work directly with them, I
think that's been a keycomponent is that they already
learned that lesson.
(30:58):
And I think again, you know, youwhen you mentioned earlier, you
know, some of the things thatwere accelerated during the
pandemic.
I think, in my view, one thingthat I've said to many CIOs, I
think if there's a positive theycan extract out of something
that, of course, was soterrible.
But the positive is that ITdepartments learned that every
new project doesn't require sixmonths to deploy.
You can't actually deploy thingsin six weeks.
(31:20):
That's true.
Right.
And I was amazed.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And think about how manyretailers in six weeks' time
suddenly deploy curbside pickupwhen they didn't have that
before.
Even if that just meant I boughtan orange bucket from Home
Depot, put some cement in it,and the and put a sign in there
that said, park here, pick uphere.
Um, and it was as simple asthat.
(31:42):
Um, you know, I joke about it,but it's it's true.
I mean, so many retailers putthat together in six weeks.
Um I think the corollary to thatwas that, well, the reason you
took six months before isbecause you insisted on getting
to 100% before you consideredrolling it out company wide.
And uh I think this new processcaused Iron to realize we can
(32:04):
get 80% of the way there, rollout selectively, gather
feedback, and start iterating toget another 5% down the road and
another 5%.
And we'll eventually get towhatever we want to consider
100%.
But at least we started gettingbenefit and value six weeks in
rather than having to wait sixmonths to get the first value
out of it.
(32:24):
So I think that was one of themain things.
And that I think is reflected inwhat you were just asking that
you know, that requires goingoutside of IT.
It requires getting buy-in fromyour operations team, it
requires getting the merchant tobe bought, it requires CMOs to
be bought in, depending on whatthe particular project is.
SPEAKER_00 (32:41):
And that means that you know this is naturally
happening more and more, Ithink, because of that, which is
good and and and healthy andagain, a a positive that came
out of a negative uh experience.
You know, I mentioned at the atthe beginning uh uh of this
episode that you and I have bothbeen uh involved uh somewhat in
(33:01):
in the retail aspects ofacademia.
And one of the things I'mcurious about your thoughts, it
won't shock you that I havethoughts on this, is are the
skills and the leadership traitsthat future leaders of
retailing, no matter whatfunctional area they're involved
in, are do you thinkuniversities are appropriately
(33:23):
focused on what skills futureleaders in retailing need, or do
they need a little nudge from usin industry to make sure that
they're developing all theskills, some of which are
evergreen and don't change, butan awful lot that do for where
retailing is headed.
I'm curious what your view is.
SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
Yeah, I think I have a fairly mixed view on that.
Um, because that there are, Ithink, some that are more
effective at than others atdoing that.
And in some ways, you know, thethe challenge I see that the
greatest is, you know, when Italked earlier about the
knowledge sharing, um, you know,that requires a lot of clarity
(34:03):
and communication to be able todo that effectively.
And I do find that often whatgets lost uh in in the
university is because there'sjust so much technical knowledge
that we're trying to convey tostudents, that it's these other,
you know, we usually call themthe soft skills, right?
Around communication and theability to build community and
(34:25):
so on.
Um, the ability to presentclearly and deliver an argument
in a convincing way, you know,and also be willing to take
feedback, right?
Those those are all things thatI think many people learn that
in their first few roles, how todo that.
And that's an area where, and Iwish I had the right answer for
it, but I think a lot of it, inmy view, has to do with a lack
(34:48):
of time, I think, because we tryto put so much into a degree
program to get students readytechnically for the field that
they're going into, that therejust isn't enough time to do
some of these other things.
So finding ways to weave thatin, I think would be really
important.
Uh and and that's where I thinkyou know, things like the the
Center for Reading Technology Isupported at uh at GMU and the
(35:10):
work that you've done.
I think that's why those areimportant because those centers,
I think, have an opportunity tobring that in and weave that
into the programs at theschools.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:20):
Yeah.
And admittedly, there's there'sthe practical aspects of, well,
what do we take out?
Exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
And no, they still took out infour years, still have that
narrow hours.
Exactly.
Yeah.
But but how do you evolve that?
Because there are some elementsof retailing and business in
general, yeah, that areevergreen that don't change.
How do you how you strike thatbalance between the skills that
(35:42):
haven't changed and the newskills that that are being
introduced?
I think retailing probablychallenges academia harder than
maybe other fields of endeavorareas of study.
So that is an interestingchallenge.
Yeah.
Kind of curious uh as we kind ofbring this to a close, what what
in your view is the next bigfrontier, the next big challenge
(36:06):
that retailers are facing,whether it's new channels of
business, uh uh how to refineand improve in-store
experiential aspects of retail,the next wave of tech, where
where do you kind of see thebiggest opportunity for
retailers from your view,looking forward perhaps the next
(36:26):
three to five years?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:28):
Yeah.
So on the technology side, Ithink the probably number one
thing that's going to overwhelmpeople is this coming age of
agentic commerce.
Um and we didn't touch too muchon that, but the but I'm viewing
that as a new channel.
Uh, I know there are some folksvery enthusiastically uh viewing
(36:48):
that as potentially replacingexisting channels.
Uh one of the events I was justasked, uh asked uh the
provocative question withagentic commerce, do brands even
need websites anymore?
Uh, are consumers even going tobother going to websites if they
have an agent that can do theirshopping?
And I think these are greatquestions to ask.
And part of me wants to sayright now that the challenge
(37:11):
with any of these new things ishow many consumers will adopt it
and what drives and motivatesthat adoption.
So while I do have now, I don'tmean to sound negative on
Agentec Commons, because I dothink it is a absolutely
legitimate channel, and therewill be significant, you know,
that that in my mind ispotentially as game-changing as
(37:32):
when e-commerce first came tobe.
Um, and I'm sure if we lookback, there were plenty of
people who thought, oh, thise-commerce, who's gonna buy
these kinds of like, you know,there were plenty of people that
said no one's ever gonna buyhealth and beauty products
online.
Come on.
And now look at where we are.
That's probably like, you know,but but even still, then you
take the big broad picture view,e-commerce is still less than
(37:52):
20% of our total of total retailsales.
So it did not take over theworld, it did not eliminate
stores completely, right?
Not none of those predictionscame to be.
It became another channel, animportant one for sure, but it
became another channel.
So I see something analogous forthis agentic commerce.
Um, and maybe another goodcomparison to make is you know,
it wasn't too long ago, what,three years ago, that plenty of
(38:15):
people were saying the metaverseis going to take over everything
in commerce and everyone's gonnabuy everything in these virtual
environments.
Stores are gone, e-commerce isgonna be totally different, it's
all a metaverse.
But but what happened?
Well, other than the fact thatit didn't happen, but what real
I think what really happened isyou know, that metaverse concept
really required overcoming whatI think is significant friction
(38:36):
in the adoption process byconsumers because it required
buying new equipment, expensiveequipment.
So even if the costs had comedown rapidly, it still would
have been an expense that youdon't need that expense to shop
in any other channel because youalready have access.
So that's an inherent frictionpoint there.
Um and so, but right there, adifference with a gentic
commerce is there is no newequipment I need.
(38:57):
It's enabled by all the same,you know, my mobile device, my
my laptop, everything I have nowis already enabled for that.
So that friction doesn't exist,unlike it did for Metaverse,
which I think was the number onereason consumers didn't adopt,
uh, because it's toocomplicated.
And like we mentioned before,like the example I gave of the
store employee using a voiceinterface, right, to get product
information through an AI LLM.
(39:18):
Well, for the consumer, nodifferent, right?
It's the same thing.
So it couldn't be easier to use.
So I think the question there isnot whether consumers adopt, I
think they will.
It's where will they use it?
Um, you know, do you expect is aconsumer going to use in an
agent like this to buy theirnext car without actually seeing
it or sitting in it?
I I don't know.
I don't I don't think I would.
(39:39):
I'm not sure that there areplenty of categories, you know,
where it's just not gonna happenbecause you you can't most
consumers can't conceive ofbuying that particular thing
without seeing, touching,feeling it.
Um so I think that's alwaysgonna be a challenge.
And that to me is if you can'tovercome that, then that can't
become the number one channelfor sales speaking.
That's why we'll still havestores, we'll still have
(40:01):
physical sales, um, regardless.
But so that to me is that that'sprobably the biggest from the
technology side is is thatcoming.
Um, you know, I mentioned beforethat the idea of retailers using
AI to think of, well, what couldI not do before that I can now
do with this?
I think that's going to be thenext thing that we see in the
next few years from a technologyside.
(40:21):
And then I also think that we uhis probably another thing to
blame the pandemic on.
Um we lost a lot of momentum onexperiential retail in physical
spaces from that.
And when we sort of reboundedback after the pandemic and had
a surge in people shopping instores, it didn't need to be
experiential, right?
To get consumers to store, Ithink we lost some momentum
(40:43):
there.
I think the that that notion ofexperiential storytelling in
retail as a means to get moreconsumers in through the front
door to your store, I thinkwe're gonna see more of that
come back.
And that's gonna be a newbattleground, completely
independent of what happens withthe agentic commerce.
I think we're just starting tosee more separation uh in terms
(41:04):
of product categories of whichones fall into which channels
more frequently.
SPEAKER_00 (41:08):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I got advice at uh one earlierpoint in my career that if
you're you're struggling with uha decision on what to do, uh uh
start with a customer and workback, and you'll generally make
the right decision.
That was told to me in thecontext of being a merchant, but
I think it applies uh acrossjust about any area of retail,
(41:30):
right?
Including in tech.
So absolutely.
Yeah.
So, Ricardo, thank you so muchfor sharing your thoughts and
and your insights uh with us.
I think we've covered a lot ofground from retail media to AI
to uh some of the fundamentalsuh of retailing that never go
out of style.
Uh I'll put up on the screen nowuh a slide that has a link to
(41:52):
all of the podcasts that youmentioned earlier.
And we will obviously encourageuh everyone uh to take a listen
based on their interests.
Uh, but I think that approach ofhaving a couple different
channels and a couple differentinterests is a really neat one.
And I look forward to see howyou and and the and the and the
team continue to kind of unfoldthat, but focus it on
(42:14):
communities of interest, whichis a great way, I think, to
approach it.
So uh thank you for that.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, that does it for thisepisode of the digital front
door.
Thank you for listening.
I'm Scott Benedict.
We'll see you next time.
Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the
Digital Front Door.
I'm Scott Benedict.
I'm thrilled today to welcome afriend and a fellow member of
the Rethink Retail Top RetailExperts Group, as well as a
fellow member of the Retail WireBrain Trust, and someone that I
deeply respect as a retailthought leader without
(00:29):
throughout the retail community.
And that is my good friendRicardo Belmar.
Ricardo is the host of theRetail Razor show, a recognized
global retail influencer, anadvisor to Rethink Advisory, and
an active voice on shaping thefuture of our industry.
(00:49):
He also brings a unique academicperspective through his work
with George Mation University'sCenter for Retail
Transformation, which I find isan interesting parallel to my
own time leading the Center forRetailing Studies at Texas AM.
So we have that in common aswell.
And I think together we've bothseen firsthand how academia and
(01:11):
industry really cancross-pollinate and work
together to shape the futureleaders of retailing.
And so, Ricardo, welcome to theDigital Front Door.
We're so excited to have youhere today.
Oh, thank you, Scott.
It's exciting to be here.
Very good.
Let me kind of start off andmaybe uh if anybody uh in our
audience has not heard uh of theRetail Razor brand or your
(01:34):
podcast before.
I know it's a well-respectedvoice in the industry, but I'm
kind of curious if you couldkind of share with the audience
a little bit about it.
What inspired you to create thatpodcast and what the Razor
metaphor uh means to you interms of kind of cutting through
the clutter of what's happeningin the industry?
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Happy to share a little bithere.
So if I kind of looking back,you know, into my background,
I've been serving the retailindustry in some capacity
professionally for quite sometime, and over the past two
decades now.
And you know, I reached a pointin that career where I was
leading product marketingproduct management for a managed
services company, where ofcourse retail represented well
(02:14):
over 40% of the customer base wehave.
And because of that role,obviously I wanted to understand
uh better the needs of retailersand to help define the new
services we offered.
And this was, I think, a timewhere most technology providers,
you know, we we had a tendencyto think of, well, here's what
we can do with a technology.
So let's figure out how to sellthat and apply it to a customer,
(02:37):
right?
Rather than what I think is thebetter way to go, which is to
say, let me put myself in mycustomer's shoes and understand
what's the challenge they'retrying to solve, uh, and then
work back from that and say,well, how could we do something
useful that can help themovercome that challenge and give
them a solution?
So um this also happened to be atime when I think it was what I
(02:57):
consider the early days of whatwe all think of now as B2B
thought leadership and theinfluencer space, where you
know, I could probably count onmy fingers at the time how many
quote influencers and expertsthere were posted on LinkedIn at
the time, where now, you know,there's an endless number of
people uh doing that as youknow.
Um and so, you know, by by doingthat, um, you know, I kept doing
(03:22):
that for a while and and youknow, doing more and more of
that.
It was obviously very helpfuland beneficial in terms of
getting clarity right on whatretailers needed uh and how we
could help them uh withtechnology solutions.
Of course, I I've always been onthat technology side of things
in retail.
So then, of course, you know, Itook that experience with me to
(03:45):
other roles, but then of coursethe pandemic happened.
And I I really felt that was acrossing point for retail.
It really became clear to methen that retailers really
couldn't continue to work withinthese silos.
Um and I know lots of people,right?
We talk about internal silos toretailer organizations, but I
really felt that up until thenit was very common for one
(04:07):
retailer to look at theiroperations and and want to keep
a lot of that functionality asecret because for competitive
reasons, right?
Because they didn't want otherretailers to know how to do the
same thing they were doing uhbecause that could give, you
know, put them in a competitivedisadvantage.
And I really felt that at thatpoint it was becoming more
important that there needed tobe more sharing of knowledge,
(04:29):
more collaboration to go thenext step and to really overcome
these completely new, hadn'tbeen seen before challenges that
the pandemic brought to theindustry.
So I at the time I started aquota show on the Clubhouse app,
which you may remember Clubhouseused to be quite popular, right,
during the pandemic.
It's kind of lost its popularitysince then.
(04:50):
But uh, at the time, I broughttogether a group of uh five
other retail experts who we wereall doing the same thing and
said, you know, let's take amoment each week and let's
tackle a new topic that we thinkmatters for retailers and talk
about why it matters.
And from that higher levelperspective, not so much, you
know, an executional level thingthat says, oh, here are how I'm
(05:10):
how I'm going to tweak myproduct pages on my e-commerce
site to get a tenth of a percenthigher conversion.
No, this was more about, youknow, strategically thinking if
I'm a C-suite executive at aretailer, what do I need to be
thinking about?
I see these new technologiescoming.
And I've always thought retailas an industry can often get
distracted by the latest,shiniest new toy that comes
(05:31):
along in technology and losesight of where it makes sense to
apply it.
So that's what we tried to focuson.
And as the Clubhouse app kind ofstarted fading from popularity,
I realized, you know, this wouldreally make a great podcast uh
for that same audience.
So that's where the retail razorshow was born from that.
Um, you know, that it reallyjust came from that what I felt
(05:53):
was a need at the time to dothat, to foster more knowledge,
sharing, more collaboration.
And and and the Razor metaphorisn't, yeah, I think is probably
a pretty direct kind of thing.
It's you know, our whole premisewas to cut through the clutter,
cut through the noise, uh, onthat basis that, you know,
there's so much content outthere.
Uh, and and I can say this asyou know, a technology vendor,
(06:15):
and so many rules that I've hadin that space, that we all do
it, right?
We all produce endless amount ofcontent to promote why our
solution is the greatest thingsince sliced bread and why
everybody should have it.
And and rightfully, I mean, youknow, that that's what we should
do.
It's what all the technologyvendors should do.
But as on the retailer side, Imean, it's it's hard to sift
through that, right?
And to understand, you know, youneed another voice that helps
(06:35):
you understand why it matters,right?
What's the business outcome thatthe technology is going to bring
to you that you should careabout?
So that's so that's theperspective where we come from
on the show.
And now today we've actuallyexpanded it to four different
shows from there, uh, eachcovering a different uh a
different theme.
So we have uh, you know, there'sthe main show that takes that
approach.
We have a show we call DataBlades that really focuses on
(06:56):
data insights around customerexperience based on research,
where we usually partner with ananalyst or someone who has a
data source like that that wecan zero in on.
We have a show called Blade toGreatness, where we focus on
leadership skills and leadershipdevelopment, uh, which we think
is really important in thisindustry.
And then the newest one that wewon't only have two episodes out
(07:16):
so far called RetailTransformers, where we focus
more on the individuals thathave done unique transformative
things that are really, youknow, they're changemakers,
they're they're disrupting theindustry, and they want to share
that knowledge.
So keeping with the whole themeof collaboration and sharing, we
hope that uh listeners can learnfrom that.
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
That that is awesome.
And you know, it feels like uhyes, there is a lot of noise out
there.
There's a lot of folks who haveopinions, and the the way I
think that that you frame itwith those those four different
shows is really narrowed in onwhere the pressure points are,
where are the the things thatthe industry kind of needs.
So I'm excited that you takethat approach, and and I I think
(07:56):
it makes a lot of sense.
I also think that if if there'sa silver lining in the pandemic,
and I wouldn't wish goingthrough that uh upon uh anyone,
is that it did accelerate sometrends that were already
happening in our industry.
That's true.
It's happening a little bitfaster uh as a result of that.
Yeah.
And I think it's bringing aboutthis integration between
(08:16):
physical and digital and tech aswell as business objectives.
And I think that's a healthything.
Yeah.
Because speaking of tech, you'veyou've often said that retailers
are becoming tech providers intheir own right.
And I'm kind of curious, how doyou see the evolution of a
traditional merchant ormerchandising organization into
(08:37):
a tech-enabled service provider?
And do you do you have a visionfor what retailers in your view
are really kind of doing thatthe best or the way that you
would suggest others modelthemselves after?
SPEAKER_01 (08:49):
Yeah, that's a great, great question.
In in a way, this is something Ithink is uh fairly unintentional
in a sense that uh you know, atraditional retailer, they want
to be good at selling atraditional basic core retail
function, right?
Serving customers,merchandising, you know, keeping
costs low so you can increasemargin across all these things
that we know.
But what's happened, I thinkyour point earlier about things
(09:11):
that were accelerated from thepandemic, I think is uh very
much a part of this, where thetechnology has become so
ingrained in so much of theseoperational processes within a
retailer, uh, where things thatin the past could have been done
manually, and sure there aresome retailers where things may
still be done manually viaspreadsheets versus other
(09:32):
things.
Uh, that's that's a wholedifferent topic.
But but uh putting that onepoint aside, that the technology
is so ingrained and so much apart of it that as part of this
uh changeover, if you will, ofretailers sharing some of this
knowledge and sharing thelearnings, you find some
retailers realizing, you know,we've gotten good at this.
(09:53):
Other retailers could benefit.
This could be incrementalrevenue for us if we offered it
to other businesses.
Um I think probably this islikely not going to come as a
surprise to many people, youknow, who are the two best
retailers at doing this?
It's Walmart and Amazon.
Uh because obviously they havethe most resources, they have
the deepest pockets to enablethem to do this.
(10:14):
But you see so many examples ofthat where uh, you know, whether
it's the ability, it's on thelogistics side, right?
Obviously, Amazon is such alogistics machine uh and
offering that to other sellers.
Uh, even Walmart doing this withWalmart local for delivery.
Um and then retail media, Ithink, was really born from this
as well, in a sense, right?
(10:35):
That probably was the first onethat initiated this and caused
many retailers to realize thereare other things we're doing
because we have all thiscustomer data, because we have
all this internal knowledge,that if we shared that, it could
actually be a revenue source forus, another incremental revenue
source.
So I think that's where that'scome.
Now, at the same time, I dothink that it isn't necessarily
(10:58):
implying that um retail hasbecome just another technology
business.
I think it's a part of it, butit retail is still a people
business.
It's still about the people andserving customers.
And technology is a tool.
It's a means to an end in anycase.
Even, you know, when we talkabout AI, for example, which is
what everyone's talking aboutnow in retail, it's still a
tool.
And I think that's one thingthat I find fascinating is uh,
(11:21):
you know, in fact, the recentevent I was at where it came up
in a session uh I was leadingwhere someone mentioned uh in in
this work workshop session, youknow, where they see AI projects
fail is when people get soovercome with AI being the shiny
object in the room, they forgetthat they're still managing a
technology deployment project.
(11:42):
And it's no different thanmanaging any other deployment
project.
All the same project managementrequirements are still there and
you still need to do them.
Just because it's AI doesn'tmean you get to toss those aside
and run free.
Um because it won't it won'tsucceed otherwise.
So I think that that's stillthere.
And and there are greatexamples, even, you know, I
don't I won't just uh you knowcall out Walmart and Amazon.
(12:02):
I think even with AI inparticular, there are lots of
I'd say specialty brands who Ithink are doing really
interesting things there.
I you know, two that come tomind recently Bath and Body
Works and Ralph Lauren, wherethey've integrated AI agents uh
as very advanced chatbots intotheir mobile apps to help
customers navigate productselection.
I think those are are superinteresting additionals where
(12:24):
they've made great use of thetechnology.
SPEAKER_00 (12:27):
Yeah, and I think one of the keys to success, and
you kind of touched on this, isit's not uh technology for
technology's sake, is how cantechnology be deployed to
improve the customer'sexperience, make the business
more efficient, lower the cost,increase speed.
And and so if you continue tokeep that in in view, uh you
probably are thinking abouttechnology the right way.
(12:50):
And one of those things that hasalso been an incredibly uh fast
growing part of retail has beenretail and media.
I'm kind of curious from yourvantage point, what's driving
that momentum uh and where areretailers still kind of uh uh
struggling to take that platformand use it in the most effective
(13:15):
and efficient way from yourperspective.
SPEAKER_01 (13:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Retail meaning is actually oneof my favorite uh topics in
retail right now to go through.
Uh I I think for me, the driveris pretty clear.
It's about the incremental highmargin revenue that retailers
want to achieve from it.
I think retailers saw whatAmazon did uh on their
e-commerce marketplace when theyintroduced ads and how much
(13:39):
revenue that was generating forthem.
And it's obviously it's notinsignificant.
I mean, it's pretty sizablerevenue.
Now, I I think where a lot ofpeople, in my view, sort of lose
the script on this is that whenwe people start talking about
how um the challenge of takingretail media market share from
Amazon.
And I take a very different viewon that.
(14:02):
I I claim that for mostretailers, uh you're not really
competing with Amazon's retailmedia because the size, the
retail media total addressablemarket is not fixed.
Uh it's growing.
And because it's growing,there's always going to be more
room for others.
Now, sure, it would be great asa retailer, right?
If you could claim, oh, I'm I'vegrabbed 10% of Amazon's retail
(14:24):
media robbery.
Wouldn't anyone would like to dothat?
But but do you need to?
I mean, I look at the questionas is that really the only
measure of success for a retailmedia?
And I think the answer to thatis no.
What really the measure ofsuccess is how much incremental
revenue can you bring in fromthe brands that you sell,
totally independent of whatAmazon does, independent of what
Walmart does.
I mean, it's true that betweenthose two, that's I forget what
(14:47):
the number is, but it'ssomething like 75 to 80 percent
of the current size of theretail media uh pie, if you
will.
But that doesn't mean thateveryone else is fighting for
that tiny amount because thesize is growing.
I I view this more as you'rereally competing with legacy
media.
It's you're competing withbroadcast TV, cable, print,
radio, all these forms thatcontinue to get dollars.
(15:08):
We don't often think about them,but uh ad people do uh because
they're still buying thatcapacity, right?
And so you're trying to get mindshare of the advertising people,
category managers, right?
You're those are the peopleyou're trying to convince to
work with you.
Now, I think the challenge forretailers is it's not just
enough to create capacity,right?
(15:29):
It's not just enough to have adunits you can sell to these
brands.
There's a lot of other thingsthe brands expect to get for
their dollar there, which whichof course they're getting in
other mediums.
They want to know how am I goingto measure effectiveness of
this?
Right.
Um, now everyone likes to focuson return on ad spend, but I
think there are other but bettermetrics.
That's probably yet anotherdiscussion on that.
(15:50):
But it's really more about howwell can uh a brand manage this,
because I think from the brand'sperspective, there could be 50
retail media networks they couldchoose to participate in apart
from an Amazon or a Walmart.
And how do they make thatchoice?
How do they measure it in a waythat convinces them that their
target audience is going to seethis and it's gonna bring them,
(16:10):
you know, it's gonna make theircampaign successful.
Those are the things that Ithink retailers are still
haven't quite solved yet.
There's not consistency, thereare so many different platforms.
You know, again, the retailer, agiven retailer may say, here are
the tools I'm making availableto you, here's the data I'm
making available.
But the brand wants to say,that's great.
How do I compare this to thefive other retailers that are
(16:31):
offering me retail media on fivecompletely different systems?
So how do I make that comparisonto know which one do I want to
give more dollars to?
Um so I think those are the morechallenging issues that there's
still there's still a strugglethere.
There still needs to be morework done, I think, to resolve
that.
But um I I still think this isthere's plenty of room still uh
(16:52):
for retail media.
I think we haven't tappedin-store as a segment.
Most of everything I just saidis still talking about the
online digital component.
Um in-store media, uh, you know,I I remember I in one of my past
roles, we used to market digitalsignage solutions, which um, you
know, I'll say back in the day,but this is really not any older
than like 2016, 2017, 2015.
(17:14):
But we didn't know better inthose days to call it a retail
media network, but maybe if wedid, we would have sold more of
it.
Um of course the challenge isback then, all the digital
signage providers were sellingto CIOs when really the the
mission should have been to sellthe CMOs, as we do now for these
content networks.
SPEAKER_00 (17:30):
And that's the thing to your point about competing
with Amazon, is if we take WholeFoods and set them off to the
side for just a moment, Amazonlargely doesn't have stores,
certainly not have the fleet ofstores that a lot of others do.
Right.
And so to the degree that thoseretailers that have both stores
and an online presence can takeadvantage of monetizing store
traffic in addition tomonetizing online traffic,
(17:52):
that's my view is is when retailmedia truly uh reaches its its
full potential.
SPEAKER_01 (17:58):
Uh right.
Yeah, and and we're seeing inreally interesting partnerships
there too, where retailers arebranching out to connected TV
solutions, to streaming video uhpartnerships.
So connecting the dots betweenthe data they have uh to the
data all these other sources canprovide to really paint a
broader picture uh foradvertisers on who the target
(18:19):
customer can be.
So I think there's there's stillplenty of potential that hasn't
been tapped yet.
SPEAKER_00 (18:23):
Yeah, that uh it feels that feels about right.
I'm curious, you mentioned AIearlier, and of course, we we
can't have a podcast withoutmentioning AI somewhere in the
conversation.
I've heard you talk about thebalance between AI and human
connection in retail.
And I'm thinking specificallyabout the frontline associate,
the the person who's out theredealing with customer and and
(18:46):
how they use AI-based tools tobecome effectively engineered
influencers in that interactionwith a customer in a store.
And I'm curious from your view,how how do you do that?
How does a retailer do that?
How does the the store associatedo that without losing
authenticity?
(19:07):
And how does that humaninteraction still become uh tech
enabled, but still a humaninteraction?
SPEAKER_01 (19:14):
Yeah, I I think for me that the fundamental point
here is that as a consumerwalking into the store, you
know, you you have a fundamentalexpectation that anyone you
interact with in that storeshould know more than you do
going into the store to help youmake a purchase decision.
I think that's that's afundamental principle every
customer has walk into a storethat unfortunately many
(19:36):
customers walk out of the storefeeling unfulfilled in in that
point, right?
That they end up feeling, no, Iknew more than those people did,
right?
And then they're disappointed.
So I think there's a fundamentalneed there where I also think
it's realistically, we ask so weask those store team members to
do so many tasks in a store.
And and the fact is, mostcustomers don't even contemplate
(19:59):
what are all the tasks.
If you haven't worked in astore, you just don't know how
many things that you know keepyou busy that have nothing to do
with working with a customer inthe moment that keeps the store
running.
And all of those things stillhave to happen.
So asking the store team memberon top of that to learn
everything there is to knowabout what you're selling in the
store can be a pretty tall orderand it's probably unrealistic in
(20:22):
most cases.
Um, obviously there are thereare some segments where you know
that it's a fundamental part ofthe experience.
You know, if we were talking uhluxury goods and luxury apparel,
for example, sure, you know,that those store employees are
gonna pride in themselves andhow much they know about every
individual item they're selling,putting a look together for
someone.
And so and that maybe is aspecial case.
(20:43):
But for the most part, you know,that's where technology fills a
need.
And it has to do that, uh, andwhere I think AI can really make
that need filled better.
Um and there are lots ofsolutions out there.
You know, there was a time whenwe talked a lot about
clientelling solutions, right?
Enabled by a mobile device thata store employee would have that
(21:05):
could bring up whateverinformation that the customer
was okay with them bringing upabout past purchase histories
and so forth.
Uh, and that could give themaccess to product knowledge.
And there was some amount ofsuccess with this, I think.
Uh, but you know, where are thechallenges in that?
Well, much like in launching ane-commerce site, the challenges
in how do you get all theproduct information?
(21:25):
How do you package it in a waythrough that presentation layer
that the store associate canaccess quickly enough?
Because one thing that I used todo when uh retailers I work with
who were challenged with thosekinds of deployments, I asked
them, well, have you putyourself in the shoes of that
store associate and used thisapp that you're giving them
anytime there's a delay in theapp, and you know, count the
(21:48):
difference between a one-seconddelay and a three-second delay,
and then pretend you're thecustomer standing there waiting
for that answer.
And I I would demonstrate thisto uh you know a CIO, for
example, and say where theythought, well, it's only two
seconds.
Okay, but if you're thecustomer, two seconds is one,
it's a lifetime two.
Do you have the answer yet?
(22:08):
As a customer, right?
You the answer has to be now,not in three seconds right now.
And so that was a challenge.
And part of the challenge forthe store associate is the
interface of whatever you'representing to.
And so, what's a more naturalway to do it?
Well, wouldn't it be great ifinstead of that uh your store
team member, and I'll I'll usean example here, as happens to
be a few solution providers Iknow that do this.
(22:28):
What if they, you know, if youyou're in a big box store that
uses two-way radios, right?
And every store has a radio.
Well, what if you could just usethat radio and ask a verbal
question to an AI that give justimmediately gives you the answer
that you can repeat back to thecustomer?
There's no delay in that,essentially.
Uh, and those solutions exist.
I mean, I've I've worked with uha few uh couple that do that,
(22:50):
where the um it's literally justa voice input to an LLM that has
access to all the productinformation and it just gives
you back the answer.
And then the stories I can justrepeat that to the customer, and
you can have this back and forthas interactive as you need it to
be to satisfy that customer.
And it's very natural, right?
It's it's you're not you don'thave to learn anything new.
You already know how to askquestions.
(23:10):
There's nothing new to learn youknow how to use the radio.
So there are ways like that thatyou can augment through
technology, the store team, uh,with that.
And then, you know, I mentionedearlier, you know, one of the
things I think retailers arereally focusing on uh with AI
is, you know, how can we be moreefficient?
Well, at the store, right?
All those mundane tasks that youask store team members to do
(23:33):
just to keep the store running,how many of those can be
automated or can you make theprocess simpler so that instead
of each step taking fiveminutes, it takes 10 seconds
because you've AI enabled it.
Those are the opportunities Ithink to do that.
Um, and I think you know,whether you're building a
solution with uh, you know, anAI like a ChatGPT or a Microsoft
(23:54):
Copile, I mean, all of thesehave toolkits that people can
build solutions around to dojust that, to make those
processes easier and moreefficient.
Yeah.
And that frees up the store teammember to solve a customer
problem.
SPEAKER_00 (24:07):
And you know, it's interesting, so much of
technology is pointing athelping a customer find an item.
And if you grew up in theconsumer electronics industry
like I did, we were taught thisconcept of solution to selling,
which is not the item, but thegroup of items that someone
needs to solve whatever theirneed state is.
And I'm surprised that throughdifferent elements of retail,
(24:30):
apparel and an outfit or foodand beverage for an occasion or
for certain dietary needs, thatnobody's thinking about how AI
can solve a solution for acustomer and actually drive a
higher average ticket and a fullbasket of purchase, not just an
individual uh item.
And I guess that's wheremerchants uh challenge
(24:52):
technology people theappropriate way.
And I'm happy to make myconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (24:59):
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I think part of thechallenge is because AI is new,
I think the desire that, andthis makes sense.
I mean, the you know, your yourexecutive leaders at a retailer,
they want to see where we canuse AI to get the quickest
return, right?
Because they they realizethere's an investment to be made
here uh for this technology.
Where can we get the quickestreturn on that investment?
(25:20):
And usually that's going to comefrom where's an existing
process, an existing functionthat we can make it more
efficient.
So the overall cost ofcompleting that function goes
down.
And that's where we focus the AIon.
But you know, this example thatwe're talking about is really
more about what's something newthat we otherwise couldn't do
that we can use AI to help usenable us to now accomplish with
(25:42):
a customer, uh, which has thenet effect, of course, of
bringing higher average ordervalue, more revenue in at the at
the top line.
And those, I think those aregoing to be the next things that
we see more and more of, Ithink.
SPEAKER_00 (25:53):
Well, one of the things I've heard you talk about
is that amid all thisinnovation, all this technology,
uh retailing is still aboutfundamentals, product, price,
place, promotion, people,processes, which again, as a
merchant, does my heart uh good.
How do you think retailers thinkabout grounding themselves
(26:15):
appropriately in these basicswhile still using technology as
an enabler or as a tool set?
Uh are they thinking about itthe right way, in your view?
SPEAKER_01 (26:26):
Yeah, I think that the challenge is that in in
retailers, there's always been alittle bit of a tendency to get
enamored with the latest andgreatest new technologies that
that shiny object syndrome,right?
And see, and you know,obviously, and it's not just
because retailers do this,obviously the technology vendors
kind of promote this ideabecause they want to sell more.
And and you know, everyone'sdoing what their job needs them
(26:48):
to do.
Um, but I I I think the key isthat retailers are have to
understand, right, that thebusiness hasn't fundamentally
changed with this, right?
The technology is a tool, andthat tool either allows you to
uh, as we said before, dosomething I can already do, but
do it better, either in a moreefficient way and or a more
productive way, um, or it allowsme to do something I simply
(27:11):
couldn't do before because itwas either cost prohibitive or
uh I had some other technicallimitation that prevented me
from doing this, that now thisnew technology allows me to do
that.
And that has the ability toeither lower my cost basis or
introduce new incrementalrevenue.
Um and implementing thesethings, just like anything else,
(27:33):
it's still a technology project.
And every project has to followcertain rules and constraints to
make sure that you successfullydeploy it.
Um, you know, that to me, aclassic example is for retailers
are if I'm a large retailer andI have hundreds of stores, you
know, what's my process?
I usually try something out insome kind of internal lab
somewhere.
Then I say, okay, we need to trythis in a store, in a real store
(27:55):
environment.
So every retailer usually has ahandful of stores that they call
their test stores.
And the people at those teststores, they know they're the
test stores.
So they tend to be people whoembrace something new.
They don't dislike the idea ofhaving new things.
They're hopeful that it willmake life better for them.
So they're more receptive todoing this.
(28:17):
So you you try it out at thosetest stores.
And I find that nine times outof 10, if that goes well and it
likely will, uh, youautomatically think, okay, now
the next step is we tried it atthese two test stores.
Let's go to 15 stores, right?
And see what happens.
But how do you pick thosestores?
Right.
Is I think to me the the numberone question that doesn't often
get asked.
Yeah.
(28:37):
Because you you you favorite theplaces that you're used to
having worked with previouslyfor another deployment.
So again, it's you you end upnot seeing the issues that may
come up because at the end ofthe day, every store is unique.
There, as much as you try tomake them cookie-cutter, there's
always something different.
Even if the something is justthat it's different people.
(28:58):
And and you never know ifsomeone who you tell them to do
A, B, and C when you use thistechnology, they end up
forgetting so, oh, is that A, B,C, or A, C, B that I'm supposed
to do that?
And and something that happensthat you didn't expect, right?
So you miss some of thoselearnings.
And then when you get to, youknow, I'm going out to 50 stores
and now you're surprised bythings that didn't work because
you didn't see it before, andyou ask, well, why didn't I see
(29:19):
it before?
And so so those are commonchallenges, and none of that has
anything to do with what thetechnology is.
Right.
Any of that can happen with anytechnology.
SPEAKER_00 (29:27):
And you know, it occurs to me as you were talking
that uh one of the things aconcept I learned through my
e-commerce experience is thisconcept of user acceptance
testing, that before anytechnology, any software was
considered ready forimplementation, the people, uh
some of the people who actuallyuse it got to put their hands on
(29:49):
it and give feedback to thedevelopers on that.
And and I I I mentioned that toask you this question that is,
is that historically uh Uh, CIOsor CTOs were the ones who were
the decision makers uh solelywithin their budget on
technology investments.
And it occurs to me that todayit'd be better if not only
(30:14):
they're involved, but butoperators, merchants, marketers,
logistics, whomever thetechnology touches, ought to be
a component of thedecision-making process.
My question for you is do youthink that light bulb moment has
happened in most of theretailers that you interact
with, or is that still I'm kindof dreaming about that, that's
(30:36):
about how the real world works.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (30:38):
I I think it's happening more than it used to,
uh, for sure.
I think that I think there aremore retailers that are doing
that.
And I think the the way you youone way that that surfaces is
when we see successfultechnology deployed by retailers
and we hear about it, and if wedon't work directly with them, I
think that's been a keycomponent is that they already
learned that lesson.
(30:58):
And I think again, you know, youwhen you mentioned earlier, you
know, some of the things thatwere accelerated during the
pandemic.
I think, in my view, one thingthat I've said to many CIOs, I
think if there's a positive theycan extract out of something
that, of course, was soterrible.
But the positive is that ITdepartments learned that every
new project doesn't require sixmonths to deploy.
You can't actually deploy thingsin six weeks.
(31:20):
That's true.
Right.
And I was amazed.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And think about how manyretailers in six weeks' time
suddenly deploy curbside pickupwhen they didn't have that
before.
Even if that just meant I boughtan orange bucket from Home
Depot, put some cement in it,and the and put a sign in there
that said, park here, pick uphere.
Um, and it was as simple asthat.
(31:42):
Um, you know, I joke about it,but it's it's true.
I mean, so many retailers putthat together in six weeks.
Um I think the corollary to thatwas that, well, the reason you
took six months before isbecause you insisted on getting
to 100% before you consideredrolling it out company wide.
And uh I think this new processcaused Iron to realize we can
(32:04):
get 80% of the way there, rollout selectively, gather
feedback, and start iterating toget another 5% down the road and
another 5%.
And we'll eventually get towhatever we want to consider
100%.
But at least we started gettingbenefit and value six weeks in
rather than having to wait sixmonths to get the first value
out of it.
(32:24):
So I think that was one of themain things.
And that I think is reflected inwhat you were just asking that
you know, that requires goingoutside of IT.
It requires getting buy-in fromyour operations team, it
requires getting the merchant tobe bought, it requires CMOs to
be bought in, depending on whatthe particular project is.
SPEAKER_00 (32:41):
And that means that you know this is naturally
happening more and more, Ithink, because of that, which is
good and and and healthy andagain, a a positive that came
out of a negative uh experience.
You know, I mentioned at the atthe beginning uh uh of this
episode that you and I have bothbeen uh involved uh somewhat in
(33:01):
in the retail aspects ofacademia.
And one of the things I'mcurious about your thoughts, it
won't shock you that I havethoughts on this, is are the
skills and the leadership traitsthat future leaders of
retailing, no matter whatfunctional area they're involved
in, are do you thinkuniversities are appropriately
(33:23):
focused on what skills futureleaders in retailing need, or do
they need a little nudge from usin industry to make sure that
they're developing all theskills, some of which are
evergreen and don't change, butan awful lot that do for where
retailing is headed.
I'm curious what your view is.
SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
Yeah, I think I have a fairly mixed view on that.
Um, because that there are, Ithink, some that are more
effective at than others atdoing that.
And in some ways, you know, thethe challenge I see that the
greatest is, you know, when Italked earlier about the
knowledge sharing, um, you know,that requires a lot of clarity
(34:03):
and communication to be able todo that effectively.
And I do find that often whatgets lost uh in in the
university is because there'sjust so much technical knowledge
that we're trying to convey tostudents, that it's these other,
you know, we usually call themthe soft skills, right?
Around communication and theability to build community and
(34:25):
so on.
Um, the ability to presentclearly and deliver an argument
in a convincing way, you know,and also be willing to take
feedback, right?
Those those are all things thatI think many people learn that
in their first few roles, how todo that.
And that's an area where, and Iwish I had the right answer for
it, but I think a lot of it, inmy view, has to do with a lack
(34:48):
of time, I think, because we tryto put so much into a degree
program to get students readytechnically for the field that
they're going into, that therejust isn't enough time to do
some of these other things.
So finding ways to weave thatin, I think would be really
important.
Uh and and that's where I thinkyou know, things like the the
Center for Reading Technology Isupported at uh at GMU and the
(35:10):
work that you've done.
I think that's why those areimportant because those centers,
I think, have an opportunity tobring that in and weave that
into the programs at theschools.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:20):
Yeah.
And admittedly, there's there'sthe practical aspects of, well,
what do we take out?
Exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
And no, they still took out infour years, still have that
narrow hours.
Exactly.
Yeah.
But but how do you evolve that?
Because there are some elementsof retailing and business in
general, yeah, that areevergreen that don't change.
How do you how you strike thatbalance between the skills that
(35:42):
haven't changed and the newskills that that are being
introduced?
I think retailing probablychallenges academia harder than
maybe other fields of endeavorareas of study.
So that is an interestingchallenge.
Yeah.
Kind of curious uh as we kind ofbring this to a close, what what
in your view is the next bigfrontier, the next big challenge
(36:06):
that retailers are facing,whether it's new channels of
business, uh uh how to refineand improve in-store
experiential aspects of retail,the next wave of tech, where
where do you kind of see thebiggest opportunity for
retailers from your view,looking forward perhaps the next
(36:26):
three to five years?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:28):
Yeah.
So on the technology side, Ithink the probably number one
thing that's going to overwhelmpeople is this coming age of
agentic commerce.
Um and we didn't touch too muchon that, but the but I'm viewing
that as a new channel.
Uh, I know there are some folksvery enthusiastically uh viewing
(36:48):
that as potentially replacingexisting channels.
Uh one of the events I was justasked, uh asked uh the
provocative question withagentic commerce, do brands even
need websites anymore?
Uh, are consumers even going tobother going to websites if they
have an agent that can do theirshopping?
And I think these are greatquestions to ask.
And part of me wants to sayright now that the challenge
(37:11):
with any of these new things ishow many consumers will adopt it
and what drives and motivatesthat adoption.
So while I do have now, I don'tmean to sound negative on
Agentec Commons, because I dothink it is a absolutely
legitimate channel, and therewill be significant, you know,
that that in my mind ispotentially as game-changing as
(37:32):
when e-commerce first came tobe.
Um, and I'm sure if we lookback, there were plenty of
people who thought, oh, thise-commerce, who's gonna buy
these kinds of like, you know,there were plenty of people that
said no one's ever gonna buyhealth and beauty products
online.
Come on.
And now look at where we are.
That's probably like, you know,but but even still, then you
take the big broad picture view,e-commerce is still less than
(37:52):
20% of our total of total retailsales.
So it did not take over theworld, it did not eliminate
stores completely, right?
Not none of those predictionscame to be.
It became another channel, animportant one for sure, but it
became another channel.
So I see something analogous forthis agentic commerce.
Um, and maybe another goodcomparison to make is you know,
it wasn't too long ago, what,three years ago, that plenty of
(38:15):
people were saying the metaverseis going to take over everything
in commerce and everyone's gonnabuy everything in these virtual
environments.
Stores are gone, e-commerce isgonna be totally different, it's
all a metaverse.
But but what happened?
Well, other than the fact thatit didn't happen, but what real
I think what really happened isyou know, that metaverse concept
really required overcoming whatI think is significant friction
(38:36):
in the adoption process byconsumers because it required
buying new equipment, expensiveequipment.
So even if the costs had comedown rapidly, it still would
have been an expense that youdon't need that expense to shop
in any other channel because youalready have access.
So that's an inherent frictionpoint there.
Um and so, but right there, adifference with a gentic
commerce is there is no newequipment I need.
(38:57):
It's enabled by all the same,you know, my mobile device, my
my laptop, everything I have nowis already enabled for that.
So that friction doesn't exist,unlike it did for Metaverse,
which I think was the number onereason consumers didn't adopt,
uh, because it's toocomplicated.
And like we mentioned before,like the example I gave of the
store employee using a voiceinterface, right, to get product
information through an AI LLM.
(39:18):
Well, for the consumer, nodifferent, right?
It's the same thing.
So it couldn't be easier to use.
So I think the question there isnot whether consumers adopt, I
think they will.
It's where will they use it?
Um, you know, do you expect is aconsumer going to use in an
agent like this to buy theirnext car without actually seeing
it or sitting in it?
I I don't know.
I don't I don't think I would.
(39:39):
I'm not sure that there areplenty of categories, you know,
where it's just not gonna happenbecause you you can't most
consumers can't conceive ofbuying that particular thing
without seeing, touching,feeling it.
Um so I think that's alwaysgonna be a challenge.
And that to me is if you can'tovercome that, then that can't
become the number one channelfor sales speaking.
That's why we'll still havestores, we'll still have
(40:01):
physical sales, um, regardless.
But so that to me is that that'sprobably the biggest from the
technology side is is thatcoming.
Um, you know, I mentioned beforethat the idea of retailers using
AI to think of, well, what couldI not do before that I can now
do with this?
I think that's going to be thenext thing that we see in the
next few years from a technologyside.
(40:21):
And then I also think that we uhis probably another thing to
blame the pandemic on.
Um we lost a lot of momentum onexperiential retail in physical
spaces from that.
And when we sort of reboundedback after the pandemic and had
a surge in people shopping instores, it didn't need to be
experiential, right?
To get consumers to store, Ithink we lost some momentum
(40:43):
there.
I think the that that notion ofexperiential storytelling in
retail as a means to get moreconsumers in through the front
door to your store, I thinkwe're gonna see more of that
come back.
And that's gonna be a newbattleground, completely
independent of what happens withthe agentic commerce.
I think we're just starting tosee more separation uh in terms
(41:04):
of product categories of whichones fall into which channels
more frequently.
SPEAKER_00 (41:08):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I got advice at uh one earlierpoint in my career that if
you're you're struggling with uha decision on what to do, uh uh
start with a customer and workback, and you'll generally make
the right decision.
That was told to me in thecontext of being a merchant, but
I think it applies uh acrossjust about any area of retail,
(41:30):
right?
Including in tech.
So absolutely.
Yeah.
So, Ricardo, thank you so muchfor sharing your thoughts and
and your insights uh with us.
I think we've covered a lot ofground from retail media to AI
to uh some of the fundamentalsuh of retailing that never go
out of style.
Uh I'll put up on the screen nowuh a slide that has a link to
(41:52):
all of the podcasts that youmentioned earlier.
And we will obviously encourageuh everyone uh to take a listen
based on their interests.
Uh, but I think that approach ofhaving a couple different
channels and a couple differentinterests is a really neat one.
And I look forward to see howyou and and the and the and the
team continue to kind of unfoldthat, but focus it on
(42:14):
communities of interest, whichis a great way, I think, to
approach it.
So uh thank you for that.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, that does it for thisepisode of the digital front
door.
Thank you for listening.
I'm Scott Benedict.
We'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.